Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

We did give Argentina a game in 2015. We were only three points behind going into the last quarter.

I'm sick of people being so negative about Ireland but especially when it's based entirely on a basic lack of knowledge.

Don’t the coaches have that 6 month break clause? If he has that then this conversation is pretty moot. Even if it’s not there it makes sense to sign him up, the team are going well and there is a feeling of building going on too.

This isn't true at all. Lancaster got a 4 year extension before the 2015 World Cup. Eddie Jones got a 2 year extension before the 2019 World Cup. Wales tied Gatland down until 2019 in 2013.

Surely you can see how going into a RWC with a coach who's contract is up in a few weeks would be an issue? They have to be seen to be fully backing him, otherwise he's a lame duck. Nobody goes into a world cup with a coach who's contract is up after it.

There's also the England issue which complicates things. After the series win in NZ he would have been the RFU's no.1 target. You can't go into a RWC with a head coach who's taking over England as soon as he's done.

The incentive to perform thing is nonsense. Ireland could go out in the group stage and Andy Farrell would have no shortage of suitors in English (Union and League) and French clubs. Backing the head coach gives the players incentive to perform.

It won't, because England will be hiring a coach for the four-year cycle up to 2027. Which means Farrell won't be going to England until earliest 2028 (unless they end up sacking Borthwick/Baxter mid-cycle but that's very unlikely).

The two year thing is just to get him tied down post RWC. If things are going well he'll sign for another 2 years in 2024. Lot's of countries do it that way. It also makes it easier to get rid if the RWC goes tits up.

This is funny. After the first test in NZ, everyone cited a poor 20 minute period as the reason we lost, and claimed that NZ weren't actually that dominant, even though they won 42-19. Yet people also claim that because we had a good 20 minute spell v Argentina in 2015, we weren't actually beaten comprehensively, even though they won 43-20, and Argentina were quite clearly were in control for the majority of the game.

The 2011-13 Welsh team was only better than us because they had a better coach. On paper, our team was just as good if not better than theirs.

Ah the usual read one thing and claim it’s another.

Nobody said we weren’t beaten comprehensively. You said we didn’t give them a game. With 20 to go it was a 1 score game. Having gone down a couple of tries early on we couldn’t have gone on to get within 3 without “giving them a game”. We were beaten comprehensively on the scoreboard after they got some late scores to put that distance up. Until then we gave them a game.

Similarly in NZ we were beaten comprehensively on the scoreboard, but we did enough and created enough to suggest that we were very close to them in terms of the performance regardless of the final score. NZ only dominated for 10-15 mins. On another day we’d have score 2 or 3 more tries and the score would have been a lot closer.

You want to boil things down to ridiculous levels of simplicity when they game is anything but. The final score is one thing. Performance is another. Sometimes performance and score line up and sometimes they don’t. We should be able to distinguish between them.

Who cares what the score was with 20 to go? Rugby is an 80 minute game, and over the course of the game, Argentina were dominant and the scoreline reflected that. Yes we had purple patches here and there, but so what?. NZ had purple patches in the 2nd and 3rd tests this summer. Do you think they or their fans take any consolation in that whatsoever? Of course they don't. We were by far the better team in both games and deserved to win.

It's baffling to me how people don't view a comprehensive and deserved 23-point defeat to Argentina (a team we routinely beat between world cups) in a quarter final as anything other than abject failure and underperformance.

In the 1st test we failed to take our chances. Part of performance is being clinical. We can say "on another day" all we like, but we failed to convert our chances and NZ didn't. We also had an 11 minute capitulation after Sexton went off that allowed NZ to rack up a score. You can't just write that off, it happened. That's why the scoreline was what it was.

If Argentina were dominant throughout the game then how did we get back to within 3? That’s an utterly ridiculous statement.

Nobody is wiring off anything. You are cherry picking the things you want to focus on to make your point. Some others are looking at everything and making a judgement on all of it rather than some of it. We were soundly and deservedly beaten in the first test. We also showed enough, despite the score line, to suggest that we weren’t as bad as the final score suggested. The other wins didn’t happen in a vacuum, entirely separate in every way from the first test. The performance in the first test fed directly into the performance in the second and that into the third.

