Well done IRFU

Trampas

I think the IRFU deserve a well done and congratulations to the IRFU for what they have achieved for the top tier of rugby (I can't comment on lower tiers)

Compared to the rest of the world (esp England) that have club vs country troubles and now with players going to France to play which BOD was tempted but glad he has stayed here.

Maybe some countries need to look at the Ireland set up but maybe to later. I think Wales and Scotland have/or trying to follow Irelands lead

I think the IRFU deserve some credit.

Lets hope Leinster vs Munster Heinken Cup final (Amazing way to finish the season).

seanhynes

wont happen,they can only clash in the semi finals

Chucky the tree

Trampas wrote: »

Lets hope Leinster vs Munster Heinken Cup final (Amazing way to finish the season).

Unpossible.

Trampas

haven't looked the fixtures so lets hope both in semi then :cool:

kerry4sam

I just hope that the finances keep going their way to ensure the future of Rugby in Ireland

Stev_o

Trampas wrote: »

I think the IRFU deserve a well done and congratulations to the IRFU for what they have achieved for the top tier of rugby (I can't comment on lower tiers)

Compared to the rest of the world (esp England) that have club vs country troubles and now with players going to France to play which BOD was tempted but glad he has stayed here.

Maybe some countries need to look at the Ireland set up but maybe to later. I think Wales and Scotland have/or trying to follow Irelands lead

I think the IRFU deserve some credit.

Lets hope Leinster vs Munster Heinken Cup final (Amazing way to finish the season).

2 Grand Slams and 20 or so year difference between our last championship win doesn't really sound like a great achievement by them considering our win ratio in the 5N/6N and our resources.

Trampas

Stev_o wrote: »

2 Grand Slams and 20 or so year difference between our last championship win doesn't really sound like a great achievement by them considering our win ratio in the 5N/6N and our resources.

we are taking about pro rugby here.

look up stats for last 10 years and you will see that Ireland have won joint first for 6 nations game with France

toomevara

Brilliant, brilliant achievement for the Irish team and the many fine, fine players who've graced the shirt over the past few years..I cant think of a more deserving bunch...brilliant to see such stalwarts rewarded for many years of often thankless toil...

...but,but,but when the furore dies down and the process of reflection begins as it must..we've got to realise that this was a very, very poor 6n...Italy are a joke and imo are no longer good enough to be in the competition, Scotland are beyond appalling and are surely also staring into the abyss of international oblivion and the French for reasons best known to themselves seem to have decided that this years 6n was an experimental testbed..their selectorial process was utterly insane...

The rugby in the competition this year was completely abysmal, and in large part, virtually unwatchable....

As for the IRFU, and the team in general...if we are to mount a successful defence next year we'll have to seriously up our game...

Stev_o

Trampas wrote: »

we are taking about pro rugby here.

look up stats for last 10 years and you will see that Ireland have won joint first for 6 nations game with France

And how many championships have we won? Just the one.

1996 England[14] (Triple Crown)
1997 France (Grand Slam)
1998 France (Grand Slam)
1999 Scotland[14]

Six Nations 2000–present
2000 England
2001 England[14]
2002 France (Grand Slam)
2003 England (Grand Slam)
2004 France (Grand Slam)
2005 Wales (Grand Slam)
2006 France[14]
2007 France[14]
2008 Wales (Grand Slam)
2009 Ireland (Grand Slam)

That's a shocking return for us considering the wealth the IRFU has and had at the time and the quality of players we produced at the dawn of the 21st century. Our record says that we are joint with France with 36 matches won and only one championship one. That's hardly something to be cheering about tbh.

delta_bravo

Jesus lads lighten up for christ sake. Enjoy the victory

stephen_n

Stev_o wrote: »

And how many championships have we won? Just the one.

1996 England[14] (Triple Crown)
1997 France (Grand Slam)
1998 France (Grand Slam)
1999 Scotland[14]

Six Nations 2000–present
2000 England
2001 England[14]
2002 France (Grand Slam)
2003 England (Grand Slam)
2004 France (Grand Slam)
2005 Wales (Grand Slam)
2006 France[14]
2007 France[14]
2008 Wales (Grand Slam)
2009 Ireland (Grand Slam)

That's a shocking return for us considering the wealth the IRFU has and had at the time and the quality of players we produced at the dawn of the 21st century. Our record says that we are joint with France with 36 matches won and only one championship one. That's hardly something to be cheering about tbh.

