Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Oz will be bankrupt and gone from international rugby without the Lions tour

Aus ran France and ireland close last year away from home when they had a decent coach. Eddie Jones has proved how valuable a decent coaching ticket is, put a coach in now and give them 2 years with the talent Aus have available to them and they will be competitive. Will they win? probably not but it will be no worse than the last tour

Yes

They will sell out the stadiums and you will have plenty of people who will travel over and follow the tour.

I think there are other factors at play beyond the touchline of the pitch that have hampered Okeke's development since that Wasps game

Good post. You could be onto something with a national unitary academy development program.

This is true, and Munster are now starting to do the same. Ulster have done so for a while - Doak, Sheridan, Postlethwaite, various back-rowers that subsequently evaporated etc. Ulster are also very keen users of the year-long development contract.

I don't believe some sort of actual single national academy per se would be beneficial - a "programme" across all four academies, perhaps.

I would say this, though. Young fellas on the cusp of breaking through to pro rugby are going to have to get used to dealing with their own slumps in form, injuries, bad ref calls in crucial decisions, tough losses etc. The idea that it's too much to ask they go to another province for the good of the sport in Ireland is treating them with kid gloves a bit too much.

Whether you care to admit it or not if you have no association with a country and then move to Dublin where you're surrounded by people with Leinster-centric views, with your son going to school and having friends who only support Leinster to a point where he supports Leinster too then it's naturally going to have an influence. Those decisions involve a team on your doorstep that your neighbours support, your son supports, local radio gives extra glowing coverage towards, you see their flags for on your way to work every day versus three other teams that you have absolutely no connection with whatsoever. Of course it's a factor.

I think Humphries will have a very different and very welcome perspective on matters having both seen the system from an Ulster perspective and as an outsider over in England. He's seen his province labelled as a "basket case" in the Dublin media before, he's watched the career of a player as talented as Darren Cave come and go with just 11 caps and looked on perplexed as an Ulster legend and rugby ambassador Ruan Pienaar was denied an extension in Ulster while Nacewa with a similar status in Leinster was allowed return. All to justify the development of Cooney who seemingly wasn't on the international radar for Schmidt anyway.

There's much to improve and those associated with Ulster understand that more than anyone on the island.

Well Darren was a very talented 13. A great defender and organiser but who had two huge drawbacks. Not enough pace and Ireland's best ever 13 in BOD. In another era he could well have had many more caps than he did.

Smith didn't seem to like him at 13 for whatever reason, picking him at 12 a few times instead. Personally, I think he'd have been a way better pick than Earls at 13 in the 2015 QF. 12. Fitzgerald, 13. Henshaw would have been better than what he went with too, for me. And Jackson ahead of Madigan. Some of the selections for that game are very questionable.

I went back and had a quick look at some attacking stats, ranging from the 2nd test in New Zealand in the 2022 Summer tour, up until and including the QF loss to New Zealand last month. Respectfully, I am not including games against Italy or lower-ranked opposition. I am only looking at games Sexton started.

New Zealand 12 - Ireland 23: Sexton had 27 passes and 2 runs for 30 metres gained.

New Zealand 22 - Ireland 32: Sexton had 12 passes and 1 run for 16 metres gained.

Ireland 19 - South Africa 16: Sexton had 16 passes and 2 runs for 4 metres gained.

Wales 10 - Ireland 34: Sexton had 18 passes and 8 runs for 23 metres gained.

Ireland 32 - France 10: Sexton had 22 passes and 5 runs for 68 metres gained.

Scotland 7 - Ireland 22: Sexton had 27 passes and 5 runs for 20 metres gained.

Ireland 29 - England 16: Sexton had 27 passes and 9 runs for 47 metres gained.

South Africa 8 - Ireland 13: Sexton had 16 passes and 6 runs for 9 metres gained.

Sexton's "pass:run" ratio fell between 3:1 at its most run-heavy (v England in the 6N), and 14:1 at its most pass heavy (first win in NZ). I like this statistic because it normalizes for the amount of times we were actually in possession and not looking to kick.

His metres-gained per carry, for me, is the key. Even into his late thirties, and controlling for outliers, he was good for 4-5m on a carry, which is outstanding. No out-half will come close to this running threat at that age. Especially in tests at that level, and making that many carries per game (robust average of ~4 carries per game).

Defenses absolutely had to take his running threat seriously, and with those runs coming at a robust-average ratio 5:1 across those games, it was a threat that required constant focus by defenses.

Now let's look at the data from the QF loss:

Ireland 24 - New Zealand 28: Sexton had 73 passes and 1 run for 6 metres gained.

Even if you adjust down the 73 passes (at least 37 of them would have occurred in that final drive), this makes 36 passes to 1 run, or a ratio of 36:1. This is two-and-a-half times more than his most pass-heavy game since Summer 2022, and 7 times more than his robust average over that same period. And some might argue that you should not adjust the 73 passes...

But I honestly think you can discount activity in the final drive, and still conclude that Sexton's running threat was practically null for the entire game. We were a pass-heavy and predictable attack. And this policy deviated drastically from our effective performances against top tier opposition in the 18 months previous. Whether it was burn-out, injury, nerves, fatigue, who knows. You will have a hard time convincing me that it was a deliberate tactical decision that they thought would win the game.

Now, you can justly argue that we were nonetheless a Beauden Barrett miracle defensive effort away from reaching a semi-final. So I am not concluding that Sexton's overall performance lost us the game. On another day, we do get that try and probably close out the game. (And probably win the RWC....).

But in the last 18 months, we offered a two-pronged attack and won most games by more than a score (i.e., clear of the influence of these Barrett-like freak moments).

In the game where the data show that we drastically departed from this, we lost.

Note 1: What I mean by "robust average" is taking the exponent of the average of the log transformed data. It controls for outliers, akin to a median, but it's more granular. @jacothelad, I'm sure, can confirm that this is the appropriate measure with sparse and skewed data).

Note 2: Click the scores if you want to look at the underlying data and DYOR (finding matches on that ESPN site is a pain; you're welcome).

Excellent research, well done and thanks. I'd argue that the stats from the New Zealand quarter final stem from nerves. It has been denied by many that it was the cause of our defeat but it was clear that we didn't play with freedom and we were tight. Your stats back this up. Sexton and others didn't play like they've played for the previous 2 years. The occasion got to them. People don't like this being referred to as choking or bottling it but whatever anyone wants to call it, it will always be a massive regret for Sexton and this squad. Hopefully lessons will be learned from it.

Great research, does convince me further that Sexton was not at his best in that last quarter and shovelling on ball. Crowley should have been on, whether he would have made a difference you can argue the toss but I'd wager he'd have ran the ball more.

I'd say that World Cup will haunt those players, we arrived in the best shape we'd been in, suffered few/no major serious injuries throughout and then didn't perform to anywhere near our best when it counted.

The school system is primary Pathway in some of the provinces but the provinces and irfu are putting in systems and set ups to help widen the player pool through smaller schools and the youths clubs. Be it the development centres and then clubs selects playing schools teams etc.

I don't see a national academy working. Irfu had that initially but they decentralised it to provinces 20 years ago and I don't see it ganging any time soon.

All academy players are already with ail clubs and play with them depending on if with irish 20s or already have stepped up to involvement with provonces senior sides

Agree it points to a heart over head decision.

Also felt the players saying after the match how gutted they were they couldn’t do it for Johnny was a completely misguided mindset, I think that would have warped their motivation, too much emphasis on one player is a bad idea, the goal to win a quarter final should have been the same prize for every single player, it’s bizarre to distract players with guilt that someone else is more important to do it for than themselves. Something very off there in the mental approach.