Are We Going Backwards or Forwards

Stev_o

So we have seen the warm up games and we have seen all 30 players in the squad play. Now after everything how do you think we have progressed.
Is it in the right or wrong direction.

Personally i think we have gone backwards to a certain degree. We all agree that the Autumn series was Irelands high point for a very long time and it also pointed out that we had a squad that had depth where players could step up to the challenge and do themselves and their country right.

After these warm up games i think we have completely lost it. We dont have a squad that has 30 players all with their hands up willing to stand up. [As in they will play but wont deliver]

We seem utterly lost on the field so much so that we have to resort to a very old style of rugby of kick and chase over and over and over again. What happened to Irish running rugby and flair?

Now people will point out injuries and say their to blame but still thats no excuse to World Cup Squad their SHOULD be players to take their place and give just a preformance.

What do you think?

Inquitus

We miss BOD and we miss Shaggy.

Out forwards sometimes go missing, like they did tonight, we need Wallace, and I personally wouldn't pick Easterby.

We always play ****e against Italy, though last 6 Nations campaign was the exception.

What to take out of this performance I don't know, meaningless freindlies are hard to get up for, but this was a truly shocking performance, and I am sitting here stunned at the level of ineptitude we displayed all over the park tonight, especially in the forwards.

I dont think we are going to know what the Story is until we run out against France......

LostinBlanch

Like I asked in the team to play Italy thread, what have we been doing since the end of the season?

We've been hearing about camps in Poland, warm weather training etc but right now I can't see the benefit of it? More PR spin than substance IMO.

All I've seen us do is go backwards. Surely a series of games against varying levels of opposition would have been the way to go i.e. start out against a club team first of all and then have games get progressively harder. It looks like to me that EOS and his team have taken their eye off the ball, concentrating more on off field training than gametime. I'd love to be proved wrong, but even to my untutored eye, it's easy to see that all is not well.

nacho libre

Inquitus wrote:

We miss BOD and we miss Shaggy.

QUOTE]

This doesn't account for the forwards poor display. The last game before the World Cup is not a meaningless friendly. Contrast this woeful display with France's clincial performances so far. To think this team was being touted as possible winners of the RWC. They'll struggle to get out of the group at this rate. Perhaps tonight's display was all a clever ruse to lull the French and Argentinian's into a false sense of security.

madds

This evening's display was totally inept - so many things were wrong I could sit here for an hour passing comment. The only positive I can take from it is that our last few performances will have "proved" to all those (including EOS) who have been talking Ireland up over the last 12 months that we haven't a snowball's chance of winning the WC. Ireland only perform well when we are seen as underdogs.

Hopefully the squad will put in the work required over the next 2 weeks and get it right for our opening game. I still think (and hope) we will be back to somewhere near our best come the France/Argentina games.

Valentia

Fairly poor stuff alright, though better that now than hammering everyone out of sight and the place going mad about us winning the WC.

Not important really, but I couldn't get over the reaction to the O'Gara try. It was obviously a try from the start. He lost control, the ball went backwards, hit the Italian's leg and went "forward". O'Gara put pressure on it....try. Do these guys actually know anything?

smashey

My thoughts on this may be a bit controversial. I think the performances over the past few weeks were influenced by the fear of serious injury/missing out in the back of the players minds, even though friendlies in rugby are far from their soccer counterparts and that the players are professionals. I really believe they can step up a gear when the real action starts.

Inquitus

Valentia wrote:

Fairly poor stuff alright, though better that now than hammering everyone out of sight and the place going mad about us winning the WC.

Not important really, but I couldn't get over the reaction to the O'Gara try. It was obviously a try from the start. He lost control, the ball went backwards, hit the Italian's leg and went "forward". O'Gara put pressure on it....try. Do these guys actually know anything?

QFT, **** luck for the Italians, after a great cover tackle, but a try without doubt

Oilrig

A shambles. No other way to describe it.

Professional squad, no expense spared...

