Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Some of this might have been plausible in the Schmidt era but the current Ireland coaches are

- a guy from Wigan who spent most of his life in rugby league

- an English bloke who spent his playing career in Wales and

- the most Munster man who ever Munstered.

All overseen by an Australian.

Where on earth is the Leinster bias coming from?

How does Penny’s production compare to Hodnett in the games they have played? If you have the stats.

O'Donoghue wasn't available for the last game

Most of the elite players come from leinster. Ireland play a system somewhat to mostly based on leinster. It therefore makes sense short term at least to pick players who are familiar with that system and familiar with ireland’s best players.

That chain of logic is pretty obvious imo.

I saw that overthehillprop twitter thread early, thought it was fairly pathetic. It's just complete rage-bait, he's like some of the posters on here for exaggerating to the nth degree. "All it takes for a Leinster player is a mid 6N game against the Dragons to get called up", how about the two games against Munster that he started, scored in and won this season? Are Munster a mickey-mouse team? How about the fact he plays the same position as the guy who was judged to be literally the best rugby player on the planet in 2022? Who the **** has the energy to get that worked up about the 37th guy added to the squad?

There's absolutely some desperately bitter stuff coming about these days. This now deleted twitter account went through every action Ross Byrne made during the Wales game, made gifs of all of them, and criticised literally everything he did. Even the objectively excellent kicks to the corner weren't good enough because we didn't score directly from them.

Hodnett absolutely is in contention for the 1st choice jersey whatever way you cut it

He absolutely is.

But there is simply no way to conclude from this that he's better than Penney.

I have no idea who's better btw and since Penny will be back at Leinster by Thursday evening, it really doesn't matter.

But Hodnett being closer to his starting XV doesn't mean anything in relation to their relative quality.

That's the flaw undermining this whole argument.

This has been the case forever. Guys who don’t start are not able to prove or disprove it in big games.

This is the first time that its actually better not to play in big games for leinster than it is to do so for other provinces. Penny is literally better wearing a track suit at leinster in terms of getting picked for ireland.

Again, the idea that this might be bad long term being painted as paranoid and ridiculous is hilarious.

Former Former Former took the words out of my mouth.

Fully agree Hodnett is in contention for the 1st choice jersey, the implication from many posters however has been that a) Hodnett is already a clear first choice and b) the opportunities he has received in the HC is proof that he is a better player to be in Irish camp than Penny. Neither are true.

There are arguments for and against both players, there is not solid enough evidence for anyone to be upset about the decision going either way, forget about some sort of long term negative impact to rugby.

I mean its not. Munster have kind of sucked for a while. Munster hasn’t been a big game for leinster for a while.

This would be valid if it was just munster posters complaining. It isn't. You have fans from other provinces also complaining about the selection of Penney over Hodnett.

Penney over Hodnett might be a valid selection based on what the coaches want from their 7. But you are going to turn off fans of other provinces when they see these types of decisions.

Its starting to cause issues between leinster fans and fans of the other three provinces. Soon it will turn fans off following ireland. It's all great now that it's successful and it's hard to argue against the starting team, but if calls like this keep happening then it becomes an issue.

You could also say that Penny has been very influential in multiple Leinster wins against random URC team...Munster rugby. He's even scored 2 tries in his last 3 games against them.

Is the more surprising thing here not that he's been picked ahead of Nick Timoney?

So, Osborne is not quality? I also recognize good players. Frisch is good. But he's behind a few others. He's apparently not good enough for France or England.

This is the hyperbolic stuff I was talking about.

Why on earth would the selection of a tackle bag holder in camp turn off fans from following their own country?

The only answer I can see is if they're sad and bitter and look for any excuse to do it anyway.