2021 AUTUMN NATIONS SERIES: Saturday, November 6
IRELAND v JAPAN, Aviva Stadium, 1pm (live RTÉ 2/RTÉ Player/Channel 4/RTÉ Radio 1/IRFU Live Blog)
Tickets are on sale from Ticketmaster.ie
Come on Ireland! ☘️
You don't need an 80 man squad, both England and SA made it through 3 knock out games with only 27 different players used (if not less).
We are weaker because we don't blood enough players, its pretty self explanatory.
Its also worth noting that this move to expanding the amount of offloading suits Zebo more than any other player in the country, he has an exceptional ability to identify play and time his support lines brilliantly.
Anytime we've played two hard teams in a row, we've pretty much always dropped our level in the second week.
We don't have an 80 man squad like England to be able to swap like with like for the forth coming game.
If we had have shipped an injury to 1,3,8,10,12,13 or 15 the replacements cause the team to be weaker (in my opinion)
He is there to enforce the laws of the game fairly, keeping a game flowing not in his remit, proportionate in his card decisions ? Proportionate to what ? Exactly ?
Who comes in so? Earls? Zebo? That leaves an opening in the center and im not sure who covers that.
I think lowe suits how we approached today, he is comfortable carrying and effective anywhere offensively and we looked to bring him in field to find mismatches.
His defense is the question, and maybe an AI series is the time to get that right because ge brings a lot to the table that cant just be discarded. Every players has elements that need to be worked on.
If lowe gets his D in order he will be a world class player and thats worth the risk IMO.
Possibly yeah. They were not at all good with what little possession that they got.
I dont think that was as good a build up as you can have. it was a glorified run out for a lot of players and you would imagine some of the training sessions they have done were at a higher intensity.
Steel sharpens steel.
I'd agree with most of this, but Lowe cannot be anywhere near the team next week... he still can't defend. If he played for anyone but leinster this would be glaringly obvious.
Conways pass for Aki’s try was phenomenal too.
Keenans pass for Conways second try was spectacular. A twenty yarder while he's sprinting and also drawing in a defender.
Yea true but I don’t think you should be picking a player based on trying to determine if you’ll be winning or losing with 20 mins to go. I’d have any of Casey, blade, McGrath instead. I reckon Doak will have what Murray has with size, strength, kicking plus he seems to have a more creative part to his game and is quicker.
Agreed. One should have been a pen for a pull down and Ryan should have been stronger. The other Ryan should have taken.
One over throw was all that was wrong with Kelleher today
Ryan’s one should have been a penalty to us.
Its the box kicks.....it's going to take some time to get it out of our system.
A viable opposition?
To be honest, Japan were awful.
Yes we didn't allow them to play their game, but their individual error count was off the charts.
Next week will be the true test, and to be fair, that's about as good a build up game as you can have.
No serious injuries, able to see what moves came off and what didn't, see who stood up and who didn't...
Kellehers throwing was excellent bar one over throw. Japan just disrupted one or two and O'Mahony and Ryan failed to catch two straight forward ones.
In two minds here.
Impressed with the full back line, Keenan especially.
Impressed with the teamwork with Lowe and Aki.
Impressed with the work rate of the pack.
Impressed with JGP and Sexton.
But there was something or other missing today and I can't put a finger on it.
Bizarre to see comments expecting non-leinster fans to be upset by the result.
I saw barely any guff about that outside of WUMs/journos.
A few on here manufacturing schadenfreude.
If you were winning with 20 minutes left against NZ then the first player you want coming on is Murray.
If you are losing with 20 minutes to go he is the last player you want coming on.
The question is can you have a lead vs NZ on 60 minutes that you try to defend.
Fair enough, could you just show me where this was said prior to kick off? Before kick off the narrative was they pushed Australia close and that Ireland would have a hard time. Im just looking through the comments and dont see any message that says Japan were a poor side.
Back three all played excellent, Keenan is just so comfortable. Conway was brilliant.
the pack were just so good and played at great tempo.
Pure classy from Japan, and a great chat from Sexton.
Nice gesture their from the japanese
That's a fine touch from Japan
The difference between Gibson park and Murray was night and day for the way Farrell wants the team to play from my point of view. Park really keeps the opposition guessing and brings lads onto the ball at pace with last minute pops, almost acts like a bit of a playmaker. I personally wouldn’t have Murray in the first 23 at the moment.
Waterworks incoming. Lovely to see.
Saw a tweet saying Carbery POM and Murray gave away 6 penalties between them when they came on
That's awful stuff
Naw, it was obvious from very early on.
Seems a bit if a wasted opportunity to not blood a few younger players today. Best that's with the benefit of hindsight. Japan ran Australia close last weekend. It's right that we went into the game full blooded.
He looks very low on confidence.
