Ireland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread

nerd69

I like madigan but don't trust Kearney as an international kicker I think sexton could be a good inside centre if Madigan started out half

totallegend

tolosenc wrote: »

Madigan is a perfectly capable kicker. Even still, there'd be Ferg there, or Rob Kearney.

Yes, his percentages were in the 80s this season iirc, but what I'm getting at is that we should be looking to pick guys who can get us into the position where we're scoring more tries and not relying on Sexton or ROG to be kicking everything within range.

[I think Sexton is that player, just making the point that Irish people are using the wrong criteria for picking the out-half.]

nerd69

totallegend wrote: »

tolosenc wrote: »

Madigan is a perfectly capable kicker. Even still, there'd be Ferg there, or Rob Kearney.

Yes, his percentages were in the 80s this season iirc, but what I'm getting at is that we should be looking to pick guys who can get us into the position where we're scoring more tries and not relying on Sexton or ROG to be kicking everything within range.

[I think Sexton is that player, just making the point that Irish people are using the wrong criteria for picking the out-half.]

Sexton won't kick everything he can run also of you have a kicker that's almost automatic I have no issue taking 3 every time we get a penalty in range the 3s add up very quick

Podge_irl

nerd69 wrote: »

Sexton won't kick everything he can run also of you have a kicker that's almost automatic I have no issue taking 3 every time we get a penalty in range the 3s add up very quick

Yes, but picking a flyhalf who can kick penalties to the exclusion of everything else is ridiculous.

If you have a player of the likes of Larkham for example - it makes far more sense to jiggle the backline to ensure another kicker is on the pitch, say at the wing, then to hamstring the entire backline by putting in a worse flyhalf just because he can kick penalties.

nerd69

Podge_irl wrote: »

Yes, but picking a flyhalf who can kick penalties to the exclusion of everything else is ridiculous.

If you have a player of the likes of Larkham for example - it makes far more sense to jiggle the backline to ensure another kicker is on the pitch, say at the wing, then to hamstring the entire backline by putting in a worse flyhalf just because he can kick penalties.

i do agree with you and thats why i feel rog should not be on the team at this stage of his career however i feel if you bring in madigan for sexton the kicking quality will drop big time and your not gaining as much from a play perspective i thing sexton is fantastic in defense and hes a lot better with ball in hand than your giving him credit for madigan might be a bit better going forward but your losing a lot in the kicking department.

Podge_irl

nerd69 wrote: »

i do agree with you and thats why i feel rog should not be on the team at this stage of his career however i feel if you bring in madigan for sexton the kicking quality will drop big time and your not gaining as much from a play perspective i thing sexton is fantastic in defense and hes a lot better with ball in hand than your giving him credit for madigan might be a bit better going forward but your losing a lot in the kicking department.

My comment had very little to do with Sexton. You'd struggle to find a more ardent supporter of him here then me!

Its a general comment on Irish teams. I know at the RWC that one of the main reasons people felt ROG should be brought in was his goal kicking. And Sexton definitely has let himself down there a couple times on the international stage. However, I think putting McF in at 12 would have been a far more sensible suggestion if that was really a worry (though it is certainly more marginal then my hypothetical above). Everything passes through your flyhalf and it is far more important that he be a game manager then a goal-kicker imo.

If Gatland picks Priestland at 10 for the Lions (which I desperately hope he doesn't!), then Halfpenny is going to start at 15 regardless of what Kearney does in the interim because he will be the goalkicker.

In general though, if given the option of putting a worse player in at 14 or 10 in order to improve goal-kicking I would be picking 14 every single time.

nerd69

Podge_irl wrote: »

My comment had very little to do with Sexton. You'd struggle to find a more ardent supporter of him here then me!

Its a general comment on Irish teams. I know at the RWC that one of the main reasons people felt ROG should be brought in was his goal kicking. And Sexton definitely has let himself down there a couple times on the international stage. However, I think putting McF in at 12 would have been a far more sensible suggestion if that was really a worry (though it is certainly more marginal then my hypothetical above). Everything passes through your flyhalf and it is far more important that he be a game manager then a goal-kicker imo.

If Gatland picks Priestland at 10 for the Lions (which I desperately hope he doesn't!), then Halfpenny is going to start at 15 regardless of what Kearney does in the interim because he will be the goalkicker.

