We have, back to back 6N wins coming up, 20 wins from 22!
And you are a dreamer that needs a dose of reality once and for all.
Tbh you're opening remark of the Ireland France game told me all I needed to know about you...another fair weather "fan" with a chip on their shoulder.
Not you mate.
England was always going to be the banana skin for us, as it turned out to be. Scotland don’t have the temperament or the forwards to trouble us very much.
Nah screw them, end the championship on a high is what's best!
I know I am thanks!
Unless England beat France by about 80 points, a LBP will do us next week against Scotland.
Scotland would win the Triple Crown and we'd win the Championship 🏆
Everyone's a winner
That poster is 100% correct in everything said.
I don't see Blade getting into the squad. Our misfiring backline at Connacht isn't allowing him to show his qualities. He's also overplaying to compensate for lack of options and mouthing off at referees too much. I really like Blade as a player but he doesn't have the form that gets you selected.
That's just sad, what do you do for the 4 years in-between just whinge?
I don't care about the loss last night. Same way I didn't care about the wins v France, Italy and Wales. I care about the World Cup. Hopefully it will be the catalyst for Farrell to wield the axe on Healy, POM and Murray. They should have been gone after the World Cup and we've wasted 4 games of development for their replacements, but better late than never I suppose.
Our lineout was an absolute shambles at the World Cup. POC should have been out on his ear after the quarter final loss but he was kept on and our lineout is still an absolute mess so hand him his P45 please. And for the love of god move Porter back to TH. It's been over two years and he still can't scrummage at LH. He's never going to learn so please move him back. Two fixes to our two biggest problems.
After the World Cup I wondered how long it would be before we anointed ourselves the "best team in the World" again, and the answer was a 4 months, which was faster than even I expected. It's embarrassing.
3 good points
3
Total number of Triple Crowns in 15 years
Tough day at the office yesterday. I think Will Connors would have been a great option for that type of game.
I think Farrell is doing great but needs to be a bit more ruthless, that loss is on the coaches imo. Conan/Baird should have been on for POM at half time and Hendo for Joe. Baird is the in form back row and ended up playing 11 mins and not touching the ball. We should never have been leading at HT but the coaching staff needed to count their blessings and make changes. Murray is past it and hasn't offered much in a long time but that's again on the coaches.
We should beat Scotland and winning a championship is still a brilliant result. We need a big response next week though. Wasn't good enough yesterday.
Murray should've been dropped years ago. I think there's a few lads languishing at club level with the talent to be internationals that would've benefited with being in Irish camps. Doak is one that should be invested in, even allowing for a poorer run of form lately.
I think this is also an exaggerated view of modern rugby. I've seen plenty of teams 'close out' games in recent seasons with pick and gos, its far from dead.
My takes
1. That was way worse a performance than v New Zealand. Although we didn't have much possession, when we did, we kicked it away. Most egregious was just outside their 22, we kicked a high ball. We never backed ourselves to hold on and exert pressure.
2. We don't have many natural leaders in the team. That showed yesterday.
3. We're so reliant on Keenan at 15 that we should think hard about a 6-2 split ever again.
They'll gradually be moved on this season, Ireland are in such a rude position that they didn't need to chuck all these guys out and start again, unlike someone like Wales, they can afford to keep the older guys and then gradually bring through the next crop. Baird will likely come in for POM, Casey will likely come in for Murray, Osborne will likely come in for Aki and any number of young LH's will come in for Healy (I'm thinking Milne once he gets a run of games).
Aki will be 37
Murray and O’Mahony 38 and Healy 40.
After Scotland I think we need to move these fellas along. Perhaps Aki one more year but need to blood younger options in proper tests.
I don't have any issue with Murray's last kick to touch, he should get a roasting for the two extremely poor execution box kicks prior to that which we were very lucky to recover possession from, and absolutely were the wrong percentage play though. We were just extremely lucky that we somehow got back into an OK position, had an OK touch finder, but then we just bled field position in 90 seconds.
They are only the 3 best players to those living in Kiwi land 😂
He was dropped as Lions captain.
At some stage Farrell is going to have to build for 2027 , the longer he puts that off the worse for Ireland
i know many won’t agree with me but our age profile is not great. lowe aki and Gibson park will 35 in 2027, that’s 3 of our best players.
I think we saw yesterday why the IRFU weren't offering POM a CC. In games like that he goes missing. Happens too many times.
They weren't that far from the English half to be fair, at some point you have to just acknowledge that the defence from the English lineout a fair distance out was abysmal.
A few extra metres wouldn't have made much a difference because Kelleher and especially Lowe royally fucked up their defensive reads on the return.
I would say he will be focusing on how england gained so much ground down the right channel.
Was Lowe near them to kick it. If he wasn't you'd need to go through phases waiting for him which would defeat the purpose.
He should be focusing on it massively if he is serious in taking Ireland to the next level.
The kick execution was terrible, Murray was messing up his kicks repeatedly, not getting sufficient distance on his box kicks. They should ran a few more phases then had Lowe welly the ball deep, to set the defensive line inside the English half and out of range for a penalty kick.
It wasnt wrong at all. A ref will be all out watching the team leqding trying to close out a game and watching for them to seal off etc at the breakdown. The most important thing to do was keep england as far away from our line as possible. Not keep the ball. Kick leather off ball and trust in your defensive structures.
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