Argentina v Ireland (8pm RTE2)

zAbbo

Game tonight.

Looking forward to seeing what some of these players can do.

The Teams:

Argentina: 15 Bernardo Stortoni, 14 Tomás De Vedia, 13 Miguel Avramovic, 12 Hernán Senillosa, 11 Francisco Leonelli, 10 Felipe Contepomi (captain), 9 Nicolás Vergallo, 8 Juan Manuel Leguizamón, 7 Juan Fernández Lobbe, 6 Martín Durand, 5 Esteban Lozada, 4 Pablo Bouza, 3 Santiago González Bonorino, 2 Alberto Vernet Basualdo, 1 Marcos Ayerza
Replacements: 16 Matías Cortese, 17 Pablo Cardinalli, 18 James Stuart, 19 Genaro Fessia, 20 Lucio López Fleming, 21 Juan Fernández Miranda, 22 Horacio Agulla

Ireland: 15 Gavin Duffy, 14 Brian Carney, 13 Andrew Trimble, 12 Kieran Lewis, 11 Tommie Bowe, 10 Paddy Wallace, 9 Isaac Boss, 8 Jamie Heaslip, 7 Keith Gleeson, 6 Neil Best, 5 Malcolm O'Kelly, 4 Trevor Hogan, 3 Simon Best (captain), 2 Jerry Flannery, 1 Bryan Young.
Replacements: 16 Bernard Jackman, 17 Tony Buckley, 18 Mick O'Driscoll, 19 Stephen Ferris, 20 Tomas O'Leary, 21 Geordan Murphy, 22 Barry Murphy.

Diamondmaker

Yah gonna be interesting, really keen to see how all these different individuals and combos fair.

zAbbo

Big games required from Neil Best (what happened to him!)

Tommy Bowe is on form, and Carney will show what kind of transition he has made.

Lots of players with a chance to either make a stake for the 30 man RWC squad, and for inclusion in the 22.

zAbbo

Two hours to go, cmon you boys in green.

Coverage starts at 8pm, kickoff 8.10, so there won't be that long to listen to Hook bemoaning the point of this tour.

Predictions all sway towards the Puma's

They'll put on plenty of grunt, and look to win in up front, My prediction is our backs will come out on top, and we'll hold parity up front and sneak the lineout.

Yes I'm optimistic

Anyone else interested / watching it ?

zAbbo

Forgot to mention this is also live online through - http://www.rte.ie/live/

(Yes I have feck all todo tonight)

Trimble 2, Carney 1, Bowe 1 and Big Mal for tries, super 5 try bonanza for the visitors

Leon11

too close too call this match. Max of 5 point win for either side

that stream is actually watchable.

Ireland by <10

I'm liking what I'm seeing of Boss and Trimble.

Wallace seems to be getting good delivery. Some nice balls in the middle.

AbusesToilets

I'm looking to watch this on setanta's broadband service but it's not listed as a pay per view game,yet it's listed on their schedule.Anyone know what the story is there?

besty

Ugh...

Try Argentina. Break crafted by Contepomi.

19-17, 5 mins left.

besty

Gavin Duffy lands a pressure kick to put us 20-19 in front.

JC 2K3

Bah, damn it Murphy!

Argentina win 22-20

Redundo

That game exploded into a bit of life by the end! Gutting for the Irish players, to have done so well and controlled so much, then to have it slip away like that.

Definately the Paddy Wallace injury that changed things around in Pumas favour. Damned unlucky for Ireland in the end.

Not sure what to make of Carney, excellent interept and a few good tackles, but otherwise was fairly anonymous.

EdgarAllenPoo

John Hayes could have made a better drop goal attempt than Murphy, I want to see Reddan get a game next week.

We are still seriously screwed at 10 if O'Gara gets injured.

zAbbo

Thought it was a great game, a real two fingers to the Pumas in their back yard, the abrasiveness of the Irish players, not letting the Argies settle was good.

I thought Flannery, Mal, Best, and Heaslip had good games, no-one really shone in the backs, Gavin Duffy was safe under the high ball, but not much else.

Not sure what you can gauge from a scratch team, gutting to lose at the end, but next week will go a long way to deciding who gets on the plane to France.

EdgarAllenPoo

Flannery had a great game, Neil Best needs anger management classes, it's all well and good putting in big tackles put if he keeps getting carded he'll become a detriment to the Irish team.

thebaz

i thoght the whole front row and o'kelly did well , given it was Argentina -- Best and Heaslip were great -- and while you could see Kearney, is a bit raw to Union, he oozes class -- apart from that the rest of the first team won't loose much sleep -- the real worry for me is at out half (backup to o'gara), hopefully the rumoured Humphreys world cup comeback will happen .

daveirl

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daveirl

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thebaz

daveirl wrote:

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his kicking was pretty average/poor -- i'm not convinced , that if O'Gara gets injured he will be able to step in to big pressurised games , such as France away, the real pumas or the All blacks -- i'd be much happier to see Humphreys giving it one last go.

Amazotheamazing

The thought of Wallace being anywhere near playing for us in RWC is terrifying. Did no-one else think Murphy actually got more out of the ball when he was on, suddenly we seemed to have go forward ball. He is a poor kicker because he is a first centre, and no amount of wishing he is an outhalf will make him one.

