Ireland u20 6 Nations & World Cup 2012

Thanos

Great win!

jacothelad

Good forward display and great defence. Ireland were well drilled. France had some good backs but they forwards were not really playing as a unit.

.ak

Makes you think what could've been had we not have to play England so soon after SA.

DDC1990

Well done to the lads.

5th place, and with a bit of luck could have been in the final.

Seem like a talented bunch of lads, and we could have a few future superstars on our hands.

Genuinely delighted for them.

Monty Burnz

*cough*

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I think we have this one in the bag, you know.

Beery Eyed

Good to get the win. Pity not to get a try when they had their chances.

Similar to a lot of the other matches with some very strong performances up front. Marmion & Hanrahan were good again at half back & Farrell looked strong.

Lineouts were poor though. Scannell was a good captain but he badly needs to work on his throwing. Not too impressed with the back 3 either really. Hard to be too negative on anybody though since they won & the team played well throughout the tournament.

Henderson, Furlong, Conan & Coughlan all look the real deal up front. Hanrahan, Marmion & Farrell should be good additions to their respective provinces as well. Hopefully we'll see a few of these guys progress to the top level before too long. They'll certainly take a lot of confidence from playing & beating some of the best in the world in this tournament.

Quint2010

Great performance. Really unlucky not to finsh hugher in the tournament. Definitely showed they were the best of the home nations and France. With a bit of luck they were good enough to make the final. Augers well for the future. Munster should be playing Hanrahan next season.

molloyjh

.ak wrote: »

Makes you think what could've been had we not have to play England so soon after SA.

That silly sin binning in the second half looks like it could have been seriously costly...

profitius

That backs were disappointing today. Only Barry Daly had a good game, Marmion was not too bad either. I don't want to be too harsh because it wasn't conditions for flowing rugby but I thought it could have been a better match.

Tadhg Furlong was Irelands MOTM today. The scrum dominated so much and you could see the French players getting frustrated.

As for France. It looked like they're going down the England route in picking big athletes. I hope they continue to do it!

amtw

A brilliant season for these lads. Any team that can beat Scotland, Wales, Italy x 2, France x 2, England and South Africa in one season can be really proud of themselves. The future is looking good. It's a pity that that was the last match they will all be together for.

Hagz

What a game Barry Daly had. His chase tackle was reminiscent of Dippy's Clermont hit. If only Daly had a bit of pace or power, he's determined and is stout in defence but he's not dangerous enough.
Alan O'Connor is another unsung player. He looks bloody massive and was crunching a few lads out there.
There's going to be fierce competition between Moore and Furlong over the next couple of years.

amtw

mikedragon32 wrote: »

The bright side of being stuck at home with a sick baby is being able to watch the game.

The not so bright side...

She keeps asking if every player is Sean O'Brien then singing Allez les Bleus! She's two.

You do know that Social Services would take a dim view of some poor innocent baby being noblled so it's parent can stay home to watch a match. By the sounds of your daughter though she has priorities right even if her taste in singing material is a tad disloyal.:D

sixy

great tournament from the lads, some really impressive performances especially from some of those forwards and Hanrahan and Farrell, what province is the tight head from? he has looked good in a couple of games.

From an ulster POV I hope to see Henderson get some gametime in the Rabo next year and Farrell had a decent tournament as well. Lots of positives

Big Nelly

Think it was mentioned on the Talking Rugby podcast, if this was NZ these players would be moved up to the senior squad pretty quickly to get them into shape for the future

What does Ireland do? Stick with older players and not bring in the younger players, players like Henderson, JJ etc should be brought in ASAP to continue there growth so we have a rugby future

Not bring the like of O'Gara/D'Arcy to test match. I would also include BOD but EOM was out for this series so he was natural replacement. We need to bring on these players. Not let them sit for 4-5 seasons and then look at them again

molloyjh

mikedragon32 wrote: »

The bright side of being stuck at home with a sick baby is being able to watch the game.

The not so bright side...

She keeps asking if every player is Sean O'Brien then singing Allez les Bleus! She's two.

Get her onto the terrace in the RDS in September. We could use another set of lungs! :P

Hagz

Big Nelly wrote: »

Think it was mentioned on the Talking Rugby podcast, if this was NZ these players would be moved up to the senior squad pretty quickly to get them into shape for the future

What does Ireland do? Stick with older players and not bring in the younger players, players like Henderson, JJ etc should be brought in ASAP to continue there growth so we have a rugby future

Not bring the like of O'Gara/D'Arcy to test match. I would also include BOD but EOM was out for this series so he was natural replacement. We need to bring on these players. Not let them sit for 4-5 seasons and then look at them again

It's a tough call to be honest. If you bring them in too early, you may damage their confidence long-term if they can't handle it, and you may actually cause them physical damage if they are not physically ready for the step up. But then on the other hand, you have a point in that the SH nations do it with no hesitation.

Look at Conway, he seems to be breaking every 3rd game he plays. But then look at Dominic Ryan. The guy had a massive season last year.

I'd be of the opinion that the risk is worth the reward, though I know many on here disagree.