What wealth exactly have the IRFU had that you speak of? and as for talent yes we have had good players but never really the strength in depth that both England and France can muster. Wales have won 2 GS in the time period which is one more than us and England, who only won one despite the fact that they were totaly dominant and are the only NH team to win a world cup. Ireland population 4.5 million but we should be able to take on countries with 60+million your post kind os sums up the Irish as a race, negative to the core!

old boy

lies damm lies and statistics it is an old saying

Diamondmaker

In the last 60 odd years we have won 2 GS.

Now 1 of them occured in the last 10 (odd ) of professionalism, during that period Ireland have won more games % than ever before and although did not win a 6N or RWC have been very succesful with regard to victories and rankings.

It is worth poiting out that we have achived a lot more in 10 years than we have ever achieved in the preceding 10 decades.

It is safe to say that given our stance as a rugby nation 10 years ago we have come along a huge way. There is more to be done of course.

England, Scotland have regressed, with the exception of the 2003 RWC and GS, Italy peaked and faded, Oz, NZ and SA were already world class 3N holders and RWC champs in the past. Arengitna too have had their time in sun. Ireland for the last while have been very consistent.
Every one forgets England won the GS on their 4th attempt in 03. This steeled them to become RWC champs, hopefully this GS can steel us further.

No other nation has improved as consistently or as much as Ireland has since professionalism. The IRFU systems are almost solely responsible for this.

boardswalker

I cannot understand why the IRFU should be thanked. If my memory is correct, they seemed determined to appoint anyone but Kidney after EOS resigned. Only when no-one else wanted the job, did they offer it to Kidney.

The Irish Independent reports
"Two days on and it's still hard to get your head around it all. Declan Kidney, at the first attempt, has achieved what a raft of previous coaches could not manage. Not least former Ireland head coach Warren Gatland, who steered Wales to the Grand Slam last year in his debut season but got a spanking from Kidney this week, the Irishman giving the Kiwi a lesson in tactical appreciation before and during this epic showdown.

Once again, one is baffled by the memory of Kidney not being first choice for this gig when Eddie O'Sullivan stepped down last March -- Ireland seemed destined to fall back on the southern hemisphere despite the best candidate and coach with a proven record for getting the best out of this group of Irish players waiting for a call."

Thankfully. this worked in our favour as it put Kidney into a strong negotiating position when agreeing who should be in the management/coaching team.
The IRFU will not be shy basking in glory now, but it if they had their way we'd have had some non-Irish coach.

So well done, Declan Kidney; well done, the players and well done, the coaching team.

Serenity Now!

boardswalker wrote: »

The IRFU will not be shy basking in glory now, but it if they had their way we'd have had some non-Irish coach

If they had their way?? They appointed the best coach available and some "non-Irish" coaches too.

Why do Irish people hypocritically begrudge success to people so much? :rolleyes:

Diamondmaker

boardswalker wrote: »

I cannot understand why the IRFU should be thanked. If my memory is correct, they seemed determined to appoint anyone but Kidney after EOS resigned. .

Please just refer above to my post.

Show me one other nation that has improved consitently in the way Ireland has since professionalism kicked in?

Come on, its simple, we have achived more in 10 years than a hundred, this is down to the IRFU getting their act together better than any other nation when it became time for pro systems.

Sure people will disagree with some things and not everything is ideal but the facts clearly show Ireland has improved massively and not sporadically but consistently. This GS has been 5 plus years in tha making back when BODs shirts were baggy, Darcy was a winger and POC did not have his owb suoer hero branded undies.
People need to be aware of how marginal a sport it was years ago and how miserably poor our records were.

I remeber in the late 80s cheering cos we avoided the woodedn spoon !

The IRFU did not fluke this, the consistency is evidence of this.

The centrally contracted player system was the jewell in the crown prior to having all the jewels we have now :cool:

Pshan

boardswalker wrote: »

I cannot understand why the IRFU should be thanked. If my memory is correct, they seemed determined to appoint anyone but Kidney after EOS resigned. Only when no-one else wanted the job, did they offer it to Kidney.

