Ireland vs Wales 24th Feb 2:15

Buer

He probably should have been pinged for it then! It was borderline at best.

Rala_

Kearney is solid, as solid a fullback as we'll get. He just doesn't have the pace anymore to defend the likes of Anthony Watson or Teddy Thomas. Really you need a gifted athlete at 15, tall and fast. Hard to find.

OldRio

Just a thought regarding the playbacks at Lansdowne Road. Who thought it was a good idea to show the Kearney 'knock on/kick out of hands' incident on the big screen?
Also I'm sure there was a forward pass for one of the Welsh tries. We saw lots of replays of the try but non from the original camera.

Wouldn't have happened in Twickenham or France that's for sure. Or perhaps we don't go in for such shenanigans. Or, the crafty Welsh infiltrated the Video Suite.

kuang1

Excellent post. Twas Shinglers try I think.

prawnsambo

kuang1 wrote: »

Excellent post. Twas Shinglers try I think.

It was. But I'd be very loathe to disallow that one for being forward. There was a metre in it and that could easily be accounted for by momentum.

I think I said this earlier, but I was more annoyed by Leavy abd Aki's chase back. Looked as though they were on half power.

penybont exile

penybont exile wrote: »

Well played Ireland. Boss the breakdown ... win the game.

Looking down the pitch behind Anscombe at the end the robbery was definitely on if the pass had gone to Tupuric or cleared Stockdale.

Haven't seen a TV re-run or read anything on here .... Will do so and be back for some banter.

So .... managed to catch the game on TV last night .... no change to my previous comment - best team won.

Looking at the game again however frustrated me no end. As good as Ireland were .... to a large extent we were really the architects of are own downfall.

Poor decision making:

Try 1 - Scott Williams [forward pass .... no need to throw it .... kick downfield as we did successfully on two later occasions in the first half ..... on one of those Scott should have passed it ... missed a two on one and a potential long range try] .... [Sexton/Stockdale was dubious - a la Navidi/Shingler]
Try 2 - Shingler [lazy .... @the ruck - cheap penalty to concede territory .... powerful / simple score]
Try 3 - Dan Biggar [wtf] .... coughed up possession ..... some good Ireland play to get behind us. Potential knock on the the lead up & Best taking out the defender as Leavy went over .... should have been TMO referred]
Try 4 - Moriarty [school boy error after stealing the line out]
Try 5 - Anscombe [intercept ..... no need to throw that pass .... Ireland all over the place]

Agree you could probably make similar list for the three wales tries ..... 60 pages of post on this thread so I won't.

Tactics were wrong we needed to keep the ball in hand a bit more. For all the fuss around Biggar [in Wales] he actually played OK other than pissing the referee off.


Other key moments ...

Davies knock on @27-20 ... we had worked ourselves into an excellent position with Ireland on the retreat.

Scrum penalty @27-20 .... sloppy in not ensuring the ball got to the back of the scrum prior to it disintegrating.


I guess my point is for all Ireland's possession .... and very effective huff & puff ... for three out of the first four tries it was sloppy play that handed you the golden goose of field position. [.... and that is not including Biggar coughing the ball up]. They were all unforced and not errors we normally make .... hence we conceded four tries and lost control of the scoreboard.

If anybody said to me before the game that Wales would score 27 points and Sexton would be less than 50% from the tee I would have taken it!


Overall I'm not too disheartened .... we showed a lot of skill when we had the ball. This is the way we need to play for the next 18 months. If we can improve on it we'll be a handful at the next WC.

Fore Ireland Sexton was superb .... Murray excellent as was Earls. Pack excellent ... no real stand outs - all did their job. Finally .... Best - very annoying [goes off his feet over the rucks a lot ... might get pinged by another referee].

.ak

Good analysis PE. Thought Wales were a bit slow to start, never looked too worried in the 2nd half and was convinced we could march up the field whenever we had ball without too much effort. Wales seemed to switch on after the break and make a real match of it, along with our poor defending which has been highlighted but Wales really turned on the attack in the 2nd half and we struggled with it. Kinda makes me think Gats got the selection wrong.

Couple of things I'd disagree with tho... Whilst there's a case the Leavy try should've gone to TMO there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. Best binds onto Leavy from behind the ball and Biggar just tries to take Best out, he's doing nothing illegal here because he's behind the ball at point of contact. Second point is I think Anscombe was right to throw that pass. Had he put legs on it we'd be in serious trouble, especially if Stockdale went to attack the space, because he'd be in no mans land with only James Ryan and another pack player corner flagging. Now, lots of space there and of guarantee of anything as we had pretty fit guys covering across anyway, but you'd have to think there was a great chance of getting atleast into the 22 from there had it gone to hand. If it was passed through the hands the entire pack were pushing left and would've shepered them into touch.

penybont exile

Not overly critical of Anscombe. He went for the high risk option which as you say if it had hit its man would more than likely have won the match. I was looking down the pitch behind this .... there was a lot of space. The less risky option would have got us well up the pitch .... you never know from then.

Split second decisions .... it was sloppiness earlier in the game though that cost us!

Anyway life goes on ....

Interesting one for me is that Ireland seem happy to concede the wider channels when they haven't got the ball. Almost challenging their opponents to get there and take advantage of it. This has been evident for the last three years .... I'm not convinced they are serious about fixing it which might be their achilles heel in some future important game.

