France V Ireland – Stade de France, Paris. Sunday 4th March 15:00 RTE2 & BBC2

andrewdcs

BoardsMember wrote: »

I fail to see why anyone would think we could win in Paris. I think Scotland is our best (and maybe our only realistic) chance of winning another game, England in Twickenham is going to be very difficult unless we improve dramatically, assuming England continue to make progress as they have been doing.

Sorry, I'm a pessimist by nature, but it's only a self protection thing - I'll believe we can win at kick off time. As someone once said....I can cope with the despair, its the hope that kills me.

Beating scotland and italy at home and losing everything else, as you fear, would be a disaastrous season, way worse than either of the past 2, which, ok, no GS (or little golden cup) and we're dropping perilously low in the rankings, but I still think we're touching distance and that last position I'd switch (ok, perhaps not the last) would be Kidney.

smurphy29

Podge_irl wrote: »

Do you know when that was? wouldn't mind listening to it if possible.

'Twould have been the 8pm Wednesday night rugby slot on the wednesday before the original France game ws scheduled.

Podge_irl

andrewdcs wrote: »

Beating scotland and italy at home and losing everything else, as you fear, would be a disaastrous season

Two wins was enough to get EOS fired anyway.

way worse than either of the past 2, which, ok, no GS (or little golden cup) and we're dropping perilously low in the rankings, but I still think we're touching distance and that last position I'd switch (ok, perhaps not the last) would be Kidney.

EOS never led Ireland to two succesive 6N with only 3 wins. This is also the longest we've gone without a TC in quite some time.

Grimebox

prospect wrote: »

Average points difference per game between Ireland and France: -4.87

That statistic is actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

leftleg

Podge_irl wrote: »

Two wins was enough to get EOS fired anyway.

EOS and Kidney are completely different; just ask Thornley

smurphy29

andrewdcs wrote: »

Afraid I agreed with Emmet Byrne but still think its 40% chance, so agree with Thornley..

And yes, my ass is killing me from sitting on / leaning over the fence :pac: but I do still believe.

If we're beaten and beaten by either of scotland or England its a disastre of season on the back of lacklustre year, I think we'll run France close / flip a coin to win it and win both our remaining games for a disappointing (if you ever lose a home game its dissapointing) but not critical season.

If we win in Paris, and lose either of the remaining games, still dissapointing, but if we win the next three its what ifs, blah blah. It's that close. It always is.

40%, I'm astonished! So if the game was played five times, you think we'd win two. Bear in mind we have won once in Paris in the last 40 years, aren't in especially good form, and don't appear to be dominant in any particular unit on the pitch. I'd say if you played out the match on Sunday 100 times we'd be doing well to win five of them.

Podge_irl

Grimebox wrote: »

That statistic is actually not as bad as I thought it would be.

Probably seriously skewed by our games against France when they first joined the Home Nations to make it the 5N.

We've also had plenty of close games at home despite losing.

smurphy29

It might be more pertinent to look at a more recent sample of results from our trips to Paris:

2000: 27-25 W
2002: 5-44 L
2004: 17-35 L
2006: 31-43 L
2008: 21-26 L
2010: 10-33 L

Average points spread 16 in France's favour. We generally struggle to handle them.

CatFromHue

smurphy29 wrote: »

'Twould have been the 8pm Wednesday night rugby slot on the wednesday before the original France game ws scheduled.

http://www.newstalk.ie/programmes/all/offtheball/podcasts/

rugby on off the ball

8/2/2012 show

irishbucsfan

smurphy29 wrote: »

It might be more pertinent to look at a more recent sample of results from our trips to Paris:

2000: 27-25 W
2002: 5-44 L
2004: 17-35 L
2006: 31-43 L
2008: 21-26 L
2010: 10-33 L

Average points spread 16 in France's favour. We generally struggle to handle them.

Yeah but were "the lads" ever "really gunning" for it in any of those games?

Tox56

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Yeah but were "the lads" ever "really gunning" for it in any of those games?

Sure they'll be fine, they're really "buzzing" for it this time.

andrewdcs

smurphy29 wrote: »

It might be more pertinent to look at a more recent sample of results from our trips to Paris:

2008: 21-26 L
2010: 10-33 L

These are the only two 6 nations ones that have a real bearing, given team members playing, and the games last season (3 defeats, but none by much)

On the other hand chances of one team "running riot" are far far higher for France than us, but chances of a very close game are higher in my useless opinion.
Truth is we are very close to the second best team in the world at the moment. Problem is so are many teams in the 6 nations.

So my prediction is France 23 - 27 Ireland 2012 6 Nations in a classic.

I will naturally return shamefaced to this post in a few days after a "traditional" 30 point spread

andrewdcs

andrewdcs wrote: »

Truth is we are very close to the second best team in the world at the moment.

Christ on a ****ing Bike.

irishbucsfan

emmet02 wrote: »

andrewdcs wrote: »

Truth is we are very close to the second best team in the world at the moment.

Christ on a ****ing Bike.

