Why O'Sullivan should go.

Amazotheamazing

This isn't a personal thing, Eddie is simply the wrong man for the job.

1) We are underperforming as a team. Certain players are playing well below their ability. Players like O'Callaghan, O'Gara, D'Arcy, S. Horgan and G. Murphy have not come anywhere near the limit of their abilities.
2) We play the wrong gameplan. Against NZ, the best running/attacking team in the world, we attempted a completely new running gameplan. Naive to the the point of stupidity. Against Aus, we failed to keep the ball in close against their weak tight 5. The comparison continues unfavourably throughout our last few games.
3) We ignore players for no apparant reason. Players like Brennan (ignored for 3 years), Casey, Jennings, D. Wallace, Heaslip, M. O'Driscoll could offer viable alternatives to certain positions but they are rarely tried.
4) Complete failure to develop strenght in depth. Much like the above point Eddie has failed to build any discernable strenght in depth, we have heard him use the injury excuse 4 times since 2003, ie, RWC2003, 6Ns2004+2005, AI2005, all this time he has resisted thorough blooding new players such as Campbell, P.Wallace, Staunton, Lewis, Best(s), Wilson, etc.
5) He has repeatedly damaged the provinces prospects by removing key players at key times.


I could go on but I hope the point is already made.

CJhaughey

Ciaran Cronin in the Sunday Trib. has just said the same as you.
Bring me the head of EOS...

Maskhadov

lads, dont be surprised if we win the six nations next year. The pressure is really off the backs of these lads. None of the other nations will really be having us as odds on. A few new players got introduced and did ok and providing we dont have lots of injuries we might just do it.

PhoenixRising

Maskhadov wrote:

lads, dont be surprised if we win the six nations next year.

What planet are you living on?

We'll beat Italy and Scotland. That's it.

I agree that we need a change of coach and management. Eddie has brought Irish rugby along a good bit since he took over, but things have just turned stale and he hasn't introduced any new blood or new ideas. It's time to go Eddie. As someone said to me, it's actually harder to get off the Irish team than get on to it these days.

Amazotheamazing

I'm sorry but that's just crazy talk. Of course there's some chance we'll win the 6N's, we have the bones of a fantastic team but we're not using it right. Why is D'Arcy being used as a tackle-bag when he should be put into the gaps? Why are asking new players like Bowe and Trimble to take on the ball when our obvious strenght is based around a dominant line-out? I still believe we have the best or second best lineout in Europe so why aren't we using it?

Eddie has had his time, time for him to go.

Sangre

And who would replace him?
Lets not do an FAI on this.

Amazotheamazing

How should I know who should replace him? We've no idea of wages, severance, etc. I could list of 7 or 8 coaches who I think would be better than him, but right now that isn't the issue.

Sangre

Of course its the issue. If there is no realistic replacement he can't go.

PhoenixRising

Amazotheamazing wrote:

I'm sorry but that's just crazy talk. Of course there's some chance we'll win the 6N's

Yeah and there's some chance a meteor will hit Ireland tomorrow, but lets be realistic. We have no chance of winning the 6N's next year. Anyone who thinks we've a good chance of winning it is clearly delusional.

I wouldn't be surprised if we lose to Scotland too. We've been on a downward slide since winning the triple crown. It's between England and France. They are light years ahead of us at the moment. I'd tip England for the 6N's myself. Thought they looked very good against Samoa, and they look like they're improving the whole time.

As for who is the man to replace Eddie, I don't know. Bring back Matt Williams. Leinster played the kind of rugby under Matt Williams that Ireland should be playing.

Nukem

Think Declan Kidney must ne laughing his ass off at the situation!
Think Michael Bradley would be the best option though or someone french. Would give my right nut to see a coach that picks form players only;" your not playing well you dont play. your playing well you get to play", no matter how many caps or politics or whatever.

Nukem

GreenHell

Ah your living in a world of fiction if you think that'll happen anytime soon.

Amazotheamazing

I was agreeing with you Phoenix.
Sangre, it isn't up to me to list available coaches. Do you honestly think EOS is the best around? Personally I'd rate several Euro based coaches as better than him, but you never know who'd apply for the job, after all Mitchell coached in Limerick for a while so maybe he'd come over, perhaps son-in-law will be stepped up. But my primary concern is getting EOS out before the 6N's.

mchurl

a bit of freshness is exactly what we need at this time

cabla

i think he is an excellent coach. he has a very good record but just needs to bring in newer players.

Amazotheamazing

One triple crown does not make for a "very good record". Beating Aus and SA in November doesn't make it either, getting repeatedly whipped by France doesn't help his record either. Sure it's an improvement on the 1990's but that's a pretty low base standard. I'll admit beating England is a good win.

PJG

He’s got to go. I've said it before here. Gatland was shafted, EOS reaped the benefits of what Gatland had started.

