MALLET AND THE ITALIAN FRONT ROW

flynninio

hey guys just thought i would throw this comment up from nick mallet re the irish front row. As ye may have seen after the game this morning he just said we have a better front row than ireland and we will attack them there. - well somethin along those lines.

my question is do people watch our games at all as i think our front row is up there with the best now(but our back up props are ****e). we av battered the ozzies who have coped with boks and kiwis of late and we have also shown against england we can match and beat them even in friendly we lost our scrum was good.

i honestly think we could hockey italy with closed roof and our backs and back row should go to town on italy. bloody hope so anyway with our front row winning a penalty try and healy giving gastro a rite going over.

castie

Healy is still not the finished article but has come a long way.
Best Im not so sure of.
Ross is solid but I wouldnt be in fear of him.

So overall I think his comments are fair.
Italy have a stronger front row in my opinion.

flynninio wrote: »

hey guys just thought i would throw this comment up from nick mallet re the irish front row. As ye may have seen after the game this morning he just said we have a better front row than ireland and we will attack them there. - well somethin along those lines.

my question is do people watch our games at all as i think our front row is up there with the best now(but our back up props are ****e). we av battered the ozzies who have coped with boks and kiwis of late and we have also shown against england we can match and beat them even in friendly we lost our scrum was good.

i honestly think we could hockey italy with closed roof and our backs and back row should go to town on italy. bloody hope so anyway with our front row winning a penalty try and healy giving gastro a rite going over.

conf101

Italy probably have the marginally better front row but nothing like Mallett's comment to get the Irish boys fired up ahead of the match! Cheers Nick

chippers

castie wrote: »

Best Im not so sure of.

I'm more confident of Best at this moment in time than I ever have been. He's looked very impressive as of late.

flynninio

gastro is been praised to the hilt but healy hammered this mcdonald guy to. italy didnt hammer oz up front like we did when it counted. outside there front row and paraisie can they even match ireland anywhere/

bleg

Overall we have a better pack. Irish scrum has come a long way since the 6 nations. We scrummaged better against Australia and the USA than Italy did.


Edit: And the Italian line out was a shambles today. If we start Cullen and POC they'll be licking their lips.

justsomebloke

bleg wrote: »

If we start Cullen and POC they'll be licking their lips.

unless DOC is injured Cullen won't be starting

pajunior

It's the only place on the field that they come close on so really it's his job to big it up. Also if Ross goes off injured then it is suddenly a huge advantage.

Shane10

Mallet is looking for anything to use as mind games cause he knows we have the beating of them. Im confident our backline will fire, just cant see us not scoring tries. We have this one, 100% confident.

tolosenc

In Mike Ross we finally have a TH that can scrummage. As Hayes aged, he couldn't, and the only backup entertained was Bulky. Healy, as mentioned above, is not the finished article, but has the potential to be the best LH in the world in a few years.

I think Italy do edge us on the scrum front.

pajunior wrote: »

if Ross goes off injured then it is suddenly a huge advantage.

That's if it's court who comes on. If Bulky is on the bench we'd be better off throwing an extra back on and going for the uncontested scrum!

GerM

Our front row is a solid international front row. It's good, probably not as good as people think though. People lose sight of the fact that Australia were missing 2 of their first choice front row. Benn Robinson is a massive loss to them. If the scrum is reffed correctly on Sunday, we'll be fine and I expect parity. The Italians will try tricks though and illegal scrummaging. If they do, it's up to us to sort it out if the ref won't. I hope we've learned from the 6N in that regard where the Italian scrummaging you'd have laughed if it wasn't at our expense.

axel the red

I reckon he'll be hoping for an injury early on to either Healy or Ross, and if Court isn't on the bench, then Mushy will become an honorary Italian, and bleed penalties! While their scrum is stronger, it's the only pace they can really attack us, so he has to target it. No surprise there.

GerM

Oh. Also, Castro: most overrated prop in the world for me.

Quin_Dub

Italy might have the edge in the front row , but they won't dominate.

Ross is solid and Healy has done perfectly well against Castro in the last 18 months or so - Think back to the Leicester games for Leinster and the 6N games - Healy was not pushed around at all.. Whatever concerns we might have about Best's arrows , he's always been a solid scrummager , so not worried about him either.

If we lose either Ross or Healy however , it's a whole other ball game..:eek:

As other have said , outside of Parisse we have the edge in the 1 to 1 match ups in every other position.

It will be an awkward , niggly game and a lot will depend on the Referee (any one know who it is?) . The Italian front row bore-in and down all the time (especially Castro - he's an awful messer at the scrum) so how the ref interprets the scrum will have an impact in terms of penalties shots etc.

Overall - We need to move the Italians around and get SO'B and Ferris running at Orquera and looking to offload to the likes of Bowe and Earls/Trimble coming through.

1st 20 minutes will be crucial , we need to score a try or two early on to force Italy to chase the game.

If they are within 10 points at the 60 minute mark it will be a very sweaty last quarter indeed.

Quint2010

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Italy might have the edge in the front row , but they won't dominate.

Ross is solid and Healy has done perfectly well against Castro in the last 18 months or so - Think back to the Leicester games for Leinster and the 6N games - Healy was not pushed around at all.. Whatever concerns we might have about Best's arrows , he's always been a solid scrummager , so not worried about him either.

If we lose either Ross or Healy however , it's a whole other ball game..:eek:

As other have said , outside of Parisse we have the edge in the 1 to 1 match ups in every other position.

It will be an awkward , niggly game and a lot will depend on the Referee (any one know who it is?) . The Italian front row bore-in and down all the time (especially Castro - he's an awful messer at the scrum) so how the ref interprets the scrum will have an impact in terms of penalties shots etc.

