Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

I doubt they are going to change the captain mid tour.

They might swap him to bench with such a short turn around between games to freshen up the team or more likely tell him to give one last big performance before end of season and rest. Then decide what to do next season

I'd like to see Bierne go at 6. With Ryan and Mccarthy in the back row. And Baird and Pendergast on the bench for impact.

That scrum penalty try at the end was a thing of nightmares. Can't get much worse than that..

Maybe jager and o toole to bench over healy and beadhlam.. if o toole is going to be longterm option at loose head where better to test him than south Africa.

SMcC played really well v SA in Nov '22 before having to go off injured.

Ringrose starting will also help the defence.

Personally I'd prefer Osborne moved to 12 and JOB at FB (if fit).

Still cant see Ireland winning. Beirne looks to be running on emptymaybe not. Sheehan's a big loss and Casey in fairness also played really well (Cheap shot by RGS).

Would also like Prendergast to bench over Frawley.

If we've copped 4 injuries, they aren't going to make an additional, non-enforced change with POM.

Poms been amazing for Ireland and has come up with big moments for us time and time again. Although I think your being a little harsh it does feel like these big moments are becoming less and less frequent. If next week is his last in green I hope he has an absolute stormer.

Regardless I hope we look past a few of these senior players next November. Its time to move on from a few.

There will be enough injury enforced changes for the coaches to start fiddling with the team I reckon.

Lineout wobbles are going on years now with and without POM.

But with a few out injured and POM the captain I doubt Farrell will start making a huge change like dumping the captain.

That Marx turnover was such a big moment, and it looked like an incredibly wrong call, with van Staden clearly on the wrong side and blocking the clear out. He gave that exact call earlier in the game, and this one was even more obvious.

I watched the match back, in the cool light of day I felt on review Ireland's execution was well below the usual expected level, especially for the first 30 minutes or so.
In no particular order, things that stuck in my mind as low points from the match;
The lapse in defence after 2 minutes was very poor, I think Henshaw could have been more controlled and just shepherded Arendse down the side-line where Osbourne was lining up to make the tackle, but once Arendse stepped inside Henshaw the running angle meant Osbourne had no chance to stop him. To be fair to Arendse, he showed shrewd awareness and clinical footwork when he spotted Henshaw rushing across to him being vulnerable to a step inside.
The O'Mahony no-look pop into McCarthy's face on the try line after turning down a kick at the posts was extremely disappointing.
Beirne flinging a ball 20 metres backwards into our 22 past everyone for Crowley to go back, gather and clear into touch without realising it would mean the ball would be brought back to where he kicked it from and conceded 30 metres of territory for no reason.
Lowe's two mistakes, trying to keep the ball in play with nobody near him (Kolbe was as usual chasing it like his life depended on it to his credit), and trying to play a ball that was heading for the dead ball line from a drop-off.
I don't blame Kelleher at all for back-heeling the ball in the ruck, but it was a turning point unfortunately.
Crowley missed an easy penalty early on and two side-line conversions, when we lost by 7.
Casey cleared a caught kick-off on our own try-line to about 20 metres when he had made a 40 metre clearance earlier from the same thing.
The scrum-penalty on our try-line, though I honestly don't know what went wrong, maybe there was something the ref missed.
The scrum-penalty previous to that, where Kelleher popped up, but I don't know how that came about either.
There were a few knock-ons and there was a lost lineout in their 22 I think Steph du Toit read it and stole it at the front before our jumper got up.

I hope we can be more clinical the next day, the team worked hard, so just a pity for them that they weren't able to convert more opportunities.

Not seeing any evidence to support this claim Baird's form dropped off. Folks keep saying it like just speaking it will make it so. He was running the lineout for Leinster successfully. He's shown up with his carrying and defensive play. He's comfortable outplayed POM this season.

I noticed a considerable drop off towards the tail end of the season compared to the first half, where he was consistently making a significantly greater impact to the game and in my point of view should have started ahead of POM during the 6 nations.

Don't feel Baird had a great game in any of the key knockouts and was pretty poor in some of them, emphasised by some big individual mistakes.

Quite likely it was in part at least physical or mentally tiredness, his minutes increased by 50% over the previous season.

Whether his impact during that run of worse form was greater or lesser than POM right now is up for debate but the argument isn't as strong as it was earlier in the season.

Id think similar. One of those things hes praised endlessly for if someone else is more checked in.

I would agree with that, people seem to think he should keep it in, also have the ability to regather and then pass safely to another team mate

It was a huge piece of skill and should have been rewarded better, Irish player know he tries it so should have been alert

It should be but no, it won't happen.

We need more people who can win collisions in pack outside mccarthy in tight. McCarthy is also one of the rawest internationals i have ever seen in every other aspect.

Wasn't saying you were questioning Lowe. I stated:

not sure how anyone is blaming Lowe for that one.

I'd seen the poster you quoted and others questioning Lowe's actions but it makes no sense to me