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

stephen_n

Sangre wrote: »

Did anyone else think Murray's distribution was below normal standards? A lot of players had to reach high for the ball or check their run. Very unlike him.

He spent half the day digging it out from underneath a French arm or leg, in pretty poxy conditions. I wouldn’t really expect much else.

Buer

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Eh, yes certainly rain was a big factor, but in the second half we played against the conditions if anything. Should have been playing short phase possessions and forcing France into playing the ball going backwards. Vakatawa and Thomas were there for us to go after. BOD actually also made this point this morning on the twitter-radio.

Schmidt has produced exactly that type of performance out of us as well, for Leinster and Ireland, so its even more disappointing for me that it didn't happen.

Grand. I was just pointing out the conditions in relation to Murray's passing possibly not being as accurate as it normally is.

irelandrover

stephen_n wrote: »

He spent half the day digging it out from underneath a French arm or leg, in pretty poxy conditions. I wouldn’t really expect much else.

His most important pass of the day as well under the most pressure was the one at the end to Sexton, and he got it perfect.

stephen_n

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Every criticism that has been made has been tempered by reality.

That's actual reality. Not the alternate universe where France weren't dominated in both possession and territory for 80 minutes and still managed to nearly beat us.

The reality is we didn’t clear the ball anywhere near quick enough. If there is an area to be criticized that’s it. Especially since it’s a recurring theme, our breakdown work just isn’t up to scratch. Slow ball and fast line speed are a poor combination. In the first half we varied the game a lot, we were attempting to kick in behind them and although it helped us win the territory and possession game. The French defence didn’t waiver. If you look at the difference between their clear outs and ours, you see a big part of the problem. Every time and Irish player got near the French ball, they came in at pace (off their feet generally) and took the Irish player out. We were not doing that, we ended up having arm wrestles over the ball, with Murray digging it out slowly.

Yeah_Right

As others have mentioned, that final drive on Saturday was very reminiscent of the ABs. Especially of that match in 2013 and I had the same confidence on Saturday night as I had back then. We were going to win*

I will admit that when Sexton took the DG, I did shout WTF! as I though he was too far out.

Winning that way I think helps the team in the long run. If they'd limped home with a 12-9 victory it would have been meh. But having to fight back like that, coming so close to losing, means they will be more focused and the analysis more critical. I think.

It also showed how disciplined, tough and together this team is. Everyone did their job. No one panicked. No one had a brain explosion. They all did what was required of them. It was really impressive.

* by "we" I'm an AB supporter but when they're not playing, I obviously support Ireland.

.ak

awec wrote: »

Interesting article in the times this morning.

Since 2014 Ireland have scored 37 tries in the Six Nations. 31 of these have been against Italy and Scotland.

We will dispatch of poor tier two sides with ease, hammer the poor six nations teams and get big results in one off Autumn games. But as of yet we haven’t cracked the nut on how to develop a cutting edge against the good six nations side, and turn possession into points consistently.

I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe it’s the tactics, maybe the players aren’t as good as we think, maybe it’s a mental issue. We never have a problem getting ourselves up for individual big matches that we target, but we don’t seem capable of stringing 5 clinical performances back to back.

Maybe it’s because England, Wales and France are good teams.

irishbucsfan

.ak wrote: »

Maybe it’s because England, Wales and France are good teams.

As awec pointed out after the post you quoted, not quite

.ak

irishbucsfan wrote: »

As awec pointed out after the post you quoted, not quite

They’re tough teams to crack, and France and England have better talent at their disposal for scoring tries.

I think people will be a long time waiting to see a Leinster-esque performance from an Irish team against England, Wales or France.