Compare that performance to similar instances: multinational gets its ass kicked by minnow, professional soldiers routed by bandits, etc take your pick.

Don't give me this crap about how good the eyeties are.

This is the best we have. What have they done in camp? they looked like 15 strangers on the field.

Glad I'm going to the Namibia match, looks like the only one we'll win

dc69

not a chance it was a try,the italians were robbed and tbh i wish they would have won,maybe it would have knocked something into the players for the wc,becuase on a performance like that we aint getting too far,absolute joke:mad:

Oilrig

It may have been a try, from some angles it looked liked the "knock on" came from an Italian leg, regardless, shame on us for depending on it for a victory we didn't deserve.

Ditto six nations... we need to develop the killer instinct. Keep getting the job done until the final whistle is blown. We need to play always as if we were losing.

remus808

Our work at the breakdown has taken a severe downturn

We now have 9 backs and 5 forwards now that Best, Easterby and Leamy have decided to revolutionise modern rugby with their genius tactic of "not being arsed to contest for the ball".

I'm putting up a €1,000 reward for the first backrow to ACTUALLY be spotted in a ruck come WC time. My bet is it wont be until Argentina, by which time POC will be so embarrased that he'll dump-tackle Best headfirst into a ruck in a fit of anger.

"ruck you hairy gobsh1te, PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO THAT OPENSIDE"

Laslo

Two losses against Argentina, a loss against Scotland and what should have been a loss against Italy. Is this the darkest time for the Irish rugby squad this millenium? Have one of the greatest teams on Earth (supposedly) turned into a below average site overnight? Yes. It would seem so.

uberwolf

Stev_o wrote:

We seem utterly lost on the field so much so that we have to resort to a very old style of rugby of kick and chase over and over and over again. What happened to Irish running rugby and flair?

this much can be explained, EOS had confirmed that none of the play book would be shown, and presumably it won't in the easier group games either.

Which left the team with ye olde style club rugby to fall back on.

thirdmantackle

thought O'Gara was poor - doesn't look fully fit

he should have easily side stepped the full back for the last try

Hickie seems to have lost some pace. Trimble seems to afraid to pin back his ears and run with the ball.

Our ball handling was attrocious

quagmire69

Inquitus wrote:

We miss BOD and we miss Shaggy.

Out forwards sometimes go missing, like they did tonight, we need Wallace, and I personally wouldn't pick Easterby.

Couldnt agree more about easterby, he actually did nothing last nite. I don't wanna hear any more crap about him doing the unseen stuff well, he's just not up to it ( bar lineouts).

The front 3 were terrible, sorry make that front 5. The only player in the pack who i thought played well was N. best, but he is not a 7 by any stretch of the imagination. Surely he'll take the 6 spot when wallace comes back. ( which i don't think will happen, something smells really bad about his injury, i think we'll get one game out of him. hard, fast ground in france ain't good for ankles.)

Have been pro rory best but thinkin otherwise now.

Stringer showed how truly one dimensional his game is there last nite, too late to pick anybody else there though.

Don't think the rest of the backs were that bad otherwise, taking the ball from a scrum thats going backwards is not easy. I'm happy with trimble being centre backup. Murphy was extremely quiet for some reason. Hickie made some bad decisions out there too but he'll know better next time.

Having said all that, i do think we'll qualify from the group. We will beat the argies. We can afford to go into the WC cold as our first two matches will/should be confidence builders. Still think we can do it, anxiety is killing us at the mo.

EdgarAllenPoo

Without any forwards we're going backwards. Backs can only play with what a forward gives them, other than high balls and such so without decent forwards or at very least a decent back row we have very little to play with.

It doesn't seem to me that we have a bad team, if you look at the 6 Nations it was pretty much the same team and we did well, I just think this team has been hyped as if they were the All Blacks and anything less than perfection is seen as disaster by fans and the media.

Look at what happened to England after they won in 03, ok some players retired and some got injured but they went from a tremendous high to a low.

