RWC23 Warmups - Ireland v Italy, Sat 5th Aug, KO 8PM - TV: RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, Amazon Prime Video

Earls is getting nostalgia caps I'm not sure he deserves at this point.

"Mistake" is harsh. He had a solid enough game, got over too.

We aren't exactly replete with top drawer Looseheads, but we do have solid ones and grafters like him will be needed for the attrition of 4 pool games.

Yep, Earls will give always give what's he got - tough cookie.

Exactly

Quite a few Italians went off injured.

What about France, whose B team lost to a Scotland team today who were down to 14 for half an hour? Do they have the depth?

That's the best I've seen Henderson carry in a long time. Was very abrasive and looked fit.

Joe McCarthy is just not the type of player you can leave at home in my opinion. He's a monster.

Crowley impressed too as did Baird.

My two cents, will be interested to hear others takes.

Good performance for the first match back, rusty at times but you'd expect that with the side we had out and it being the first of the season.

MOTM for me was Doris followed by Crowley. Henderson and McCarthy played well also.

15 - JOB - tidy performance, kicked well.

14 - Earls, mixed to poor. Showed up well in the last 20 bar the tackle, which was poor. If that was his last game it's been a pleasure to watch him throughout his career.

13 - Henshaw. Poor performance I thought, don't think it's a coincidence Earls got very little ball.

12 - McCloskey - I don't remember much from him, maybe someone can fill me in. I'm a fan but it looked like the partnership with Henshaw wasn't great.

11 - Stockdale - very mixed, a lot more error prone than Earls and his errors were more glaring like the very poor attempt at a tackle and not passing the ball. Some good moments for the highlights reel but on the whole I'm not sure he advanced his cause.

10 - Crowley - a super game I thought all things considered from a young outhalf. I thought he really stood out bar a couple of spilled balls. Defensively sound, lovely passer. Place kicked well. If I'm honest I think it's a better performance than we've seen from Ross Byrne at this level and if Byrne played like that I'd say this place would be in overdrive... but Byrne will have a chance to strut his stuff too so we'll see how he goes. Some indecision at times but he backs his footwork to get him out of trouble. Took an amount of punishment and kept coming back.

9 - Casey - good 40+ minutes from him, great tempo, some good kicking, did his usual quick penalty to win another one.

8 - Conan - unfortunate to get injured, hope it's not serious. He looked okay walking around after. But he wasn't playing well at that point. Outperformed by his two counterparts. Bar one carry and a link pass I don't remember a whole lot -was he one of the latches for a try maybe?

7 - Doris - deserved MOTM, super player. He was doing the job of his counterparts for them at times

6 - Baird - POC will be furious with the technical penalties but he did well outside of that. How was his ruck work?

5 - McCarthy, a very good game. Not sure I'm on the MOTM bandwagon but maybe if I watch it back it will become apparent. Good physicality from him.

4 - Henderson - the better of the two locks for me, great to see him back doing his stuff.

1-3 - as a unit I'm not sure they advanced their causes. I thought our scrum was better in the second half which might say enough in itself.

Subs: Great to see Nash get a run, don't think he's a contender. Prendergast had a chance to steal a march on Coombes, especially with Conan not performing well to boot... and I'm not sure he took it as well as he'd have liked, nice carry and offload aside. Blade didn't do much to advance his cause, he had plenty of time to do so. Frawley seemed to combine well with Crowley. Delighted Stewart got time too, nice steal at the end. Beirne reminded us of his prowess on the deck.

All in all a good day out, not a complete whitewash and we've some things to work on. Hope the injuries aren't bad.

You must have missed the part where i completely agreed with you.

I reckon we shouldn't travel to france at all because those injuries are definatley 100% going to happen to us, and they wont happen to anyone else so the foregone conclusion of a QF exit is essentially just a ridiculous waste of fossil fuel.

Didn't the all blacks win against France with a 4th choice out half ?

Mistake in taking him over Loughman or Milne imo. He didn't have any impact around the park that I noticed, and was so so in the scrum. I don't know that he has the engine for the game at this stage.