Match Thread : Irish Wolfhounds V England Saxons Friday 30th Jan 2015

BBDBB

we looked tired and naïve for that last score

Sh3m

sydthebeat wrote: »

Everybody's been crap.

Draw two lines under it and move on to next week.

Nothing to see here ......

Standard Irish second string game.

shuffol

Deserved 2nd score for Saxons, far better side.

We never looked like scoring a try until the end and even then we were hardly banging the door down.

sydthebeat

Tough call to make now at 10

jack01986

Pretty awful showing.

Kanrith

Wouldn't say Saxons were far better, both teams were pretty terrible.

BBDBB

poor stuff from both sides but England deserved to win that over the 80

awec

Madigan didn't make Joe's decision any easier tonight.

vienne86

I was dying for this match all day. Lovely night for rugby. Very disappointing, given the team we put out. Commentators suggesting that team could have gone out against Italy next week. Christ.....it doesn't look good!

Tox56

Well that was awful. In terms of positives, SOB survived, Henderson will surely be in the 23, Boss could well have played his way onto the bench

It's not inconceivable that D'Arcy has played his last game in green, which if so would be an unfortunate way to go out

mfceiling

DDC1990

God terrible stuff.

Wouldn't want to see any of the 23 start next week.

Very poor all round.

I expected a lot from Jones, Madigan, Earls, Marmion and D'Arcy.

None of them had any significant impact on the game. Earls missed some awful tackles after looking very impressive last week. Madigan has no game management skills. D'Arcy was anonymous. Jones did ok, but missed a key tackle that les to the first try.

ssaye2

rather tonight than next few weeks

Disappointing but not devastated

SaveOurLyric

Sh3m wrote: »

Standard Irish second string game.

An hour and 45 ago people marvelling at the Irish strength in depth, picking 3rd teams, debating which of 6 international class players should be picked for one position, etc.
Wake up time ?

And, dare I say it....Joe is not the Messiah ?

Tox56

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

An hour and 45 ago people marvelling at the Irish strength in depth, picking 3rd teams, debating which of 6 international class players should be picked for one position, etc.
Wake up time ?

And, dare I say it....Joe is not the Messiah ?

Joe wasn't the coach for this...

vienne86

Delighted about SOB. Henderson and Ryan played well.

On the basis of that game, and Leinster's game last week, I don't think Madigan can start at 10 next week.

Deliverance XXV

Disappointing game but probably the fairest result. Henderson and McGrath were the only positives for me. Would like to have seen McKeon on earlier.

I thought our backline was poor and over powered. Any rush defence that size would cut us down. Sad to see McFadden go off - hopefully nothing too serious.

molloyjh

Terrible stuff. Darce done and I'd be incredibly disappointed if Mads starts at 10. Conan was invisible. McGrath was very quiet. Henderson and Dippy looked good at times, Diack and McKeon had decent showings off the bench. Other than that the fact SOB came through unscathed was the only other positive. Just awful.

P.Walnuts

awec wrote: »

That game was worse.

At least England know the rules.

Ye fair point, it was also on in the middle of the night, christ that was a bad game....made bearable by the match thread on here though, that thread should be stickied :pac:

Bridge93

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

An hour and 45 ago people marvelling at the Irish strength in depth, picking 3rd teams, debating which of 6 international class players should be picked for one position, etc.
Wake up time ?

And, dare I say it....Joe is not the Messiah ?

Well this is total rubbish. One game doesn't define our depth or quality. It's a wake up nothing more.

SaveOurLyric

Tox56 wrote: »

Well that was awful. In terms of positives, SOB survived, Henderson will surely be in the 23, Boss could well have played his way onto the bench

.. and Fitz came out of it best of all. Will indeed now play 6 nations rugby again. And thats a good thing.
Reminds of the days of the old Final Trial, where players were happy to have to miss it for some minor ailment, avoiding the possibility that they would be shown up by their opposite 'possible', and so retain their spot for the 5N.

Sh3m

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

An hour and 45 ago people marvelling at the Irish strength in depth, picking 3rd teams, debating which of 6 international class players should be picked for one position, etc.
Wake up time ?

And, dare I say it....Joe is not the Messiah ?

Big difference in having depth for 2 teams and being able to field an A team and produce a good display though. A team games are always scrappy. That exact team under Joe facing Italy would be a different beast.

NiallBoo

awec wrote: »

Madigan didn't make Joe's decision any easier tonight.

Everyone had a quiet night, everyone was poor. Madigan didn't play any worse than anyone else.
With a team functioning that badly it wouldn't have mattered who you had at out-half. I don't think you could decide the future of any of the players based on tonight's performance.

SaveOurLyric

Tox56 wrote: »

Joe wasn't the coach for this...

Ostensibly.

Buer

Tox56 wrote: »

Joe wasn't the coach for this...

No but he almost certainly selected the side and was coaching all of the players all week.

I would say tonight's input was about 70% Schmidt, 30% McFarland.

Mahatma Geansai

Well, this has been terrible. Pack was completely underwhelming, but only one or two of them will be in Joe mind for the Italy game anyway. Backs were error prone. Henderson and Earls had decent games and will probably feature against Italy.

Madigan's hair looked great, but he was poor otherwise and offers no direction at 10; Keatley should start against Italy. Madigan's kicking from the tee is his selling point, but I wouldn't consider it good enough to earn him the jersey. That is also approaching the old ROG/Sexton argument. We need Sexton to be cleared to play as soon as possible.

sydthebeat

Big winners tonight:

Keatley and Fitzgerald.

BBDBB

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

An hour and 45 ago people marvelling at the Irish strength in depth, picking 3rd teams, debating which of 6 international class players should be picked for one position, etc.
Wake up time ?

And, dare I say it....Joe is not the Messiah ?

pre match optimism vs post match opportunism?


its easy to wise after the event but the fact remains that the team selected looked experienced on paper and should have performed better on the night, they didn't, that's not a wake up call for the punters, that's a wake up call for the players to up their game and deliver.


Joe is not the messiah,.............but he is a very talented coach, I sincerely hope we hang on to him for the foreseeable future

Bridge93

Mahatma Geansai wrote: »

Well, this has been terrible. Pack was completely underwhelming, but only one or two of them will be in Joe mind for the Italy game anyway. Backs were error prone. Henderson and Earls had decent games and will probably feature against Italy.

Madigan's hair looked great, but he was poor otherwise and offers no direction at 10; Keatley should start against Italy. Madigan's kicking from the tee is his selling point, but I wouldn't consider it good enough to earn him the jersey. That is also approaching the old ROG/Sexton argument. We need Sexton to be cleared to play as soon as possible.

Earls was very very poor second half

Tox56

Buer wrote: »

No but he almost certainly selected the side and was coaching all of the players all week.

I would say tonight's input was about 70% Schmidt, 30% McFarland.

I suppose, but calling into question the abilities of a coach for a scratch game he wasn't even officially in charge of is pretty ridiculous.