Ireland's props, present and future.

buck65

1st off congratulations to John Hayes for winning his 100th cap. Some milestone for a great man.
Hayes though is in the deep winter of his career and is struggling to keep up at international level. I hope John retires this year and takes a well earned rest from international rugby.
Tony Buckley did well especially in the loose and had a good game last week for Munster against Edinburgh. His scrumaging was adequate in 2 scrums against a so so English scrum. I feel Buckley's value in the future will be coming off the bench when the game is looser with 15/20 to go and the oomph has gone out of the scrum.
Cian Healy is learning his trade well and probably put pressure on himself by having such a good debut against Australia. He will be a good prop in time. Also needs to improve in the scrum. Marcus Horan is still there for another year or two and shouldn't be discarded by any means.
Tom Court will have to play tighthead to have any hope of playing for Ireland. He needs game time for Ulster in this position. The jury is still out on Tom as a tighthead. As he covers both sides he is a rare , valuable comodity.
That leads on to Mike Ross. If he isn't going to be in leinster's future plans he should really look to move. Munster doesn't seem like an option as they have Buckley and Archer behind Hayes, who may have one year at Munster in him.
By all accounts he offers little apart from scrummaging and certainly needs to work on other facets of his game. But being on the bench is not helping the situation.
I'm aware that there are other options such as Archer, Timmy Ryan but it is our panel for the next year or two I am talking about.
The floor is open.

RE Mike Ross. Van der Linde will probably be gone next year for the WC so that'll open up a spot at TH.

anonymous_joe

It doesn't help that we have absolutely no history of scrummaging.

In France the scrum is hugely important. People desperately want to win scrums. For as long as I can remember, we've been happy to get away with not conceding a penalty.

It's all well and good going for every single lineout, but the amount of times we almost come unstuck when defending scrums in our own half is getting scary.

However, without a culture that encourages good scrummaging, it's not really goint to change.

TarfHead

What someone from the IRFU needs to sort out is ..

Over the past 10 seasons, we have had good teams, some winning Grand Slams, at U20 level. Why have so few of the 15/20 individuals, who propped in those teams, failed to develop as provincial or Test props ?

I understand some of the answers may include NIQ players blocking the path, but surely that can't be the sole reason ?

bamboozle

bottom line for me is the world cup is a season and a half away, Hayes needs to be discarded and Court, Ross and maybe even Buckley need to be given time to get international experience under their belts.

In saying all this i'm quite confident that Kidney will know when the right time to discard Hayes in. he's shown over the years he's not afraid of making tough selections for the benefit of the team, i hope he realises this with the pressing need to enter world cup with a scrum.

profitius

TarfHead wrote: »

What someone from the IRFU needs to sort out is ..

Over the past 10 seasons, we have had good teams, some winning Grand Slams, at U20 level. Why have so few of the 15/20 individuals, who propped in those teams, failed to develop as provincial or Test props ?

I understand some of the answers may include NIQ players blocking the path, but surely that can't be the sole reason ?

Poor coaching and getting no game time are the main problems. Props mature later then other players so its hard to tell how they'll end up. I think every province should have extra props in their academies because theres alot og guessing involved.

Ciaran-Irl

They mean Carl Hayman in the article below, but the rest of it is true. Unlike that that got a cap for England recently, but could have declared for Ireland, the fella here is a potentially excellent Tighthead. We should be doing everything in our power to get him to declare for Ireland.

---

Irish victory will not rest easy with Brookes

It would be interesting to note how Kieran Brookes felt in the wake of Ireland's brilliant 25-10 victory over England in the Under-20 international at Kingsholm last Friday night. The young Newcastle Falcons tighthead prop had played for Ireland last year at this level - and also previously the Under-19s - but switched his allegiances to England.

He came on as a 50th-minute replacement during the game at Gloucester.

He is considered a very talented player and Leinster looked at recruiting him for their academy but the offer of a full-time contract with the Falcons and the chance to work with legendary New Zealand tighthead and Newcastle captain Carl Hoeft persuaded him to head to the north of England.

Brookes is still in a position to play for either Ireland or England should he chose to do so because he hasn't yet played at full, A or Sevens level.

PhatPiggins

He sounds like he's more English then Irish so I can understand his reasons for switching.

I think realistically you'd need to get him playing in Ireland if you wanted him to switch back again.

mk1600

While props are of course vitally important to the scrum functioning well, I personally believe the problem doesn't solely lie with them. All 8 forwards need to work on the scrum not just the props, I personally don't think they are doing this, surly a good scrummaging coach could sort this out even if it was solely the props to blame. Maybe I'm being paranoid but I'd nearly believe they want opposition coach's to target the scrum, thus directing attention away from other weakness.

