Gareth Steenson Ireland call up?

Not such a bad idea calling up the former Ireland under 19/21 Exeter fly half.

Ireland don't have many to choose from.

Don't see it happening, the young out halves we have are just as good if not better than him already.

After one good performance? Lets see if he can keep it up and then he could maybe warrant a call up.

He would need to be considerably better than the other options to be called up, Ireland have been known not to select players playing in England. Guys like Bob Casey, James Downey, Mike Ross and Roger Wilson spring to mind as people who were playing well in England but still didn't get a look in to the Ireland set up while they were there.

Surely one of the Provinces has their eye on him for the near future. Most likely Connacht or Ulster I guess. Then he'd be on the Ireland radar.

Morgannwg wrote:Surely one of the Provinces has their eye on him for the near future. Most likely Connacht or Ulster I guess. Then he'd be on the Ireland radar.

Ulster are the ones that let him go in the first place, plus they have their own 10 battle for the future set up between Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding. Maybe Connacht would look at him as a replacement for Parks, but would Steenson really want to go?

Steenson is a better out half than any current Irish player with the possible exception of Sexton . However if approached by England he should consider that possibility

Ian Keatley will most likely get a looking before Steenson.

scraggers wrote:Steenson is a better out half than any current Irish player with the possible exception of Sexton . However if approached by England he should consider that possibility

Are you basing that on 1 game? he has looked ordinary in every other game I've seen him play.

Doubt he'd get an England call, he'd have to get past Farrell, Flood and Burns to begin with and potentially George Ford, Danny Cipriani, Steven Myler, Ryan Lamb, Andy Goode or Billy Twelvetrees (at a pinch). That it is to say nothing of the S.O.S calls that would potentially go out to Jonny Wilkinson or Charlie Hodgson.

A decent player but at 29 some way short of international quality and unlikely to improve. I doubt he is even on Kidney's radar, while as already stated England have a number of options who would be considered ahead of him.

Steenson would have been good for Ulster this season to take some of the pressure off Jackson, but now that Olding has come through and McKinney is likely to return, he would only block their progress next season.
He wouldn't be a bad fit for Connacht but Parks has at least another season on his contract so they don't need him.
The AP game suits him much better than the Rabo so can't see him moving back to Ireland now. If he had any Test ambitions he should have been putting in performances about five years ago and returned to Ireland when the outhalf shelf was pretty bare in the player cupboard.

Some would say that Steenson over the past 3 seasons has proved himself better than Myler Lamb Goode Cips! Ford is very much a work in progress! The Exeter fly half to get excited about is Henry Slade who the coaches rate even higher than Jack Nowell who outplayed Monye at the weekend and is only 19

If you want to win games, it really should not matter what league or country your players are playing . These squads today are thirty plus. Surely you can invite a player of quality in and take a look

scraggers wrote:If you want to win games, it really should not matter what league or country your players are playing . These squads today are thirty plus. Surely you can invite a player of quality in and take a look

Declan Kidney would argue that he has indeed invited such players into the squad and is having a look.

Tiger/Chief wrote:Some would say that Steenson over the past 3 seasons has proved himself better than Myler Lamb Goode Cips!

They might, people are always entitled to their opinions. Last season he was quite clearly second best to Mieres at Exeter though.

Tiger/Chief wrote:Some would say that Steenson over the past 3 seasons has proved himself better than Myler Lamb Goode Cips! Ford is very much a work in progress! The Exeter fly half to get excited about is Henry Slade who the coaches rate even higher than Jack Nowell who outplayed Monye at the weekend and is only 19

Perhaps you are right, but make no mistake, he would only be called up if there were a MAJOR injury crisis. If you are comparing him to the likes of Ford or Slade who are indeed works of progress it is about potential. You aren't going to bring in a 29 year old steady Eddie like Steenson to sit on the bench and learn, like you could potentially do with the young lads. If you are going to bring someone like Steenson in, you are going to bring him in to play and challenge to be first choice. Then you have look at the others I mentioned; the likes of Lamb, Goode, Cipriani and Myler. They already have international experience in either the Saxons or the full England squad. It would seem more likely to me that they would get the call over a 29 year old NQE (Newly Qualified English ) player who has no international experience at all.

The Irish system is too good at producing excellent young players to really warrant bringing in Steenson. Kidney just hasn't used a lot of players, e.g. Fitzgerald and McFadden, properly. I would have had McFadden at 12 in for D'Arcy quite some time ago, although that would mean ignoring Schmidt's selection policy.

There no hope of Steenson getting called up. His chance has passed. If he really wanted he could have stayed with Ulster and he would have been capped by now since Ireland were short of 10s for years. In the 2007 world cup there was only ROG and Paddy Wallace was his backup. In the next world cup Ireland will have the options of Sexton, Jackson, Madigan, Keatley and Hanrahan.

It'll be interesting to see if Sexton loses his place now that he is leaving for France.

Steenson's only chance is now with Kidney's job on the line. Steenson would give a classy kicking option to the Irish forwards which was crucially lacking against Scotland. Anytime after now and the younger Irish options will be more developed and the logical choices to call up.

If he is good enough to play for his country , what should it matter if he plays in Japan or anywhere else. Why would he have to stay with Ulster, when he was third or fourth man down. He went to England and played some very good rugby over the years. Whether its Steenson or anyone else playing over seas, don't ignore them.

All subjective anyway I watch the premierhsip week in week out as I do the Rabo and quite simply I would not have steenson over Jackson or Madigan and as for suggesting he is good enough to be compared to Sexton just No. He kicks well but everywhere else the other guys are better and younger and theres nothing to say he would kick as well in International level anyways.

Steenson wasn't good enough be become the first choice fly-half at Ulster so how was he going to be for Ireland?

He has made a decent career for himself in the AP, but like others (Casey, Downey, Wilson) who have done well there lacks real Test class.