Ireland Team Talk Thread IX: Grand Slam Champions SEE MOD WARNING POST #1122

McGrath, Herring, Furlong, Toner, Ryan, POM, Leavy, Murphy,
Murray, Sexton, Stockdale, Henshaw, Ringrose, Larmour, Conway

Bench: Scannell, Healy, Porter, Beirne, Conan, Cooney, Byrne, Aki

Assuming Earls is injured.

Edit: Completely forgot about Beirne!

I think Conan will get a start, with POM retained to pressurise their lineout again. Murphy to sit on the bench and Stander to get a week off. Beirne and Toner will likely both be involved as well. Healy, Furlong, Sexton will all come back in.

sydthebeat wrote: »

macslash wrote: »

Has anyone posted a next in line/injured/left out list of lads who would have been close or unlucky to not make the squad anywhere here?

Even from the 23 that beat Australia in Dublin 2 years ago, you're missing Dillane, Bealham, Best and JVF.
Add in Jackson, Heaslip, Zebo, Trimble and Payne and that's a huge turnover of players in 20 months.

I like your thinking mac lash!..
However, the only players I think are being usurped from your list are best, heaslip and possibly Payne.  And none of them are irreplaceable, especially seeing as best is injured. Payne and heaslip are gone, next in line are actually better

Where is this world class number 8?

typhoony wrote: »

Kearney is past his sell by date

The streak ... is over!!!

I think James Ryan needs next week off. Toner and Henderson to start and Beirne to come in from the bench. Leavy to start.

I thought our back row was actually excellent for the first 50 minutes and we had the better of the breakdown in the first half winning some big penalties.

But they changed their approach and dominated us for most of the second half. We need to deal with that.

We also need something a bit more creative in our carrying. Conan is a potential starter simply for the different dimension he gives. I think POM should retain the 6 jersey and Stander takes a breather.

We learned some things in defeat. John Ryan and Rob Herring are capable 2nd/3rd choice players and can be trusted. Ditto Carbery. He was unspectacular but didn't fluff his lines. Acceptable for his first start at 10 against one of rugby's premier sides. Though he needs to trust himself more and take the ball to the line like Sexton did.

Ryan and Henderson can be a world class pairing with more time together. They're all rounders so while one is going in tight the other can fan out a but for the next carry. I don't think there will need to be a strict delineation of roles for the two. I'm interested in seeing if Britney can force his way into the 2nd row or if he'll be fighting for a backrow position.


Aki is a very patchy player. Makes a lot of mistakes but is usually good for a big play. Would maybe go with Henshaw for at 12 next week. PoM and Stander play their best rugby for Ireland. They play behind a better front 5 than at Munster and Schmidt just coaches better. Best I've seen Stander play since the 6 Nations.

awec wrote: »

Clegg wrote: »

We learned some things in defeat. John Ryan and Rob Herring are capable 2nd/3rd choice players and can be trusted. Ditto Carbery. He was unspectacular but didn't fluff his lines. Acceptable for his first start at 10 against one of rugby's premier sides. Though he needs to trust himself more and take the ball to the line like Sexton did.

Aki is a very patchy player. Makes a lot of mistakes but is usually good for a big play. Would maybe go with Henshaw for at 12 next week. PoM and Stander play their best rugby for Ireland. They play behind a better front 5 than at Munster and Schmidt just coaches better. Best I've seen Stander play since the 6 Nations.

Aki made less mistakes than Henshaw today.

If you're going to label Aki patchy on the back of today then it's hard to escape the fact that Henshaw was all at sea in his channel.

Henshaw hasn't been a 13 for a long time. When we're looking to play a high risk, shooting defensive style I want someone who plays there regularly. He played 13 against Glasgow this season who throw it around too and they also completely roasted him in defence.

He's a far better 12 these days. Aki, like all of our backs, had a few nice moments along with a few very poor errors. The only certainty is that we need Ringrose back at 13 on both sides of the ball.

sydthebeat wrote: »

I like your thinking mac lash!..
However, the only players I think are being usurped from your list are best, heaslip and possibly Payne. And none of them are irreplaceable, especially seeing as best is injured. Payne and heaslip are gone, next in line are actually better

I'm not sure if Carberry is better than Jackson tbh.

mfceiling wrote: »

sydthebeat wrote: »

I like your thinking mac lash!..
However, the only players I think are being usurped from your list are best, heaslip and possibly Payne. And none of them are irreplaceable, especially seeing as best is injured. Payne and heaslip are gone, next in line are actually better

I'm not sure if Carberry is better than Jackson tbh.

I'm sure of the exact opposite. Jackson is on a completely different level to any outhalf in Ireland, Sexton aside.

James Ryan's stats:

18 carries for 40 metres
1 clean break
16 completed tackles (most for Ireland)

He's world class already and there's no argument to be made against it.

Don't think anyone comes out of that looking great tbh. Murray was lucky, a less tolerant ref would have sent him off for swearing at him. Joe got it wrong in the selection, went too weak for a first test, the backrow in particular. We got killed at the breakdown as a result. Our strong bench made the wrong kind of impact, none of them looked great coming on. Finishing was piss poor and we didn't make our good play count.

Ref and TMO were ****e but they're a fair bit down the pecking order of who i'd blame.

No ****ing around next week, time to bring in Beirne and go for the strongest backrow combination available along with him. Herring and McGrath i'd be okay with seeing again, especially the former. I'd go for:

McGrath
Herring
Furlong
Ryan
Beirne
POM (c)
Leavy
CJ
Murray
Sexton
Stockdale
Henshaw
Ringrose
Earls (if he passes concussion tests, Larmour if not)
Kearney

mfceiling wrote: »

I'm not sure if Carberry is better than Jackson tbh.

There is one fact to be taken from this game. Carbery, John Ryan, Herring, PoM etc handed over a winning margin to their replacements, our first choice picks.

Picking apart players who were actually winning the game doesn't make sense to me.

Deleted User wrote: »

For the most part I'm impressed that we stood up to the quality of play and intensity Australia delivered today. I think the All Blacks would have put them away but only because they would have converted the few chances they produced, much like ourselves being unable to build a score because of a lack of composure at key moments.

The experimentation cost us today but will pay off in Japan and whilst it's hard to be positive about that after a loss, that benefit will still be paid back.

The one thing I was disappointed about was our scrum in the second half. Herring did a great job with the darts and our line out was strong, but I was surprised to have turnover on our own put in on our 22 at such a critical point.

I wonder is the fact that Feek is double jobbing starting to cost us?

The scrum on our line was a seriously dubious call. Watch it again. The scrum simply went through 90. There was almost no forward/backward movement. Every other scrum was completely rock solid.