Stander, Leavy Conan would be my back row against Italy. If you are leaving Stander at 8 then I'd put Jordi or Conan at 6. Joe is going to have to seriously consider our starting back row as we got slow ball all day against France. Owens somewhat to blame but it wasn't good enough. If Seanie is back then that changes things, but we're going to need to be better if we fancy ourselves champions. We also provided no threat from the backrow in attack and we needed someone like Conan who can get in behind the French and get their hands away. I don't think O'Mahony is in good enough form to be starting at the moment. He worked hard on Saturday but was completely ineffectual.

I think we're going to see changes to the back three also. Kearney and Stockdale both with mixed games. Stockdale guilty a few times this season of making bad or no decisions in defence and I think one of he or Kearney are going to be replaced next week and if it's Stockdale it won't be a good sign for him.

Ringrose and Sean O'Brien would have made a big difference to us today. I don't know who you replace if Ringrose comes in but we lacked a spark in mid field as an alternative when the ball was slow.

.ak

.ak wrote: »

They’re tough teams to crack, and France and England have better talent at their disposal for scoring tries.

I think people will be a long time waiting to see a Leinster-esque performance from an Irish team against England, Wales or France.

I thought the win on Saturday was extremely Leinster-esque. Especially away in France.

.ak

Thought Henshaw had a mixed bag imo ... but There’s a lot to be said for using a club combination in midfield and getting Henshaw and Ringrose partnered up again.

Aki was fantastic going forward yesterday tho

molloyjh

awec wrote: »

No, not at all.

In the 2015/2016/2017 Six nations, the tries scored against France / Ireland / England / Wales by nation are:

Ireland - 6
Wales - 12
England - 18
France - 12

Sorry, but go back through the games individually as opposed to the totals. Scoring 0-2 tries against top opposition is the norm. Ireland won the 2015 6Ns having scored very few tries at all and in the same year that mental France-England game saw 12 tries scored, warping the total figures. The 2015 Championship is no less valuable despite the lack of tries scored. Wales have a few games where they've scored 3 tries against us and England, but sure how much good has that done them in those years? They finished below us twice in the 3 years.

Team|2015|2016|2017
Ireland|2|2|2
Wales|3|5|4
England|9(2)|6|3
France|7(2)|2|3


That crazy game in Paris aside (tries outside that game are in brackets) the only appreciable difference is 2016 where Wales and England performed better. Other than that we're not far off the norm at all. And we already know that 2016 was our worst 6Ns since Joe took over.

Jack Kanoff

Just saw a report that JVDF is out for the season.... horrid news for Ireland and him personally if it's true.

.ak

Deleted User wrote: »

I thought the win on Saturday was extremely Leinster-esque. Especially away in France.

by Leinster-esque I mean being utterly dominate and accurate and scoring tries from it.

AbusesToilets

Deleted User wrote: »

Ringrose and Sean O'Brien would have made a big difference to us today. I don't know who you replace if Ringrose comes in but we lacked a spark in mid field as an alternative when the ball was slow.

I'd drop Henshaw for Ringrose myself. He didn't contribute much, which is disappointing given his generally positive efforts at 13 for leinster this year.

baas baa

awec wrote: »

Interesting article in the times this morning.

Since 2014 Ireland have scored 37 tries in the Six Nations. 31 of these have been against Italy and Scotland.

We will dispatch of poor tier two sides with ease, hammer the poor six nations teams and get big results in one off Autumn games. But as of yet we haven’t cracked the nut on how to develop a cutting edge against the good six nations side, and turn possession into points consistently.

I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe it’s the tactics, maybe the players aren’t as good as we think, maybe it’s a mental issue. We never have a problem getting ourselves up for individual big matches that we target, but we don’t seem capable of stringing 5 clinical performances back to back.

For all his talents I'm not sure Murray is suited to playing the high tempo game you need to break down the better sides.

phog

Very disappointed with our performance on Saturday, I know we had the ball ripped once or twice when in good positions but we never looked like we'd score a try.

Sexton's kicks to win the game were high risk and executed brilliantly and everyone can take a sigh of relief that we won but we should never have been in that position with the possession we had. We had zero line breaks - ZERO and that tells it's own story.

