Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Just on the centres and back 3. You are suggesting 6 centres and 6 back three players.

For the 40 man squad to new zealand last summer. They brought 7 back 3 players and 5 centres.

I think one your centres might miss out for an extra back 3 player.

Id say Frawley takes H Byrnes place with the outhalves and Larmour gets into the back 3.

Having a player like Coombes means it causes compressions in defense. He needs to be watched by 3 forwards which creates space elsewhere

Conan at 8 doesn't do this, he tends to score his tries on the edges where he can overpower wingers or full backs

Coombes allows space for other players to attack because he is such a ball carrying threat

He also has an excellent passing handling and can pop balls out once he's committed defenders.

Coombes isn't loved by Munster just because of what he does, but because of what he allows other players to do around him.

Its the same with Will Skelton. Even when he doesn't have the ball, he forces the opposition to focus on him and that creates opportunities elsewhere.

Munster have improved this year for 3 main reasons.

1. Our conditioning has improved a lot.

2 Our tactics have changed to pass the ball a lot more and keep the ball alive

3 We have multiple ball carrying threats in the 2nd row and Back Back row. Having one ball carrier is no good because they get taken out at rucks and suddenly you're forced to go wide or kick because all your big players are getting back to their feet. The benefit of having 2 big 2nd Rows alongside Coombes at 8 and the likes of Fineen Wycherly at 6 means we have 4 huge mobile players on the pitch at once who can all carry the ball and offload.

(Leinster have tried this too, playing Baird at 6 for essentially a 3 lock pack)

Having better conditioning allows us to play more phase play and that creates gaps and opens up opportunities to attack. Munster have scored the most tries from 10+ phases of any team in the URC. Compare this with leinster who score a lot off 1st or 2nd phase because they kick the ball a lot and attack on the transition.

I think Ireland were lucky to win that grand slam this year. France bottled that game tactically. They played directly into our hands and I don't think they'll do that again. (In the Final of the Champions cup, LAR started the game using the wrong tactics of kicking the ball out of play and giving Leinster the set piece, when they stopped doing that mid way through the 1st half, they began dominating the game)

Tell me you don't watch Munster without telling me you don't watch Munster :)

Apart from Osbourne nothing really surprising.

& Frawley over Harry Byrne or Carbery,

Nash over Baloucoune

Spectacular fall from favour for Carbery

& Earls over Larmour - i think that's a mistake

Glad to see Nash make the camp, he definitely deserved it

Having only 3 Out halves in the training camp is absolutely insane when one of them is 38 years old and suffering regular injuries with multi week recovery times

We're going to end up relying on Frawley to cover 10 on the bench if anything happens to either Crowley or Byrne for the latter stages of the RWC when Sexton inevitably picks up an injury early on.

Squad is about what I expected. Glad to see Osborne back in this team. He was pulling up trees for Leinster before his injury in the Six Nations camp.

Not surprised by the omission of Kleyn. Farrell has never shown any indication of rating him. Gone for the greater potential and athleticism in McCarthy.

I could see a camp getting Osbourne in for the last back slot. He's shown an ability to cover across the backline to a high standard. Very surprised they took Kilcoyne over Wicherly or Milne. Murray hard done by as well.

Kleyn, Hodnett and Haley can all feel very hard done by from a Munster perspective. Frisch too.

Frawley has a better chance of making the final squad of 33 than an out and out 4th choice outhalf.

They are never going to bring say Sexton, 2 *byrnes and crowley.

Frawley on the other hand can play 3 or 4 positions competently..

Grand squad. Some guys fortunate to be there, some unfortunate to miss out, no outrageous calls.

I think the message, again, is that impressing in Ireland camp is infinitely more important than provincial form.

Haley has been on fire for the past 18 months at least. It's mad going to the RWC without a backup fullback. How quickly we've forgotten the Henshaw to 15 debacle in Twickenham. I realise there are wingers in the squad who can cover fullback but it's not the same as having a specialist. Anyway, aside from all that his form alone justified inclusion.

Hard to argue with the squad given what they have achieved so far. They have a lot of credit in the bank, Nash has been truly outstanding so makes sense. Kilcoyne probably a bit lucky. Blade at SH is interesting, maybe Casey under pressure for final squad?