Match preview & thread: FRA vs IRE (Sat Feb 3, 1645)

mfceiling

Murray absolutely squeezed the last bit of milk out of that one!!

irishbucsfan

Murray has been excellent in the face of some really crappy ball quality. The French pack are doing a very good job of messing with his service, they won't keep that up all game.

Rugbyf565

France clearly looking to use thuggery to bully their way to victory here.

its_phil

Bundee with the lift on Leavy off restart. Love that man

Claregaafan18

Joe Schmidt's gameplan is simple. Bully the French into a attritional, dog-fight warfare and use the crash ball and kicking game frequently. That does not seem to be a sign of this tactical genius that many believe the New Zealander is particularly among the media and pundits alike.

We may win but boy this is painful to watch.

mfceiling

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

Joe Schmidt's gameplan is simple. Bully the French into a attritional, dog-fight warfare and use the crash ball and kicking game frequently. That does not seem to be a sign of this tactical genius that many believe the New Zealander is particularly among the media and pundits alike.

We may win but boy this is painful to watch.

What would your tactics have been?

LuckyGent88

Serious dog fight here. We are still very comfortable but need to do more in attack. Hopefully all these tackles that the French have had to make so far will tire them out.

PhilipsR

Terrible game so far.

mfceiling

James Ryan has been magnificent.

Burkie1203

France 115 tackles. Ireland 40

leakyboots

Not the most inspiring half from us. Hopefully we'll tire them out for the last 20 and make hay then but we look a bit one dimensional in attack

Burkie1203

mfceiling wrote: »

James Ryan has been magnificent.

Him and Earls our two best players.

irishbucsfan

France are exactly as expected. If we keep up our performance we'll win this.

As long as we keep their first phase in their own half, they'll struggle for points.

irishbucsfan

Burkie1203 wrote: »

Him and Earls our two best players.

Aki and Henshaw both excellent for me as well. Murray my MOTM so far.

Skid X

Well, it's dull but at least we're not 24-3 down at halftime like we were every time we played in Paris when I was a young lad.

baas baa

First half takeaways

Ryan is taking on a colossal amount of work, the new POC in that regard. Carried 2 out of 3 phases at one point.

Stander looking predictable but one great carry down the touchline.

France diving over the ball in defence and making the rucks a mess.

We still revert to type with one ouf runners in the 22.

swiwi_

As expected an arm wrestle. Ireland are surprisingly one dimensional on attack, a lot of just carting it up. It's a pity VDF got injured because I would have pulled either POM or CJS at half-time, POM in particular is pretty anonymous today.

France don't offer a lot with ball on hand as you'd expect, but if they remain within 7 points it will go to the wire.

Franz Von Peppercorn

French defence has been very strong.

Clegg

Need t a great game but I'd take a 6 point half point lead every time. French are defending the tight areas well but we're making metres when the game gets stretched. We also look comfortable enough when they have the ball. Really disappointed for VdF going off injured. He's been in great form this year and deserved a run with the national side. Hope he's not out for too long.

MJohnston

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

Joe Schmidt's gameplan is simple. Bully the French into a attritional, dog-fight warfare and use the crash ball and kicking game frequently. That does not seem to be a sign of this tactical genius that many believe the New Zealander is particularly among the media and pundits alike.

We may win but boy this is painful to watch.

Nah, I agree it's fairly painful to watch, but I agree with what ibf said earlier - they're trying to draw the French into penalties at the breakdown, especially in the French half. As the match goes on, France are only going to get more frustrated with that too, as we saw at the end there.

The problem has been that they've turned out to be actually quite good at attacking our breakdown

Claregaafan18

mfceiling wrote: »

What would your tactics have been?

My tactics would be to give the ball to Earls and Stockdale who have been starved of possession an awful lot more frequently. Play more ball in hand is something that this team is capable off. Unfortunately under a strict disciplinarian like Schmidt, that is never going to happen. Again the lack of offloading is plain obvious to see. PLAY WITH MORE WIDTH PLEASE. That would be my message for the second half.

cameramonkey

Contrast this with our first game last year V Scotland. We have kept it tight and are 6 up.

Happy enough with that.

nerd69

France making a lot of tackles and coming out of the line very very quick that has to tire them out. They are not supposed to be the fittest of countries anyway so we will see

VonZan

Bar Kearney’s mistake in the first half you imagine Schmidt will be happy enough. We aren’t going to take risks and this French defence are very strong. We can’t afford to give away any easy points but if we keep it up I think we’ll win.

Burkie1203

MJohnston wrote: »

Nah, I agree it's fairly painful to watch, but I agree with what ibf said earlier - they're trying to draw the French into penalties at the breakdown, especially in the French half. As the match goes on, France are only going to get more frustrated with that too, as we saw at the end there.

The problem has been that they've turned out to be actually quite good at attacking our breakdown

Our backrow was largely ineffective. Stander is too one dimensional

Hopefully Leavy makes a difference in second half.

FCIM

Borefest. Whilst Ireland are expectedly using, as they almost always will as that's where their bigger strengths lie, big forward play and kicking, France are all over the place. Though I'd prefer Ireland to win I can't help but lament the desperation of the French game at national level these days.

Whilst the excuse given will be the amount of foreign players in the Top 14 and the big salaries pulling them in alongside the Top 14 clubs and national team not working together, is that really it? There's a lot of money and a lot of foreign players in the English Premiership, and the English clubs and national team don't always work together either, but England never seem to sink for too long and enjoy periods of dominance which have deserted the French.

Need to grab this game fast and put it out of sight. Longer we leave them in it more chance of a wobble happening.

Plenty of space out wide if we can clean the ball up a bit quicker

stephen_n

Pack are getting fairly bullied, Murray is getting pretty poor quality ball all day. Stander hasn’t really upped his game, he needs to be getting outside his man, running straight at that French defence won’t yield much. If we can clean out the rucks more effectively, we’ll start to make yards. This was always going to be an arm wrestle, hopefully the French will tire soon though.

Tigerandahalf

Poor game for a neutral. Granted the conditions look poor.
V d Flier struggled before he went off - doesn't have the strength to clear the rucks.

France are surprisingly dogged and are making a mess of the ruck, slowing down our ball.

Again I'd be worried about our creativity 18 months out from a world cup - too slow and ponderous.

Cian Healy is constantly boring in at the scrum. Lucky not to be picked up on it. Nigel is not really a scrum ref though.

baas baa

Weather could be playing a part in the attrition. Doesnt look great there.