Thankfully, we have Italy next to rid ourselves of any rustiness that might be there but we need to be able to threaten the opposition a but more than we did v France.

Overall, we're in a good place, we won in Paris and should see off Italy and Scotland handy enough, we have Wales at home too which is a bonus so as most have predicted then it's down to our last game away to England.

aloooof

Just spotted something to clear this up:

aloooof wrote: »

One other point that I don't think I've seen anyone else mention; how come Machenaud didn't take the penalty they missed? He was back on the field at that point, right?

Murray Kinsella has posted this on Twitter:

HIA replacements CAN take place kicks. The protocol was amended last year.
Makes it very difficult to understand why Maxime Machenaud didn't take that shot at goal. Arguably cost France the game.

GreeBo

One thing I have noticed during my various re-watching of the last 41 phases.
Most of the time we were passing deep to static runners.

If you are going to be static you might as well be flat, at least that way you aren't losing so much ground.

blackwhite

GreeBo wrote: »

One thing I have noticed during my various re-watching of the last 41 phases.
Most of the time we were passing deep to static runners.

If you are going to be static you might as well be flat, at least that way you aren't losing so much ground.

It wasn't just for the 41 phases - it was a noticeable problem for plenty of periods during the game. Ball-carriers with no momentum before the tackle meaning we struggled to move forward in the tight.

We often seem to revert to static one-out passes when faced with quick-up defensive line.
I get that it means the forwards can set their pods and we're less likely to be isolated and turned over, but it also means we're much less likely to get over the gain-line.

GreeBo

blackwhite wrote: »

It wasn't just for the 41 phases - it was a noticeable problem for plenty of periods during the game. Ball-carriers with no momentum before the tackle meaning we struggled to move forward in the tight.

We often seem to revert to static one-out passes when faced with quick-up defensive line.
I get that it means the forwards can set their pods and we're less likely to be isolated and turned over, but it also means we're much less likely to get over the gain-line.

True enough.
Its something I notice we do a lot (static 'runners') but I hadnt noticed it with runners standing deep before. Surely you can set a pod with a forward just off the ruck (we do that often enough too)
But throwing to Healy when he is 5M deep and standing still means he has a huge amount of work to do, just for the move to break even.

Akrasia

GreeBo wrote: »

One thing I have noticed during my various re-watching of the last 41 phases.
Most of the time we were passing deep to static runners.

If you are going to be static you might as well be flat, at least that way you aren't losing so much ground.

We had to pass deep because France were offside most of the time

lotmc

sydthebeat wrote: »

the big turning point in the game came in and around the 50 minute mark, we were battering away 10 meters out, 12 points to 3 up... when Furlong gets ripped and they kick down field (a note here... Murrays delivery to Furlong was incredibly slow, whether by design or by france slowing it down). Two minutes later sexton catches on our 22 and we set up for an exit.... twice however murray declined that option.... second crash ball and Leavy gets caught not releasing. It was an absolutely terrible penalty to give away, on our own 22, letting the get back into the game at 6 - 12

Furlong had gone to ground, and had a knee on the ground, when the ball was ripped from him. Penalty Ireland in front of the posts for tackler not releasing. Oh wait, Nige was reffing.....

who_me

Was anyone else like me; watching as that kick was flying: watching the kick (he's too far out!!) watching Owens to see if he'd stick his arm up... Owens waiting and waiting (big attention seeker! ). He still hasn't put up the arm... The camera cuts to Sexton celebrating and I went "**** this, can't wait any longer" and started leaping and screaming and everyone else joined in.

I don't think you can say it's a bad performance given how terrible our record has been there. France, on a bad day, are still a good side.

We're definitely a low-risk, low error side at the moment. On the negative side - we're very predictable to read, put a lot of pressure on our defence, and won't put many sides away. That last bit could really hurt us now that BPs are in the Six Nations!!

