Ireland vs Wales 24th Feb 2:15

Paul Smeenus wrote: »

If Paddy Jackson, Keatley or Carberry had missed eight points worth of kicks in the first half of a game, they'd be hung, drawn and quartered.

Also, that tap and go wasn't massively bright given the time and scoreline.

But Sexton was still our best player. The reason he has been so good for so long isn't because of his kicking game. Would much rather a Sexton with the odd ricket in his kicking game and what he adds on the pitch, than 1/2p, who is one of the best kickers I've ever seen, but is so so in open play. I know positions are different but the logic still followx

happy with the win but we need to work on closing out a game earlier when we have the opportunitys. Farrell, Earls, Healy all brillent today

Hopefully Scotland do us a favour and beat England

mfceiling wrote: »

You know the way Wales said they were targeting a bonus point win?

Yeah well they can shove that up their hole.

Love that Stockdale even denied them a bonus point loss too.

Kenzie Harsh Volleyball wrote: »

You can get lost. You're not funny or witty, nor do your have a monopoly on rugby knowledge.

Ease up there, he apologised.

stephen_n wrote: »

He had an excellent game apart from the tee, was involved in creating nearly everything positive we did, if Keatley ever even came close to that, we’d never hear the end of it. Reality check is actually watching the game, maybe you should check back and find it.

I suspect Sexton had some sort of a niggle. Not like him to miss kicks like that and there was an odd sound from the kicks, almost like a fat shot in golf. The fact that he ran the penalty instead of kicking it (fairly unusual for him) makes me think he just couldn't take them cleanly.

Refs seem quite slow to go for yellow cards this year. Should Ireland be looking to take advantage. I was definitely surprised Wales got away with it today. Especially when they came in from the side on the maul. Seemed to stop a very likely try for me ( I think we got it anyway after a few set pieces but still).

I thought it was pretty mixed from Kearney. There were some good things and some bad things. But given the injuries and the nature of the upcoming games there is more chance of awec running round the Aviva in a 'I love Nucifora' t-shirt than there is of Kearney being dropped for anyone.

Going to say something deeply vague and armchair pundit-esque about Sexton that I was thinking about in the last half of the game and since. It goes back to the fact that we lack a player in the backs (arguably even the forwards) who has the playmaker stature of Sexton. I don't think many would disagree that he largely becomes our solitary standout playmaker when he's on the field, and certainly a lot of this seems to be because the other players trust him to a massive extent. But there's also his own attitude, he seems to be a fairly bossy player for the most part, and mostly this works to his advantage and is laudable, but I can't help like feeling to an extent that it impacts on the whole team when he's having an off day.

And by that, I don't mean that his overall game was poor, far from it, he showed plenty of moments of greatness when not kicking, but I think you've got to say that the kicking will have affected his mental state a little bit (even Schmidt said this, that it made him angrier).

Anyway, long winded way of saying - I think when Sexton's head is in an off-place, that could affect how the rest of the team play because the standout playmaker they rely on is suddenly playing with a different character. So Sexton gets held to a higher standard because even when objectively, statistically or whatever, his non-kicking game looked great today, his leadership was affected by the mental affect of missing all those kicks.

It's not an interpretation I'm confident in by any means, but I do wonder about it.

Kenzie Harsh Volleyball wrote: »

bilston wrote: »

I thought it was pretty mixed from Kearney. There were some good things and some bad things. But given the injuries and the nature of the upcoming games there is more chance of awec running round the Aviva in a 'I love Nucifora' t-shirt than there is of Kearney being dropped for anyone.

Our younger and more inexperienced guys today were our best performers. Farrell, Porter, Leavy all exceptional. Ryan and Stockdale both very good too.

Totally agree. All the above were excellent and it's really encouraging to see. Hard to believe that 3 of todays starters played in the JWC final less than 2 years ago.

Farrell was superb today, he is definitely the one that got away for me as an Ulster fan. At least I get to appreciate his abilities on the green of Ireland!