Overall - We need to move the Italians around and get SO'B and Ferris running at Orquera and looking to offload to the likes of Bowe and Earls/Trimble coming through.

1st 20 minutes will be crucial , we need to score a try or two early on to force Italy to chase the game.

If they are within 10 points at the 60 minute mark it will be a very sweaty last quarter indeed.

Dont think Castrogiovanni started the HC QF and only came on after about 60 mins..

nicebutdim

GerM wrote: »

Oh. Also, Castro: most overrated prop in the world for me.

and possibly the biggest cheat too, having dropped his first bind coming out of the womb

molloyjh

I reckon the Italians do have the edge on us in the front-row, but as has already been said I don't think they will dominate us there. Other than the front-row Parisse is the only one I feel comes close to beating us 1 on 1. If Jamie is getting form back and can build on last weekends game then I'm not too worried there. Out scrum overall is better and our backs are too without doubt (although how we use them will be the important thing I think).

I highly doubt we'll lose this one. But I'm not 100% confident either. If there's a banana skin out there for us it's this game. And the Italians will be up for it.

donfers

Mallett trying to put pressure on the ref to give them penalties at scrum time, not exactly a classy move and it'll be pinned to the dressing-room wall

The likes of Tim Horan and Nick Mallett can spout away all they like, it's manna from heaven for the Irish, we are a laidback nation and need stuff like this to get the blood boiling so thank you and keep it up, I can see Healy and Ross at the very least getting parity in the scrum, simply put Ireland are a better team than Italy and should win the game. However you won't hear Kidney being stupid enough to say stuff like we are superior than them in the lineout etc., let's just keep the momentum going and blow them off the park, they'll want to keep it as tight as possible and be negative and try to stay within one score for as long as possible, we've got to go out with the attitude like we did in Rome a few years back, let's back ourselves that we are the better rugby team, be confident enough to play some rugby and hopefully rack up the scores.

Conditions and ref will be important

who is the ref?


we shouldn't be too nervous about this, if we don't beat this lot we deserve to go home, let's do a professional job and move on to tougher battles ahead

we are the better team, it's just a matter of showing it

cython

donfers wrote: »

Mallett trying to put pressure on the ref to give them penalties at scrum time, not exactly a classy move and it'll be pinned to the dressing-room wall

The likes of Tim Horan and Nick Mallett can spout away all they like, it's manna from heaven for the Irish, we are a laidback nation and need stuff like this to get the blood boiling so thank you and keep it up, I can see Healy and Ross at the very least getting parity in the scrum, simply put Ireland are a better team than Italy and should win the game. However you won't hear Kidney being stupid enough to say stuff like we are superior than them in the lineout etc., let's just keep the momentum going and blow them off the park, they'll want to keep it as tight as possible and be negative and try to stay within one score for as long as possible, we've got to go out with the attitude like we did in Rome a few years back, let's back ourselves that we are the better rugby team, be confident enough to play some rugby and hopefully rack up the scores.

Conditions and ref will be important

who is the ref?

According to the IRB list of appointments it's Kaplan

bleg

I actually think it's pretty disrespectful by Mallet. He might have gotten one over Kidney in the aftermath of the 6N games but surely it won't happen twice.

yimrsg

Mallet's taken a leaf from the Warren Gatland approach of placing foot in mouth and firing up our front row/forwards/squad. He stirred up sh*t last time by saying he got an apology letter from Poite previously about the refereeing in the scrums on a different occasion.

I think in Mallet's situation he should be saying that Ireland's front row is best and doing a Declan Kidney on it and down play it saying they'll aim for parity, not mentioning it as a real weapon but secretly going out to dominate the scrums.

Bringing so much media attention on the front row battle (where the Italians infringe more than us), he could be making a rod for his own back. I hope that Kaplan pings us and them for every scrum indiscretion as we've better kickers than them.

matthew8

The Italians dominated the USA and Russia scrums, but so did we. We were more impressive against Australia's scrum than them in my opinion, having watched both games in full. We have nothing to fear. Ross and Healy are top drawer scrummagers, however if Ross goes down we could be dominated. If we do get dominated it would be mad the scrums in our group. Italy being quite a bit above us, us quite a bit above Australia, Australia quite a bit above USA, and USA quite a bit above Russia.

beglee

Well, we fairly shut them up today didnt we

Castro even got "served" by 2 big hits from ferris and O'Brien. Did he even last til half time?

Maybe theyll be a bit more modest pregame next time

Fireball07

beglee wrote: »

Well, we fairly shut them up today didnt we

Castro even got "served" by 2 big hits from ferris and O'Brien. Did he even last til half time?

Maybe theyll be a bit more modest pregame next time

To be fair, we had conceded a penalty and they looked very strong until Castro went off. It all fell apart from them then.

.ak

Emotional and kind words from Mallet after the match.

Mallett will now leave his post and was clearly emotional after years of hard graft. But when asked what he thought his legacy might be with Italy, he explained that the respect of his squad, staff and other coaches, such as Irish boss Kidney, was what mattered most.

"History will tell whether I was a good Italian coach or not and I prefer to get the response from my players and also from my staff," he continued.

"I was incredibly touched by Declan Kidney who came up to me straight after the game and said some incredibly kind things to me. He's an amazingly kind gentlemen and I think rugby is very privileged to have people like him involved in running national sides because what he said to me has meant the world."

By Adam Kyriacou (PlanetRugby) at Otago Stadium

mrboswell

Fair play to him. Now he can go off and have a good cry with the rest of the lads.