Ireland haven't reached that height but we could well be in for a short sharp shock in France and go through a post RWC phase much like England did.

The task is to prepare for that to minimise the negative affect it has on the team and the game in Ireland after this WC because I don't think we're going too far in September.

pred racer

smashey wrote:

My thoughts on this may be a bit controversial. I think the performances over the past few weeks were influenced by the fear of serious injury/missing out in the back of the players minds, even though friendlies in rugby are far from their soccer counterparts and that the players are professionals. I really believe they can step up a gear when the real action starts.

I hope to god this is the reason!
The problem I have is that when a team is playing as lethargically(sp?) as ireland, it can be very hard to get going again.

What odds an excuse of 'over-preparation' if we do sh1te?

Killme00

Whs the point in playing warm up games if we arent going to gain anything from it. We would be better off playing Ireland A or a province behind closed doors and using the full playbook. To me it looked more like the players didnt want to get injured and as such werent putting it about.

zAbbo

I was wondering why Marcus Horan went out to the wing a number of times during set back moves, unfortunately we were having a torid time getting clean ball from rucks, so he might have been better served protecting our quick ball.

It was a poor game, Hickie certainly looked the most likely to create something, and looks in great shape

Stev_o

I dont think any player had a great game last night nearly all of them had mears. Though if i had to give anyway one any credit was Dempsey he did very well in places and not so great in others but overal good.

I dont know what playbooks eddie is hiding it seems very stupid to me not to use them against any side and just use them at training how the hell are they supposed to know they will work on the day? Training's one thing real matches against hardened opposition is another

Hugh_C

zabbo wrote:

Hickie certainly looked the most likely to create something, and looks in great shape

... and is looking more and more like a certain famous (retired) Irish hooker with his go-faster hair.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

RugBeir

I think the best performance I ever saw in 35 years from an Ireland team was against Australia last November in atrocious weather conditions.

A polished controlled performance combining discipline and flair,it represented the highpoint of this teams achievments to date. Team selections and performances since then prove that the team selection on that occasion was merley a stroke of good fortune. It also proves the Irish team managements incompetence. And it is fair to say that the lack lustre 6 nation performance supports this conclusion. Instead of building on that success they reverted to the old predictable selections and went backwards!

So what has gone wrong, what critical changes by EOS produced such spectacular setbacks? The first one was to tinker with that backline - which on that particular day was worldclass and produced its best ever display.

No 15 - Geordan Murphy is a must for class and inspiration. He dragged us out of a hole V Wales in the 6 nations and only for poor referee would have saved us against France. It is is best position and he adds that extra undefinable dimension. His creativity compliments our worldclass centres and wingers.
No 9 - big problem. Issac Boss is every bit as good as Stringer and needs to given support by the management. Alternatively Eoin Reddan should be started. Alas I think it is a case of EOS' heart ruling his head and making plain bad decisions. No 9 is too important a position. Italy actually have two who are arguably better than all our no. 9s! (Griffin and Troncon).
No 10 - O Gara on his day, great! But is inclined to have an off day. The perfect solution on those days was David Humphrys and vice versa. I wonder who pissed off David so much that he withdrew from the team? Now we are exposed at no 10 and EOS is racing round trying to turn an obvious first choice number 15 into both winger and reserve out half at the same time! !
David Trimble is a good utility back to have in reserve and might possibly make an out half, if anyone cared to experiment.

Next the forwards -

Irelands biggest weakness as a team is the front row and EOS shouldnt be afraid to experiment, as he did in that match V Australia in which they held up extremely well.
Aside from the front row, I think O Connell, O Callaghan, Wallace,Leamy and N.Best have proven themselves as first choice forwards at this stage.

