Ireland v. New Zealand build-up thread

RoundBox11

P.Walnuts wrote: »

How many big performances has the team had in the past 3 years? Aus in the WC and that's it?

Should be not be asking questions of these players after so many mediocore performances?

Some people seem to think Aus last week was a once off, newsflash we have been average for quite a while now.

Edit : BTW not for a second saying BOD should be dropped or whatever, but his decision not to retire is surely up for debate.

Well maybe it's time we had realistic expectations of what the squad can achieve. We expect these same players to be putting in huge performances against the top teams and when they don't meet these expectations we go mad.
Maybe were just not as good as we'd like to admit. I know we harp on about the HC victories but realistically, winning games over premiership, top 14 and Rabo teams which have been diluted down due to the large number of teams in England and France, quite often with only a few international players in these teams, is nothing compared to international standard. Especially when you consider the percentage of Leinster/Munster/Ulster players who are internationals.

When players e.g. Heaslip were in good form we compared him to players like Parrise and Harinorduquay, perhaps unrealistically. Now that their form drops we compare them to what we naively want them to be.

I do think we were ****e last week and are under performing, put i think we need a reality check. What i mean by that is maybe we shouldn't be going into matches like Australia, Wales etc expecting to give them a spanking.


I think i'm just having a weird moment because i'm not normally of this opinion. It's more just a thought than my opinion anyway...

Tox56

Redsock wrote: »

Myth. Defensively he has been all over the place of lately. Also the directive that tacklers must release has made him all but redundant at the breakdown.

He was massively influential at the breakdown and in defence on the lions tour, look up the demented mole article on the subject

P.Walnuts

RoundBox11 wrote: »

Well maybe it's time we had realistic expectations of what the squad can achieve. We expect these same players to be putting in huge performances against the top teams and when they don't meet these expectations we go mad.
Maybe were just not as good as we'd like to admit. I know we harp on about the HC victories but realistically, winning games over premiership, top 14 and Rabo teams which have been diluted down due to the large number of teams in England and France, quite often with only a few international players in these teams, is nothing compared to international standard. Especially when you consider the percentage of Leinster/Munster/Ulster players who are internationals.

When players e.g. Heaslip were in good form we compared him to players like Parrise and Harinorduquay, perhaps unrealistically. Now that their form drops we compare them to what we naively want them to be.

I do think we were ****e last week and are under performing, put i think we need a reality check. What i mean by that is maybe we shouldn't be going into matches like Australia, Wales etc expecting to give them a spanking.


I think i'm just having a weird moment because i'm not normally of this opinion. It's more just a thought than my opinion anyway...

I know what you are saying and I agree that we probably do overestimate ourselves, but I think that if you look at our players, they are on par with the best in Europe and in some cases better.

I will not accept for a second that England for instance have better players than us, Wales have better outside backs but overall as a team are not much better than us man for man. Similarly man for man, I think we have a number of players who would get into the Aussie team.

I really think something is not clicking with us in the national team. I mean think back to the 6N two seasons ago when Wales marched 70m down the pitch in the last 3 mins to get the winning score. Not a hope in hell of that happening Leinster/Munster/Ulster, the lack of intensity and atrocious defending last week wouldn't be tolerated at Leinster, at least i've never seen Leinster cede territory in such a manner.

The Irish team for a number of seasons now has been less the sum of its parts imo.