Scotland vs Ireland, 4th Feb 2017, Murrayfield, 2:25, RTÉ 2

aled wrote: »

It is hard to credit somebody to score players associated with such an appalling performance. So I responded as such. A lot of questions to be answered by Irish rugby today. Hugely disappointed

What does that even mean? A statement from the IRFU? All the clubs in Ireland issue an apology? It's a game... a team tries, sometimes the result doesn't go your way... nobody owes you anything...suck it up.

Only saw the first ten minutes and then relied on the radio for the rest.

Thankfully I have this forum to decipher what went wrong.

So we're absolutely rubbish but so were Scotland. JS is a hopeless coach. All of our players are over rated and too old...that's all of them.

Where to from here then....I hear St Marys have a couple of decent young 14 year olds...surely they must be better than the 50 - 60 capped lads we have available?

awec wrote: »

I'm not criticising his performance really, I don't really think we should single out any forward because they were all very poor for at least 40 minutes today and none of them come out with any credit.

I am arguing against the idea that Heaslip was our best player today or that he had a good game. He didn't have a good game. In the second half it was SOB and Stander who dragged us into the game.

I think he made mistakes, they didn't contribute to the result and are not a big deal but they are glaring errors if you want to argue he was good today.

I think that's a bit harsh. SOB definitely had a good game, especially carrying where he had two clean breaks and beat four defenders. Stander was heavily marked and had 24 carries for 43 metres. Heaslip had 22 for 60. So to say he had a bad game is a bit harsh.

Iain Henderson had six carries for three metre for example. I would have expected a lot more from him.

.ak wrote: »

This will sound like sour grapes but the officiating was shocking. Really do feel had an impact on the result.

Ah come now. Shocking? This drives me mental when people can't accept that we were dogsh*t for an hour today let in a try that wouldn't have looked out of place in a junior cup match. What about our defence? Where was Zebo for the first try? AWOL. Farrell needs to be asked serious questions. This is Scotland we played not New Zealand. Blaming the ref in any way is disingenuous. For me the only players who stood out for Ireland were Furlong and Henshaw.

PS just looking at Irelands second try again and Heaslip went so blatantly in from the side at a ruck that it should have been a penalty to Scotland-so yeah the ref was poor. As for his offload Henshaw slipped well in time for Heaslip to have made the right decision and not offloaded. Oh-and it was Heaslip who gave away both the last two penalties for Scotland to win the game. And some people think he was Irelands best player???

aled wrote: »

What really cracks me up about this team is such a lack of trust by Joe in his players. It is mindblowing, Murray cannot be replaced by Marmion. Earls Kearney Trimble cannot be replaced. Nobody can be replaced. And to top that off we have a game strategy that borders on, well, simply terrible.

You've flogged that dead horse until it's skeletal at this stage. And people have responded to it with clear and concise reasons.

Einstein's definition of madness comes to mind here.

Donnacha Ryan will be looking at this thinking he's the best second row in Ireland......which he is. :cool:

nagdefy wrote: »

And we should have had a plan for the that as all my life Scotland have lived on the offside line.

It's really difficult to mitigate agaiinst without affecting your gain line success. You go a bit deeper, but then you're getting hit behind the gain line and lose ground.

We tried the pragmatic approach and it probably worked pretty well. It didn't help though that we gave up so many soft tries early. The one at the lineout was particularly stupid. Joe will have the forwards doing counting exercises for that one.

Quint2010 wrote: »

Ah come now. Shocking? This drives me mental when people can't accept that we were dogsh*t for an hour today let in a try that wouldn't have looked out of place in a junior cup match. What about our defence? Where was Zebo for the first try? AWOL. Farrell needs to be asked serious questions. This is Scotland we played not New Zealand. Blaming the ref in any way is disingenuous. For me the only players who stood out for Ireland were Furlong and Henshaw.

PS just looking at Irelands second try again and Heaslip went so blatantly in from the side at a ruck that it should have been a penalty to Scotland-so yeah the ref was poor. As for his offload Henshaw slipped well in time for Heaslip to have made the right decision and not offloaded. Oh-and it was Heaslip who gave away both the last two penalties for Scotland to win the game. And some people think he was Irelands best player???

Ah hang on now - where did I say I don't accept we were dog****?

We were by far the worst team, we were awful, Scotland were excellent and deserved the win.

That doesn't mean I can't have the opinion Poite was shocking. He was shocking for both sides. Unfortunately it had a bigger impact on us.

If I was the captain I'd be in his ear over the infringements in their 22. A simple word; we're conceding tries sir, they're conceding penalties.

PTH2009 wrote: »

I knew Scotland would shock us but it's very very disappointing from an Irish perspective. Obv the grand slam/triple crown are gone but it's hard to see us win all the other games with bonus points unless we improve a lot

Who says we need to win all the other games with bonus points?