Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Osborne out with another cruciate ligament injury.

Brutal luck for Osborne. Avoiding this place as I guess the only news we will have for the next while is bad news like this.

Disaster if true for Osborne. Even though he’s still young, that’s a lot of rugby he’ll have missed by the time he’s back. You need a bit of luck with injuries to fulfil your full potential and he’s a lot of potential.

**** it anyway. Absolute shite buzz.

I hope it's not a long term injury or season ender for Osborne. Of all the young backs in Ireland I think he's the one with the most potential. Would be a crying shame if he didn't get a fair shot at fulfilling it.

Don’t know how serious it is, all I know is that it’s not the same knee as before.

Your initial post seemed to imply he was out of the world cup, I guess we can take it this isn’t actually the case

Who's the backup 7 if vdF gets injured?

Prendergast?

POM->7, Conan/Doris->6?

Think means who will be the next backup if VdF couldn’t be in the 23, so if O’Mahony switches to 7, how would the back row be covered from the bench?

Assuming Prendergast made the bench, then if O’Mahony needed to be subbed off from 7 It could be either Doris to 7 or Prendergast to 7 I’d suppose. I’d probably put Prendergast straight in at 7, leaving the back row as 6. Doris, 7. Prendergast, 8. Conan.

I guess Prendergast could be a close approximation to fill the role that O’Mahony fills at 6 or 7, good in the line-out, good work rate, likes to poach, and Prendergast probably has a bit more speed and mobility I’d say.

Blasphemous as it may seem to even question Deus Belli....

.... but does he have the speed, hands, engine and carrying to play 7 at International level?

Deus Belli et Horti, I should say.

I remember this exact argument kicking off with regards Penny vs Hodnett earlier in the season. Some claimed they were at the same level of the depth chart.

As posted by @aloooof in the Munster thread. The claim is that certain players will be alienated by being first choice for their province while 3rd/4th choice players from other provinces are called into Ireland camp ahead of them.

I have to say, I don't for a second think that Hodnett would have been alienated by missing out on one camp to a guy who's a very good player. If anything, he should use it as motivation.

If, however, he did become "alienated" and move elsewhere, then that's his call. Again, I don't for a second believe that would be the case and this is all a fan invention.

We cannot pick players for any reasons other than who will make up the best Ireland squad. The repeated suggestions that we should be capping guys to keep them IQ or bringing them into camp to keep them motivated is absolutely mental.

I dont think there is a Leinster bias when selecting for Ireland. There is however a system/familiarity bias in my opinion.

it happened in the past when a majority of the pack was from munster. If someone needed to be called up mid tournament then it made sense to select the munster player as he would have the shortest learning time. Then the next camp he was selected as he was already in the system.

On the Hodnett/ Penney call, you have both players playing well in the games they play, they are the same age and play the same position. Hodnett is playing at a higher level as Penney had better players ahead of him for the big games.

But Penney is called into training camps. Now the management might have their reasons for picking Penney but from a fans point of view it doesn't make sense to me. One reason that it would make sense for is that Penney is more familiar with the system and the players around him.

However that puts the players for the other three provinces at a disadvantage when it comes to Ireland selection. Now the obvious solution is the players of other teams should just get better. Then they will make the irish team such as Hansen has done.

However the longer it goes on that people see their players miss out in favour of a leinster player then the more disillusioned they become. And long term if fans of the other three provinces become disillusioned with the national team then it will affect IRFU finances.

I don't think there is a clear solution for this as Ireland are clearly getting results right now so you dont want to screw with that. BUt at the same time continuing as we are could also be an issue.