irish player of the tournament ?

thebaz

So who was the best Irish player during this short World Cup campaign ?

Tough one , eh !!
Certainly not Leamy, D'Arcy , O'Gara , Horan , ...

Once again O'Driscoll in my mind is the only one who can hold there head high, despite his silly rant after scoring today.

Irish Wolf

Good jaysus what a question..

I say Reddan..

JC 2K3

Reddan. For the simple fact that he's perhaps the only positive to come from this tournament.

ongarite

Reddan or Dempsey I suppose.

thebaz

Irish Wolf wrote:

Good jaysus what a question..

I say Reddan..

actually on second thoughts , i change my mind, Brian Carney hardly put a foot wrong

Irish Wolf

thebaz wrote:

actually on second thoughts , i change my mind, Brian Carney hardly put a foot wrong

curiosity

None of the tight five can say they had a good tournament. Leamy was poor all through, Wallace only showed what he can do today. Easterby was the only consistently performing forward imo.

Half-backs; no one really stood out. Reddan offered something different but playing between a beaten pack and a misfiring outhalf was never going to be easy.

3/4ers; Dempsey was solid in the three games he played, and O' Driscoll really gave it his all today.

LuckyLloyd

Dempsey.

bleg

reddan and dempsey are the only irish players to come out of this WC with their reputations enhanced


also brian carney and alan quinlan, but that's because they got no game time

mental07

thebaz wrote:

silly rant after scoring today.

Silly rant?

bleg

curiosity wrote:

None of the tight five can say they had a good tournament. Leamy was poor all through, Wallace only showed what he can do today. Easterby was the only consistently performing forward imo.

leamy was one of our best players throughout the tournament, wasn't his best game today but was fiercely aggressive vs France, i agree with you on wallace but easterby has been fairly anonymous in fairness.

Hermy

curiosity wrote:

Easterby was the only consistently performing forward imo.

I thought all the lads showed great consistency throughout the tournament.:rolleyes:

admsitio

D'arcy

Irish Wolf

admsitio wrote:

D'arcy

**spinnnnnnnnns around 14 times** Nope!

Try again..

thebaz

mental07 wrote:

Silly rant?

did you not see him running back after scoring , goading the Pumas , didn't have the desired effect -- to put it mildly , these guys don't need to be wound up

thebaz

actually it might be more interesting to name worst Irish player of the tournament

step forward
Horan, O'Gara , D'Arcy , Leamy , O'Callaghan

oh and Paul O'Connell is most definitly human

Doubs

worst player for me was without doubt o gara, performances were poor up to now but he was abysmal against the argies, i felt sorry for paddy wallace - if he's not going to get a run with o gara playing like that he never will. no wonder humphries retired.

as for best player, like somebody mentioned i'd probably say reddan because he's probably the only positive thing to come out of this WC, but i'm going to have to say o driscoll, the guys a class act.

zAbbo

Dricco or Dempsey.

As for worst player, any of the Munster players.

Linford

Has to be Redden, Dempsey or O'Driscoll. Easterby the only forward who really performed against France and Argentina (he was poor in first two matches).

I am not a munster basher, but not one of the munster players played well during the entire tournament...

LuckyLloyd

Ye can bash Munster all ye like - but take a long hard look in Gordon Darcy's direction first before picking a "worst" player of the tournament.

MikeHoncho

LuckyLloyd wrote:

Ye can bash Munster all ye like - but take a long hard look in Gordon Darcy's direction first before picking a "worst" player of the tournament.

Darcy was bad. When the **** did he turn into Kevin Mags (and a second rate Kevin Mags at that).

Amazotheamazing

I don't think Dempsey did that well, his kicks against France were too long and put us under huge pressure.

Reddan, maybe.

goose06

Hayes, went about his business well

lisbon_lions

Reddan for me.

bugler

Easterby the only forward who really performed against France and Argentina (he was poor in first two matches).

He didn't perform at all yesterday. I was watching with my girlfriend's brother, and we agreed the first time we heard his name was around the hour mark. Maybe that was down to the commentator? So while he was the best forward against France in loose play, he was utterly anonymous in 3 out of 4 games.

Hayes had a decent tournament. The scrum was a positive. POC wasn't as bad at some are making out, though that missed lineout catch after 5 mins yesterday had me in hysterics.

D'Arcy had an awful WC. I can't help but think back to the Lions tour...:(

Hickie was brutal, starting with his failure to pass a scoring try against Italy in the warm-up game. There were a couple of instances yesterday where I thought he was showing less than 100% commitment, which is a terrible thing to think or say.

Girve was solid. Horan turned his game upside down, and went from being a pansy in the scrum with good hands to being fairly solid in the scrum and having hands like cows udders.

