Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

For me there should be no question about not bringing Sheehan, if Kellegher is not fit to play against Samoa then you give Tom Stewart a solid 60 minutes and if he does well then Farrell is left with the difficult but necessary decision of not bringing Kellegher.

Also I have bad feeling Farrell is not going to bring Baird. There definitely is a case for thinking outside the Box like SA and Wales have done, this idea of players on standby is a new one to me

Also if I remember Farrell was praising highly Tom Stewart a few weeks ago. Kellegher won't have played a game and is highly likely to break down again and if we have serious intentions of getting to a semi-final we need our best hooker(Sheehan) who hopefully has a straight forward recovery time mapped out

An injured player is never your best player.

What doesn't make sense?

The 3rd SH adds zero value unless a very unlikely event happens during the first half of the pool (after that you can bring in the SH to provide all the comfort for something weird happening before the big games).

In contrast, bringing an alternative will definitely provide significant value for those first two games. The only way it doesn't is if you plan to expose an additional starter for each of the first two matches - which to me is dumb due to the huge potential downside.

On a large sample for a given position. If you take your approach on looking back the last year you'd have a strong argument that we should be naming a 3rd hooker in every matchday squad.

Posters here are handwringing and basing their opinions on about a SH pulling up within 72 hours of a match. It is an event that I can never remember happening without some murmurs earlier in the week*. Basing your squad selection on that is like refusing to take an airplane.

*adding context

If you bring whichever of Baird/McCarthy/Prendergast that would likely be left out and play them in both of the first pool games then you've provided clear value by minimizing the risk of injury of one of the key players in each of those matches.

Nothing is perfect or we'd be able to tell the exact moment when a player would get injured which will never happen.

Larger sample size is imperfect but far, far better than the tiny one you've chosen to base your argument on.

Trying to derive anything from a player's injury status during a few international windows over the course of two seasons is a wild choice.

Bringing specialists applies to the front row and half backs only. Porter hasn’t been injured that often. Do we just go with 2 LHs?

Going with 3 SHs and less cover in the outside backs is a gamble. Going with 2 SHs and more cover in the outside backs is also a gamble. At least with the former you know that guys like JOB can cover multiple positions and mitigate the risk somewhat. Aki and Henshaw can both cover 13. Ringrose can go to the wing if needed. There are more mitigants in that scenario. You can’t mitigate the risks (within the squad) at all when selecting just 2 9s.

In this years 6 nations jgp was named to start 1st game v wales but pulled out before the game with a hamstring injury that ruled him out of the French match and the subsequent Italy game. Missed 3 games and Didnt play for a month.

What would you do in that scenario?l if you only had Murray and JGP in the squad?

Do we not remember what happened last time we brought an unfit player to the World Cup and rushed them back? Or the implications it has had on that player to this day?

Barring a miraculous recovery, I can't see Sheahan travelling.

Any update on Conans injury...he's another one thats possibly out...