In general though, if given the option of putting a worse player in at 14 or 10 in order to improve goal-kicking I would be picking 14 every single time.

i agree but you have to have a 14 that can kick we generally dont how many big quick kids do you see practicing kicking at underage level.

having said that we could go all australia during the larkham era and get a forward to do our kicking i know hes gone now but apparently dennis leamy was pretty **** hot underage so there may be a few more

with regards to rog in the wales match i thought he was playing good rugby at the time that was the beginning of the end for him it was a bad call but im not gona lie i was all for it before that game

Podge_irl

If there were concerns over Sexton's kicking in the RWC (and I don't doubt there were, it was a massive disappointment) I would have very much been for putting in McF at 12 and leaving Sexton were he was. I think his role in the Aus game in terms of varying the point of attack and bringing the forwards in has been massively under appreciated.

However, the over-riding issue is that kids coming out of school should be made look at McF and told to try and emulate him. He is one of the best kickers of the ball from within 40m that I've ever seen. He is supposedly the highest paid provincially contracted Irish player at Leinster and I have little doubt that a lot of that has to do with his ability with the dead ball. He didn't join the Leinster ranks and decide that because he was a centre he would stop practising taking penalties, he kept it up - and Leinster have won many a game because of that decision.

Kearney should have been made keep up the kicking practice. Anyone who was an SCT kicker should have to keep it up. If they suck at it later then sure let it go, but way too many players have stopped practising it just cause they're not the 10. Murray I think was a decent kicker at schools level - he should still be at it now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lsJEfjAESo

CatFromHue

Is that the 2012 version of The Fields of Athenry?

clsmooth

Deleted User wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lsJEfjAESo

Almost as good as...

thomond2006

Deleted User wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lsJEfjAESo

good, but not above international standard

B0X

thomond2006 wrote: »

good, but not above international standard

Would you say he needs a few more starts in the Rhymeken Cup?

Sorry! :pac:

val_jester

Podge_irl wrote: »

If there were concerns over Sexton's kicking in the RWC (and I don't doubt there were, it was a massive disappointment) I would have very much been for putting in McF at 12 and leaving Sexton were he was. I think his role in the Aus game in terms of varying the point of attack and bringing the forwards in has been massively under appreciated.

However, the over-riding issue is that kids coming out of school should be made look at McF and told to try and emulate him. He is one of the best kickers of the ball from within 40m that I've ever seen. He is supposedly the highest paid provincially contracted Irish player at Leinster and I have little doubt that a lot of that has to do with his ability with the dead ball. He didn't join the Leinster ranks and decide that because he was a centre he would stop practising taking penalties, he kept it up - and Leinster have won many a game because of that decision.

Kearney should have been made keep up the kicking practice. Anyone who was an SCT kicker should have to keep it up. If they suck at it later then sure let it go, but way too many players have stopped practising it just cause they're not the 10. Murray I think was a decent kicker at schools level - he should still be at it now.

Murray kicked for the Irish u20s when paired with Burke, and was still kicking whilst playing for Garryowen. You're spot on with the argument that it is extremely shortsighted by Irish rugby to see it as a given that the 10 is the kicker. If there is a better kicker in the team than the starting 10 let them kick, the outhalf's primary goal shouldn't be to kick, it should be to manage the game. We saw the same problem for the u20s in the 6 Nations, Hanrahan was kicking better than Jackson yet Jackson was still kicking. It should have been a simple change, but for some reason the Irish management felt that the 10 has to kick.

CatFromHue

I don't know if anyone watches The Breakdown on Setanta but when Mattie and Franno aren't too busy laughing at each others jokes ( :pac::pac: ) they do make some good points. During the 6 Nations they were mentioning at how we get caught very narrow in defence and that we would get caught out by it.

The Italian try against us is a great example.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCeEUTztwdE

From a simple punch up through the middle we get caught out very badly. There are loads of Italian attackers on the outside. You can even see Trimble running behind the ruck to cover but it's far too little.

Not sure of the All Blacks noticed this but they fairly exposed it. Savea's third try in the first test is again a punch up the middle by SBW and the Kiwi's don't do an awful lot more yet have an overlap on the outside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NITxi6BWNKQ

Watching Gear's try in the third test when Kearney was in the bin and they had acres of space on the outside (not helped by McFadden coming in too early)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLEVQ1gh9os

Even for Kearney's yellow we're very tight and they just skipped the ball out to where the space was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo8LHNo_pbs

The annoying thing I found was that they didn't have to work very hard to create an overlap.

While we may go on and on about Kidney there are some other problems. When you look at the tries conceded for the last few 6 Nations this season stands out big time.

2012: 8 tries conceded, at least one in every game. One was a penalty try.
2011: 4 ties conceded, one being the infamous illegal try by Wales.
2010: 6 tries conceded, France scored 3 of them though.
2009: 3 tries conceded.

Cpt_Blackbeard

I think the third test gave a great example as to why we need to defend to tightly. We were terrible at our front-up tackling in that game and I wonder if that is part of the reasoning as to why we line up so narrowly. Kiss recognises that we aren't great at tackling, so he is trying to minimise the amount of ground each player needs to cover.

