the six nations 2008

nacho libre

Should Ireland put a couple of wins together I fully expect EOS to champion how the players have recovered their form after the RWC blip. :rolleyes:

Not that i begrudge England their win today but it really renders Ireland's six nations win, last March, against them meaningless. I will revise my opinion of the ability of this team and start to believe in EOS vision(?) when the team wins a GS by beating England and France away.

Saruman

Not sure what the point of this post is, other than another rant about Eddie

The players played crap for whatever reason. A few are getting on in years, even O 'Driscol is getting tired now.
EOS can drill them all he likes.. at the end of the day its down to the players.

nacho libre

Saruman wrote:

Not sure what the point of this post is, other than another rant about Eddie

yeah it makes me feel better;)

Saruman

Everyone has bad times.. Look at Australia today.. they were useless.. And new Zealand played well but did not play as well as they usually do and both are out now.

daveirl

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bugler

We start at home to Italy, fairly favourable. But next up it's away to France.

What do people think it would take for EOS to get the bullet? 3 losses in the 6N? I suppose 2 wouldn't be enough.

davyjose

I think we'll hit a sharp decline To be honest. We've been saying it for 2 years now - it's time to blood some younger players. Guys Like Jamie Heaslip and Luke Fitzgerald are the future and it's time to make a choice, push for another couple of triple crowns, or take the hit now and give the young guys some experience for the next World Cup!!!

Stev_o

davyjose wrote:

I think we'll hit a sharp decline To be honest. We've been saying it for 2 years now - it's time to blood some younger players. Guys Like Jamie Heaslip and Luke Fitzgerald are the future and it's time to make a choice, push for another couple of triple crowns, or take the hit now and give the young guys some experience for the next World Cup!!!

What scares me with that statement is that the number of players that are being quoted as future Ireland starters are playing for Leinster who we say against the Scarlets on Friday, they got thrashed by the Welsh future squads and considering the Scarlets arent the strongest Welsh team.
I mean 45-11 is pretty disgraceful at Magners level how they are supposed to contain with Top 14 and Premiership Teams playing for their national team is beyond me.

zAbbo

In fairness Stev_o, Leinster had 2 players in the bin when 3 tries sailed by. Not excusing a poor performance though.

padser

That Leinster could have gone either way at half time, leinster had had most of the play and just needed a try after half time to let them go on and win the game I think - the scoreline didn't reflect the game imo. There wasn't a massvie gulf in class between the two sides, they just got a few breaks and then pulled away.

People talking about the players fault doesn't really make sense. . If Ronan O Gara goes out and misses a few kicks, and Murphy misses a tackle, and Darcy runs into a few brick walls and doesn't make any breaks you can say the players had a bad game and need to look at themselves. When 15-20 players have 5/6 off games in a row you have to look at the coach - because collectively the team is not performing

As for the 6N I would say that unless we win the 6N this yr EOS must go.

No 6N, No Grand Slam, No RWC Semi Final (indeed no Quarter Final this time around) simply is not good enough for a bunch of players with the talent these guys have. EOS must be the guy to take responsibility for this.
Whatever about the RWC which comes around so infrequently the 6N comes around every year. We have had O Connell, BOD, Darcy, Horgan etc playing top class rugby for the last 4 years at least. WHY HAVE WE NEVER WON THE 6N????????????????????????

RuggieBear

Stev_o wrote:

What scares me with that statement is that the number of players that are being quoted as future Ireland starters are playing for Leinster who we say against the Scarlets on Friday, they got thrashed by the Welsh future squads and considering the Scarlets arent the strongest Welsh team.
I mean 45-11 is pretty disgraceful at Magners level how they are supposed to contain with Top 14 and Premiership Teams playing for their national team is beyond me.

erm....23 - 52 to the Scarlets
Regan king is a very good player. MCfadden and the rest of the leinster young'uns have the potential to be very good players. Just very naive and on friday what dissapointed me the most was the lack of effort in defence. They were willing to bust a gut in attack but not put in the effort to defend.

I see Ulster got dicked on at the weekend too.:(

il gatto

England, France and Scotland will all have their tails in the air come the 6N. It's hard to see Ireland returning to form quickly enough. Best guage will be to see how our internationals perform for their provinces, or clubs (Murphy and Reddan) and hope that if they're playing well at that level, it may gel come the spring for Ireland.
Remember, our sh1te international form did not come from nowhere. A first round exit from the HEC for Leinster, Munster and Ulster last season, would indicate that alot of our players were not on a good streak of form long before the Scotland warm up.

SameDifference

nacho libre wrote:

Should Ireland put a couple of wins together I fully expect EOS to champion how the players have recovered their form after the RWC blip. :rolleyes:

Not that i begrudge England their win today but it really renders Ireland's six nations win, last March, against them meaningless. I will revise my opinion of the ability of this team and start to believe in EOS vision(?) when the team wins a GS by beating England and France away.

Not at all...

Even english pundits said that it was one of the greatest matches in six nations history.

daveirl

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Diamondmaker

nacho libre wrote:

Should Ireland put a couple of wins together I fully expect EOS to champion how the players have recovered their form after the RWC blip. :rolleyes:

I absolutely love that term !!

