Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

For me the Carbery at 10 experiment has come to an end. 30 caps and it is clear he is not the future at outhalf. A great rugby player but not an international level outhalf. Unfortunately, it's a Mushy situation - The IRFU and Ireland have invested so much time & money in him that they will be unwilling to move on quickly. He will be on the bench.

Joey needs game time. Real game time, he did very well in France, has done well off the bench many times. I too have my concerns but I believe he will come good, very good.

Are we rotating enough players into the team? There must be metrics on it. How do we compare with, say, NZ and RSA in this regard? Do we have the strength in depth to do this?

https://twitter.com/newstalkzbsport/status/1499169977454460928?t=eFpqKONMZ4GNFPvYv2vB1g&s=19

Tbh don’t want this to come across wrong but now is the perfect time for Ireland to miss vital players through injury. We’re far enough out from the RWC to still build depth and test that depth. Will be very interesting to see who steps up at loosehead. Healy mightn’t be the answer come RWC time.

We'll have to call up either EOS or Ed Byrne next week, we were already down to the bare minimum of props after TOT got injured. Presume they'll see who gets through the weekend games unscathed.

Kilcoyne will get mashed by whatever TH England choose to put out is my fear

Carty playing for Connacht this weekend.

I see he is on the bench this weekend with Warwick starting so maybe EOS covering for Porter.

Hume, Balacoune and Henderson in the ulster squad.

Thought Henderson would be in the mix for England. Obviously not

Henderson needs some minutes, I'd say he is in the mix, probably to bench is my guess

Wycherly is buried down the depth chart at Munster? Not a prayer he gets a call up. Italy would have been the time for that! Duggan? He's not even close to the level required. EOS is not going well either! He's behind Warwick, which doesn't look great for his international future. Ed Byrne is below standard too! Decent player but, that's it.

Porter missing is bad news! A real kick in the nuts. Healy will probably get the nod. But, he's not the player he used to be.

This news changes a lot! I don't think we can win in tickers without Porter.

Porters a huge loss. Killer is better than Healy in open play but would like to see him carry wider. He doesn't pass much which makes him a bit predictable. Healy is solid in the scrum and good at pick and goes but doesn't offer much more these days.

Out of the younger lads, no one has really done anything to threaten Killer or Healy. There was lots of noise about Josh W after Clermont and EOS at Ulster but they seem to have gone backwards lately.

Dennis Buckley would be the next best option and probably unlucky to not be capped.

I don't think it'll be Wycherley who's called up, but Farrell does have previous for flipping provincial pecking orders on their head. When he opted for Gibson-Park as his scrumhalf he was behind McGrath for Leinster. He's also preferred Harry Byrne over his brother, reversing the Leinster pecking order.

Wycherley is the guy I'd have in mind if you're talking about developing a player for the World Cup. Is it time to call him up now? Ed Byrne will probably be the one. Loughman is also in the frame. O'Sullivan seems to be behind Warwick at Ulster, and Peter Dooley is out of favour at Leinster.

Wycherley isn't within an asses roar, he impressed majorly in that game after getting folded (illegally) early on and has had a couple of nice cameos since but he's got Loughman and Killer ahead of him at the moment at Munster. I'd actually call up Loughman (he's been good this season) before Wycherley, and that's just at Munster. There's others at the other provinces ahead of him.

If he's good enough, his day will come eventually.