Ireland could be forced deep into reserves with latest injury

Sio and Ainsley are better scrummagers than AAA and Slipper. Latu is at least as good as BPA at scrum and is better over the ball. Kerevi and Hodge are better than Paisami and Hodge is useful at fullback for wrights off days which are pretty frequent and has 70m boot.

If Schmidt keeps the same squad through to the lions, which is the immediate concern, he will have ground guys like Bell into dust. Same thing that Eddie jones did to the top ranked England team in the penultimate World Cup. Players are already playing too many games in a season.

Skelton should start. He’s not an impact guy his strength and maul defence, niggle at the breakdown and ball carrying. Rennie made that mistake before.

Let me ask this... Is your excuses for losing against the Boks written by Thursday and ready to hand out with the team announcement?

Because that is the wrong thing to say currently. The English isn't winning any games currently except against Tier 2 nations. Granted it's close losses, but instead of getting better, they seem to get worse.

SA is targeting the English game with their best. The Boks is in great form, despite the Scottish game. The Scottish would have destroyed the English on Saturday if they played them instead of the Boks. They were brilliant despite the scoreline.

I'd suggest that they concentrate on the next game. Each and every time. Forget about the WC and 6N. Start by winning each game you play. It doesn't matter if it's an ugly win or not. It doesn't matter if people say you play boring rugby.

Winning is winning. Extravagant or not. If their minds is on the WC already they will lose. Yes, build depth for the WC in 3 years time. Get the talent and test them. Give them that chance to compete like Rassie does. Learn from a coach who is arguably the best coach ever.

You don't need to play like the Boks. All that is needed is to get the talent in for the WC in 3 years time, but to say IF WE WIN the WC, but you can't even win a game...

The confidence was low, they were in turmoil with a coach who already lost his job. The NZ team the French are going to face is not as weak as the one they faced in the WC.

Smacks of entitlement because of a previous result nearly a year ago. Much has happened since and the AB's from the WC vs the AB's from today is vastly different.

The French is going to get mauled if they put out anything less than their very best players. NZ is just going from strength to strength. Thinking because they lost to Argentina in TRC shows how weak they are, is a mistake. Argentina is playing great rugby at the moment. The Boks didn't underestimated them and still lost in their first game against Argentina.

My prediction is the AB's by 12-15 points winning margin.