Ireland can win the Championship this weekend. England only have pride to play for. Have at it.
Ireland buckle once again under the pressure.
If Murray ever sees the Irish jersey again then Farrell has bigger problems
Time to pave the way for O’Gara. O’Connell should have gone post WCz.
Asked earlier but probably got lost in the posts.
What did Heaslip say?
Along the lines of only hope eng have is if ire go down to 14 or 13 players
Ref can't stop up jumper though if team picks and goes and even makes a yard
They are awful on the RTE panel. Virgin Media are much better. I don’t even listen to the RTE panel for rugby anymore. They’ll skirt around any issue involving an individual error.
Ireland blew it, they won’t always have a team like this. Even though well short of their best mainly to do with England performing as if their lives depended on it to be fair, but Ireland still should have won in the end.
Might win the championship but it feels like another opportunity to do something special has been allowed to slip away. At some stage England and France, maybe even Wales at some point will get their act together and close the gap again.
Lot of people blaming Murray... pack got its ass kicked. End of story. England should have won by more.
I dont know how that indicates anything beyond them performing well.
I am replying to a user who claims that they can't produce when it counts and I am saying that if anything they are outperforming rather than underperforming.
People here are alluding to them being some kind of bottlers which is complete nonsense. If they lost by 50 points I guess that would be fine or if they won 2 out of 5, that's cool but if they come very close and lose , well they must have some kind of psychological flaw, it's totally ridiculous. Again they will be 6 nations champions but because they don't win 100% of games, some people will say that they arent up to it. Clearly this is more a reflection on the mental fragility of those posters , since they need to project their anxieties onto a bunch of strangers.
Wellbsaid. I do think we were victims of very clever planning by England. They consistently leaked that they were picking a physical team to kick and keep the ball in the forwards. Instead they opened out from the start.
Then surely the strategy should have been to pass to Lowe to kick for distance and make it a long way back up the pitch in 90 seconds
Well I’ll admit to being overconfident today so I could be wrong again!
Surely Ringrose will be back in the mix and 3 backs on the bench
Will Genge be cited for the head hit on Furlong
Definitely and Baird to start
It is subjective to say pack got its ass kicked but it is absolutely factual to say that we were winning the game with two minutes to go before handing the advantage back to England.
The best team may have won the game but we had the winning of it in our own hands with time almost up
This is hopefully a humbling experience for the team, the coach and the fans. Farrell's 6/2 might have been a good idea but it blew up in his hand today, and Hedno & Healy are not a bomb squad that came in and made any kind of impact that offset the mess that had become of our backline. The less said about the last ten minutes the better. I could see Murray lining up his box kick and thought here we go, England will win this. Then the ref gave Beirne more warnings and time than he deserved on the line while Irish players plead with him to release. Head up his arse stuff. We lost 3 lineouts against Wales and it fell apart again today. it takes nothing away from England to judge that Ireland came into this match woefully unprepared. And hats off to Felix Jones, I don't know how much of Englands performance was down to him but their defense was precisely the style to unsettle and unbalance Ireland's attack. And our backline defense was poor, how many times England got around us reminded me of the last time they beat us, in much the same way. Something clicked for England today, while something broke for Ireland. Hopefully we'll correct a lot next week but times up for some of these players.
You see you might have a point if it was one off great performances and then mediocre ones after. 20 wins from 22 is conclusive evidence that Ireland are exactly where they should be. At the end of the day Ireland's ability levels are going to garner them back to back 6N's and France/England ability levels are going to garner them nothing, those are the facts.
This is true too.
The narrative from those claiming "bottle jobs" is Ireland have to achieve what no side has ever done in 6N history (B2B grand slams) otherwise they are bottlers...
Surprised to lose today. Hats off to England! They have been shat on here by posters and today they answered. I've only seen highlights. England scored a couple of outstanding tries! We scored a couple too. Judging by the posts it appears that we were bullied up front. Line out a mess! Again.
O'Connell should be sacked. He offers little. Line out has been misfiring for a long while.
We still haven't the title won. Let's not get carried away.
They are consistently outperforming, does that work?
They are the best coaches side.
It's not a slight, outperforming is the best compliment anyone can really get.
We will this time next week.
We should beat the globetrotters next week.
England are rubbish and last year went further in the World Cup than Ireland ever have, and if not for some baffling refereeing decisions would have been in the final.
Jackman did a bit on the French analytics for phases a while ago on how the data shows teams kicking the ball away after 3 rucks was more conducive to winning than teams playing until the 6th ruck as they were easier for defences to read and more likely to be turned over or receive a penalty.
In the RWC final with 50 seconds on the clock and a 1 point difference saw Kriel with possession in his half kick the ball long to McKenzie to set up a final counter for NZ. I'm sure not everyone agreed with him not holding on to possession to see out the game but it's what coaches are telling players to do these days.
Top teams don't do "up the jumper" anymore as a result, particularly in your own half and with opposition only needing a kick to win.
Where is the evidence they are outperforming their ability, I hear this narrative and it seems to lack any evidence or basis.
Ireland had a different coach before Farrell and they were still successful even then playing a completely different brand of rugby, which isnt the case with England/France which should indicate which group of players relies on strong coaching.
Ireland are the best and by a considerable margin in this competition.
By playing no side ranked higher than 7th in the world, the fact England dare celebrate that just shows exactly why they are where they are as a rugby nation.
It will be the end of the road for O'Mahony and Murray next week....
Absolutely pointless bringing them to South Africa....the 2 of them were badly exposed today....
All Credit to England..thoroughly deserved the win- they should have won by alot more.......they did to us what we normally do to them.....big surprise ambush and brought us down a peg or 2........
By being more successful than Ireland?
Once again Ireland couldn’t produce when it mattered. Serial bottlers. Nothing whatsoever to celebrate and the fact you are even comparing Ireland to England shows you don’t even believe Ireland are any good.
Scots could beat us but we may get the 1 point needed, would be deflating but after dust settles we would still have a6 nations title.
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