Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I think it was Canterbury rather than the Crusaders. But, yeah, the discussion is moot.

I think at the moment the tightheads I would have in an uncapped XXIII are Clarkson and Vakhtang Abdaladze.

Think I'd have Osborne in ahead of Thomas Farrell, who hasn't been able to play well for ages due to injury.

Haley has a cap

new jersey looks okay but are they going to change it year on year from now on? this one will probably only be for the coming season then another refresh with a separate rwc version. would much prefer if they changed every two years

Hand wringing commencing soon. My hopes are

1. If Carberry sucks.... he's out.

2. Frawley gets another go.

3. HB gets back to get some playing time.

4. Casey takes the next step.

5.Loughman rebounds and picks up a cap. Does well and becomes an option.

6.A win! A draw even. Not getting bollocksed.

7. O'Toole gets an opportunity.

8. Treadwell plays well. At least to be an option.

9. Doris doesn't knock on, repeatedly.

10. The Haka gets binned!

McCloskey called up to replace Hume.

Very good article in the 42. It's about our lack of props. Jackman has a good viewpoint and gives good reasons for the lack of quality coming in.

My 2 cents, the coaching is poor. At a national level and at the provinces. The national team are kind of a bad joke atm. Porter looks completely out of sorts and his technique is brutal. With Healy detiorating and McGrath with the gammy hip, there's been nobody close to the requirements needed at loose head. At tight head, we aren't badly off. Furlong has a ways to go and Bealham is adequate cover. O'Toole looks like he could be a good international player!

I believe the scrum coaching is half arsed at the moment. Whoever is responsible for the scrum at international and provincial levels are stealing a living.

We can’t pull players out of thin air. Either they are there or they are not. At the moment they are not. That happens. Look at the French issues at 10 over the last decade! And they have WAY more resources than us.

Or South Africa's current woes when they don't have Pollard. And Elton Jantjies' calamitous performance at the weekend.

But they just need to give Jantjies loads and loads of games before the world cup, and then he'll become world class....right?

10 isn't a concern in my view, I was quite impressed with Carbery. Watched the game for a third time last night and I think he deserves more credit for a gutsy performance. He carried well and kicked a conversion from the sideline. I would have given him the try, as Andy Farrell said we've seen those given before. The team were good for 71 minutes but conceded 3 converted tries in a 9 minute period before half-time.

One was an intercept against the run of play, one was a very lucky bounce of a ball after it wasn't picked up when Van der Flier was taken out at the ruck to open a huge gap for Smith to run through, and one try from a great long pass for a well-timed run to catch and crash over the line by Jordie Barrett.

Ireland were denied a try from Carbery, and the ball was knocked out of Van der Flier's arms crossing the line. I think there were around 3 balls held up over the line. As Mike Catt said yesterday, the opportunities were there.

Really looking forward to the next test now.

I think we finished the last 10 minutes well, and questionable collapsing the maul 4 minutes into over time, the ref was looking right at it and must have assumed our own lads pulled down their own attacking maul, very dubious.

The line-out was way worse than the scrum in my opinion.

Ryan left around 3 go through his fingers. Were the conditions wet and windy?

I think O'Mahony tried to highlight to the referee that NZ were pulling down the scrum on the opposite side to the referee if they lost the initial hit so they could reset and have another chance.

Referee needs to give the penalty and not just wave on the play if the ball comes out after the scrum is pulled down.

I actually think that is grossly unfair and not at all representative of what has actually happened. We actively built depth after 2015 and had done a decent job of it.

I also think we are building a game plan that isn’t reliant on Sexton. We have more guys stepping at first receiver and we are actively increasing that further. The big point that you’re glossing over is that it doesn’t matter how much our game plan is not reliant on Sexton, it will still be at its best with Sexton there and worse when he isn’t. We can’t build a game plan that isn’t better and worse when better and worse players are implementing it. No matter what 10 plays, he’ll need to execute the game plan and will need to make calls for himself and others around him. Sexton will always do that better.

See, your problem is you have the unrealistic expectation that we should be able to just remove one of our best players from the most important position on the field and there to be absolutely zero drop in performance, which is ridiculous and borderline fanciful. No team can do that. Now, I do agree that the capitulation on he weekend after Sexton went off shouldn't be happening, and that needs to be addressed. But remove any team's best player and there will be a degree of a drop in performance.

And we have been playing a style that's less reliant on the guy wearing 10, that utilises other players stepping into the first receiver role. That's been obvious to anyone watching Ireland over the last year. But no matter how much we try to share the playmaking duties and dilute our reliance on the number 10, Ireland will just always be a much better team with Sexton on the pitch. Now you may not want that to be the case, and you can put your fingers in your ears and deny it all you like, but it's just reality, because he's so much better than everyone else.

We said after the last RWC that we need to give the backups more starts against tier 1 opposition, and we have done exactly that. Carbery has started against Japan, Argentina and France. I think he'll start this weekend and I'd put money on him starting v Australia in November.

I swear I see more people say that Carty was blamed for the Japan loss than I actually do see people blame Carty for the Japan loss.