Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Can't understand the negativity about the team. I'm hoping for a triumphant bounceback season. Perfect Slam, Leinster hopefully getting over the hump in the HC and the prospect of brilliant tour to South Africa to reclaim the Raeburn Shield.

Ireland have won just 15 championships in 129 years.

Until 24 years ago and the arrival of Italy, Ireland were historically the worst and least successful of the northern hemisphere sides. We have been, until relatively recently, a crap rugby nation.

I will never get tired of seeing Ireland winning championships and will never understand people acting like spoiled brats saying it doesn't matter because we didn't win the World Cup.

It is funny that there is a mood around that everything is a foregone conclusion with this team. The opposition aren't up to much once France revealed themselves as a farce and Ireland are a machine that's uber efficient with cruel defence and a varied attacking game. I'm not buying it though. England weren't particularly good last year but they were tough enough for us to break down. We lost 3 line outs (maybe more?) against Wales, largely because of Welsh pressure. We are one of the best teams in the world but our scrum is still so so. There are lots of chinks for opposition analysts to get excited about and England always show up for Ireland. I expect us to be too strong for them, our bench is insane etc etc. Still though, this should be the toughest test of the year so far.

Ireland expecting Twickenham chaos from England as Andy Farrell handed injury boost

Rúaidhrí O'Connor

March 06 2024 02:30 AM

Ireland are expecting Steve Borthwick’s England to make things chaotic when they travel to Twickenham on Saturday.

Andy Farrell will name his team tomorrow and has been handed a boost with Hugo Keenan returning to training yesterday, as Garry Ringrose, Iain Henderson and Oli Jager also took part.

Ireland’s most physical training session of the week will take place this morning, and if Keenan comes through, then the coach will have a major dilemma as to whether to retain the 6/2 bench split of forwards and backs or revert to a 5/3 to accommodate Ringrose and Ciarán Frawley.

No 8 Caelan Doris spoke yesterday about the boost that the team get from the arrival of players like Rónan Kelleher, James Ryan, Ryan Baird and Jack Conan.

Read More

• Rúaidhrí O’Connor: How Andy Farrell has managed to tame the English Lions after early maulings
• Hugo Keenan trains as Ireland declare clean bill of health for England clash
• Cian Tracey: Joe McCarthy’s box-office duel with Maro Itoje will set tone for Twickenham

“Just seeing four big specimens coming onto the pitch at the same time, you’re kind of like ‘OK, here we go, here’s another big surge of energy’,” he said.

“It gives you a little lift. It is nice, for the guys coming off, they know that they can give it all for 50-60 minutes, and they’ve got quality coming on. For the guys staying on, you get a lift from them coming on as well.”

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Scrum coach John Fogarty says Ireland are expecting to be put to the pin of their collars in London, meaning they’ll need to stick to their plans.

“A lot of noise can happen from England, it’s not being derailed mentally by the chaos of Twickenham,” Fogarty said.

“It’s a fantastic stadium to play in, but you derive a huge amount of energy from the crowd; they’re right there on top of you.

“England rise to play at home and it’s an incredibly tough place to go and play. Accuracy in every way is important to us as a group.

“They potentially are thinking we should be in a final of a World Cup and Ireland were out in the quarter-final stage. There’s a lot of power in their side. They won’t be happy with how they’ve gone over the last game or two.

“We are conscious of them delivering a lot of energy, but we’re more focused on us delivering our energy, our mentality, being able to impose our game on them.”

Read More

• Rúaidhrí O’Connor: How Andy Farrell has managed to tame the English Lions after early maulings
• Hugo Keenan trains as Ireland declare clean bill of health for England clash
• Cian Tracey: Joe McCarthy’s box-office duel with Maro Itoje will set tone for Twickenham

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I suppose some of the "losing interest" in Ireland wins is that we now expect to win but like others have said I come from an era where winning one game in the 5Ns was an achievement, winning a triple crown was orgasmic and winning the Grand Slam was a pipe dream.

The IRFU were late to professionalism and imho we were lucky with the model they went with, contract players to the 4 natural regions that could grow a fan base and use the 4 regions to field an Irish team. The unwritten rule was probably their best stick to keep players at home. There may be warts in the Irish model but it's certainly paying dividends wrt to national team.

False dawns?

We lost a game of rugby by a few points. To new Zealand.

6 nations and AI are what pays the bills every year. A world cup semi final won't. And while it would have been nice to make history, sport is a here and now thing for me and I will enjoy now and not worry about 2027 RWC until then.

Congratulations to Ireland on winning the "came within a score of NZ" trophy

So you are saying if Ireland won 3 RWCs or made 3 RWC finals then losing to NZL in 2023 WOULDNT be a bottling the RWC but because Ireland havent achieved these feats then all of a sudden it IS considered bottling...i'm sorry but this really makes no sense, it doesnt matter how good you were in the past, bottling it is bottling it and you cant pick and choose which is which just because of a countries pedigree in the competition.

Again I don't really see how this being the 8th QF loss in a row plays into it...I mean with a straight face can you honestly compare this loss to any of the previous QF losses? Also by this virtue does that mean France were also bottlers seeing as they also lost in the QF's when they were one of the favourites to win?

No offence but like I alluded to in the previous comment this sort of thinking just show's up you're rugby knowledge if you honestly try push this narrative that this is like previous RWC's, it was made clear for years almost that this was ridiculously lopsided draw which meant 2 great sides were going to be eliminated and if any of the other 3 were to suffer the same fate as Ireland they wouldn't be getting this crap but because it's Ireland that suffered it they get it because it's an easy stick to beat them with. But at the end of the day all the people that do this show is that they are either trying to wind people up, are a troll or just havent clue about rugby.