Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

People who think that a coach would be upset that the ball was kicked in that situation have a flawed understanding of modern rugby.

I honestly think murray has been past it for a while but i would be extremely surprised if farrell is focusing on that in review.

We could also have given away a penalty.

If you kick it away, all you have to do is make tackles.

It wasnt wrong at all. A ref will be all out watching the team leqding trying to close out a game and watching for them to seal off etc at the breakdown. The most important thing to do was keep england as far away from our line as possible. Not keep the ball. Kick leather off ball and trust in your defensive structures.

He should be focusing on it massively if he is serious in taking Ireland to the next level.

I would say he will be focusing on how england gained so much ground down the right channel.

I think we saw yesterday why the IRFU weren't offering POM a CC. In games like that he goes missing. Happens too many times.

He was dropped as Lions captain.

I don't have any issue with Murray's last kick to touch, he should get a roasting for the two extremely poor execution box kicks prior to that which we were very lucky to recover possession from, and absolutely were the wrong percentage play though. We were just extremely lucky that we somehow got back into an OK position, had an OK touch finder, but then we just bled field position in 90 seconds.

They'll gradually be moved on this season, Ireland are in such a rude position that they didn't need to chuck all these guys out and start again, unlike someone like Wales, they can afford to keep the older guys and then gradually bring through the next crop. Baird will likely come in for POM, Casey will likely come in for Murray, Osborne will likely come in for Aki and any number of young LH's will come in for Healy (I'm thinking Milne once he gets a run of games).

I think this is also an exaggerated view of modern rugby. I've seen plenty of teams 'close out' games in recent seasons with pick and gos, its far from dead.

Tough day at the office yesterday. I think Will Connors would have been a great option for that type of game.

I think Farrell is doing great but needs to be a bit more ruthless, that loss is on the coaches imo. Conan/Baird should have been on for POM at half time and Hendo for Joe. Baird is the in form back row and ended up playing 11 mins and not touching the ball. We should never have been leading at HT but the coaching staff needed to count their blessings and make changes. Murray is past it and hasn't offered much in a long time but that's again on the coaches.

We should beat Scotland and winning a championship is still a brilliant result. We need a big response next week though. Wasn't good enough yesterday.

I don't care about the loss last night. Same way I didn't care about the wins v France, Italy and Wales. I care about the World Cup. Hopefully it will be the catalyst for Farrell to wield the axe on Healy, POM and Murray. They should have been gone after the World Cup and we've wasted 4 games of development for their replacements, but better late than never I suppose.

Our lineout was an absolute shambles at the World Cup. POC should have been out on his ear after the quarter final loss but he was kept on and our lineout is still an absolute mess so hand him his P45 please. And for the love of god move Porter back to TH. It's been over two years and he still can't scrummage at LH. He's never going to learn so please move him back. Two fixes to our two biggest problems.

After the World Cup I wondered how long it would be before we anointed ourselves the "best team in the World" again, and the answer was a 4 months, which was faster than even I expected. It's embarrassing.

Unless England beat France by about 80 points, a LBP will do us next week against Scotland.

Scotland would win the Triple Crown and we'd win the Championship 🏆

Everyone's a winner

Nah screw them, end the championship on a high is what's best!