RWC'15 Pool D: Ireland vs Italy, RWC. KO Sunday 4:45PM TV3/ITV1

The Rape of Lucretia · 04-10-2015 10:09pm

Pretty much a perfect game from Ireland today. One more penalty would have been nice just to stretch the margin beyond the converted try, but that is nit-picking a little.

If Joe is reading were reading this thread he no doubt would be chuckling to himself with amusement. Instead he is sitting back tonight enjoying his mug of Vegemite, a satisfied grin on his face on a job well done.

All 15 played well. The player-by-player scorers could just give them all sevens. Nobody let the side down, or made stupid mistakes (well, apart from Mahones "note to self, maybe worth moving Henders there for France?"). All executed his plan. And the plan worked.

Who needs a plan B ? That just means plan A isnt good enough to do the job. So shouldnt be plan A in the first place. Joe goes with the best judged strategy - and sticks with it because it is the best one. Plan Bs are for unsure ditherers. Not Joe.

Big kick contestibles were carefully held back for a game when they might be needed more - no need to use them today to get the necessary win: they are a higher injury risk anyway, and with second stringers Zeebs and Earlsie not really strong in that area, no need to risk them.

Ireland coming to the boil nicely. The only dilemma is whether a tactical result should be played for next weekend and the chances of ambushing the AB's are stronger in a quarter final rather than the final. Its a toughie.

WarZ · 04-10-2015 10:10pm

rrpc wrote: »

Official statistics have SOB as having the most carries across the gainline (10), Heaslip next (7) and then Henderson and Murray (6).

But, but I though Heaslip and SOB had poor games???

So basically POM carried the least successfully of any of the back row, put in the least amount of tackles of any of the back row, made the most infringements of any of the back row and was the only back row player to be yellow carded but he was magnificent according to Keith Wood and our best player according to some posters here???

whatawaster81 · 04-10-2015 10:11pm

Bad performance, but at least it's out of our system. Better now than in knockout rugby. Time now to put it right for next week.

Utah_Saint · 04-10-2015 10:13pm

many on here said we definitely won't put 2nd poor performances together and normal service will resume against France....?!......but we were average against Scotland, poor against wales and very poor against england. I don't think you can take much from the first two pool games. So today's match we picked up from the england warm up game.

We aren't as bad as many are saying but I think the lads need to buck up their idea's. Seems like they are still in warm up mode?

The main thing is we are through but both NZ and Arg seem like terrible prospects for us right now...

rrpc · 04-10-2015 10:14pm

thomond2006 wrote: »

One tactic that didn't work was the repeated use of an inside ball to a player/winger running a hard line. At times it coughed up the ball.

The Italians had that sussed alright. The plan seemed to be to keep the ball moving but it required accuracy that we didn't display.

We had one man into rucks on the basis (I presume) that Italy wouldn't compete but the pesky blighters wouldn't oblige. The idea presumably being that we'd shift it quickly and have numbers.

Any territory we made was almost immediately lost and off we went again.

Our go-to weapon in the maul misfired badly and the garryowen was mildly ineffective, so eventually we switched to the territory game which saw us across the finish line.

On the plus side of all this was the fact that we were actually capable of charging tactics on the pitch before it became too late.

Bridge93 · 04-10-2015 10:15pm

I would be very confident that Ireland were hiding certain things until they were absolutely needed. No other reason explains why they kept using the same patterns that weren't working too well (we know it isn't a lack of prep under Schmidt).

Christy42 · 04-10-2015 10:15pm

KingBrian2 wrote: »

I must say does the fact that our lines were not breached once not count for anything. Critics were annoyed and rightly we allowed Canada and Romania to score against us but this match was low score affair. Not too many opportunities to get tries. The blue jerseys disrupted us time and time again lets remember we kept the Assisi contained. They countermanded our frequent attacks yet we shoved them back into their own half.

I realise we have to point out the flaws we made and definitely we totally messed up on the maul. I still say the result shows that despite a poor match we still won comfortable. Time for the players to unleash their passions and strengths when taking on tougher opposition. France are for the taking and will be tested by us. The courage of Italy allowed them to dominate the territory, they will be disappointed in loss of momentum.

It does count for something. Possibly I should have mentioned it but overall I stand by it being a weaker performance than we or the team would have expected.

total former wrote: »

It was a bad performance but the main issue, the lack of penetration and variety in attack has been an issue for a long time now.

We have been playing a very limited game for a while now, we struggled to score tries against Canada and Romania, today's display did not come out of the blue.

I think it's fair enough to raise concerns at this stage. We have to improve.

We didn't though. We scored 13 tries. Sure it was against weak opposition but the 5 points were never in doubt in either match so it was always going to be hard to keep the foot on the gas.

budhabob · 04-10-2015 10:16pm

WarZ wrote: »

But, but I though Heaslip and SOB had poor games???

So basically POM carried the least successfully of any of the back row, put in the least amount of tackles of any of the back row, made the most infringements of any of the back row and was the only back row player to be yellow carded but he was magnificent according to Keith Wood and our best player according to some posters here???

Did POM kill your cat or something?

bleg · 04-10-2015 10:18pm

Our game vs Scotland in the 6 nations was the last time we played with such intensity.

WarZ · 04-10-2015 10:19pm

thomond2006 wrote: »

One tactic that didn't work was the repeated use of an inside ball to a player/winger running a hard line. At times it coughed up the ball.

It got us our only try.

gamma001 · 04-10-2015 10:20pm

Anyone notice how much better the maul looked when toner came on?

WarZ · 04-10-2015 10:22pm

budhabob wrote: »

Did POM kill your cat or something?