PhatPiggins

mk1600 wrote: »

While props are of course vitally important to the scrum functioning well, I personally believe the problem doesn't solely lie with them. All 8 forwards need to work on the scrum not just the props, I personally don't think they are doing this, surly a good scrummaging coach could sort this out even if it was solely the props to blame. Maybe I'm being paranoid but I'd nearly believe they want opposition coach's to target the scrum, thus directing attention away from other weakness.

Gert Small is widely recognised as being one of the top 3 forwards coachs in the world. His main strenghts are the lineouts, with the scrums a close second. The Irish forwards don't suffer from a lack of proper coaching.

What we could do with is a specialist scrum coach spending time at every provincial team/academy, AIL team as well as ear marking any potential talent in the Schools/Club system and working with them from a young age.

I believe Reggy Corrigan is doing good stuff in Leinster but we probably need a neutral coach to operate on a national level.

chupacabra

Jamie Hagan and John Andress deserve a mention. Both starting to get regular first team appearances (Connacht and Harlequins respectively) and in the case of Andress, might be looking for a move back home soon due to the propping crisis.

Maybe a move to Ulster (his home province) when Brendan Botha moves back to SA would be his best shot. From what i've seen of him he has lost some weight since the move from Exeter and looks like a well rounded tight head. Instrumental in their scrum dominating Northampton 2 weeks ago and winning a penalty try from a 5 meter scrum against irish last weekend. We should be looking to bring him home for the world cup as he is definitely better TH cover than Buckley.

mk1600

PhatPiggins wrote: »

Gert Small is widely recognised as being one of the top 3 forwards coachs in the world. His main strenghts are the lineouts, with the scrums a close second. The Irish forwards don't suffer from a lack of proper coaching.

What we could do with is a specialist scrum coach spending time at every provincial team/academy, AIL team as well as ear marking any potential talent in the Schools/Club system and working with them from a young age.

I believe Reggy Corrigan is doing good stuff in Leinster but we probably need a neutral coach to operate on a national level.

Yeah ok fair enough Gert has the pedigree, and the Corrigan stuff is a good idea but ineffective. Not because he is useless but the way it is done i.e. not with young kids/young adults (at club level) but coach's who were more than likely not props so not able to implement what they were thought.

profitius

chupacabra wrote: »

Jamie Hagan and John Andress deserve a mention. Both starting to get regular first team appearances (Connacht and Harlequins respectively) and in the case of Andress, might be looking for a move back home soon due to the propping crisis.

Maybe a move to Ulster (his home province) when Brendan Botha moves back to SA would be his best shot. From what i've seen of him he has lost some weight since the move from Exeter and looks like a well rounded tight head. Instrumental in their scrum dominating Northampton 2 weeks ago and winning a penalty try from a 5 meter scrum against irish last weekend. We should be looking to bring him home for the world cup as he is definitely better TH cover than Buckley.

Sounds like a good prospect. Its amazing how much they improve when they go to England. Ross is another example.

anonymous_joe

profitius wrote: »

Sounds like a good prospect. Its amazing how much they improve when they go to England. Ross is another example.

Completely different attitudes to the scrum over there though.

PhatPiggins

mk1600 wrote: »

Yeah ok fair enough Gert has the pedigree, and the Corrigan stuff is a good idea but ineffective. Not because he is useless but the way it is done i.e. not with young kids/young adults (at club level) but coach's who were more than likely not props so not able to implement what they were thought.

Yeah thanks for that, thats pretty much exactly what I said if you read more then every second word.

The notion that you have to be a good player in a position to be able to coach it doesn't always hold true but I can see where your coming from. I did suggest a specialist coach to work on a country wide scale.

PhatPiggins

PhatPiggins wrote: »

Yeah thanks for that, thats pretty much exactly what I said if you read more then every second word.

The notion that you have to be a good player in a position to be able to coach it doesn't always hold true but I can see where your coming from. I did suggest a specialist coach to work on a country wide scale.

Look what that Argie did with Aus,all you need is a decent scrummager (ross) cough,and a good scrum coach and we can dominate.

dromdrom

chupacabra wrote: »

Jamie Hagan and John Andress deserve a mention. Both starting to get regular first team appearances (Connacht and Harlequins respectively) and in the case of Andress, might be looking for a move back home soon due to the propping crisis.
y.

Don't forget timmy ryan down in toulon, getting a decent amount of top14 rugby this season , and has really developed physically, dropped a lot of weight and seemd to be much more dynamic around the park, decent chance he might head to GP by the sounds of it next year. Still relatively young and seems to be coming on leaps and bounds in the French scrummaging enviroment.