Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Genuinely? Really? Seems a very odd thing to believe…..

He'll need more than that to get into the 6N squad. It largely balances out his underwhelming showing the previous week. He's obviously on the periphery given he was in the EI squad but he undoubtedly has Aki, Ringrose and Henshaw ahead of him and I would wager that Osborne (who started for Ireland A and went well) would be considered ahead of him too. That's before we mention the Ulster pairing both of whom were picking up caps in 2022.

Then we have Crowley and Frawley who can play 12 and are both ahead in the overall Irish set up. I think 6N squad inclusion would be optimistic, if not out of the question.

We won’t see fully loaded sides at all I’m afraid. Given the games to date I’d imagine most internationals will be rested. Beirne for example has played 80 mins 4 weeks in a row now. POM has been involved in all 4 of those as well, albeit only 2 have been for the full 80.

Frisch looks good, but let’s maybe hold our horses on this one for now. He wasn’t great last week and Northampton are a little way off the likes of France, or hell, even Scotland.

I believe he is seen as someone equally adept at 12 or 13. 13 the harder position to play so you can see how his playmaking skills would also suit 12.

Although Farrell loves a bit of punch at 12. & i think he is going to stick with selecting that Centre trio at 12,13, 23 - Henshaw/Ringrose/Aki.

We saw the benefits of Aki coming off the bench v NZ in 2nd Test and again v Aus. He's also a great man from 5m out.

Henshaw also made big impacts from the bench v Fra and Eng.

Would make complete sense to bring him into the 6N squad. But who do you drop? Hume/McCloskey?

I could only see Frisch getting a start or 23 jersey if Ringrose AND Henshaw were out.

It's a shame for Hume because I thought he was really excellent last season. Injury has scuppered him this season.

Frisch, lol

Jesus TRC. I know you disagree with everyone. But you've finally gotten to the stage of disagreeing with yourself. Fairly impressive levels of arguing there I must say.

James Cronin couldn't force himself past a player that "fell off a cliff" or a player that "hasn't been top class for a long time" and yet he got frozen out?

If a player can't get past these walking liabilities as you eloquently painted them as they why wouldn't he have been frozen out?

Hume seems to be a massive victim of the shake up in Ulster's coaching team and departure of Payne. His defensive reads have been really, really poor this season. He looks low on confidence and has been caught out badly several times. That's in tandem with things not really clicking for him in attack as of yet. He missed a solid chunk of the early season after his summer injury but he should be in a position now where he's firing on all cylinders.

In terms of centre options, I would imagine Osborne is closer than some suggest. He was the one who was picked at 13 for the Ireland A game against NZ and went quite well there too as well as starting twice for the Emerging Ireland team at 13. I would think he's someone that the Irish staff are looking at fast tracking based on all evidence to date.

I wouldn't be surprised to see him capped in RWC warm up matches if he gets some decent game time before the end of the season (his current game time levels aren't sufficient for a cap).

Frisch is an interesting one. He's obviously taken the road less travelled to be here and seems to be someone we're still not entirely sure on due to the lack of available game time for him in Ireland at this point but he looks promising. I'm not sure he's going to be in the mix for the 6N but he's definitely in the selector's minds, I'd imagine. It's notable that he was called up to the French Barbarians (formerly the designated second team for France) but withdrew the week of the game with a thigh injury despite starting the week before for Munster and playing 80 minutes the week after for Munster. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had a word and told him if he wants to play for Ireland, he shouldn't be appearing for a French representative side and he acquiesced.

Didn’t Payne want the attack coach role? So they would have required a new defence coach one way or the other.

I would assume Osborne would be ahead of Frisch. Can play any where from 11-15 and has a left foot if I’m not mistaken

If we're talking about the World Cup, I reckon there's a decent chance we bring the usual three plus Jimmy O'Brien, with McCloskey coming in if any of the top three are injured. Another option could be two outhalves, three centres, and Crawley. Not sure how likely it is we select a fourth specialist centre like Hume or Frisch.

I thought at the time of the appointment, the consensus was Bell had done ok previously?