For Christs sake Sept 11th was a blip on a radar screen just before that happened !

SameDifference

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Dunno... They're the pundits not me...

davyjose

Stev_o wrote:

What scares me with that statement is that the number of players that are being quoted as future Ireland starters are playing for Leinster who we say against the Scarlets on Friday, they got thrashed by the Welsh future squads and considering the Scarlets arent the strongest Welsh team.
I mean 45-11 is pretty disgraceful at Magners level how they are supposed to contain with Top 14 and Premiership Teams playing for their national team is beyond me.

You think Richie McCaw and Dan Carter and Brian Habana, and ... ANYBODY have never taken a hiding in their career, not even once? Trust me, one or two of the players I mentioned there will be a damn sight better than what we've got today. for instance, it's likely we're going to have a decent number 8 someday - :eek:
Also you seem to attributing the result solely on the young lads shoulders - if you had the ten best players in the world, and the five worst, you'd be a very average team!!!

davyjose

zabbo wrote:

In fairness Stev_o, Leinster had 2 players in the bin when 3 tries sailed by. Not excusing a poor performance though.

A poor 20 minutes, before and after which they were the equal of them. Sorry, I'm still a bit bemused that someone would question the future of Irish Rugby after a 20 minute period where some talented players, lacking in nothing but experience let in 3 tries :rolleyes:

Stev_o

davyjose wrote:

A poor 20 minutes, before and after which they were the equal of them. Sorry, I'm still a bit bemused that someone would question the future of Irish Rugby after a 20 minute period where some talented players, lacking in nothing but experience let in 3 tries :rolleyes:

And you should know that letting 3 tries in 20 minutes is just heading down the road of "Lets just try to not look bad in the progress of loosing"

Also note that "those" players wont be getting many chances now in the coming months.

Now im not denying that taking a hiding can benificial cause we all know it is [wakes you up etc] but the whole "lets just give up" attitude was dire.

The ONLY positive i drew from that match was they did actually try and succeed in responding to the first try.

Im still not convinced that selection is the future of Irish Rugby, I still think some of the lads that where in Ireland A during the Churchill Cup could be future players

davyjose

Stev_o wrote:

The ONLY positive i drew from that match was they did actually try and succeed in responding to the first try.

Im still not convinced that selection is the future of Irish Rugby, I still think some of the lads that where in Ireland A during the Churchill Cup could be future players

They got a couple of tries at the end too. I know what you're saying but I genuinely think it's down to experience - a bonus point win against the blues the week before suggests it's not all doom and gloom.

I think fitzgerald, Kearney and Heaslip from Leinster are certainties barring injury or a svere lack of development. I'm not talking about them taking over right away, but they need some game time in the coming year. They WILL be the guys in the squad in 4 years!

raven136

6 nations 2008,do we want to win it or so we want to finally bed some new players in.Personally id take some beatings if it meant Kearney,Fitzgerald,Jennings etc were given decent run outs in the team

komodosp

Should Ireland put a couple of wins together I fully expect EOS to champion how the players have recovered their form after the RWC blip.

Of course, sure he'd be right!

nacho libre

SameDifference wrote:

Not at all...

Even english pundits said that it was one of the greatest matches in six nations history.

from a historical perspective maybe it was a great spectacle to some. As a sporting contest it was one-sided and that's not my criteria of a great game.
Anyway, that English team is unrecognisable performance-wise from the team that's playing now in the World Cup. This really puts it into perspective the value of beating England last march. Another words it means sod all. The World Cup is what it's all about.

il gatto

raven136 wrote:

6 nations 2008,do we want to win it or so we want to finally bed some new players in.Personally id take some beatings if it meant Kearney,Fitzgerald,Jennings etc were given decent run outs in the team

Win at all costs. This generation is nearing the end with no real silverwear to show for it. It'd be too much to have to start with a new batch of players as everyone is sick of waiting. What's there to build towards if we have our best set of players ever and nothing to show for it, as it's unlikely the next generation will be as good as a whole?

toomevara

There is a thin line between wholesale change and complete conservatism and all the great coaches know how to walk it. Ireland must begin a rebuilding process and look beyond the usual 20 or so suspects, we must build depth into our squad and give 'fringe' squad members game time and a belief that they have a genuine shot at a place in a match XV.

As someone said the other day there should be no mortgages on Irish shirts. O'Sullivan also needs to understand the concept that modern test rugby is about 22 players and not 15...just look at how the english and french used their subs to strengthen and build on good performances on saturday.

Yeah, I would take a few dodgy 6N campaigns for the sake of team building and tactical/strategic tweaking. Anything to avoid a repeat of the past month....

RugBeir

padser wrote:

As for the 6N I would say that unless we win the 6N this yr EOS must go.

Be realistic, we have zero chance of a 6N or Grand slam in 2008. We are on a road to a hiding being led by EOS. And if were honest about it, the RWC 07 wasnt the first time the Irish team have given such a dead performance. France, Wales and Scotland this year, France last year, France and Wales in 2005 etc..etc..

We will be doing well to avoid the wooden spoon. Why we have to wait until that happens to dump Eddie is beyond me! Get rid of him now.

The morale of the team has to be rebuilt and new players brought in. EOS has proven he is incapable of doing this.