Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

What's your solution then?

We adjust our gameplan and bring in players who are more durable and give them game-time in the few remaining games prior to the RWC in September.

We can do this while allowing Sexton to properly recover from his broken cheekbone and not risk further injury

Sexton should absolutely play a role in the RWC if he's fit. But he should not be the only player who has any proper minutes against competitive sides

Rugby is an attritional game. The RWC is a unique tournament where there are 7 matches back to back with only 1 rest week that, in irelands case, increase in intensity week on week

For context, the Heineken Cup knockouts are 4 games spread out over 2 months

The 6 Nations are 5 games with a rest period and no knockout stages

Every team wants to play their best players, but the RWC is a marathon, not a sprint. To win the RWC you need to have as many of your best players fit for the final as you can, and this means you need to have depth in your squad so that you can rest them or allow them to recover from knocks picked up in earlier stages of the tournament.

He was world player of the year in 2018 and didn't perform at the 2019 RWC

He is also 37 and will be 38 years old by the time the RWC starts, with hundreds of hours of training and gametime between now and then... He's not washed up now (although he played rubbish against Connacht before he injured himself) but 9 months is a long time and players can decline rapidly.

A lot can happen in the next 6 months before the RWC squad is announced

The Sexton Paradox of never being fit and available, yet playing every match and preventing anyone else from getting experience.

Sooner or later, Sexton is going to rip a hole in the space-time continuum.

And as we're sucked into a swirling oblivion of nothingness, a load of boards.ie posters will be screaming "TOLD YOU WE SHOULD HAVE PICKED CROWLEYYYYYYYYYYY"

He was durable enough to play three consecutive tests in the summer...

Except he went off early in the first test

Then came back and played the second and third - there are week breaks between the Scotland game, QF, SF and Final (granted this is one extra game) (Sexton does not have to play the SA game either).

whatever about debuts, i remember england making alot of changes throughout the 6Ns in 2003 and SA mixed up their team leading up to the 2007 rwc. didnt make a massive difference in terms of their starting teams (josh lewsey became englands FB from it though) but it did mean that they had massive strength in depth when injuries struck during the tournaments

as for selecting the team a year before the tournament, while i dont advocate wholesale changes to the starting lineup there definitely is a precedent for not picking players on form and going with the status quo in previous tournaments. chris farrell was irelands best back in the last rwc (not saying much) but lost out as soon as the other options became available, conway and larmour similarly were playing well and lost out to kearney and stockdale who werent in any sort of form. 2007 was its own story and even in 2015 there was some bit of it (simon zebo). the funny thing is some people on here and other places also cry on about the fact that the team was changed up in 2011 (which was the right thing) so i suppose its impossible to please everyone

not really, he played very well in the (almost) two games he played and had done well in the warm ups. larmour was probably the only other back that did much in the pool stage and henshaw was okay against NZ once they had the game tied up. conway went well when given the chance too

chris farrell being the best back was more down to the poor performances of the others than anything else.

Don't worry boys, Furlong can switch to outhalf, in a pinch.