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.

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.

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

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.

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.

irishbucsfan

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

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.

Yeah, and you'd go backwards at a rate of knots once your wingers get caught behind the gainline as you just shift it from side to side. You can't go wide until you have clean ball, and its hard to get clean ball before you start winning the collisions. France aren't great but they're not rolling over like South Africa did.

Claregaafan18

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

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.

We haven't 'earned the right to go wide' once. It absolutely is our intention to widen the pitch, but France have had far too much joy slowing the ruck ball down.

Shefwedfan

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.

Some people

It’s lashed rain all week in France, the ball is like a bar of soap

Exactly what tactics do you want to play?

He would be a complete dope if he told them to go out and start throwing ball around and lose the game

France will be wrecked come 60 mins, then let the backs get involved

Shefwedfan

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

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.

Play those tactics and lose.....

Great if nice sunny day but it’s not that day

ClanofLams

Ireland have contained France very well, keep tagging on points and should be fine. Ryan and Aki having impressive 6N debuts.

dublinman1990

Ireland are ahead of France so far with the lead. I will now wish that the game in the 2nd half will flow so much better because the 1st half was a hard one to follow for either side. There have been some great Irish performances from Earls, Aki & Ryan. VDF is the biggest loss of this half with his nasty leg injury. Ireland missing the potential try from France was just short of a miracle. The intensity of the game though is very deflated & boring. We need to include tries to bring that intensity up a lot more because neither side is guaranteed to win it with no tries whatsoever.

The Rape of Lucretia

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

Unfortunately under a strict disciplinarian like Schmidt, that is never going to happen. Again the lack of offloading is plain obvious to see.

You mean fortunately. Joe's game is far more complex than that amateur era tactic. And that lack of offloading is a joy to see. These guys are drilled to perfection, and offload-and-hope very well ironed out of them.

Elvisjuice

ClanofLams wrote: »

Ireland have contained France very well, keep tagging on points and should be fine. Ryan and Aki having impressive 6N debuts.

yep either my motm so far

Jack Kanoff

Solid half, pack is slogging it out at the moment, should gain the upper hand after 60 mins... JVDF is a loss...no doubt... think we'll stretch them and Murray, Aki and Earls will profit....I'd nearly put a few quid on McFadds scoring too!

awec

Not that impressed with us so far at all, we look flat. The forwards are a bit disappointing and I'm not sure we can single out the back row.

We're allowing France to drag us down to their level.

Chex LeMeneux

Forward battle is fairly even. Although I think our use of the ball has been better. Think bundee at 12 has been class. Few loose box kicks but otherwise OK. Will be interesting to see how Leavy goes at 7. France are a fair bit more organised than expected.

Peregrine

Claregaafan18 wrote: »

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.

Yeah, no. This is why he's the coach and fans are not.

The Rape of Lucretia

I think Ireland are playing excellently even if not quite converting it into the points it might. That will come however. 12 point win is on here.

kilns

Gaby Logan getting plenty of sly digs in obviously not an Ireland fan ðŸ˜

Claregaafan18

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Yeah, and you'd go backwards at a rate of knots once your wingers get caught behind the gainline as you just shift it from side to side. You can't go wide until you have clean ball, and its hard to get clean ball before you start winning the collisions. France aren't great but they're not rolling over like South Africa did.

I know that the old saying is you have to earn your way i.e winning collisions etc. But we're continuing these one out runners as our 2 way attacking play along with the pathetic over use of the crash ball in areas like the French 22.

As I said we will probably go on and smash the French to the ground and probably get the win. But this is so one-dimensional it is hard to watch.

seamusk84

This TV3 coverage is garbage. How many fecking advertisements do I have to sit through.....No proper analysis

kilns

If Ireland keep their discipline they should pull out a 9-12 point winning margin

munsterlegend

If we get two scores ahead meaning next score I think it's game over. Also fitness wise last 20 we should have a big edge.

Rugbyf565

I think it's unfair to complain about Ireland in the first half, especially being 'too narrow' bull****. Ireland have to grind this out like a dog fight, only way to beat this French side. And we're also winning, don't forget that. A win is a win and that's all that matters, particularly in wet conditions, a hostile crowd and against a tough French pack.

Good game so far. Tight test but France are going to struggle. They are working their socks off and this is the best they are going to be all tournament. Ireland look calmer and more structured and when French legs start to go we're going to find the gaps.

VDF the worst player to lose because he'd have delivered a hard 80 minutes and his work rate is going to be missed in the latter stages. Leavy about to announce himself to the world stage.

LET'S GO IRELAND.