Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Indeed you're not, it happened.

Casey pretty callow there, albeit well out of position.

The MC is doing a dry run for tomorrow. I hope they play Born To Run before a line out tomorrow.

That's a bizarre call against Stockdale

What a try, wow.

Seriously? There's nothing in that.

Bunch of players tonight showed they just arent remotely close to test level sadly.

Mainly the pack, Thornbury is absolutely useless, molony tries hard just isnt athletic enough to make any carries.

Coombes got completley manhandled and smashed multiple times, Timoney anonymous, Prendergast decent but not impressive.

Heffernan anonymous.

The pack got absolutely stuffed everywhere.

Bit harsh to say Crowley put in a shocker. as you say he tried to force it but was behind a pack well beaten and had to try something.

I stand by my view that I'm unconvinced of the merits of one off A games. I don't think anyone really put themselves forward tonight in a disjointed performance. A games are useful if there is a series of matches and consistency such as in the summer or in SA, otherwise its a collection of lads thrown together for one match on the back of a few days training as a team and if they don't show up they get written off for good.

One useful aspect of tonight was that the players will have seen the level they need to get to in what NZ did tonight which long term will help some of them.

If you have 4/5 blooded into a proper team, you might have learnt something from the Autumn

now they go back to the same players,

The forwards tonight got a tough lesson in the level of physicality needed for test rugby. They got absolutely monstered in the breakdown and on the gainline. The NZ forwards were just far rougher and aggressive than ours, who were meek. It's not a size thing because our pack was a fairly big pack as Irish packs go. The whole backrow was 6'3 or taller and 110kg+. The backline had some decent moments but ultimately were playing behind a beaten pack so never stood a chance. I was particularly disappointed in the back row. I expected them to make a big impact, but they really didn't show up.

Shoutout to Marty Moore who gave a really good account of himself when he came on. I definitely think he has something to offer. Loughman was good, needs to get capped. Barron>Heffernan.

Molony and Thornbury showed that their decent club players, but not much more unfortunately. They just don't possess the power or athleticism for test rugby. Disappointing we didn't get to see McCarthy and Ahern out there.

Osborne impressed me. Still bitter that pass was called forward because it absolutely wasn't. It was an unbelievable piece of skill and Stockdale was gone. Frawley and Crowley both had some very good moments and also some poor moments, which is expected considering neither of them get many games at 10 for their province. Crowley probably has the higher ceiling and has time on his side. He'll probably leapfrog Frawley by the 6N if he plays regularly at Munster. Frawley is worryingly injury prone. Fingeres crossed he's not another Harry Byrne. Hume tried hard but he's not a 12.

Casey was meh. Lowry unfortunately, like in NZ, once again didn't take his chance. JOB is definitely ahead of him in the pecking order now.

Definitely lost this on physicality, composure and also, sadly, on quality. It reminded of so many times when Irish teams are beaten by NZ teams in the first ten minutes. They are good at setting the tone early and within a few scores Ireland lost their confidence and a few percent on their discipline and intensity around the ruck, not giving up penalties but not getting their position and connection right. They were rattled big time, and fair play to NZ, they blew them away early and coasted home. So many line breaks form NZ where no Irish player laid a hand on them.

I'm not sure what the options were for the captaincy but Ireland had nowhere near the experience of NZ on the field tonight and when your back is agains the wall that really counts. Casey was probably not the best option given the battle the Irish forwards were in for, and he lacked some smarts tonight even in his own game, nevermind pressuring the ref to police the breakdown better or hassling him for cards when NZ were giving up penalties in the 22.

In fairness though that NZ team would challenge most top teams, there's about half of them in or around the ABs.

Before anyone accuses me of ref bashing it would have in no way changed the final result. But I was also surprised by the lack of warning about yellow card for repeated infringement and Casey's lack of communication with the ref. I can't remember the final number but NZ gave away a lot of penalties and a I thought a warning was due.

If I was Andy Farrell, I'd put the 5 second clip of Rassie calling us soft on a loop in the dressing room before the match.