You mean the stats showing he had the most metres gained in the forwards, most passes, most tackles and one of only two clean breaks by the whole team? He deserves to start against Scotland.
He was mediocre really on Saturday, but if we dropped everyone who had one mediocre game we would be in trouble - for starters we would be changing about 11 of the starting 15 going into Scotland.
But complacency needs to be ironed out. No harm starting Conan, bealham, Henderson. Just freshen things up and keep lads on their toes. It's debilitating for the fringe players knowing that regardless of how well of poor the starting 15 play there is zero repercussions. No matter how hard or well you do in training, you won't get a start unless there's an injury. Creates a bad culture and team environment.
The goal for this week is to win. Beat the Scots and the tourney is ours. Put the loss in the rear view and step up next week.
When have players not been rotated into the team?
Ireland have lost how many games over the last 2 years so how did you come up with "regardless of how well or poor the starting 15 play there is zero repercussions"?
This nugget is spun out all the time and it's based on something which happened in 2007.
Quinny will always shy away from calling out Munster players, he is still heavily linked in with the province and will call out a good performance and not a bad one.
Not sure why you would call him a "coward"?
And 2019.
We dont rotate players in thats why we had to bring so many injuries to the world cup
We took Joey who was injured from recollection and that was it, Henshaw picked up an injury at the WC training, similar to last year
PLayers got rotated in the group games and the issue was teams had worked Ireland game plan out, not the players. I don't remember anyone, apart from maybe Conway who was pushing to jump into the team. When Carty was given his chance at 10 it didn't really work out for him
I'm hopeful that faz rearranges the furniture a little this week. Maybe start Hendo and Baird . Ringer to the bench with HB.
Off all the Forwards that played on Saturday He was the least effective And if he is going to be just a Munster "fan boy" maybe he should not be asked to give his opinions as a supposed annalist on a Radio show. Why not just call it as it is.
A frustrating loss, but perhaps it can prove beneficial in the long run. An end to the 6-2 shite, and bring into focus that a few lads need to be moved on from after the tournament.
We'll smash Scotland next weekend, then build to a cracking tour in SA.
I can not see any way in which they drop the captain for the final game.
Ringrose needs to come in ( would even put him on wing, but needs to play) Would put McCloskey and HB on bench with Casey( although he isn't the answer) plus Conan , Henderson and rest of front row replacements. Would have Baird instead of POM.
He won't drop the captain after a loss
But he isn't just a Munster "fan boy". You don't have to go onto a podcast and slag off players.
Listening to it now he calls out Crowley for not taking the first kick instead of Lowe, made a few comments about Murray
He also criticised the backrow as a unit. He said collectively we failed and he is right.
Don't see anything in that podcast to say he is a Munster "fan boy"
It would be a huge call and can't see it happening.
That was a stupid yellow card for POM, he had no reason to do it in my eyes. It was just so blatant he was always getting a yellow card.
Changes will be made by the looks of it because of injury
Listening to it now he calls out Crowley for not taking the first kick instead of Lowe
What is the context behind this out of curiosity? What kick is he talking about?
I think Quinlan is one of the fairer pundits and actually goes out of his way to not show any bias. I think he is good. I'm a Leinster fan and he is always complimentary towards us.
Not sure we will smash Scotland, all pressure is off them now. They have a free hit, this will be a very high scoring game.Can see Scotland scoring a few tries .
The team I'd name for Scotland
---
16 Kelleher 17 Healy 18 Bealham 19 Baird 20 Conan 21 Murray 22 H.Byrne 23 Larmour
Give the players a chance to redeem themselves after last week. Post 6N we need to start looking at transitioning in younger players such as Baird for POM and Casey for Murray.
Other than Fralwey and Nash I wonder who else will be potentially missing, there are aways knocks.
How we missed Ryan on Saturday.
My take on it is Murray deciding to kick cost us the game. The reason being is the time left on the clock. Week in week out teams do this, we did it in Marseilles against France in the opener to run down the clock. I find it hard to accept at that point in the game, under 2 mins to go box kicking was the correct decision.
At the very least line up one more ruck further in field in order to give it back to Lowe who would have leathered it long. Then see out the last few seconds from there.
In terms of the team I would be in favour of starting the process to retire a few older heads and bring in the new. But that is something that has to be done carefully and gradually. Certainly wouldn't be in favour of Gatlands model.
THe kick might have been the right option but it was the wrong place and the secondly the wrong person. Quinlan was right that is Murray was taking it he should have taken it before that when he had a better angle
In that position he would have been better giving it to another player to get distance.
To me, with 6 new forward on we could of held onto it
In fairness to POM, if you actually look at the incident, it's debatable if it's even a penalty. Mitchell had picked the ball up when POM dives at him. Half a second later and that's a brilliant instinctive play. POM should've been smarter to avoid a questionable situation, but we were scrambling already.
Quinlan is good, I have had my gripes with him before but find it fairly balanced. Based on the interview I listened to not sure how anyone could claim he is a "Munster fanboy", he called out a number of players including Munster ones and he was right in what he said. The team didn't perform.
Ahh once I seen it I said it was a yellow before the ref even came over. It was so blatant. If you want to slow the ball then you can do it and Ireland wasn't on a warning so maybe they would escape with a penalty but the ref had no option in that case.
Look Ireland had decision against them, England had decision against them. That's sport.
The first kick which Lowe sent infield, England counter attacked knocking out Nash and then scoring in the place Nash would have been defending.
He is saying Crowley would have been better as a right footed kicker to get the ball out and not Lowe.
It's all if's, but's, maybe's. Like if Nash didn't get a heavy knock he would have been back in the line and could have stopped the try
Thanks.
I would have said we are far too reliant on our 10s for kicking, but in that context it makes sense.
Are you suggesting widespread dropping of players due to a single defeat? Thats certainly a way to create a bad culture a team enviromnetr where players are worried a dropped pass may get the dropped.
The reality is that form is now playing a larger part in getting into the Irish team than in an awful long time. Its how McCarthy got in, its how JGP got in, its how Hansen got in, its how Nash got in etc etc etc. Reward form and show trust are two pillars to live by. Need both.
Agreed! His lack of physicality is very noticeable.
I get what you're saying. But a little rotation won't be catastrophic. I'd go with Hendo, Joe McCarthy on the bench. Kelleher to start, Sheehan to the bench, Murray dropped and Casey in.
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