DOC didn't make an impression at all.

I think Wally was just coming back to form now, a few games too late.

BOD looked sharp, but at times was very obviously trying too hard and overdid things..but who could blame him.

Trimble isnt a winger, he was bad. Shaggy was more or less useless.

So no, not many positives to take out of this.

matt-dublin

redden ftw

tampopo

yeah, has to be Reddan for the only bright spot.

I heard on the radio this morning he appeared for Ireland on the wing a few years ago.

I barely remember this, was it, must it have been due to injuries to the replacements?

funky penguin

O'Driscoll. Lesser, evils etc.

nacho libre

Hayes.
He has been an unsung hero for Ireland in the past.
He along with Reddan can feel satisfied with their performances.... O'Driscoll and Wallace did well yesterday.

Punchbowl

Did Duffy get any ball yesterday when he came on??

bleg

I want to wait to see what comes out about BOD after the WC because if even 1% of the rumours about what he did are true then his reputation will be well and truely smashed.



the whole team was lacking pride and passion (can't blame them after trying to get psyched up to that phil coulter trash)

if we fielded the full munster, the full leinster or the full ulster team in this WC i have no doubt that the performance would have been vastly improved if not the results. there is clearly something wrong/something not clicking between the players from the different provincial sides.

RuggieBear

Best player: Hayes. Was very good at keeping his side up so over performed there. Was also quite prominat in the loose against france. BOD was the best Irish player but was a shadow of what we know he can do.

Worst: D'Arcy. Well i reckon D'Arcy was way below what we should expect of him...but stringer, horan, ROG and Leamy were not far behind him in their sheer awfulness

Danie Gerber

1. BOD
2 Dempsey
3. Reddan
4. EASTERBUNNY
5. The Bull

In that order and the only players worth rating...

Erin Go Brath

BOD, Wallace, The Bull, Reddan were the best of a bad bunch.
ROG, Darcy, DOC and Trimble were the worst.

Actually there was a lot more bad than good. ROG was a complete disaster though. The amount of misskicks yesterday alone cost us dearly. Note to Eddie, and any future Irl manager: A viable backup outhalf is a necessity for any major tournament. Grooming a new 10 I'd imagine will be top of the agenda now!

jdivision

Hayes was best and not to get into provincial tit for tat proves that at least one Munster player did perform. You can't say Leinster or Ulster's players performed well either tbh when at most one person named two players from Leinster as playing well and one of them (O'Driscoll) had one good game. The whole team was terrible (and I stress team because we can't tell how good the squad were).
Worst was D'arcy I think but O'Gara was as bad.

tampopo

Erin Go Brath wrote:

: A viable backup outhalf is a necessity for any major tournament. Grooming a new 10 I'd imagine will be top of the agenda now!

They are grooming a number 10, check out Leinster. Oh, you mean an Irish one, duh, yeah, they should. Brennan had a good point about the clubs feeding the provinces and international team. It looks grim. Though, hold on, i had a scan through another thread which mentions U/18's and U/20's, of which I know little (as they're not on t'telly). Maybe there's hope

RugBeir

I dont think any player deserves the nomination. The game plan over ruled everything.

Its not fair to rate players given the restrictions of the gameplan they were working to. Imagine being asked to play with one hand behind your back! They were asked to play to a system that strangled their initiative and it worked! Full credit to EOS & management for this!

But BOD as captain, has to take responsibility for not taking on EOS and dealing with the evident problems.

Basically, the players were afraid to lift their heads up, risk errors or generally divert from the managment plan. Most importantly they were not allowed alter tactics in response to the failures.

IMO the tendency of EOS to avoid picking the more creative players like Murphy,Hickie and Reddan is clear evidence of the type of system he has imposed on the team. While outwardly he gave in to the clamour of criticism by selecting Murphy and Reddan, in reality he didn't divert an inch from the original boring game plan. The lads he called up were asked to stick to the plan, with the usual results.

It reminds me of Jack Charlton years ago battling with Liam Brady. Jack persevered, got rid of Brady and imposed his own dour plan. The football was not attractive but he ground out results and succeeded in getting the players to follow. While we may not have liked it, you would have to concede that his plan worked. --- 'keep them under pressure'.

But Eddie's plan has not worked!

EOS has succeeded in is squeezing the 'life' out of arguably the most talented bunch of rugby players to appear in a Green shirt in over 40 years with little to show for it.

He should be given his marching orders a.s.a.p.

nacho libre

RugBeir wrote:

I dont think any player deserves the nomination. The game plan over ruled everything.

