Great effort and Ireland's best world cup performance wise
What a game for the casual viewers!
Ireland needed the set piece to work well and it didn't. Well targeted by Nz. Congrats to them
Sad in the extreme?
If Jimmy O Brien wasn't playing I doubt we would have gotten past the half way line. He, as a young inexperienced player did way more to advance us up the pitch than sexton did,in no small part because he was fresh, and most of the players on both teams were fatigued by that stage.
You're tying yourself in knots here.
This is sad in the extreme.
Just because posters say he 'was out on his feet' doesn't make it so.
The team were moving forward in the phase. To say that wasn't pressuring NZ is rubbish. You could see it plainly.
What they were playing for was to get to the line or to win a penalty and maul over the lineout. That you could also see.
Farrell would have been happy with the forward movement and I think that set of experienced players was the right one for that situation. I could see them make it to the line if they kept going.
I didn't see the fact that a young inexperienced player would fail to make a fairly routine clearout nor Wayne Barnes ignore a fairly blatant no release.
The sad thing is that had it played out differently there wouldn't be a word about Sexton and he'd have gone on to play in the semi and final if we'd won.
The knives are out though.
Even the dog in the street could see Sexton needed to come off, he had nothing left in the tank. As the change was never made we will never know if it could have won us the game. We needed a try, in a QF against NZ. To say the 10 didn't need to be operating at 100% is crazy. We went 30+ phases, so what? We could have gone 100 phases and it wouldn't matter if we didn't score.
The game against France we different as you know. We only had to set up a drop goal and that day he managed to put it over, he could have just as easily have missed.
I'm not pinning the loss on anyone, I'm arguing that Farrell should have tried the one thing he had left to try, a fresh pair of legs, an outhalf for an outhalf.
Read the thread when we had 10-15 minutes left, posters saying Sexton was out of his feet.
Fwiw, pointing a finger, isn't really marshalling a team, certainly not when comparing it to what we know Sexton can do.
He was ineffective & no threat to NZ defence.
I know a few that travelled over for a few Ireland matches and it sounded like a lot of gobshites, like our best soccer supporters in the world. It sounded
How high are Leinster fans on Cormac Foley, he looked pretty tidy against Sharks.
I think having Crowley on the bench at all if Sexton is unsubbable is a mistake. Take an extra forward and take the chance he doesn’t get hurt. If Crowley can’t help you win in the last 15, then its game over if sexton got hurt anyway.
Its basically 100% a mistake imo either way. No one on the bench in modern rugby shouldn’t see the field. Its a 23 man game.
Crowley’s profile as a sub is also made for that kind of game. He’s an athletic 10 who can run. In a situation where you are trying to break down a defense and score tries, he needs to be on the field.
People really are getting their knickers in a twist. I don't see anyone slamming Sexton or blaming him, he was wrecked and the argument is that Farrell should have replaced him. If we could see it he could see it and NZ certain could see it. Interestingly in the final Foster rolled the dice and brought both Smith and Mo'unga off, while Smith had been one of their best players in the match. Instead of that Farrell selected Hansen to start which was a mistake as he barely showed up off his wing before he went down with the same injury, and then left Sexton on who was struggling. Farrell has plenty of credit in the bank but too many people are becoming fundamentalists about this. We lost the match, if different decisions had been made we may have won.
That doesn't change the point. Sexton didn't need to carrying the ball to the line vs NZ, no more than he did vs France.
Sexton didn't need to be a running threat, in the same way he didn't need to be in Paris when he made the drop to win the Slam.
A 1 point deficit and a 4 point deficit are very, very different scenarios.
What's farcical is folks slating him, despite the fact that he led the team in fighting back from a deficit, to where we would've gone in front if not for Kelleher **** up a simple push over.
Clearly you don't understand what it means to marshall people. It's not leading the charge into contact, it's about organizing folks, directing the attack, which Sexton absolutely did. You want to hang the loss on Farrell not taking off Sexton, despite the evidence that the team managed to execute a 30+ phase attack at the death. Sexton didn't need to be a running threat, in the same way he didn't need to be in Paris when he made the drop to win the Slam. We engineered an overlap that Ringrose blew, we forced NZ into their 22 where Barnes made a questionable call against us.