Snickers Man

Amazotheamazing wrote:

One triple crown does not make for a "very good record". Beating Aus and SA in November doesn't make it either, getting repeatedly whipped by France doesn't help his record either. Sure it's an improvement on the 1990's but that's a pretty low base standard. I'll admit beating England is a good win.

Credit where it's due. Apart from Wales' Grand Slam match in Cardiff last year, the only teams to beat Ireland in his tenure have been from the Big Five of Australia, NZ, SA, England and France and he's beaten every single one of them apart from NZ. But then, no Irish national coach has done that ever.

Beating SA is a major achievement. That had only been done once before.

Beating England at Twickenham is a major achievement as well.

Having said which, he has done NOTHING to blood new players. We have a crisis at prop. We have an even bigger one at half back. And without competent half backs, your team is crap. In the nineties we had good players throughout the park, but we had only one competent outhalf (Elwood) and because he was so slow, he was dropped frequently.

Look at all the games Ireland won in the 90s. (Not very many) Elwood was outhalf for nearly all of them.

And as for scrum halves...Yurchh!!!

So who did EOS bring to Japan? Stringer and Humphreys FFS!!!

Got to get more outhalves. Starting last year.

Mungaman

Eddie has to go

Ireland are in major need to invest some trust into the new young guys and the overseas troup of players lost to contract negotiations.
I still rember the day Gatland got shafted and how one day people would look back and say was that the right thing to do?
Look what he went on and did with Wasps.
He's now back in Super 14 coaching role and is still changing and adapting coaching techniques and defensive / attacking roles in individual players.

My Point is Eddie doesn't change
He has for the last four years ignored his bench. Why? Did he not notice in the rest of World rugby is a 20 man game and has been for the last few years.
Whats happened to defense since Mike Fords gone missing?
Why has the ineptitude of IRFU contract negotiations allowed key players to slip thru and weaken your own competition?
Is the key a whole mindset change and an overhall of the coaching and direction of rugby in Ireland?

There is no doubt that Ireland has world class professional players of top skill.
There is def more to come and the gap between the current form and coaching methods should be addressed.
I personally would like to see O'Callaghan try his hand at blindside and use him as a utility jumper. Why not he's quick enough and he's big enough.
Get Bord Bia to provide the boys with nothing buit prime beef and get some size as soon as you can for the next world cup. Bring on big players like Buckley from Cork and inject them into the test set up.

I really think that Eddie has had his day and lets be fair he had some great ones but his ineptitude to change and evolve has left him in the dinosaur section of the coaching manual.

kermitdfrog

Same old tired reasons not back up by the facts...

First up, let me make it clear, I am not going to try to defend all EOS's decisions over the Autumn campaign - some of them were frankly ludicrous - but I merely wish to stop some of the untruths being bandied about and teh unfair criticisms.

1. No new caps - half the current squad are new in teh last 2 years. 10 players were capped for teh first time last year. You can argue that he may have capped the wrong players, but that's an opinion. But you can't argue he has not capped many players.

2. Living off Gatland's hard work - no way, no how, no chance. Gatland went for a reason - he didn't believe in Ireland, and said so himself. And EOS has not lived off his good work - check out the players that have been capped since EOS took over, or how many remain from Gatland's time.

3. Not blooding enough players in problem positions - of course not, but it's not that simple. We don't HAVE the players to blood. There is no point capping and blooding players left rigth and centre just for the sake of it. They have to be good enough. The players being mentioned as FH's for example are all woefully lacking - anyone see the article in teh Independent midweek? Was talking about Humps being offered a new contract. Said it was laughable, but that made sense as there is no-one as yet ready to step up. Manning is our great hope, but none of the potential successors over the last few years (Staunton, Wallace, Dunne etc.) came good. You can't pick players who clearly aren't good enough, it's not the national's sides job to develop them, but to further them. If the provinces don't develop them we're screwed.

4. Don't know, or need to know who would succeed EOS, just know he should go - well you DO need to, because if there is noone better than we have to stick with what we've got.

5. The wrong gameplan - true, we did play the wrong game plan: in the 2005 6N. That game had been built up over the previous seasons, and worked. By 2005 it had been worked out, and we suffered. EOS is tryign to imlpement a new gameplan now - if he hadn't we'd all call for his head. Whether its against NZ or not he had to make changes, and they don't happen overnight.

6. Ignores players for no apparent reason - no, he doesn't pick them we have better or of equal standard players (Casey), or they can't get a game for their province (D.Wallace).

7. Doesn't have a good record - Eh, what? Best record of any Irish coach. Ever. Triple Crown. Wins over Aus, SA, England, France. You say they don't make a good record.... WTF does then?



