Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Everyone knows how great JVDF is - except those handing out central contracts.

I thought he was so poor also. Created basically nothing, made some really poor errors, defence still not up to snuff at all. Looks like the Irish coaches have committed to him but for Leinster I'd take Ross Byrne ever single day of the week.

So we're all agreed every Munster player from last night is off the summer tour?

I haven't seen the match, but from an Ireland perspective, I hope he achieves his potential and ceiling. We're fucked if the Graham Henry selection is our out half at the world cup. We need as many young lads as possible fighting to get minutes at their province. Time is running low and Sexton surely can't continue this level of form.

How do you keep getting 'fucked' past the... thing. What do you call it? Maybe it doesn't pick it up if it has the 'ed' on the end. ****, ****, ****, fuckity ****.

Sexton is nailed on until there is a better option.

I think Molony will be traveling to N.Z. this summer. He's been the form lock in Ireland and is surely ahead of everyone except the top 3.

I reckon Timoney claimed his ticket on Friday. He's a superb player and offers so much around the park. I get that Kendellen has been very good, as has Penney but, Timoney is capped and knows the systems.

Did you see the Leinster v Toulouse game

Molony was outstanding ball in hand. He very much can play ball

Yeah that's exactly how it read to me as well.

I wonder whether we'll see promising Munster-developed players making the breakthrough to become Ireland regulars over the next few years. They don't have too many at the moment, and Earls (34), Murray (33) and O'Mahony (32) aren't getting any younger. They have Beirne and Conway (both 30), who were developed at the Scarlets and Leinster, respectively. There aren't too many others. Kilcoyne makes squads, I suppose, but he's also over 30. There's no reason Beirne can't stay at the top for years to come. Locks can keep going longer and he doesn't have too many miles on the clock. But the rest of those players are going to be finishing up in a few seasons. As it is you could name a pretty good squad for this upcoming tour without any Munster players in it:

LH: Andrew Porter, Cian Healy, Andrew Warwick, Edward Byrne

H: Ronan Kelleher, Dan Sheehan, Rob Herring

TH: Tadhg Furlong, Finlay Bealham, Tom O'Toole

SR: James Ryan, Iain Henderson, Ryan Baird, Joe McCarthy, Ross Molony, Kieran Treadwell

BS: Caelan Doris, Josh Murphy

OS: Josh van der Flier, Nick Timoney, Scott Penny

No. 8: Jack Conan, Max Deegan

SH: Jamison Gibson-Park, Caolin Blade, Nathan Doak

OH: Jonathan Sexton, Ross Byrne, Harry Byrne

LW: James Lowe, Mack Hansen

IC: Robbie Henshaw, Fua Leiofi Bundellu Aki, Ciarán Frawley

OC: Garry Ringrose, James Hume

RW: Robert Baloucoune, Jordan Larmour

FB: Hugo Keenan, Michael Lowry, Jimmy O'Brien

Will Munster bring through a good number of J. Wycherley, Ahern, Kendellen, Coombes, Casey, Healy, Crowley and Campbell to the level where they're first XXIII regulars for the international team? Coombes and especially Casey aren't too far away as it is.

Leinster's development into a European powerhouse with a lot of high quality homegrown players has hurt Munster in the international selection stakes. It is a zero sum game, after all. If one player gets selected to start it automatically means the second choice isn't getting as much exposure. We hear about Munster's 'international pack' of the noughties, but how many caps would Horan and Hayes have got if they'd been competing with Healy/Porter and Furlong, respectively? And then obviously if they weren't getting as much international exposure, they wouldn't be as good players. We've seen the difference playing at international level can make with the improvements Gibson-Park has made.

I suppose we'll see over the next two seasons how good the new Munster coaching ticket will be at developing this cohort of emerging players, but you could probably make an argument that some of them might be better off if they were encouraged to move to Leinster. We see Jenkins making the switch for next season, but would it be better for Ireland and the player himself if it was Ahern instead? Getting exposure to Lancaster's coaching could make him a better player faster.

Great point here. At some point on this tour away to NZ we're going to be fielding a half back pairing who compared very unfavourably to Cormac Foley and Harry Byrne. They might even start a test.

Ah I think if you put Murray and Carbery in blue they'd have looked a lot better. Munster just have a terrible coach and no real shape.