Can only imagine he is posting from some future world where Joe Schmidt is head coach?

4PP

Don't know if this has been mentioned earlier but the SdF is officially sold out for Sunday.

The FFR got approx 9000 tickets back from all sources & has sold the lot.

Ardillaun

From Conor O'Shea's RTE column:

'The key for Ireland is quell the French at the start and try to bring their superior fitness into play. The longer the game goes on, the stronger Ireland will get.'

Is 'their' i.e. our (I think) superior fitness an established fact? The French forwards are fairly lean.

GerM

Ardillaun wrote: »

From Conor O'Shea's RTE column:

'The key for Ireland is quell the French at the start and try to bring their superior fitness into play. The longer the game goes on, the stronger Ireland will get.'

Is 'their' i.e. our (I think) superior fitness an established fact? The French forwards are fairly lean.

Nah. I think you'll find that players like Dusautoir, Harinordoquy and Szarzewski are notoriously out of shape.

To be honest, our forwards are ridiculously fit, particularly Heaslip and POC who seem to find another gear in the last 10 minutes when others are wavering but France's pack aren't exactly lacking in that area and they'll also use their entire bench to freshen things up. Dusautoir is quite likely to be the single fittest man in world rugby. We'll have no distinct advantage there at all I'd have thought.

irishbucsfan

Id imagine Ouedraogo is the fittest man in world rugby but I woukdnt say anyone in that French pack is far behind. Plus..... Mike Ross.....

Tox56

On a slightly related note, is there anything Dusautoir can't do? He's a complete freak.

danthefan

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Id imagine Ouedraogo is the fittest man in world rugby but I woukdnt say anyone in that French pack is far behind. Plus..... Mike Ross.....

Ouedraogo often looks completely out on his feet at the end of a tough game, dunno if it's fitness or just sheer willpower that keeps him going. His workrate is insane though.

profitius

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Id imagine Ouedraogo is the fittest man in world rugby but I woukdnt say anyone in that French pack is far behind. Plus..... Mike Ross.....

The reason for that is Quedraogo is just over 15st. Lighter than the majority of forwards.

Richie McCaw is (or was) one of the fittest forwards in the world. They were tracking him over a match and I think his workrate was 50% higher than George Smith at the time. McCaw is just under 17st.

JRant

Speaking of Emmet Byrne IMHO he's one of the best pundits around. Always gives excellent technical analysis and is not afraid to critique players.

ray jay

Otacon wrote: »

Even after reading all that, I still do not know what O'Shea's opinion is of the Irish squad selection. The only real opinion he shares is that we need to be aggressive at the breakdown and Picomoles should be starting.

He also more or less said that if Ireland employs a kicking game, it would suit the French because of how good their back 3 are at counter attacking. Someone posted in another thread that we kicked 32 times against the Welsh. Things do not bode well for this match.

leftleg

Wonder how many times well see this on Sunday.

JustinDee

leftleg wrote: »

Wonder how many times well see this tmw.

None.
Game is on Sunday.

irishbucsfan

Earls is a very good defender. I think those who constantly suggest he isn't should actually watch him rather than jump to criticise him. His pace/acceleration lets him really close down space and he hits hard. Id say playing with/watching Dougy Howlett has really helped him. Which is great because he was provably the worst defender in the 2010 6N, now I have absolutely no worries at all.

dub_skav

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Earls is a very good defender. I think those who constantly suggest he isn't should actually watch him rather than jump to criticise him. His pace/acceleration lets him really close down space and he hits hard. Id say playing with/watching Dougy Howlett has really helped him. Which is great because he was provably the worst defender in the 2010 6N, now I have absolutely no worries at all.

Learning from howlett would be very good for him in his best position of wing, but people are not convinced by him at centre. Quite rightly in my opinion

Tox56

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Earls is a very good defender. I think those who constantly suggest he isn't should actually watch him rather than jump to criticise him. His pace/acceleration lets him really close down space and he hits hard. Id say playing with/watching Dougy Howlett has really helped him. Which is great because he was provably the worst defender in the 2010 6N, now I have absolutely no worries at all.

France will provide some test for him in any case.

BoardsMember

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Earls is a very good defender. I think those who constantly suggest he isn't should actually watch him rather than jump to criticise him. His pace/acceleration lets him really close down space and he hits hard. Id say playing with/watching Dougy Howlett has really helped him. Which is great because he was provably the worst defender in the 2010 6N, now I have absolutely no worries at all.

Tell Tuilagi that, maybe he'll fall over the next time Earls doesnt get near him.

Ok, so that was one glaring error Earls made, it does not make him a bad defender per se. But I thinkt he jury is still out, defending at 13 against international class backlines is the hardest, and we dont know enough about him at that level to say if he's able for it. My guy tells me he's not, but we'll see.

irishbucsfan

France will provide a test for any center. Ask Gordon D'Arcy.

He probably still has a lot to learn about defending at 13 but he's no turnstile. He'd definitely have been my choice at 13 for this championship given the absence of Cave and BOD.