For the record, that Irish team selected (inadvertently chosen!) was:

Ireland V Australia Nov 2006:

1 - Bryan Young
2 - Rory Best
3 - John Hayes
4 - Donncha O'Callaghan
5 - Paul O'Connell
6 - Neil Best
7 - David Wallace
8 - Denis Leamy

9 - Isaac Boss
10 - Ronan O'Gara
11 - Denis Hickie
12 - Gordon D'Arcy
13 - Brian O'Driscoll
14 - Shane Horgan
15 - Geordan Murphy

Valentia

thirdmantackle wrote:

thought O'Gara was poor - doesn't look fully fit

he should have easily side stepped the full back for the last try

Hickie seems to have lost some pace. Trimble seems to afraid to pin back his ears and run with the ball.

Our ball handling was attrocious

None of that would worry me one bit TBH. A proper training regime would put them about there at this time. Heavy training can do that, make you leaden footed. I have a sneaking feeling that come when it matters fitness will be at its peak. That's how it should work anyway and the indicators are better as is rather than the lads flying like greyhounds now and being knackered in four weeks time when the heavy stuff starts.

quagmire69

RugBeir - agree with what your saying. Except for griffin being any good and trimble at 10. Takes a long time to get that sort of a kicking game up to scratch. I would like to see murphy at 15 too but that leaves us short on the wing with horgan being injured at the mo. Your team selection is near spot on. I don't think strings is the answer but the others have not been given enough game time to prove themselves so strings has to be the man i would think.

Daveirl - Agree with having to listen to the crap that comes out of hooks mouth is getting old. What i found even worse though was the EOS interview at the beginning trying to justify not bringing a 7. Gleeson is more than up to the standard. To say he isn't credible is just plain ignorant.

zAbbo

David Humphreys has a twisted ankle, so should quieten the 'Bring Back David' brigade.

Thankfully I missed any aftermatch tripe from Hook (I was at the game).

I wouldn't be overly concerned, I think the game will be raised come RWC.

redmca

Most players (forwards especially) had a collective bad day with 1 or 2 reasonable performances (Darcy & Dempsey come to mind)

The basic errors remain, ROG failing to find touch, resulting in a super DG for Italy, Hickie at fault in this regard too......

As for Rory Best, what is his problem at line outs?? He regularly seems to be at sea regarding the calls and got penalised not once but twice for taking too long .... a slow learner methinks.
Then he blatantly obstructed an Italian runner chasing a kick ahead, no idea how he wasn't sin-binned for that.

The main thing result of the game is no injuries, and a wake up call.
Our schedule is looking more attractive as we will have the Namibia & Georgia matches to try to get things right before the main events.

Sangre

Laslo wrote:

Two losses against Argentina, a loss against Scotland and what should have been a loss against Italy. Is this the darkest time for the Irish rugby squad this millenium? Have one of the greatest teams on Earth (supposedly) turned into a below average site overnight? Yes. It would seem so.

That actually made me laugh out loud.

I'm starting to hate RTEs panel, especially McGuirk. That guy must have broken his nose dozens of times with his knee jerk reactions.

Didn't see most of the second half as was out.

marco_polo

Sangre wrote:

That actually made me laugh out loud.

I'm starting to hate RTEs panel, especially McGuirk. That guy must have broken his nose dozens of times with his knee jerk reactions.

Didn't see most of the second half as was out.

Yeah I agree entirely with those sentiments.

I mean what did people want, Ireland to show off all of their planned set plays for the upcoming world cup? I will admit that some of the play was very poor indeed, but I am willing to give the boys the benifit of the doubt and assume that they are either training intensively at the moment and/or that they were holding back to avoid injuries and avoid showing their hand.

The players got some more badly needed game time, we won (with a perfectly good try) and picked up no additonal injuries. Mission accomplished.

Jesus from all the massive overreactions I think that certain people only read rugby coverage from the tabloids. One week we are going to win the thing and the next struggle to finish third in our pool. Since when did Irish rugby followers turn into English soccer fans? :rolleyes:

If we get knocked out in the pool stages then by all means lynch the team but not after a poor showing in a world cup warmup FFS.

Chucky the tree

Dont really understand why everyone is suddenly suprised about our performances, we were muck in the 6 nations aswell.