Your argument slamming Sexton falls down in the face of what happened on the pitch.
The game should have been won with the held up try
No one is looking to win it like that
We played 15 v 14 for 20 minutes and never once led in the game, yet, we thought with tired legs we'd clinch it.
And letting them score a try etc
Stop making ridiculous excuses. The sexton situation in that QF was beyond farcical
And the reason we had a problem in the first twenty minutes is either JS decision making in not going to put points on the board or his fear he would not put them over
The game was lost in the first 20 mins
Too much energy spent trying to overturn that
4 years of good play, 20 mins of bad play
They were never scoring a try at the end
One mistake Game over, gives the defense so much energy
They should have grounded that tru
He positioned the Munster team to score a drop goal in the dying minutes to win the URC final just a few months before.
Sexton marshalled no one in those phases, anyone that watched it can see that, he receives the ball, he passes the ball and that's it, offered nothing in attack, NZ defence didn't have to concern themselves with him. There's a few hairy moments, not just from him where the wrong player got the ball and we were lucky not to be turned over earlier in the sequence.
Marshalling the team, what a load of BS. They were the top ranked team, what kind of nonsense is this about having to marshal them? Which players needed to be told what to do? This is typical made up nonsense to build some sort of case to make Johnny irreplaceable. Pathetic. He had a few very poor contributions, he offered zero threat, he shovelled the ball onto the nearest man and let them do all the work. He literally did nothing that any other out half couldn’t have done and certainly Crowley would have given the backline another running threat.
It wasn’t the only selection mistake, starting Hansen half-injured was as bad. Why they couldn’t have started O’Brien with McCloskey at 23 I don’t know. An injection of Crowley and McCloskey with 20 to go should have been in the game plan. Opportunity lost.
You keep missing the point.
For the 3rd time (today) the reason Sexton in being mentioned, is (a) he's 38 and was visible wrecked and (b) we had a replacement for him on the bench.
Of course, everyone but Sexton was playing well. Pathetic stuff. I don't think Crowley would have had the composure necessary to marshal the team under that pressure. He doesn't have the experience yet.
We marched down the field despite Sexton, not because of what he did. He shipped the ball on every time (bar the dodgy chip)
Do you think Crowley wouldn't have been able to do anything that Sexton did in the last 10-15?
Yet we managed to march down the field into their 22, only for a poor clear out and some dubious officiating by Barnes to end the game. Funny that.
You asked me what I wanted to include as 'top tier' yesterday and I gave you clear guidance. Don't get mad with me because you can do your own research without messing it up.
Ha. I mean, it's not my fault you want to completely change your definition of "top tier" because it no longer suits your argument. (It's also kinda hilarious to me that you now think all Super Rugby games are top tier, but zero URC games are. I can't possibly think why....)
As for this...
Your original point still contradicts what you're now saying.
This will be the 3rd time I'll have clarified this for you:
It wouldn’t have been anything new to do the same with Crowley... in the QF
The whole context of the discussion with regards Crowley, in a thread titled "world cup post mortem" has been about the QF. There's zero contradiction here. I didn't think I'd need to spell it out tbh, but there ya go...
I mean, it was pretty well know that Farrell gave plenty of guys (including Crowley) a go, independent of their Provincial experience or pecking order.
Well only one of them was a 38 year old playmaker who wans't making any plays for the last 10-15, he was walking and just shipping the ball on when it came to him.
Mucho gracias!
I was actually being kind with the broader description than previous, as by my original description Crowley has never played a match at club level at 10, despite all his Irish caps.
Nah. Farrell has regularly picked guys who weren’t first choice for the Province, so wouldn’t have had the same exposure at the top level.
It wouldn’t have been anything new to do the same with Crowley.
You've now changed your tune and accepting that Crowley did receive similar treatment than the other players.
There was no way Farrell could have given Crowley earlier exposure without treating Crowley different than even the examples you've given, it would be even more extreme given the position he plays. The timing of Crowley's development isn't the fault of Farrell, it is likely just bad timing but if anything could have been changed it is Munster giving him more exposure at OH in top tier matches earlier. I don't see why you're circling the wagons and being defensive about that fact.
No, there isn't an actual award for best fans. 🙄
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