Ireland Team Talk XI: Team of nervoUS MOD warning Post 1

Some good posts today! A lot of varying points being put forward. I think we're all disappointed and some of us are bitter. I've been watching Ireland since the 70's and the highs are phenomenal and the lows....
So, why did our team fail this rwc? Do we have the players? I believe we do. Are we chokers? Can we not handle pressure?
I think back to the HEC. Yearly we have teams in the qf's and even the sf's. We outperform the premiership, except for Saracens. We also hold our own with the top 14. So analyzing the national side and deciphering our poor rwc, I find it hard to reconcile that we don't have the athletes or the psyche.
Putting a finger on the problem is difficult. We don't know the problem. We can only guess. But, I think we erred in the selection and with tactics. In saying that, I think we failed to get our halves enough experience behind Sexton and Murray. This created a lack of confidence imo.
Speaking of Best. I just watched the Munster v Ulster match again and I thought Scannell was very good. Herring was not so good. I don't think that Best was that much better than Scannell, if at all.
Our entire year was poor! That's the problem. Why could we not reverse the trend? I think that's what most posters are concerned with! Our 1st match in Dublin against England, we were well beaten and looked slow and didn't get going at all. It was worse v Wales. We were almost nilled.
We failed to identify and correct these problems. It appears it was a perfect storm.
Rassie had less than 2 years to fix the Boks. He did so and they are world champions. We completely lost the plot and got worse all year.
So frustrating!

We have the players but not the bottle it seems .

There seemed to be an apprehension within the entire set up this year. From the off against England all the way through to the NZ game. The players and coaches seemed to have the weight of the world on their shoulders the whole time. They didn't look to be enjoying any of their game time at all.

Was this a failure by the coaching team, absolutely. Could they have arrested this, maybe.

With any team sport, the psychological aspect is huge. If you're on the extended squad and can't get a start despite the player ahead of you doing poorly it has huge knock-on effects. The team moral drops and an "Us v Them" mentality can develop.
I think JS and his team should have acted far more swiftly and started to drop under performing players straight after the England game. That's not to say they get dropped from the panel entirely but a spell on the bench has a habit of sharpening up a players focus.

Dropping Toner felt like JS was trying to do just that but it was entirely the wrong time and player IMO. Similarly Carbery and Henshaw should have never been on the plane over either. Both were clearly long term injuries and bringing them also sent the wrong message. Sure a fit Henshaw is a terrific player but when's the last time he strung more than 2 games together. Carbery is good but not that good that Byrne should have been left out for a player with a banjaxed ankle.

All in all, I believe a number of small things conspired against us this year, unfortunately most of them were self inflicted.

aloooof wrote: »

Great post. On this bit in particular, I think you're spot on. I think Joe wanted Henderson and Ryan in the 2nd row to add that carrying threat to the pack (along with Stander, Healy etc.) while still being able to get POM and VdF into the team.

Joe selected that exact pack in the first game in Paris for the Grand Slam 6N. Henderson got injured v Italy.
Ireland had been slowly evolving to that possession based game in the 2017 6N and away from the kick for territory game. Ryan was the key factor.

What we saw in the WC was a continuation of this game plan with more emphasis on offloads (Jap game).

We should have lost that game in Paris because we couldn’t get any go forward or put it through the hands in the rain.

Same in 6N Cardiff ‘19 but with glaringly obvious fact that Murray and Sexton were and continued to be a shadow of their former bests.
And it was the same for Rory Best.

This simple fact is what underpins whatever take there is going on the the fall from the fantastic performances in beating England & NZ to the humiliating performance v NZ

ionadnapokot wrote: »

Joe selected that exact pack in the first game in Paris for the Grand Slam 6N. Henderson got injured v Italy.
Ireland had been slowly evolving to that possession based game in the 2017 6N and away from the kick for territory game. Ryan was the key factor.

What we saw in the WC was a continuation of this game plan with more emphasis on offloads (Jap game).

We should have lost that game in Paris because we couldn’t get any go forward or put it through the hands in the rain.

Same in 6N Cardiff ‘19 but with glaringly obvious fact that Murray and Sexton were and continued to be a shadow of their former bests.
And it was the same for Rory Best.

This simple fact is what underpins whatever take there is going on the the fall from the fantastic performances in beating England & NZ to the humiliating performance v NZ

Sexton was just too easy to nullify IMO. Murray was out of form and if you want to play a more expansive offloading game then he is not the scrum half to use. Add into the mix that the backrow he kept picking isn't the one for that game plan either. CJ is great for dirty ball but never goes for the soft shoulder to offload. POM, well he had a very poor year by his standards and like CJ just can't seem to pass a ball. VDF is terrific but had to play a different role and concentrate on the defensive side far too often.

When the opposition know that the backrow and scrum half offer little too no threat it makes defending against us a hell of a lot easier.

Sure Sexton wasn't at his best but honestly I don't know any out half that could thrive in those situations.

sydthebeat wrote: »

We regularly beat England, new Zealand, South africa and Wales??

Since when?

We have beaten Wales, England and France regularly enough to suggest (to me at least) that we shouldn't consider a semi-final appearance an unreasonable goal.

And we've beaten all those teams away on the final weekend of the 6N to win the comp in recent years, so those results can't be dismissed like many dismiss the wins against NZ as "just friendlies". And then there's a healthy record against Argentina and Scotland who have also made the semis when we haven't.

So far our limit of a QF puts us in the company of Japan, Western Samoa, Canada and Fiji. Do you not think that we should be doing better than that?

I didn't mean to imply that we beat all of this year's semi-finalists most of the time.

JRant wrote: »

Sexton was just too easy to nullify IMO. Murray was out of form and if you want to play a more expansive offloading game then he is not the scrum half to use. Add into the mix that the backrow he kept picking isn't the one for that game plan either. CJ is great for dirty ball but never goes for the soft shoulder to offload. POM, well he had a very poor year by his standards and like CJ just can't seem to pass a ball. VDF is terrific but had to play a different role and concentrate on the defensive side far too often.

When the opposition know that the backrow and scrum half offer little too no threat it makes defending against us a hell of a lot easier.

Sure Sexton wasn't at his best but honestly I don't know any out half that could thrive in those situations.

Just thinking on what you were saying on the BRow and SH.

I would also reckon that Ireland suffered as a result of not having a BR that offer a World Class threat with ball in hand. & also agree that with Murray not a breaking threat anymore defences mostly decided not to resource the ruck (Ireland's obvious strength); pillars only, with the focus on filling the line and blitzing Sexton and cutting off his options.

This was exacerbated by Murrays poor speed off the deck and poor quality of pass to Sexton or a hapless forward.

Hopefully we see a bit more willingness to link and offload between the forwards. I remember Ryan and Leavy had a few lovely little link-ups.
Again....get Kelleher in!

The unwritten rule of having to play in Ireland to get selected for Ireland is not gonna change anytime soon. The only chance of it ever changing will be if there is fairly widespread exodus of first XV players. The amount of discussion around something that has no chance of changing in the foreseeable future is bizarre.

Gonad wrote: »

The lads on OTB making a good point about Aki. If he goes to France he is off the IRFU books and we can still use him for Ireland . Maybe a new rule where players born outside Ireland can play for Ireland if they put a few years in with Ireland first ?

Don't know why we would break our rule for Aki - he's a good player, but not a nailed on starter.

We broke it for Sexton because he is one of our best ever players and he negotiated special terms in his contract to be released for International camps. Even with that, it was a different time, and I don't think even Sexton would get that special treatment today.