On the plus side: predictability helps you play your game faster and more accurately. You get the feeling the 2003 RWC winning English team could have played blindfold, they were so well drilled. This Irish team feels a bit like that. Not spectacular, but very controlled and accurate. Plus, the kicking game negates big sides who want to beat us up. If we're not trying to smash through them, they can't push us back.

We saw the result of all that though in the shape of this game: we were probably dominant through most of the game, without looking anything like scoring a try, so we never pulled away. We got our kickchase wrong for one kick and France scored.

mfceiling

phog wrote: »

we have Wales at home too which is a bonus so as most have predicted then it's down to our last game away to England.

Wales will be no pushover. They'll look at us being suspect out wide and play the width of the field. If our defence is anyway narrow we could concede tries.

Ardillaun

We generate records for other teams’ tackle counts which is both good and bad news I suppose:

https://www.independent.ie/sport/rugby/six-nations/france-broke-six-nations-defensive-records-against-ireland-and-the-stats-dont-make-good-reading-for-joe-schmidt-36568434.html

Neil3030

If Wales can remain healthy and competitive in this year's championship it will be an incredible achievement, considering who they are already missing. But make no mistake, they could send the Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch U16s and still feel confident coming to Dublin, we just don't seem to phase them!

NollagShona

Neil3030 wrote: »

If Wales can remain healthy and competitive in this year's championship it will be an incredible achievement, considering who they are already missing. But make no mistake, they could send the Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch U16s and still feel confident coming to Dublin, we just don't seem to phase them!

Oh, what’s occouring? They don’t play much rugby up there tbf

penybont exile

mangobob wrote: »

Look I am absolutely over the moon that we won, and it took me hours to come down off the high of that last four minutes of sheer fupping epicness. As I have said on another site, it was a piece of skill for the ages. I simply cannot say enough great things about it.

But that shouldn't mask the fact that we got out of there with a win by the skin of our teeth against a side that we were rightly expected to dominate. It was in some ways quite a flawed performance. We were worryingly blunt in attack, never even looked like scoring a try and we failed to put France away after 65 odd minutes of controlling the match. As a team we were vastly more settled and experienced, with a far superior coach and tremendous strength in depth. The French fielded a team with a 19 year old fly half making his first appearance, a raft of unfamiliar combinations, a bench with a combined total of 16 caps (vs 200 odd on ours) and were playing their very first 6 Nations game under a coach whose resume is vastly inferior to ours. The conditions are no excuse, as they were the same for both sides. It should never have been that close.

The fact is that in the end, we got out of jail BIG TIME and yes luck most certainly played a part in it. Johnny missed a crucial penalty. Then Belleau missed a sitter. Those two events have no relation to each other. Just because one happened, doesn't mean the other must happen to cancel it out. They are totally independent, and it was sheer luck that the French player chosen to kick missed it. We also got lucky that Machenaud wasn't the one kicking it, because you can bet your house on it that he would have got it. Its also fair to say that several of those French penalties were unforced, so a significant portion of our points were gifts.

All of the positives you stated about Ireland's performance are true. But acknowledging that we got lucky isn't diminishing what we achieved out there. Its simply being honest. In every close game you need a little luck, whether that means little things going for you at crucial times or at the very least not going against you when they could have. Its like the infamous loss to the All Blacks in Dublin. The AB's were lucky to win that. How? They got lucky in the sense that Nigel gave them a very kind decision at a crucial time, and then they got lucky again that Luke Fitzgerald charged the missed conversion too early giving them another chance to win it instead of simply drawing. But that doesn't diminish in any way how incredible their last play was, as they still needed the skill and the composure to capitalise on it.

Saying that Ireland were the better team and yet still were lucky to win is not a contradiction. Its simply the nature of sport.

Couldn't have put it better myself .......

Neil3030

NollagShona wrote: »

Oh, what’s occouring? They don’t play much rugby up there tbf

Sure George North is from out that way!