You don’t seem to be able to distinguish between someone saying that we deservedly lost by a big margin but it wasn’t all bad and someone utterly ignoring the fact that we lost be a big margin. There’s nuance in real life. You’re choosing to ignore that and then take shots at people who don’t, claiming that they are saying things that they patently are not.

We did give Argentina a game in 2015. We had them on the ropes coming into the last quarter and they were giving away penalties to beat the band because of the pressure that we put them under. It was only in the last 10-15 that they actually won that game. You want to ignore all that and just look at the score line. That’s fine. If you want to build simplistic opinions on fractions of the information then that’s up to you. Plenty of us here would much rather take a holistic view of things and make judgements that way.

Because that happens in rugby. Teams can have purple patches and get back into games. But ultimately it's an 80 minute game, and whoever dominates for the majority of the game usually comes out on top. The series this summer is a perfect example. New Zealand clawed back to within a score in both the 2nd and 3rd tests, but nobody would argue that we weren't the dominant team in both those games, and the score lines after 80 minutes reflected that.

I think you and I have different ideas of what "giving someone a game" means. When I said we should have given them a game, I meant a tight game. Go toe-to-toe with them for 80 minutes and be at the very least, be in with a shot of winning at the end (which Wales manage to do consistently in quarters and semis). Not be comfortably the 2nd best team over the 80 minutes and (deservedly) lose by 23 points.

I don't understand this weird "we only lost in the last 15 minutes" mentality, as if that somehow makes it ok. You want to just write off large periods of a game and say "If you don't look at this 15 minute period where we got blitzed, it was actually a tight game". You can't do that. Rugby is an 80 minute game, not a 65 minute game. Those 15 minutes happened and they matter.

I remember matches were we dominated the opposition but failed to win. Against Wales in 2015 and a couple of years later v France! It was probably due to our poor play in the opposition 22. One out runners and no real attacking intent or structure.

Not really. They are also the toughest 2 tests we've had this year. He's obviously our best outhalf by a distance but that doesnt mean if he'd played both games we'd have won.

Also you could argue the two major defeats were the 2 toughest games Ireland played this year by a huge margin.

Because it was NZL in Eden Park, its NZL fortress and was always going to be the toughest game we play in NZL.

The issue in Paris was a leadership issue rather than just who's at 10, surely Ryan, O'Mahony, for instance should have backed us to go for the Corner, Sexton even said Ryan was a big reason we went for the corner for the 4th try in the 3rd test and Ryan backed us to go for the corner in Paris in 2020 just before halftime so we clearly had it in our locker to back ourselves in this position.

He may be a class above and I'm not arguing the point that we are better with him in the team but it has to be remembered we were 14-5 down when Sexton went off in Eden Park so while him going off wouldn't have helped it is just clutching at straws to suggest him being off was the ONLY reason things went south in that game.

We also must not forget with him on the field we were pretty dire in Twickenham for 50 or so minutes but got fortunate we were against an 14 man underperforming English side, if that was France from week 2 or NZL from the first test that game could have gone south almost to the same script.

Ive always been a fan of Carbery but the more I watch him for Ireland while I think he is a good 10 I just question weather he is the 10 this team needs, its not just the play making but personality and confidence is a big factor and when I look at him he just look the lacking in both, maybe things are different behind the scenes and I'm completely wrong but I can only go on what I see on the field. It could also be the coaching quality he's getting at Munster as its noticeably that he hasn't improved really in the last 5 years or so, maybe with the new coaches coming in that things will improve for him but I'm not confident they will sadly. Lets hope someone like Frawley can step up another level in the autumn, Harry Byrne can stay injury free and give it a good crack next season maybe atleast get ahead of Ross and learn off Sexton as a NO.2 at Leinster as that will do him the world good, and who know's maybe someone like Crowley at Munster might be a surprise pack next season as judging from his brief performances last season he seems to have the confidence and personality that we need for our 10 shirt.