Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Just to embellish the JOB story some more.

In hindsight it was an excellent selection and even questions why he wasn’t at 23 in the first place!

- McCloskey was obviously the right call.

It does also underline the importance of keeping with Leinster based players. It’s not what I want to see necessarily but the benefits of familiarity have been self evident over the last 12 months.

Ireland got lucky with Henshaw injury. Farrell now knows he can rely on two more players in the white hot environment of Test rugby.

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“First half, I thought there was no way (they would put me on), I thought they’d bring Joey [Carbery] on and get Johnny to cover 12…”

“….I did the Captain’s Run yesterday at 13, I familiarised myself with being in the front line and making those hits instead of being in the backfield covering kicks.”

“Last night I sat down with Ringrose on the off chance I was going to cover 13. Faz told me I was covering 13 so that was so helpful.”

“Straight away I was thinking of 13, had all the plays in my head for wing but went through the set plays from 13, went through the set-plays in my head, visualised the list I had in my notebook. Chatted to Garry, said let’s do this and from there it flowed.”

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https://the42.ie/5912179

Does anyone have a source showing the Irish coaching team at various points in the past.

I feel that the current Irish coaching team is larger than it was for going into previous world cups and I think that's a good thing. Much easier to keep evolving when there's multiple voices feeding in.

Off memory the Schmidt team seemed to be 2 principal assistant coaches (a forwards coach and either a backs coach or a defense coach) + a scrum coach most of the time.

The coaching team seems to be growing with each generation.

Farrell +3 assistants + scrum + skills.

Schmidt+2 assistants+scrum + skills

Kidney + 2 assistants+ part time scrum and not sure about skills.

Schmidt went without a attack/backs coach. I know he did the role himself.

Kidney going with Kiss and Smal as principle assistants was definitely a small team. He didn't have a scrum coach but he did bring in scrum coaches on an advocate basis. Often a provincial scrum coach would be brought in for the window rather than being part of the team.

Not sure if Kidney had a skills coach. I'm pretty sure it might have been a part time coach coming up from the provinces during the window. That's how Richie Murphy first got into the Irish set up under Schmidt.

It's a worry, yes. But at the same time what can Ireland do? Since Farrell took over they've tried Ross Byrne, Billy Burns and Joey Carbery. None of them have played well enough to bother Sextons position in the slightest.

Ireland can do, but won't.

We may lose a RWC semi for moral reason, it's a honour or a waste, whatever you think.

But as a pure rugbystic POV, we never have to forget we've lost the real back-up 10 who's Paddy Jackson. Olding may have been a contender à la Noel Reid too.

I mean we have to remember is not really a fault of "lack-in-depth" under normal circonstances

Not a great 24 hours for Mike Lowry. A bit of a stinker in the RDS and then Jimmy O'Brien equites himself brilliantly (albeit at 13) against the Springboks.

You'd have to think JOB is now the backup 15, and will probably start there v Fiji.

I’d be thinking Keenen plays again next week to build fitness along with a few other frontline players, it won’t be a different 100% 15 anyway, 6/7 changes definitely

I think we go full strength against Australia but I agree that we give some people a week off for Fiji.

I'd start Loughman but go with our first choice second row. Loughman has a chance of overtaking Healy imo for the RWC and needs the gametime to have a chance. One of the few players to come away from Friday's game with credit in the bank from Friday's game.

I also think I'd play O'Brien on a wing and start Keenan at 15. I always like an experienced 15 leading some more fringe wingers.

If we have the slightest shred of sense about us, Sexton won't play again this November. We've had a fantastic 2022. Nothing will change that. The result of the Australia game does not matter. It's literally the perfect opportunity to give a start to another 10. Our reliance on Sexton has only increased over the last 12 months. We need to give someone else a run, even if that just means just means the team learning to function with a 10 that's not Sexton on the field. Because at the moment, we can't function without him.

None of the backrows who started against NZ on Friday played well. Sometimes you just don't/can't win the collisions and that's ok. But the inaccuracy at the breakdown was a huge issue and the backrow must take a lot of responsibility for that mess.

Deegan made a decent impact off the bench. But it's hard to gauge because New Zealand were already well ahead. At the very least, he won some collisions and looked to try and run at soft shoulders, rather than head on. I thought Coombes was particularly guilty of that.

Have to say, I was particularly hopeful Coombes would put a hand up but maybe he's further off than we thought. Would still think he's worth a go against Fiji but if he was ahead of Deegan before I think the water is fairly muddied now. I think the selection for Fiji will be very interesting.

And separate point, I see people saying the Aus game is irrelevant, totally disagree. We need to be winning these games.