Listen, I'm not defending the indefensible here - not playing Heaslip against Romania, having a bench including ROG, Stringer, Dempsey etc in same game, playing Flannery for only 10 minutes, etc etc, not picking Quinlan when he was on form, not dropping Stringer (though Campbell showed that prehaps Stringer IS the best we've got, at least until another Munster SH takes his place - come on O'Leary!), playing established players in Japan - but I just wanted to correct some of the b.s. and mis-representation that goes hand in hand with a debate on EOS these days. I even had one guy recently try to tell me O'Connor was capped by Gatland! People believe what they want sometimes and let the truth be damned....


In my opinion, a fresh coach wouldn't be a bad thing. But I dont see a better option available, and EOS has basically started afresh with a new game and a lot of new players. Right now I'm on the fence - lets see how the 6N goes. I'm not expecting miracles, we won't win it, but if we PROGRESS then that's all we can hope for.


PS. Sorry for spelling/grammar etc. Really don't have the time for this, shouldn't really be posting, but liked the debate!

GreenHell

O'Sullivan should go because he has taken Irish rugby as far it will go. Credit for the trible crown and other successes is deserving but he doens't offer us anything new.

Look at the irish backline since Kidney left, there has been a complete break down in innovation, EOS seems to lack the ability to think outside passing the ball to BOD and hoping for some magic. That isn't good enough. Same goes for our front 3, Corrigan, Byrne and Hayes were/have been played consistantly without really looking at alternative, fair enough, guys like Justin Fitzpatrick and Best aren't near international standard is all the more reason to get them on the field and bring them up to international standard. I'm of the option that props grow better with experience.

It just so fustrating to watch Ireland right now and for the last 2 seasons, the potential is there, we expect success but EOS maintains this conserative approach which doesn't cut it anymore.

Amazotheamazing

Of the players capped, how many were capped as replacements (like Flannery) or through injury (Bowe)? How many experienced players got gratitude caps against Fiji, the US, Japan, Romania?

What sort of fool plays a running game against NZ, when we are missing our best backs, rather than use O'Gara to kick and our lineout (a la Munster) to win ball? That is criminally inept. To make matters worse he made the exact same mistake against England in 2003, and still didn't learn? Why didn't we take Aus up front, where everybody, even the Aus coach admits they are weak? Again inept.

Do we have the players? Does anyone honestly think that playing any other outhalf could have made Ireland lose on Saturday? Why not have Reddan on the bench rather than bringing Stringer on for 15 minutes? Anyhow, if we'd used all the minnow games to bring on strenght in depth we might have a serious option in the front row, or in the half backs.

Casey is of a higher standard than Trevor Hogan, who was called into the squad, and possibly higher than MOD or McCullagh.

On to EOS record, we beat Aus on a rain soaked pitch where their backs (ie their strenght) couldn't be used, they whipped us the following summer in Aus. As for beating SA, even Scotland have beaten SA in a November game during the last 5 years, SA use these tours to try new things, not necessarily to win matches, it was a nice win, but not one I'd base an awful lot on. Like I said beating Eng was a good result, though subsequently England went through one of their worst series of games since the late 1990's. Again France demolished us in the RWC, and in Paris in 2004, this year (2005) an experimental french team beat us in Lansdowne. Considering France are in our WC pool, shouldn't we be more worried about these results than friendly wins over weakened, end-of-season, SH tourists? Just a thought.

mchurl

Amazotheamazing wrote:

On to EOS record, we beat Aus on a rain soaked pitch where their backs (ie their strenght) couldn't be used, they whipped us the following summer in Aus. As for beating SA, even Scotland have beaten SA in a November game during the last 5 years, SA use these tours to try new things, not necessarily to win matches, it was a nice win, but not one I'd base an awful lot on. Like I said beating Eng was a good result, though subsequently England went through one of their worst series of games since the late 1990's. Again France demolished us in the RWC, and in Paris in 2004, this year (2005) an experimental french team beat us in Lansdowne. Considering France are in our WC pool, shouldn't we be more worried about these results than friendly wins over weakened, end-of-season, SH tourists? Just a thought.

we should be more worried about these results adn i think that we will have to introduce new blood and soon if we are to seriously compete with the french when it comes to the world cup

Trojan

mchurl wrote:

we will have to introduce new blood and soon if we are to seriously compete with the french when it comes to the world cup

We'll have to introduce it soon if we don't want to be competing with Italy & Scotland for the wooden spoon. England, France and Wales all look significantly better than our tired team right now.

Current rankings:

1: New Zealand (Rating: 93.82)
2: South Africa (88.76)
3: France (86.10)
4: Australia (83.93)
5: England (83.27)
6: Wales (82.54)
7: Ireland (80.03)
8. Argentina (78.16)
9. Scotland (73.60)
10. Fiji (73.11)

We're a long way from 3rd now...