Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Aki is the best option at 12, he has proven this in November and hes been right up there with Irelands best player this six nations.

Henshaw is a better 13 than Ringrose in my opinion, just injuries haven’t been kind to him the last few months. Ringrose form hasn’t warranted dropping either

Henshaw is a better rugby player and 12 than aki. I'd prefer to see the likes of Hume come off the bench than aki v Scotland if a centre was picked in the 23 Jersey again.

6 metres, 6 passes and 2 tackles from aki today. I'd say the only person with worse stats was o'mahony who had minimal impact on the game bar chatting to the ref a few times when it's not even his role.

Jim is upset we won.

Remarkable.

Backs were fine, starters and subs. Forwards, we need to find a couple of players who have the ball playing skills and the muscle. 6, 4 and loose head.

No need to panic, we have a tour to NZ to find them.

To be fair to Healy on that second carry, it was a no arms chop tackle that wasn’t penalised. England went rogue with the offences in that passage of play there must have been 3 or 4 chops and a neck roll before the tap and go, all unpunished.

To be fair Dooley is being touted by one poster really. Dooley couldn’t get past Ed Byrne in Leinster I’d see no reason to think he’s going to push on too much, although I do see him being Connachts regular LH starter so will get plenty of game time.

I think the team went well in Autumn and even against Wales and to a lesser extent against France with a backrow of VDF, Doris & Conan. I think that backrow works as a unit. I’m not suggesting it’s the reason we didn’t play well against Italy or England but I do think it’s contributing. Back rows need balance.

I would have big hopes for Josh Wycherley - but unlikely to be an option for 2023.

Really hard to know in the shorter term- Healy and Kilcoyne do seems to be off the pace and are only getting older. I guess if someone steps up at provincial level we do have a whole of players who seem decent at URC level and theroetically have the potential.

Could be someone like McGrath, O'Sullivan, Buckley, Dooley, Loughman, Byrne

Wycherly is buried behind Kilcoyne and Loughman, atm. It would be great if he was able to step up. I haven't paid much attention to Loughman and I have no real clue as to how he's playing.

EOS has been benching at Ulster. He's not improved enough. Healy is just old and past it. I would bin him this week and give Loughman the opportunity.

Going into the summer tour, there's a last possible chance to try other players. We will go nowhere at the world cup with Healy and Kilcoyne in the mix.

It's a pity that Milne has been injured the entire season. He could have perhaps been an option.

Ya probably - like the look of Jack Boyle in the longer term. Have been a big Denis Buckley fan but guess its too late for him now

For everyone giving out about healy.. was it not Furlongs side of the scrum which was under more pressure from genges illegal scrummaging??

Healy had a lovely intervention v Jamie George early in the first half.

I think it was a poor decision to start healy and o mahony together when Porter was missing. Hopefully the management learn from it

It just shows where Irish rugby is now when we go to Twickenham and beat England by 17 points and we are dissecting it like we lost. And that's good.

Scrum was terrible, but most disappointing of all for me as the amount of penalties conceded. The count was way too high. Needless mistakes too were irritating

That said, we left points on the field, frankly it could and probably should have been 50

England has some good performances and team spirit, but they never threatened the Irish line, so if we lost, it was from the boot. The RTE post match presenter Joanne (think thats her name) made the point England were the better team and lost. She was watching a different game. How you can not threaten the opposition line, spend the entire game on the back foot and lose by a bonus point victory and be a better team baffles me.

Englands scrum was effective, spirit was high, but ireland ground it out without being at out best. We were pretty poor against Italy but frankly with Italy with 12 men on the field at one point the game wasnt a contest, but overall to this point, looking at results, being pretty consistent

If france win next week they deserve the slam. If France lose and ireland win, Ireland deserve the slam, while France have been good, they are less consistent, their match in Friday being case in point and the number of bonus points we have compared to them would vindicate my point I'd like the think

I like Coombes as a player, but there's absolutely no way you can say for certain that he's going to start for Ireland at the World Cup. He's a good player, but currently lagging behind Doris and Conan at 6 and 8.

The fact he isn't getting much gametime at all when Farrell is all about bringing young players through, suggests to me that the coaches see issues with his game.

While you might prefer to play with 14 men for close to a full game then 15 men and a dominated scrum I doubt any player or professional would. The reality is our inability to adapt to being dominated in the scrum is also a huge negative.

I honestly don't know how you can say a completely objective view of the game throws up more positives then negatives either tbh. Even saying the fact we built a score, allowed them back into in and our heads didn't drop is a positive is about as green tinted as you can get.

Again, our only big concern is the scrum? Yep, let's just ignore out in gain decision making and on-field leadership.