Going for a hybrid of short term success with an eye to the world cup, which of course failed miserably in bringing world cup success in the last two attempts I think the following should be followed. I do think this is a bit more aggressive than previous cycles.
Never to play for Ireland again - Kearney and Earls, we have younger options that are just as good and will force a change in style, no point hanging on to anything from the Schmidt era and these are the two most "Schmidt" players you can find. Neither had a bad world cup but neither were ever going to be a point of difference against quality opposition even if we did impose out old dominating style on anyone. Best obviously falls into this bracket too.
Phased out by this time next year at the latest - POM, Healy and Sexton, two leaders so it might be a bit unwise to throw them out immediately, and if we're going for a massive shake up in style you probably want Johnny around to show Carbery and the Byrnes how it's done. But even when playing well this tournament both these two looked old and done, One last 6n isn't beyond either but for Peter it should be as a bench option and nothing more if we actually need him, and if Farrell doesn't think he needs Johnny than leave him with Leinster too, I just don't have much faith in the incumbents yet. Healy is a bit different, if Jack is back playing well for Ulster, great throw him in but while Kilcoyne is a brilliant bench option his scrum at this level has been found wanting, especially as a starter so he needs time to get to work there.
Phased out post Lions tour at the latest - Stander, no way he lasts until 2023 with his style but to be fair to him he's the only guy to go up in my estimations this world cup, worth keeping around in some capacity even if he's not in our best backrow come the 6n. Conway, top class international wings, which Conway isn't anyway, are rarely over 30, 32 at the next world cup is too old for Conway to get away with. Aki, 33 for the next world cup, no thanks.
Murray should be watched extremely closely too and, as with everyone on this list, he should only start if deemed better than his competition based on the next 6 months of rugby played.
I'm a bit disappointed that we gave the job straight to Farrell without watching how we went this year because I think we're desperate for a coach who knows how to go deep in a world cup and Farrell hasn't got bags of experience there coming off his best world cup to date where we didn't fire a shot... But it's not all about world cups and I wouldn't trade half of the success Joe had for a semi final, it'll be nice to forget about world cup rugby for a couple of years. The only time the world cup should cross Farrell's mind should be in my proposed new criteria for not selecting a player, the "if he was a kiwi and didn't have it so comfortable in a province would he have retired to France or Japan by now?" standard, it'd get rid of literally every player here so I'm contradicting myself a wee bit but the short term pain might just lead to success "when it matters". It all depends on how aggressive big Faz wants to be I suppose, I hope he's totally ruthless.
A few things Farrell needs to do:
Use his back three to attack, fairly obvious this one. Schmidt always preferred kicking and defensive back threes in his 9 years here, for Leinster it worked, it was solid for Ireland and when Stockdale was in a vein of form where giving him the ball would result in a try it helped us be the best, it left us totally unable to nick a tight game or keep us in a one sided one at other times however, most notably the end! With back three options of Larmour, Carbery, Stockdale, Conway, Addison and Lowe all available in the next 12 months this should be a fairly natural progression.
Develop around 10 million international backrows. We thought we were stacked, it was our biggest weakness in the end, injuries are so common here you can never have enough. If Max Deegan had have had 5 caps prior to the tournament at worst you have another destructive option at 6 or 8.
**** experience, if Ronan Kelleher looks the best hooker in the country for Leinster and is still a bit raw, pick him anyway. While I think Hansen was just rubbing it in our faces when he banged on about "winning experience v losing experience" he also showed that experience across the board counts for shite, Smith and Barrett are looking after an inexperienced backline on their own, experience will come naturally in some areas and not in others, don't let it be a factor that gets Dave Kearney, who wasn't going to travel in any circumstances, into a preliminary squad over someone like Adam Byrne who could have torn it up and got himself in as a bolter.
In 2018 I think Joe showed us how good we can be, 2019 he showed us where our current biases get us to in a set four year cycle, **** needs to change. I won't hold my breath though.