The biggest issue imo is that Kiss has been completely found out. He offers nothing as either an attack or defense coach.

leftleg

Cpt_Blackbeard wrote: »

The biggest issue imo is that Kiss has been completely found out. He offers nothing as either an attack or defense coach.

Rubbish; hes an amazing defence coach; full stop;

2009 3 tries conceded; 2011 4 (should really have been 3) tries conceded; this proves 2009 was not a blip; hes an excellent defense coach.

when hes doing both you end up having half a defense coach and half an attack coach = crap defense and crap attack;

Let him do the job hes good at, ie defense and get a coach to look after attack lines and systems; its not rocket science;

CatFromHue

Just looking on ESPN's tackle info (yes I know) for the last three 6 Nations and we had a big increase in missed tackles this year.



So while there may be a problem with us being very narrow the players themselves have to take some of the blame too.

Is it for every 10 missed tackles per game you concede a try?

Tox56

Of course the players have to take some of the blame, they always do. Players are heavily criticised for poor performances. If they're underperforming replace them with someone better, but the management should be treated similarly. If they're consistently underperforming, they should be replaced.

I also don't think it's a coincidence our defence is considerably weaker the year Kiss starts trying to do two jobs at once.

irishbucsfan

CatFromHue wrote: »

Just looking on ESPN's tackle info (yes I know) for the last three 6 Nations and we had a big increase in missed tackles this year.



So while there may be a problem with us being very narrow the players themselves have to take some of the blame too.

Is it for every 10 missed tackles per game you concede a try?

You're making the assumption that players are missing tackles they would have made in previous years. Those missed tackles could be systemic.

leftleg

2010 = 24 missed tackles

2011 = 29 missed tackles

2012 = 50 missed tackles

that's some jump that coincided with our before sole defense coach double jobbing.

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

CatFromHue wrote: »

Just looking on ESPN's tackle info (yes I know) for the last three 6 Nations and we had a big increase in missed tackles this year.



So while there may be a problem with us being very narrow the players themselves have to take some of the blame too.

Is it for every 10 missed tackles per game you concede a try?

You're making the assumption that players are missing tackles they would have made in previous years. Those missed tackles could be systemic.

Yeah, standing off big runners like SBW and North will inevitably lead to missed tackles. Poor defensive positioning will also lead to missed tackles as players scramble to compensate - e.g. defending too narrowly. While no one is saying the players are immune from criticism such a jump in missed tackles must be part of a wider issue. One or two players could account for a bit of a jump but a 100% increase has to be systematic...

Stev_o

Italy missed 3 tackles yet still came second last though....you can only miss a tackle if your position to make one as opposed to when someone isn't even touched getting a score.

CatFromHue

The thing about the system for me is that in the 4 clips I posted above there's only one missed tackle by Earls (I suppose you could say D'arcy missed one in the first clip but SOB had tackled the guy as well).

Stev_o

CatFromHue wrote: »

The thing about the system for me is that in the 4 clips I posted above there's only one missed tackle by Earls (I suppose you could say D'arcy missed one in the first clip but SOB had tackled the guy as well).

Then we are talking more about defensive positioning, alignment, communication, strategy.

profitius

The defense has been a shambles this season. The Welsh game especially.

totallegend

Stev_o wrote: »

Italy missed 3 tackles yet still came second last though.....

No, those stats mean that Ireland missed three tackles against Italy.

Stev_o wrote: »

you can only miss a tackle if your position to make one as opposed to when someone isn't even touched getting a score.

Excellent point.

Stev_o

Id be interested to see meters conceded vs turnovers.

[Jackass]

No matter what way you look at it, we just need a fresh start. What's the point in flogging a dead donkey? It's sad that Kidney insists on staying on. He did his stint, why not move on to something else? It doesn't and shouldn't ever be considerd a life time job. International coaches should really just look at doing 4 year turnarounds and moving on. It happens a lot in clubs too, but especially when things are going downhill so much, why look for personal redemption at the expense of the national team rather than letting fresh ideas and players and structures come in.

IRFU are more to blame than Kidney in this respect though.

[Jackass]

No matter what way you look at it, we just need a fresh start. What's the point in flogging a dead donkey? It's sad that Kidney insists on staying on. He did his stint, why not move on to something else? It doesn't and shouldn't ever be considerd a life time job. International coaches should really just look at doing 4 year turnarounds and moving on. It happens a lot in clubs too, but especially when things are going downhill so much, why look for personal redemption at the expense of the national team rather than letting fresh ideas and players and structures come in.

IRFU are more to blame than Kidney in this respect though.