Teferi

Younger lads should be tried out every year during the AIs. Nothing really to lose from them in a normal year (obviously with the WC rankings this isn't a normal year).

That way you aren't really losing anything if they aren't ready for it but you uncover some gems if they exceed expectations.

Tox56

Wales look like coming 3rd beating Fiji, Samoa, Argentina and winning once losing once to NZ.

We'll finish 5th beating the hosts South Africa, Italy, France and winning once losing once to England.

Guess that's just life eh

.ak

molloyjh wrote: »

That silly sin binning in the second half looks like it could have been seriously costly...

Maybe. Though in fairness the entire team looked out on it's feet, and I think it was going to be a pen try anyway so I dunno, it's hard to say. Silly yellow at the end of the day, but dunno if I'd lay the blame at his feet.

tolosenc

Ruddock to take over from Kidney?

.ak

tolosenc wrote: »

Ruddock to take over from Kidney?

Ha, not a bad suggestion, whilst he may not be an amazing coach atleast he learns from his mistakes (picking a more physical team versus the more 'skilled' side that lost badly to England in the 6N).

Badly needs a decent attack coach tho. We never looked like we could cut open teams in the tournament in fairness. With the exception of some brilliant stuff from JJ...

molloyjh

.ak wrote: »

Maybe. Though in fairness the entire team looked out on it's feet, and I think it was going to be a pen try anyway so I dunno, it's hard to say. Silly yellow at the end of the day, but dunno if I'd lay the blame at his feet.

It was always going to be a try but by infringing the way he did he put us at a 1 man disadvantage when England had the momentum. We were still ahead after that try 15-13. England only got 1 more score in the game (converted try) which may have been avoided had we had 15 men on the field. Obviously it's speculative as to whether they'd have seen the game out or not but once we had 15 men back on the pitch things did even out a bit. Sure anyway what's done is done. They did well and from what I saw of them they played some good rugby. For all the front-row woes over the years we seem to have a couple coming through and no doubt about it Hanrahan looks very, very good. As a Leinster man I was particularly happy with what I saw of Beirne. We're short of locks at the moment and someone like that coming through is a relief.

Hagz

Anybody else think that's not a try. I think the Welsh lad slides his hand under it.

duckysauce

It's a pisser looking at sa doing well against the kiwis, after we had beaten them.

Monty Burnz

duckysauce wrote: »

It's a pisser looking at sa doing well against the kiwis, after we had beaten them.

I'm delighted - means we're not far off this NZ team.

thomond2006

Brilliant NZ try, fantastic counterattack from a quick throw.

duckysauce

Monty Burnz wrote: »

I'm delighted - means we're not far off this NZ team.

that's another way of looking at it

CatFromHue

Big Nelly wrote: »

Think it was mentioned on the Talking Rugby podcast, if this was NZ these players would be moved up to the senior squad pretty quickly to get them into shape for the future

What does Ireland do? Stick with older players and not bring in the younger players, players like Henderson, JJ etc should be brought in ASAP to continue there growth so we have a rugby future

Not bring the like of O'Gara/D'Arcy to test match. I would also include BOD but EOM was out for this series so he was natural replacement. We need to bring on these players. Not let them sit for 4-5 seasons and then look at them again

With the turnover of senior players in NZ it's much easier for them to bring through younger players.

If you're a Kiwi, are about 25 years of age, are outside the All Black reckoning, but are still a good Super rugby player then the smart thing to do is to move to the NH for the money. For example look at the Kiwi out halfs playing up here. Berquist (29 Super Caps), Gopperth (63 Super Caps), Donald (85 Super Caps), Evans (35 Super Caps), and even Nacewa (44 Super Caps) could all be knocking around NZ if the money was right. Luke McAllister is another example, when he didn't make the NZ RWC squad he was gone!

Our provinces are set up to keep the senior players playing in Ireland whereas the Super rugby teams just can't compete financially to keep their players. I'm sure they'd love to but even the new Munster signing Stander's team has said they just couldn't compete with the Munster offer. I was watching the Total Rugby show where they interviewed a player from Connacht, Quins, Northland ITM team, and a Currie Cup player. The Northland fella was saying that to play in the ITM Cup you're payed about $NZ 60,000 (37,772 euro) and the Super rugby guys would be on about $NZ180,000 (113,316 euro). To put this in perspective an electrician in NZ will be on about 20-24 $ an hour or $41,600 - $49,920 a year on a basic 40 hour week with no overtime.

A few years ago it was over 2 NZ$ to 1 euro whereas now it's about 1.6 NZ$ so it used to be even more profitable to come North.

To put it in perspective if the roles were reversed McFadden, Kev McLaughlin, Chris Henry, Devin Toner, Dan Tuohy, Paul Marshall, and Paddy Wallace would all have left Ireland by now.

They also have the ITM cup which doesn't include the international players and runs separately to the Super 15's so is a great place for a younger player to gain great experience.

duckysauce

kiwis scrum creamed by Sa

thomond2006

SA just destroyed the NZ scrum on SA's line.