Jack Crowley rewarded with start against the All Blacks

There has been plenty of debate around why Jack Crowley is overlooked as the Ireland starting 10 but one thing is for sure and that is he has broken the door down this season on his current form. We will take a look at his performance against Leinster in his most recent game to highlight his impact for Munster and what is expected of him against the All Blacks this weekend.

Crowley touched the ball 28 times against Leinster, this was the joint lowest of all the starting 10's in Round four of the URC. These touches were highly impactful with the Munster 10 kicking 15 times from hand (joint top with Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu) and managing 453 meters kicked, the most of any player from that round. One of his kicks resulted in a try and five of them were retained by a team mate. His ability to not only kick long and clear his lines or turn the defence and accuracy in well camouflaged short attacking kicks will be a huge weapon against New Zealand.

From playmaker he kicked nearly half the time but 10 of his 15 kicks were in his own half. Defensively he was required to make a mammoth 17 tackles and he did so with a 90% success rate.

28 of his 35 carry meters were post contact meters with six of his carries making the gainline he showed great maturity in his set up and pass execution with five of his nine passes being a line break assist.