Read on Twitter
Lots of talk about pushing Ben Healy or Harry Byrne into the Irish team to play France as if it's a what have we got to lose situation. Well Burns made his 6NS debut vs Wales, made a few mistakes but the way social media and the "actual media" are going on you'd swear he
shat in their kettles. Burns is an experienced club man with Gloucester and Ulster and has amassed big game caps. Healy and Byrne simply haven't. Now imagine the abuse that was hurled at Burns was hurled at these 2 guys starting out in their career, the kind of damage it could do
All of a sudden instead of taking that high risk high reward kick or pass they play it safe, fair enough they're not doing anything wrong but all of a sudden they are seen as not good enough. Remember back in 19 and 20 we gave out about Joe's tactics being to prescriptive..
well it kind of sounds like this is what we want. We want our young lads to come into a melting pot of pressure, not make any mistakes, and replace current greats BUT if they do make a mistake we are going to hurl abuse at them and hope their career is over
If anyone has seen an under 18s local team player stepping up to J3 you will see how stressful it can be, your suddenly playing against grown adults. Well this is the step up from European level to test. Pro14 form is IRRELEVENT, sorry to say. We have yet to see Byrne or Healy
step up and boss a European game, that should be the next box to be ticked, then boss a European game whilst they're being marked, and then we will know if they are capable of the step up. The current 10s have all proven they are well capable of the European club standard
they need to be given the opportunity to get proper game time in a green jersey. I would love to see Crowly or Healy getting international games but they need to take JJ's jersey 1st. Likewise Harry and Crawly need to be at least taking Ross' jersey.
If we continue to go down the route of absolutely slamming players for taking risks or making mistakes we will end up with a team that merely exists. Now I have been a Munster fan all my life, I experienced the highs and in more recent years we have merely existed. Yes we got
to finals and semi finals but we never won anything. Leinster on the other hand have taken risks, they've trusted their young players to work in the system and they've reaped the rewards of numerous titles. I hate to say it but do we want Ireland to be Munster or Leinster.
Personally I'm competitive, I want to win everything, but I realise to do that there needs to be a process of development. Part of developing is making mistakes. So in short.. Be kind, put down the fucking phone for 5 mins and maybe take off yer provincial filter before tweeting
