Bold Move: Should we get O'Kelly to replace POC

Ill get flamed to the hills for this but POC has done absolutely nothin in this tournament and one of our biggest problems has been the absolute zero function of our lineout. Id bring O'Kelly into the team solely to catch the goddam ball. If we are to have any chance at all of beating the Argies with a bonus point we need platform from the set piece and we havent been getting it....at all. Almost all the throws tonight went to Easterby and the French figured that out early and stole some ball. Where the hell was the "best lock in the world"?? He was anonymous, O Kelly in the time he was on caught every throw. He's limited around the park but we need a lineout option now.


The reason I say POC over DOC is that DOC has actually been making some impact in the physicality stakes. Having O'Kelly on to win the lineouts in the first half and bringing a fresh O'Connell (fresh as well from a boot up the backside after being dropped) in after 50 minutes could be a useful tactic.


Thoughts? (and none of this Munster/Leinster bullcrap)


And no, NOBODY should have the right to the jersey, not even BOD or POC, if u play ****, u should be dropped. get these guys out of their comfort zone.

jayteecork

Yeah O'Connell's been diabolical in the World Cup. And in the 6 nations 'cept when he had that one game against a very poor English side.
To be honest, when I saw O'connell in the tunnel before the game he looked fired up and I thought the big performance was coming at last.
how wrong I was.

tolosenc

I agree with the "Play **** and you're out" attitude, but DOC should get the boot over POC. O'Connell did stuff against Georgia and Namibia, DOC was just an amteur in all the games, did only detriment to the squad. Malcolm is more than welcome as a starter in the pack IMO.

joenailface

All ive seen O'Connell do during the WC is fumble the ball at lineouts and going down in an instant whenever he tries to run the ball...in fairness though DOC hasn't been any better, neither deserve a place on the team. That's the problem with the irish rugby team today, everyone is assured they're going to get their place so they dont feel the need to fight hard for it.

ixus

The POC myth has been blow out of the water in the last year. Way too much hype of late.

Maybe he's spending too much of his time writing up his articles for The Sunday times( I think it's that paper) and talking the talk.

The Irish lineout has failed to function against the French on numerous occasions and it was no different lasnight. EOS coming on TV afterwards and saying that was a big part of there game plan just shows how unprepared they were for the French challenge.

Also, I despise the practice of not challenging in the lineout on a regular basis. It's a negative approach that rarely benefits the team.

batman2000

Yep bring in Mal, when he came on against Georgia he caught every lineout ball that POC didn't....end of...

bugler

POC has been ok in the loose. It isn't that he's performing badly in the lineout, it's that he isn't calling the throws to himself.

We saw this in the 6N too, sparking rumours that he didn't rate R Best. But then he snapped out of it, and called a huge amount of ball to himself in the England game, and dominated the lineout.

Whenever you see a team in trouble at the lineout, they either cut the lineout, or more commonly they throw to the front. Ireland did neither, continually throwing to the back where France specialise in producing back rowers who excel in the air. It was idiotic.

MOK would have been valuable in last nights game. But he's past it all the same, his work in the loose isn't up to much. I don't expect Argentina have the lineout to cause us as much trouble.

razorblunt

Mal has the physicality of a wet paper bag, he shouldn't be anywhere near the squad never mind the starting XV, he's constantly overlooked Bob Casey who has been in the top three lineout winners both on his throw and against in the Premiership for the last few years, it's time for Trevor Hogan to step up as well.

POC's performance last night was at least a step up, I can't remember when DOC had a big game for Ireland but the same goes for Hayes and Horan as well, maybe it's time for sweeping changes all round.

Snickers Man

MOK for POC is daring but not the boldest move he should be considering.

How about Paddy Wallace (or whisper it Geordan Murphy) for O'Gara? For whatever reason O'Gara is not playing well this WC, has been taking the ball way too deep, has been utterly unable to get the backline going and his kicking out of hand is nothing like as good as it should be.

The fact that there is no obvious understudy, or that Wallace has been dismissed as being capable of same, is a disgrace and one of the sticks that O'sullivan will certainly be beaten with when postmortems are due.

I also think that the team has lost faith in O'Gara at the moment. The incident at the end of the first half, when Horgan tried to catch a ball that he should have left for O'Gara to take spoke volumes. He should have trusted O'gara to take it but didn't. from the ensuing linout near our line, France got a penalty and went 12-3 up instead of the teams going in at half-time at 9-3 with all to play for.

Murhpy or Wallace at No 10?

Stev_o

Its a hard one really, you could replace O Gara with Murphy but problem is that it would be fairly scrappy since its been years since Murphy has played there though least he can find touch and the like.

MOK has to get the green light i seriously dont know why DOC is in the squad the only idea i have is that he's advertising fake tan cause every time i see him on tv he seems to have a new shade of orange on his face, bloody journey men he is.

Question here for everyone.

Has anyone actually seen any back line moves been done in this tournament so far/?? Last one's i can remember was against Scotland at the warm up's. Anyone know anything about it?

Hugh_C

ixus wrote:

The Irish lineout has failed to function against the French on numerous occasions and it was no different lasnight.

Why, WHY oh why is it acceptable to tap uncontrolled ball down from a lineout? When I was on the friggin JCT when I was 15 it was forbidden. What in the name of all things holy has happened?

zAbbo

Isn't POC calling the lineouts ? If so there were poor on Friday, look at France, Chabal stole at least 3 from DOC, and they threw safe balls to Bonnaire. compared to the messy complicated back of the lineout calls POC was using.

If anyone saw Wales v Japan game, apart from Japan putting up an OK effort, their second row called and won every lineout put in they had.

POC was never one of the best locks in World Rugby, guys like Matfield would destroy him, drop him and put in MOK, but thats not going to happen.

Hickie back at 11, Horgan at 14, and Murphy at 15.

Absolute shame there's a bunch of players who won't even make the bench at this RWC.

With the array of backrow options, Why have we not put in Quinlan or Ferris, what was the logic in bringing Brian Carney if he wasn't going to get a game. Isn't he the reason we have a 16/14 split ?.

Surely if would have been better served to bring Heaslip as an option over Leamy.

You could almost suffer a poor RWC, if it meant changes would be made, that 4 year contract is looking an extremely poor decision now.

Too many squad players chosen on versatility rather than out and out ability.

Watching Leinster on Saturday, I was wondering would players like Cullen, Heaslip and Rob Kearney have been any worse than those who went ?