NZ Tour 2022 - Māori June 29th, NZ July 2nd, NZ July 9th, Māori July 12th, NZ July 16th, KO 8.05am

It's not really congested for Leinster. Harry is constantly injured. Frawley just needs to get ahead of Ross to get consistent game time at 10. Once you're the backup to Sexton you get a lot of minutes for Leinster. And whoever cements that role next season will be the starting 10 the following season when Sexton retires.

Petition for Sky Sports to use the Kiwi commentary again on Saturday instead of Conor MacNamara

Yeah but has Larmour been involved under Farrell? Can’t remember off the top of my head if he has really.

Coombes would want more than starts against Fiji and Italy though?

I could be wrong but I thought I saw him standing with some of the other players not involved in todays game during some of the half time interviews

Inpho has him listed as present in this picture. It's pretty small but I think I can see him over towards the left of the photo https://inpho.ie/media/k_xzXHwqxuUQSABngnt7Lg..a?ts=7OV8_n3mW9csZZInl7UudZbIGMKIX3AgG5v67EN3G1c.a

A dogged win this morning where Ireland righted a lot of things they got very wrong.

Particular vindication goes to the half backs. I myself was extremely critical of Frawley especially and I do think the performance justified criticism. But similarly he dusted himself down and this was a performance that garnered praise. Exceptionally solid showing from him ticking many boxes. Even giving Joey a chance to take notes on how to tackle (having said this he did miss 3 tackles of his own) Casey put in a good mature performance and can yet prove my doubts wrong about his kicking which was very good today. Was given a good platform and gave a good platform.

Front row showed up well. Loughman may yet turn out to be a genuine option going forward. Certainly doesn't let you down. Very assured hands. TOT was very solid at scrum time today and didn't get flustered. Scannell had some great moments in the breakdown but his throwing was quite wayward. Some were system failings. Some were bad throws. There were 2 EXCEPTIONAL takes by Treadwell to save his blushes

Take a bow Kieran Treadwell too. I called for Ross Molony over you and I can safely say that would not have been a wise decision. I was wrong. Supremely good effort really showing a grunt about him and leveraging his size in the right ways. Called the lineout reasonably well too. A real find (again) this series and another bone fide option for us at lock.

McCarthy and Prendergast I'm putting in the same category of this tour largely passed them by and neither gave a proper account of what they're capable of. But they're both so young and inexperienced they'll be much better for this tour and improve. Credit to Joe when he's not giving away stupid penalties he's having huge moments. His ability on both sides of the ball is better than a lot of people I've seen his age. I reckon the coaches have asked him to back himself and he just needs work on when and where to have those big impacts. I'm predicting huge things for him in the near future. Prendergast never really got going tonight and 8 tackles 4 missed is just not a good enough return for a back row at this level.

Coombes is a gifted player that does not come along all too often. I have seen more than a few articles wondering what more he has to do to displace the test starters. I can tell you in a word. Defence. Full credit to his effort because he put 19 and 16 tackles in respectively in the 2 games. But he missed 4 tackles in each game also. Don't get me wrong. It could be an anomaly. I dug down into his stats before with Munster and he has had some clean sheets. But there was also blots on his copy book with 3/4/5 tackles missed some games.

In the 2 games against the All Blacks, the starting backrow missed *no tackles at all*.

You have to go back to the Argentina game in November to find the last tackle Doris missed for Ireland. As long as they're competing against each other - Coombes needs to get more consistent there.

Other places on the pitch, Earls played like a man whose spent the majority of his 100 odd caps with no man outside him. I thought he played about as well as we'd expect him to at 13.

Larmour probably did his chances at test inclusion no harm. After a patchy season it's good to see him getting back into form. The PT and yellow was correct and unlucky. Milliseconds in it. The fine margins of test rugby.

Does anyone else have the niggling feeling that we're peaking a year early again? I'm reading Eddie Jones' book atm, and he basically said that right after the 2018 game at Twickenham, he knew that we had peaked and would be on a downward curve from then on. I know it's kind of a joke that's thrown at us on twitter and stuff and we laugh it off, but is there truth to it?

We've been on an upward curve since March 2021. And I look at the season we've had, thrashing Japan and Argentina and beating NZ in November, having a pretty good 6N and nearly beating France in Paris, and now beating NZ in NZ. It's hard to see how we can keep getting better for another 15 months. Not to mention the age profile of some of our key players. Sexton (37), POM (33) Murray (33) Healy (34). Sexton and POM in particular are playing brilliant rugby, but what are the chances they'll still be playing at that level in 15 months? I'd say very unlikely.

Are we doing it again? I'm happy about the results we've been getting, but I'd be lying if I said it hasn't been on my mind. And if so, what can we do to fix it? Do we take a step back in November, leave out our older players, strip back our game and look to start again so we hit our peak at the world cup? I don't really know. But it does feel awfully similar to 2018.