The problem with Irish Rugby is because they place such a bizarre emphasis on “Friendlies” they don’t have any time to actually try something out. Such as Henshaw at fullback. For someone as meticulous as Joe Schmidt, it seems strange that he didn’t make any attempt to give Henshaw game time at fullback in previous friendlies and fucks him in at the deep end for an actually important game.
You’d often see something in his articles that seem like they were lifted directly from here. Not that they are obviously. No one would be that desperate.
In fairness, Ewan is good for getting a rise out of people and I’d agree with some of the stuff he says but even his own mother wouldn’t call Ewan a winner.
The talk before the game was it was something that they wanted to try during the Autumn but then Henshaw was injured. I think it was a risk worth trying - Kearney keeps on pulling out performances for Ireland but has been injured a lot and you’d have to question how many consecutive games he could play at a World Cup. The issue from the last World cup was lack of depth in squad. Schimdt has done a lot to deepen the panel and full-back was probably one of the weakest positions depth-wise.
We keep going on about out strength in depth but it looks weaker than touted after yesterday surely. Schmidt clearly doesn’t trust his halfback subs even when chasing a game and the halfbacks are having poor games. He doesn’t seem to trust the recognised full back subs. We’re relying on best who is surely on his last legs. Quinn roux?