The Irish Independent reports
"Two days on and it's still hard to get your head around it all. Declan Kidney, at the first attempt, has achieved what a raft of previous coaches could not manage. Not least former Ireland head coach Warren Gatland, who steered Wales to the Grand Slam last year in his debut season but got a spanking from Kidney this week, the Irishman giving the Kiwi a lesson in tactical appreciation before and during this epic showdown.

Once again, one is baffled by the memory of Kidney not being first choice for this gig when Eddie O'Sullivan stepped down last March -- Ireland seemed destined to fall back on the southern hemisphere despite the best candidate and coach with a proven record for getting the best out of this group of Irish players waiting for a call."

Thankfully. this worked in our favour as it put Kidney into a strong negotiating position when agreeing who should be in the management/coaching team.
The IRFU will not be shy basking in glory now, but it if they had their way we'd have had some non-Irish coach.

So well done, Declan Kidney; well done, the players and well done, the coaching team.

Will you give it a rest, Kidney may or may not have been 1st choice but there was certainly nothing wrong with the IRFU looking at all possible candidates and for that matter haven't the IRFU given Kidney everything he looked for since becoming coach, of course they deserve credit for this win.

stephen_n

boardswalker wrote: »

I cannot understand why the IRFU should be thanked. If my memory is correct, they seemed determined to appoint anyone but Kidney after EOS resigned. Only when no-one else wanted the job, did they offer it to Kidney.

The Irish Independent reports
"Two days on and it's still hard to get your head around it all. Declan Kidney, at the first attempt, has achieved what a raft of previous coaches could not manage. Not least former Ireland head coach Warren Gatland, who steered Wales to the Grand Slam last year in his debut season but got a spanking from Kidney this week, the Irishman giving the Kiwi a lesson in tactical appreciation before and during this epic showdown.

Once again, one is baffled by the memory of Kidney not being first choice for this gig when Eddie O'Sullivan stepped down last March -- Ireland seemed destined to fall back on the southern hemisphere despite the best candidate and coach with a proven record for getting the best out of this group of Irish players waiting for a call."

Thankfully. this worked in our favour as it put Kidney into a strong negotiating position when agreeing who should be in the management/coaching team.
The IRFU will not be shy basking in glory now, but it if they had their way we'd have had some non-Irish coach.

So well done, Declan Kidney; well done, the players and well done, the coaching team.

Given Kidney's history with the Leinster players in the squad and the apparent problems of the Leinster and Munster players uniting in an Irish setup under EOS it would seem to be sensible to look at other managers to achieve this. In the end with 20/20 hindsight Kidney has done this remarkably well but it's naive to suggest that the IRFU wouldn't have had to consider this when looking at options for managers, especially when they were coming in for such heavy criticsim at the time for stupidly extending EOS contract by four years. All in all the IRFU have guided Ireland through the professional era of the game better than any union in the world something other governing bodies in this country could learn from!

Real FM

Seriously think with the way 85% of the people here go on we should change it to: Boards.ie - now ye're whingin'

boardswalker

Two things.
1. The evidence of Kidney's capability existed long ago for anyone with an open mind. What Kidney had achieved before becoming Irish coach was up there with what Ferguson has achieved in Soccer - European wins.
2. As for whinging, any whinging that has occurred, occurred at the time of Kidneys appointment. Just look back at the threads at that time. One thread referred to him as Kickney - pretty low level stuff. He stayed quiet and delivered the goods, just like he did last week in the face of Gatland's comments.

themont85

stephen_n wrote: »

Given Kidney's history with the Leinster players in the squad and the apparent problems of the Leinster and Munster players uniting in an Irish setup under EOS it would seem to be sensible to look at other managers to achieve this. In the end with 20/20 hindsight Kidney has done this remarkably well but it's naive to suggest that the IRFU wouldn't have had to consider this when looking at options for managers, especially when they were coming in for such heavy criticsim at the time for stupidly extending EOS contract by four years. All in all the IRFU have guided Ireland through the professional era of the game better than any union in the world something other governing bodies in this country could learn from!

Agree. I wanted a foreign head coach originally because it was clear Irish rugby had run out of ideas and needed fresh impetus. But what Kidney did was excellent, he brought in assistants and gave them control of each area like Gert Smal with the forwards and Les Kiss the defence. Our pack has developed into a formidable unit under Smal. Fresh ideas, great coaching. Kidney has blended the coaching with his multitude of skills as a leader of the team. The IRFU were right to look far and wide but they made the right decision ultimately.