Those arent the numbers i was referencing but your assertion that over greater minutes mccarthy still hits less rucks less effectively kind of proves my points even before you consider a significant portion of his mins are vs regions so likely dont scale up evenly
The numbers were provided a week ago or so via https://theanalyst.com/eu/2024/01/european-club-rugby-stats-hub/
but they only relate to URC stats.
They actually don’t support a position to say Coombes’ ruck work was that significant compared to McCarthy.
Coombes (in 710 minutes) had hit 47 defensive rucks, at 12.9% effectiveness, and 160 offensive rucks at 91.9% effective.
McCarthy (in 390 mins) had hit 40 defensive rucks (10% effective) and 66 offensive rucks at 83.3% effective.
So McCarthy had hit only 7 less defensive rucks in almost half the minutes at a broadly comparable level of effectiveness.
If you allowed for the minutes disparity McCarthy would be at 72 defensive rucks and 119 offensive rucks.
The bigger disparity between them was the other stats: McCarthy made more dominant tackles (10 to 8) in almost half the minutes, with a higher dominant tackle % as well. McCarthy also had a significantly higher percentage of dominant carries (48% versus 31%), alongside making the gain line more regularly and committing two or more tacklers more regularly too.
The fact it doesn’t include the European games is significant too. Joe McCarthy was excellent in all four of Leinster’s European games this season, and likely would have augmented the above numbers had the European games been in the sample set.
Whats the question
The answer is 6/2 bench
Not sure. I dont really trust listed heights either hes fine there for munster but id think hes short for ireland particularly if hes matched with likely a similar sized beirne
How tall is Coombes in actuality? Not his listed height.
Him as a full time lock would solve some medium term roster construction problems for Munster.
You need someone to hit and defend rucks if you dont have that you dont retain ball. Ryan does a massive amount of that for us. Porter does also but i think it contributes to his scrum issues its just a huge workload for a prop thet also plays near 80 often
Its something i had numbers for a few weeks back but im not willing to go find it sorry. They where overall as opposed to per game or per min so slightly skewed as coombes plays a lot of mins but as an example attacking rucks hit for him was 164 and second in the league was about 62. Essentially his entire job this season has been to hit every ruck in sight
No you don't. You gain more effective carriers. If anything it lowers the chance of Doris getting targetted in attack.
Is that something you have numbers for or is it eye test?
Essentially of you start mccarthy you lose someone else as a carry threat. Probably doris
Coombes essentially blows everyone in the league away from a ruck perspective regardless of position. He seemrd to carry more in the last game possibly having jager to share the load. Edogbo would be the more interesting i think though his minutes are going to be limited even more than the already small sample size
One more thing, how can we get these stats routinely?
I would love to see these stats for a ton of other locks. Like Niall Murray would be interesting. I want to know who is good at random stuff. Or, how good is coombes when you isolate down to his lock minutes? Sheridan as well.
Ryan will start. McCarthy may bench.
Is everyone ignoring that he's the worst when he gets to a ruck? That's kind of important for locks in our system.
Those numbers seem to be presented as some 'mccarthy is obviously the guy' and he is really inefficient in important areas.
I'd also be very wary of throwing away Beirne's ability to generate turnovers.
If McCarthy does play, i'd load him up with carries though.
True. Tips the scales a bit more toward that option so.
Given the state of iur lineout id say he should be option 1 on defence or offensive lineouts
Surely in option 1 you have POM as an option on opposition ball too
Zero defensive lineouts mind you. I'm sure this is just a case of Ryan being better at it though rather than him being incapable of it. His job is to stay down and make a mess of the ball/maul.
His ruck work is also nowhere near on the same level as Ryan.
It is a genuinely incredibly difficult choice with no clear right answer to me.
For me, McCarthy is very close to a start (Thornley even reporting that he's in line to do so).
I only really see two options:
As per the data posted above, option 1 likely concedes 90+% success to the opponent's lineout (throw to where Beirne isn't), but you then get McCarthy's disruptiveness in any ensuing maul. Likely pushes France more toward strike plays which I think we can control. The major downside (again, as per those stats) would be the loss of Ryan in attacking rucks. So it might depend a lot on how the coaches want the team to play under the new 10, how much we want to build phases, etc.
Option 2, I fear leaves the backrow a bit slow, with the likes of Penaud capable of exploiting any tiny gap or crease. All of a sudden you don't have vdF's speed and workrate to shore things up if France do go to strike plays on first phase. I think this has more downside.
So for me, if McCarthy does start, I'd be slightly leaning toward the straight swap for Ryan, but it's a super close call.
Most line outs won, and we recently had a poster claim he wasn't a viable jumper.
I went through one game (La Rochelle) and concluded that some of the reaction to it was hyperbolic. It was actually considered by most people to be quite a balanced take.
Interestingly, the fact he has the lowest ruck effectiveness aligns with my post, where he had a number of "neutral" ruck contributions but very few positive ones.
The penalties issue is more well known of course, it didn't take an analyst to figure that one out.
Glad the post is sticking around in memory though and continuing to offer a platform for discussion!
P.S. I also said in a latter post that McCarthy is a future Lion, so your line about "a Munster fan trying to talk him down" is way off mark.
MOD: This is just unnecessary sniping. You can make your point without referring to provincialism. Everyone is allowed their opinion and there will be short shrift given to people who bring up provincial origins of posters in the Ireland thread as we get into 6N season.
Beyond anything else "you would say that, you're a Munster fan", or "Leinster fan just trying to put him down" is a poor argument.
Yeah Smith is heavier than Casey but he definitely bulked up over the years. When he made his debut in 2012, against Ireland, he was smaller. I remember discussions with NZ fans about whether he was too small. One of my mates who was from Palmerston North and had seen a lot of Smith as a youngster, defended his size and swore it wouldn't be an issue. Turns out he was right.
The point I'm trying make is I think Casey will fine at international rugby despite his size. Sure he won't be able to do some of the stuff that halfbacks like Murray, Mike Phillips, Justin Marshall or Joost van der Westhuizen could do but theres other things he does so much better than them.
I read those starts as you start ryan and baird and bring henderson off the bench particularly against france
Of coarse his carrying looks better than the others hes freed up to do just that whereas the others arent and its not theorgsme anyway. Mccarthys ruck work is poor going off of that. Hes exactly what you dont want against france in particular
I still will be surprised if he starts though tbh, Farrell is a continuity type of coach.
Farrell was a continuity type of coach in the last year before the World Cup. He absolutely was not prior to that.
Yeah, Wednesday for a Friday game
When are the teams announced? Wednesday?
Henshaw was on TV3 news conference from the Ireland camp this evening.
Does that imply he'll be playing? Ringrose on the wing?
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