He's probably the only debatable player from today's game. Bowe too but I don't think he is going to start against France ahead of Earls or D.Kearney.

bleg · 04-10-2015 10:27pm

I thought Bowe had a fine game.

efb · 04-10-2015 10:27pm

budhabob wrote: »

Did POM kill your cat or something?

Or did a john Terry?

Tigerandahalf · 04-10-2015 10:29pm

Looking at the highlights our backs are so far behind the gainline when we set an attack. They need to be much closer to the gainline. It was fantastic to watch Oz last night. Their backplay and heads up rugby was superb.
I fancy Oz for the trophy now.

Koobcam · 04-10-2015 10:30pm

rrpc wrote: »

On the plus side of all this was the fact that we were actually capable of charging tactics on the pitch before it became too late.

True. I thought we actually closed the match out really well-down to 14 men against a fired up Italy, it could have gone badly wrong, but they players knew what to do to get the win. Absolutely sh*te performance otherwise though.

budhabob · 04-10-2015 10:31pm

efb wrote: »

Or did a john Terry?

That was my first thought, but cat killing is more PC.

total former · 04-10-2015 10:34pm

Christy42 wrote: »

We didn't though. We scored 13 tries. Sure it was against weak opposition but the 5 points were never in doubt in either match so it was always going to be hard to keep the foot on the gas.

Of those 13, how many did we score when the opposition were down to 14? How many did we run in at the ends of the games, when they were completely knackered? The gaping holes in the Canadian and Romanian defences simply won't appear against France or Argentina/NZ.

We have been struggling to create anything in attack, this is going back to last November. We've shown that we can win games by other means and that's great but it's an issue.

irishbucsfan · 04-10-2015 10:39pm

total former wrote: »

Of those 13, how many did we score when the opposition were down to 14? How many did we run in at the ends of the games, when they were completely knackered? The gaping holes in the Canadian and Romanian defences simply won't appear against France or Argentina/NZ.

We have been struggling to create anything in attack, this is going back to last November. We've shown that we can win games by other means and that's great but it's an issue.

I'm not massively concerned about whether or not we can tear teams apart and play open rugby so long as we can win while playing smart rugby, which we've shown repeatedly we can do over the past two years.

Again, how much did the top teams create in attack in the knockout stages of the last World Cup? It just didn't come up that much.

Christy42 · 04-10-2015 10:49pm

Well we scored more than France against the same opposition so how will they create anything in attack against us? We can't fix the gaping holes in the Canadian defense to give us a better measure as to where we are we can just take our scores. We scored the most tries in the 2014 six nations and this year a low in terms of try scoring I grant you but we did fine in the last November series against SA and Australia for tries. The issue against Australia was that we were too open and conceeded too many, once we tightened up we saw out the game.

Edit: I should also point out that we do have an issue with penetration but some of the posts were over the top as a reaction in my opinion. Not everything is perfect about the team but to say that we need a massive change up is absurd. We just have to work on a few things.

total former · 04-10-2015 10:56pm

Christy42 wrote: »

Well we scored more than France against the same opposition so how will they create anything in attack against us? We can't fix the gaping holes in the Canadian defense to give us a better measure as to where we are we can just take our scores. We scored the most tries in the 2014 six nations and this year a low in terms of try scoring I grant you but we did fine in the last November series against SA and Australia for tries. The issue against Australia was that we were too open and conceeded too many, once we tightened up we saw out the game.

None of our tries against South Africa and Australia came from actual back line moves though.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO · 04-10-2015 10:58pm

Tigerandahalf wrote: »

Looking at the highlights our backs are so far behind the gainline when we set an attack. They need to be much closer to the gainline. It was fantastic to watch Oz last night. Their backplay and heads up rugby was superb.
I fancy Oz for the trophy now.

At times it looked like we were actually going backwards despite keeping possession relatively easily because players were so far back.

total former · 04-10-2015 11:03pm

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I'm not massively concerned about whether or not we can tear teams apart and play open rugby so long as we can win while playing smart rugby, which we've shown repeatedly we can do over the past two years.

Again, how much did the top teams create in attack in the knockout stages of the last World Cup? It just didn't come up that much.

I don't care how we win at all, if we grind it out playing 10 man rugby then I'll be delighted, I just think to be really considered a contender then we need a bigger bag of tricks.

We just fell over the line against a very poor Italy side. Whatever we saw today, it wasn't "smart rugby", it was crying out for a change of tack but we didn't see it.

The Rape of Lucretia · 04-10-2015 11:06pm

total former wrote: »

None of our tries against South Africa and Australia came from actual back line moves though.

A try is a try is a try.
Total rugby.

KingBrian2 · 04-10-2015 11:08pm

We lost two games and won three. Wales and England beat us in the warm ups and we beat Canada, Romania and Italy in the far more important world cup matches. A more accurate picture of how good we are. France and Argentina are good sides but so are we. Neither side will take a win against us for granted. They can be forced into making unforced errors and lets take advantage of better players come the day.

irishbucsfan · 04-10-2015 11:14pm

total former wrote: »

I don't care how we win at all, if we grind it out playing 10 man rugby then I'll be delighted, I just think to be really considered a contender then we need a bigger bag of tricks.

We just fell over the line against a very poor Italy side. Whatever we saw today, it wasn't "smart rugby", it was crying out for a change of tack but we didn't see it.

Oh yeah I absolutely agree that today was very poor. However I don't think the problem was connected at all with a lack of tricks in our bag, I've said above where I think our struggles came from. We were playing in the wrong areas all day (or at least until the 70th minute or so).

kidneyfan · 04-10-2015 11:20pm

Play Madigan at 9. Murray is effectively a utility back anyway. Madigan could probably pass more quickly (Canada or Romania would have been the time to find out) ; Madigan has significant positional awareness , is good at Rugby and is not stupid.