.ak

Well you could say it already cost us a World Cup semi final spot, so I reckon the coaching staff are serious about it.

If you were to be a little bit more analytical about it though I'd wager you'd find very different reasons why we look weak in the wider channels then vs now.

penybont exile

.ak wrote: »

Well you could say it already cost us a World Cup semi final spot, so I reckon the coaching staff are serious about it.

If you were to be a little bit more analytical about it though I'd wager you'd find very different reasons why we look weak in the wider channels then vs now.

Not serious enough IMO ..... [two years ago I can remember Scott Baldwin being in the exact same position as Josh Navidi on Saturday ..... different outcome because he dropped the pass].

Cut to brass tacks ... you have 15 pieces to place efficiently on a board opposite 15 other pieces coming at you. What you gain by putting your pieces in position X you lose by not having them in position Y.

Maybe JS feels the gains outweigh the losses .... and maybe he's right.

IMO the individual defensive misreads etc. happen because the defence is stressed in those outside channels. A 2 on 2 [if there is plenty of space] is a dangerous situation for the defending team.

Different strokes for different folks .... the inside ball, or the short pass out the back with runners fixing our outside defence caused Wales problems on Saturday. The scramble defence is more likely to get to that type of play though.

sydthebeat

Our defensive problems out wide are due to us having a physical and aggressive scrum half, in my opinion.

Quite often a defending team will play with the scrum half as a sweeper which allows the full back to cover out wider, and thus join the line quicker when needed.

We play with a 13 man line where Murray is quite often front and central in tackling big ball carriers. Our wingers have to pendulum quite deep in field, and our full back has to cover the full width of the field, often at the speed of a passing ball. This defensive line is great at withholding sustained attacks in a fold, or straight up. And, maintaining our discipline, we wait for the attacking team to make mistakes or we flood a rock and turn the ball over. This is done at a sacrifice of leaving space of wide.

Its something that is easily fixed however, you just add an extra player into the back field.

That in turn though leaves us a man short in the line, and farrell doesn't seem to want to do that. I wonder, with may and Watson being such speedsters and OF as a second play maker, will we see a change to our system against England??

prawnsambo

sydthebeat wrote: »

Its something that is easily fixed however, you just add an extra player into the back field.

That in turn though leaves us a man short in the line, and farrell doesn't seem to want to do that. I wonder, with may and Watson being such speedsters and OF as a second play maker, will we see a change to our system against England??

I think it's supposed to transition to a drift if the ball goes wide. So you should have players folding around the ruck and pushing out with the ball. Or cutting back towards the corner to intercept the break if it comes. I was a bit annoyed that Leavy and Aki, who were in a position to cover back, didn't seem too urgent about it for Shingler's try.

sydthebeat

prawnsambo wrote: »

I think it's supposed to transition to a drift if the ball goes wide. So you should have players folding around the ruck and pushing out with the ball. Or cutting back towards the corner to intercept the break if it comes. I was a bit annoyed that Leavy and Aki, who were in a position to cover back, didn't seem too urgent about it for Shingler's try.

Agreed, it's an issue that's coming from in field from what I can see. Probably due to players not used to playing with each other that often and being stuck in their defensive plan, rather than reacting to what's happening in front of them and trusting who's inside.
I know ringrose is still very young, but he has a knack of seeing what's going to happen and reacts quickly. I think he would bolster our defense against these incidents.

It really shows though how much area Kearney has to cover during a game, and I wouldnt be at all surprised if, at the end of the tournament, he has covered the most ground of any player.

awec

The ease with which Wales created overlaps out wide is what concerns me the most with England. Stockdale's intercept for example, last play of the game and Ireland must have realised they just had to concentrate for another few minutes and still Wales created a 3 on 1 with little effort off only a few phases of play.

awec

awec wrote: »

The ease with which Wales created overlaps out wide is what concerns me the most with England. Stockdale's intercept for example, last play of the game and Ireland must have realised they just had to concentrate for another few minutes and still Wales created a 3 on 1 with little effort off only a few phases of play.

They didn't though. That was a massive hail Mary to get around us. Had they garryowened into our 22 it would have had a marginally slimmer chance of producing a score.

irishbucsfan

Wales' last possession was extremely frustrating to watch. We were consistently over-committing into defensive rucks when there was absolutely no need. It was extremely naive from some of the players. We should have stayed away from the defensive ruck and had players getting straight back to their feet and straight back into the defensive line. Luckily Wales ultimately threw it away, literally, but we should have had much more coverage from guys who were missing in the line. The Lions down in New Zealand showed absolutely perfectly (possibly better than any team I've ever seen) exactly how to play this.

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Wales' last possession was extremely frustrating to watch. We were consistently over-committing into defensive rucks when there was absolutely no need. It was extremely naive from some of the players. We should have stayed away from the defensive ruck and had players getting straight back to their feet and straight back into the defensive line. Luckily Wales ultimately threw it away, literally, but we should have had much more coverage from guys who were missing in the line. The Lions down in New Zealand showed absolutely perfectly (possibly better than any team I've ever seen) exactly how to play this.

Same defence coach too which further convinces me that this is a communication/leadership issue on the field. Which probably shouldn't be too much of a surprise with the inexperience in certain areas at that stage of the game.