Its not fair to rate players given the restrictions of the gameplan they were working to. Imagine being asked to play with one hand behind your back! They were asked to play to a system that strangled their initiative and it worked! Full credit to EOS & management for this!

But BOD as captain, has to take responsibility for not taking on EOS and dealing with the evident problems.
.

how do you know he didn't behind the scenes. I suspect EOS lost the confidence of some senior players and someone spoke out... i wonder who'll be the first to cash in on the debacle?

LuckyLloyd

RugBeir wrote:

It reminds me of Jack Charlton years ago battling with Liam Brady. Jack persevered, got rid of Brady and imposed his own dour plan. The football was not attractive but he ground out results and succeeded in getting the players to follow. While we may not have liked it, you would have to concede that his plan worked. --- 'keep them under pressure'.

Just for clarification's sake:

Brady would have been taken to Euro 88 (and probably captained the side) if he didn't blatantly kick someone in a game leading up to it and get a three match ban - ruling him out of the group stages. Charlton did not once fail to pick Brady for a competative international when he was available for selection.

zAbbo

tampopo wrote:

They are grooming a number 10, check out Leinster. Oh, you mean an Irish one, duh, yeah, they should. Brennan had a good point about the clubs feeding the provinces and international team. It looks grim. Though, hold on, i had a scan through another thread which mentions U/18's and U/20's, of which I know little (as they're not on t'telly). Maybe there's hope

The same u-20's which won the 6nations Grand Slam earlier this year, and feature heavily in Leinsters current squad

Stev_o

Hell no with Drico i thought he was a terrible Captain played for his own glory and no one else.

Dempsey for me even though im a huge Murphy fan. Dempsey really stepped out to me he prevented the flood gates opening at times and he lived up to his own hype which is what you want

legspin

It has to be the Bull.

The only one that did exactly what he was there for as well as he could.

il gatto

Hayes because he did his thing and did it well. Put in some fierce tackles throughout the group.
Reddan, because even though he couldn't save the whole affair, he's one of the few positive out of the whole thing.
Leamy, because even though he was swinging between decent and sh1te, at least he put in the effort. He put himself about in a way POC and O'Callaghan didn't (to be fair to O'Callaghan, he was much improved against Argentina, as was Wallace, but that was too late to be finding form).

il gatto

And as for worst player....ROG. It pains me to say it as I've been a huge fan and always had faith in him under pressure, but I think his whole game fell to pieces in the WC.
I think Stinger was unfortunate as the way the pack was bullied made his life very hard. I think it made him look worse than he was.
D'Arcy was a huge, huge disappointment. He's probably not far behind ROG for having his game just not happen. Anonomous to say the least.

EdgarAllenPoo

I'd say Reddan was the best of the lot, if he hasn't made the 9 shirt his own he's certainly second in line.

Linford

Even though EOS is probably at fault for a lot of what went wrong, he had nothing to do with the form of ROG and D'Arcy. D'Arcy was probably Ireland's worst player in the world cup, ROG just got blamed a bit more because his position is more important...

buck65

agreed linford

zAbbo

Linford wrote:

Even though EOS is probably at fault for a lot of what went wrong, he had nothing to do with the form of ROG and D'Arcy. D'Arcy was probably Ireland's worst player in the world cup, ROG just got blamed a bit more because his position is more important...

You could also argue that the backline moves were so predictable, ROG with the skip pass to BOD, or shunt it to D'Arcy when he was lined up by two men. D'Arcy is not a battering ram !

Interesting from Cheika yesterday, think he might look at Contempomi at 12, with Sexton being the form 10.

Also indicates he might be more willing to play Luke Fitz at 13

ironingbored

The worst irish player was undoubtedly Ronan O' Gara. His place kicking was atrocious, his positional kicking was even worse. Darcy is not too far behind. The front five bar Hayes were bullied in every single match.

The best Irish player was Brian O'Driscoll. Got us a much-needed try against Namibia and scored and made the second try against Argentina. BTW, what do people think he said upon scoring? I thought I lip read "this is just the start". Inocuous to say the least.

Bottom line is EOS must go. The fact that he is procrastinating shows how shallow and undignified a person he is. Anyone with a modicum of self-respect would resign with dignity after a WC like that.

tHE vAGGABOND

Best: Reddan, and Dempsey, and to a slightly lesser extent the Bull..

Worst: O'Gara by a mile. He had his best game of the tournament on Sunday, and was still waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off the mark.

Next comes Darcy, who may as well not have been on the pitch for what he was doing..

remus808

Depends. I think Reddan, Hayes, Dempsey and Flannery are the only ones who have consistently performed.

BOD, Easterby, Leamy etc both offset their better performances with lacklustre ones.