NotWormBoy

Most positive loss ever. I'm not too worried about the loss, given that its a second string side playing a second string side who had their first choice number 10 in Contepomi. If we had O'Gara on, we'd have won comfortably. Our lineout raped theirs. Scrum held up. Backline showed promise, but needed more time together. Support was occasionally slow getting to tackled players. Forwards didn't let the Argies walk all over them, held their own and had a go back as well.

You'd be worried though about depending on Wallace. No doubt he has skills, but the fact he doesn't normally play at 10 for Ulster is a worry, he needs more experience. We can't change anything for the World Cup, but after that we'd need to have someone there who plays week in week out at that position.

Don't really rate Bowe, I'd have preferred seeing Geordan on the wing. Heaslip and Best had good games, Duffy looked alright at full back, pack performed well overall.

Happy with most things, bar the indiscipline and occasional lack of support. And the scoreline of course, but...

zAbbo

It looks like Jeremy Staunton will be rushed over, Wallace no doubt has playmaking skills, his usage of the reverse pass last night worked well. He's not an international standard 10, but a capable backup against the weaker teams, and it helps than he has a half back partnership with Boss.

Boss - a little slow with passing, he needs to fire the ball from the base of the ruck, instead of 2 steps then passing, if the break is on, by all means go for it. Eoin Reddan is now a serious contender for the backup SH slot, and if he gets a chance, his form could put him above Strings.

Bowe - quiet, ball wasn't coming to either wing, but Carney shades it for the backup slot

Lewis - quiet, needs gametime at IC.

Heaslip - played well, and laying down a marker

N.Best - abrasive as usual, his indiscpline will put him outside the starting XV and possibly 22.

Flannery - fierce as usual, what happended to his arrow throwing, he looked a little off form.

Also worth noting, Mick O'Driscoll stole 3 lineouts on the bounce, but what on earth happened the last one, we stole the lineout, then turned over the ball leading to a try.

Looking forward to seeing how the reserve backrow perform, with Ferris, Jennings, and Alan Quinlan coming in, as well as Cullen and Eoin Reddan.

Amazotheamazing

It's not like Staunton is the answer either, though he does have the skills. The crazy situation of the provinces having Warwick, Contepomi and Humphreys playing outhalf could come back to kill us. Holwell would be Irish qualified by now. Wallace should have played all season at 10 and Sexton should have got more than 2 games for Leinster.

Laslo

Great stuff? Positive loss? Pathetic performance IMO.

daveirl

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Sangre

Don't think the Argentinians will be satisfied by that win at all. If Wallace had stay on (or even if we actually had a no.10 on the pitch) then I don't think there was anyway we'd lose. Some goods lines and distribution from the boys in the centre although it was clear they'd never played together. Some great work in the tight 5, especially in the set pieces.
Some huge hits by Flannery, although he did get pinged for hanging onto the ball twice which was annoying. Good lineout throws though. The number 2 shirt is his for the taking imo.
Think Neil Best is the perfect answer to counter any aggresive packs we play against. The guy plays like hes been caged up for the previous week and had been poked with pointy sticks by people wearing the Argentina jersey.

Anyone notice how after we got the penalty at the end to put us in the lead that we lost the ball in the restart (although we did get it back). Way too simliary to France in 6n. Think we would have learnt our lessons.

Anyway, I think the better team lost.

thebaz

I'm no front row expert, but realise this is a serious problem area for the world cup, will either Best or Young challenge Hayes or Horan , given the scrum was as solid as its been for a long time !

crybaby

decent enough performance except for the complete and utter lack of discipline shown especially by the Ulster players in the pack. Apart from the discipline though the entire front row were excellent as were Best and Heaslip, Gleeson was a bit invisible for the entire game

Boss I thought generally was OK but he made some very ppor decisions when it came to kicking the ball away and one of them resulted in Argentina counter attacking and getting the vital try aswell and Paddy Wallace just doesn't look international standard to me.

poor decision making at the end as well, we had Argentina and we would have either scored a try or gotten the penalty, instead we had Murphy making some half ass attempt at a drop goal instead.

Carney did well I thought, Tommy Bowe on the other hand just continues to look out of his depth in international games

zAbbo

Re: Front Row :
Realisitically, No, they won't

Best can play either side of the scrum, and is by all means a dedicated player.

Argentina are embarrassed with quality front rowers, and they can effectively put together 4-5 front rows without diminishing the quality.

Our lack of props, means that both will probably travel to the RWC (Best for sure)

It's also worth noting that Bowe was playing left wing, and not his favoured right wing (accommodating Carney), I still think he'll make the RWC squad, but has an uphill struggle to displace either Rob Kearney, Luke Fitzgerald, Carney, Geordon Murphy, Trimble, or whoever else Eddie marks as a winger.

Rob Kearney could make it and has the footballing skills to play FB or Wing

thebaz

zabbo wrote:

It's also worth noting that Bowe was playing left wing, and not his favoured right wing (accommodating Carney), I still think he'll make the RWC squad, but has an uphill struggle to displace either Rob Kearney, Luke Fitzgerald, Carney, Geordon Murphy, Trimble, or whoever else Eddie marks as a winger.

Rob Kearney could make it and has the footballing skills to play FB or Wing

I think Bowe is very average , and would hope he doesn't make the squad