Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Our failures in 2019 had nothing to do with depth at all, so I’m afraid you’re talking nonsense there.

Props are different beasts. A good prop is worth their weight in gold...and thats a lot of gold!

Barret has speed, strength and is strong in the tackle. Carbery has a decent boot on him. They're worlds apart.

Jackson hasn't been in great form for LI. In particularly off the tee.

RWC 2019, against Japan we were let down by our conditioning, the Irish players couldn't cope with the humidity and wilted in the second half when we needed to increase the tempo and pressurise them more.

Against New Zealand there were too many errors (Sexton in particular was atrocious) and that killed our chances early on and left the team chasing a lead with a rigid game plan that wasn't good for chasing a score against a good team.

So overall a combination of conditioning, coaching decisions and poor performances.

I think the other teams studied the Irish game plan and figured it out so we were shooting blanks come the World Cup. The victory over Scotland was misleading, they were just a poor team at that tournament.

For 2023, we are heading the same way in one respect, in that instead of a 37 year old captain in Rory Best, we're looking to have a 38 year old captain in Johnny Sexton.

The conditioning won't be as much of an issue in France.

The game plan is much better nowadays, we are scoring and creating opportunities more regularly, and the players are throwing off-loads and keeping the play alive with more fluidity.

The issues now seem to be our second row don't have enough heft to compete with bigger packs. We are having difficulties securing line-out ball and also having issues completing scrums without conceding penalties.

The hope is that these issues are fixable and we have over a year to sort it out.

There's a small doubt over strength in depth, but I think that's been overblown a bit. If injuries and Covid are kind we'll be well-stocked for RWC 2023.

Our defence may need a bit of a tweak as well after conceding so many tries last week, but hopefully that was a one-off, and chalk it down to tiredness at the end of the season and jet-lag from touring. A lot of those tries were fluky.

Some common sense at last, it wasnt the issue at all but plenty of "experts" ie former internationals didnt want to blame their mates and former teammates so conveniently found a BS excuse to absolve them of blame.

What excuses are you referring to? And who are you calling a numpty?

I'm very afraid you're wrong there. We don't have all the attributes to win a WC and we won't. You need strength in depth and either a very powerful pack a la SA or else brilliant backs (France or NZ the next time). For all we wish, the best we will do is the QF again especially as it is in France.

No. He is phenomenal . I am saying he's a different, non traditional out half.

Like physicality for instance, if physicality was an issue why weren't these issues being exposed the previous 3 years? It didnt magically become a problem in 2019, the issue is we are a mentally very soft rugby nation. I cant remember the other excuses made, I dont give most of them the time of day as its all aloud of bull anyway.

"And who are you calling numpty?" its not just this rugby forum but here is an example from the forum.

Simple, when they were face with adversity they rolled over, its situations like 2019 that you really find out how tough you really are. You get situations like NZL & Wales when they go through adversity that same year, NZL getting thumped by AUS & Wales looking very off the pace in the RWC warm ups where they go out and drop the perpetrators which not only helped their issues in those positions but it also sent a message to the other players who thought they were above criticism that they arent. We changed nothing from personal to game plan, the reality is the reason we did is because we didnt have the guts to make the right call and just essentially prayed it all came together, showing both a lack of preparation made and a real lack of mental strength to go out there and actually fix a problem.

Why did they looked panicked, Shouldn't they be prepared? Let it be known they looked panicked against France in the 1st half and England once England got into their mojo. Its been proven for a awhile that this Irish team simply doesn't have the strength in character to deliver in adversity, yes they look great when things are going well but once you punch them in the face they roll over, NZL last week, France & England in the 6N (Don't let the win fool you). I had hoped in the autumn the NZL game then was a sign that this was changing but its looking increasingly like that was a once off. And that's more proof of lack of preparation, no team should have 1 plan, you need a plan and a back up plan. If you're whole RWC preparation is based on just 1 plan well all I can say is good luck, you'll desperately need it.

We did have the individuals which begs the question how isn't it working as a collective, I mean at least 12 of the starting 15 come from the same club...if anything our continuity should be better than other nations not worse. When a team looks panicked consistently in these situations that's usually a tell tale sign that the work hasn't been done behind the scenes, ie the training ground.

I do like the gameplay done get me wrong but what I don't like is how past failing are still there and not being resolved, im sick of the same lazy excuses being made when other countries who experience similar issues are able to find ways of solving it, we as a nation need to learn eventually to take our medicine and have some self reflection instead of blaming others and making excuses.

Excuses, excuses and more excuses. What significant changes have France & England made exactly? Its not just that they are willing to back players that we would never back due to conservatism, for instance Arundell who scored for England at the weekend, would he be within an asses roar of an Irish 23 in a similar situation? Ntamack in 2019 starting for France at 10 before he was even starting for Toulouse at 10, would Ntamack be starting for Ireland at 10 in similar situation? Absolutely no chance, if we were in Frances shoes in 2018/2019 we would be starting bloody Bauxis and claimed we dont have the players.

NZL have 5 and make it work. - Excuse

Can you list to me which significant changes these teams have made? From what I can see as always they are more willing to give a young player a chance whereas we are to afraid of damage them and instead try to protect them and as a result never truly test them which usually blows up in our face come RWC time.

Ive still yet to see how it has paralysed us because its the pure basics and fixable issues that we are getting completely wrong at the moment, if we cant get this right we have little to no chance of fixing the challenging process and in the end why bother fixing it when we can just crying and make excuses, **** suck it up is what I say.

If only Ireland selected young players as they were coming through. I mean as long as we don’t consider Porter, Kelleher, Sheehan, Ryan, Doris, Carbery, Henshaw etc all of whom were backed early. And we best not consider guys like Joe McCarthy, Craig Casey and Harry Byrne who have been backed by coaches nice and early too.

Christ, international windows really does bring out the same old tired stuff.