Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Hope Spain not kicked out, think it happened to them previously -

Regarding Ireland, how important has the arrival of POC to the setup been ?

We looked quite stale under Farrell in the early days, I'd say POC is adding passion to setup . Future coach.

Wait and see what happens/outcome , it may be a petty administartion error.

Wow - you sound like you will be happy if they are kicked out - people make mistakes, Spain would not be as professional as tier 1 nations, I'd be just happy for game to grow, and accept people make mistakes in life. Maybe it is a serious issue , then fair eneogh.

It’s possible to be sympathetic and recognise that they are the responsible party at the same time. No matter how innocent or not, this is something they did and not something that was done to them. If they have to pay whatever price for that then that’s on them, nobody else.

I said that it depends on what the infringement was, someone above says its a player who over stayed his stay , by a few days, hardly worth kicking an emerging team out of a WC , and the damage it will do to that country. But I don't know if true or what the actual charge is, and will say no more on it until I do.

Spain probably didn’t ring a 43 year old flanker and ask him to play on the wing because he’s not cup tied.

plenty of J4 teams manage to not do that.

I think the intricacies of International eligibility might be just a tad more difficult to manage though. You would certainly think after the last time. They would have checked every possibility this time around though.

Those fixtures could suit us, having France early and at home will leave us in position to know what we need to do for the rest of the fixtures. That is unless England cop themselves on and offer a better opposition than this year.

Just waiting on confirmation of July fixtures in NZ now too

Antoine Frisch looks a very decent player, but it would be great if the IRFU could identify some big IQ locks and loosehead props, which is where we're actually short. We've got centres coming out our ears.

And I get that Munster we're in the market for a centre and Frisch should be a good signing. But from an Ireland point of view, it's locks and LH props we need. Atonio and Willemse for France are both imports (although they qualified through residency) and look at the impact they have made.

Our imports like JGP, Aki, Hansen, Lowe are all excellent players (in Lowe's case, world class) but they're all in positions where we already have many options. We should focus more on bringing in IQ imports to fill the positions where we're light.