Would Ireland have cheated?

RachaelVO

http://www.rugbyweek.com/news/worldcup.asp?id=32407

Secret England training documents from the Rugby World Cup have been discovered in Ireland's Rugby world Cup team hotel in New Zealand.

England and Ireland were on track to meet each other in the Semi-final but both teams were knocked out of the tournament at the quarter final stage.

The team tactic sheets were discovered in Ireland's team hotel in Wellington which is 300 miles away from England's base in Dunedin according to the Telegraph.

The tactical documents, codes and on-field training drills were found in a conference room at the InterContinental Hotel three days before England lost to France in the quarter-finals.

It is believed that the documents went missing from England officials while they were training in Dunedin.

The nine sheets of A3 sized paper would have meant disaster for England had they met Ireland if the two had progressed to the Semi-finals.

The briefings include one A3-sided sheet entitled "The Big Picture" with one of the bullet points highlighting a focus on discipline as England struggled with giving away penalties in the tournament.

Another sheet carrying the heading "Red Zone" had an astericked "Adapt if required" written at the bottom.

The Telegraph reports that other instructions were on the sheets for the the back row and back three.

It's all theoretical now, but would this have been cheating our way to the final. I'm in two minds, part of me thinks, yes it's cheating! The other part (the strongest part) thinks all is fair in love an war, that you have to take every advantage when it arrives, I'm sure England would have done the EXACT same thing.

So is it cheating or taking advantage?
I'd also wonder how they got the England notes in the first place!

Monty Burnz

It's not cheating, is it? In any sense. You try to figure out what the opponent will be doing by video analysis etc. - if they happen to leave you their notes, that's just more info to help you plan. Aside from doping, cheating can only happen on the pitch.

justsomebloke

mod warning, first sign of this thread having anything libelous in it and it's gone

JustinDee

- England left notes on a flipchart in hotel.
- Ireland then stayed in same hotel.
- Notes still on flipchart.
- Ireland use flipchart, see notes, shrug 'huh', and continue preparing for Italy game.
- Ireland remove their own notes from flipchart (take note England! - pun intended).
- Journalist in hotel comes across flipchart
- Hey presto, a story about someone forgetting to take their notes with them.

Really is that much of a non-event.

GerM

I heard it was a taxi driver that found them in the back seat after MJ was in his car and presented them to DK.

Malmedicine

Sounds like bull**** to me. Really god and his uncle knew England were getting pingged off the park by ref's. "Adapt if necessary", if this is what our coaching guru's come up with when given secret files I quit I just quit.

Oh and instructions written for the back three - Catch the ball/ Tackle!!!!, and for the backrow Tackle/Make yards !!

Big Nelly

To be honest, it wasn't difficult to figure out how England where going to play, everyone could figure that out before the WC when they decided to play Jonny at 10.

Ahh the biggest laugh about this is saying that Martin Johnson actually had tactics!!!

CatFromHue

From the article above it doesnt sound like they were great notes. "Discipline" and "adapt if neccessary" don't give a lot away.
England played Romania on the 24 Sep and we played Italy a week later on the 2 Oct in Dunedin. Id imagine we stayed in the exact same hotel. So if you don't clean up after yourself and leave "top secret" information lying around like that what do you expect?
This World Cup just gets worse and worse for England!

Quint2010

I wonder if Ireland had too much of an eye on England before they played Wales....

RachaelVO

Quint2010 wrote: »

I wonder if Ireland had too much of an eye on England before they played Wales....

Wondered that meself, they seemed very distracted playing Wales!

petebricquette

Quint2010 wrote: »

I wonder if Ireland had too much of an eye on England before they played Wales....

I doubt it. Wales were a form side before we met them in the quarters so it'd have been the height of stupidity from management down to the players to give more than a cursory glance to their next potential opponents. And the Irish lads are anything but stupid.

On topic, this sounds like a non-story that some hack is trying to turn into one for a rag of a thing like the Telegraph.

JustinDee

Quint2010 wrote: »

I wonder if Ireland had too much of an eye on England before they played Wales....

Ireland were purely focussed on nothing else but the job in-hand, which at the time was a must-win game.

England left a flipchart behind. No-one took it. Ireland used it in the same room for their own meetings and so did other non-rugby related.
There is nothing in this story.
A boo-boo by the England camp made into Le Carré-style espionage by a journalist who found the flipchart in the first place.

Sabre0001

What I like about the notes is that it says "focus on discipline" and "adapt if necessary"....So two fundamentals of the game.

Naturally, with notes like these it's a shock that they're out.

slowburner

Those notes were a double bluff by MJ's department of misinformation - 'adapt as required' was the giveaway

yimrsg

Lewis Moody


Jonny Wilkinson


More from here:
http://www.bloodandmud.com/gameplans-explained/

Cipriani and Powell's are worth a look.

castie

My vote is for fake!

conf101

JustinDee wrote: »

- England left notes on a flipchart in hotel.
- Ireland then stayed in same hotel.
- Notes still on flipchart.
- Ireland use flipchart, see notes, shrug 'huh', and continue preparing for Italy game.
- Ireland remove their own notes from flipchart (take note England! - pun intended).
- Journalist in hotel comes across flipchart
- Hey presto, a story about someone forgetting to take their notes with them.

Really is that much of a non-event.

Obviously I have no idea how much truth there is in this story but do you really think that if what you described above actually happened that the irish wouldn't notice that the notes left on the flipchart are rugby related and take a look at them? Of course they would. And once they realise they're english notes they'll definitely hang on to them.

I do think it's a non-event. I just think that what you described wouldn't happen.

JustinDee

conf101 wrote: »

Obviously I have no idea how much truth there is in this story but do you really think that if what you described above actually happened that the irish wouldn't notice that the notes left on the flipchart are rugby related and take a look at them? Of course they would. And once they realise they're english notes they'll definitely hang on to them.

I do think it's a non-event. I just think that what you described wouldn't happen.

Its exactly what happened.

CatFromHue

Maybe Mike Ford forgot who he worked for and mistakenly reported to Kidney as opposed to Johnson!!!

irishbucsfan

What actually happened is Alan Gaffney found a booklet containing the entirety of the English team's backs system. It involved not running straight and contained phrases such as "dummy runners." He was so baffled by it that he concluded it must not be related to rugby at all and so he left it behind.

davegrohl48

Martin Johnson must have bored the creativity out of them with tactics like that.
Guys playing more than 10 years at pro level being told to not giveaway penalties as part of the "Bigger picture".
What was "10,000 feet view" - score tries!