Ireland vs England - 6N 2025 match thread

From.BBC website. What Borthwick said. 3rd quarter was critical. Crowley came on In the 59th minute.

.......

England head coach Steve Borthwick: "Immense credit to Ireland - they are such an experienced team. It was a tough Test match in that third quarter and I thought they did really well.

"That was the critical period and that allowed them to get scoreboard pressure. I am very proud of how our players attacked the game in the first half and came back at the end to score a few tries to get the bonus point.

"The team, against one of the best attacking sides in the world, have improved defensively

Some points on that game (outside of SP vs Crowley):

• I'd wager Lowe's best ever performance for us. I was critical of him during the AI's, and thought was really poor with a lot of errors (esepecially defensively) but he was unplayable here at times. Should've been MOTM

• Sheehan is world-class. And at this rate will go on to eclipse Woody as our best every hooker. Which is some achievement in and of itself.

• Our starting back-row were outplayed by their opposite numbers, in the main. Most disappointing was Baird. Had an opportunity claim the 6 jersey as his own and I don't think he took it, was really poor defensively. He had one or 2 moments that won't even go down as a missed tacke cos he didn't lay a hand on them. Conan should start next week.

• Lineout significantly improved. Will need to continue that when 1) the opposition go after us at lineout time, which England didn't here and 2) Joe McCarthy returns, whether that be starting or on the bench. (One of the upsides of Baird yesterday).

• Hansen was in and out of it; think Nash should start next week.

• JGP put a comparatively poor first half behind him with some excellent passing in the 2nd half. Still think his box-kicking could improve, especially with the new rules.

• Thought James Ryan was pretty quiet throughout, tbh. Interesting to see what happens with 2nd row next day if McCarthy is back.

• We can't continue to have Healy on the bench by the end of this 6N's. Absolutely warrior but we need to move on. I'd prefer Boyle at this point. We've been beyond lucky that Porter hasn't shipped and early injury at this point.

I think his point was that England had the lead and losing it created the pressure. Which I suppose is fair enough but kinda smacks of a lack of confidence that they felt it was getting out of their grip. Which as it turned out, it was, but still…

And my thoughts on SP vs Crowley.

The 10 wasn't the difference between the teams. But there absolutely was a difference between the 10s. Anyone saying otherwise, I just don't remotely agree with. Their respective performances weren't comparable; Crowley was much better.

There are a number of arguments that often come up that are bordering on logical fallacies:

1. "Farrell sees them in training"
   If we deferred everything to this argument, this place would simply be a list of team announcements and results. It's a discussion forum. Even with Prendergast's limited appearances, it's still possible to come to an informed opinion on the 10 debate, even if you disagree with Farrell and don't see them in training.
2. "We won so the coaching ticket got it right"
   Overly simplistic. Final result does not mean individual selections were optimal.
3. "Starting against England is totally different to coming on against them"
   Now apply this logic to NZ. We were winning when Crowley went off and SP came on.

Prendergast had good moments. His pass to Aki was very good (Aki's finish was wonder-try stuff, he had no right to score from there). For me his best moment was ~30 mins, loop play to make ground out wide and worked really hard back on the open side to make the overlap (which VdF ran back towards traffic).

But overall, he had more errors than good moments. Even things he's supposedly better than Crowley at, like his kicking out of hand, were poor; Crowley's was noticeably better.

On top of that, we actively changed how we defend with 10, putting him in the back-field. So for all the criticism of Crowley's missed tackle (he scragged him and Ringrose completed the tackle; it wasn't even that bad a missed tackle), Prendergast was actively being taken out of the line so he didn't have to tackle.

Prendergast is only 21. He has huge potential, shows some lovely passing and is already better than many 10's we've tried over the last number of years or more.

But for me, it should be Crowley starting all day long at the moment.

Boyle isn't good enough to be anywhere near an Irish team. Loughman might be slightly better than Boyle but he's not very good either.

Kelleher's try wouldn't have happened if Beirne didn't hold Itoje. Prendergast was also very lucky that the pass he threw for an intercept was called back

And the penalty that got us to 13 was the softest ive ever seen.

England are not a great team at the moment and we didn't beat them very convincingly.

Sheehan is an incredible player. Genuine game changer.

I thought it was convincing enough. And certainly the British press seem to think so too. England came to spoil our game, which in itself is a compliment. That it worked for a while was to be expected, but I know I was never in any doubt as to the outcome, England were tiring and we had a phenomenal bench to spring.

The consolation tries were annoying and put a bit of a gloss on it for England, but it's fooled noone really. We were a bit rusty, some players didn't have their best games - Baird, Hansen, Prendergast and Ryan, but it says something that we kept them scoreless for 65 or so minutes without playing our best stuff.

This from the Examiner

“I think it was certainly a factor,” Borthwick said of the Irish bench. “The change at ‘10’ was pretty significant. I thought [Crowley] played really well when he came on there in that final part of the game. They have got quality in their team.

And Prendergast missed both his conversions. A very important part of the 10's job.

The tackle where Prendergast got completely run over? Did that count as a miss or a completed tackle

Think that was on pen advantage and was pulled back so maybe doesn’t count to the stats?

Equally, Smith made a massive line-break between Prendergast and Baird, where a hand wasn’t laid on him. Presumably that doesn’t go down as either a tackle or missed tackle.

A bit simplistic even if they have had a big input. Most players were at clubs as kids before the schools and identified as talents and moved to schools for that purpose, then there's the Ireland underage, provincial academies and and a few years as pros for most players before they are ready to represent Ireland and even then they're not the finished player until experienced with Ireland.

So by the time they are 22 or 23 they've been playing rugby for 15 years and the school is less than half that time. And theyre not all in Dublin!!

Great result and tough match. Good for SP to get exposure to that level of attention. A lot of the English players following through after he'd moved the ball on and he took it in his stride.

Crowley was marginally better. England were tiring by then for sure but he looked composed and bar a silly decision where he got isolated looked stronger. SP is only 21 though and will be different in 3 years. It's great competition at 10; though Frawley must be miffed.

I had a peek at Munsterfans forum for the weekly dose of vitriol....it is laughable the amount of lads and lassies on there raging at the player ratings. I don't think SP rated better than JC either but the tinfoil hats on there are truly sad.

The Guardian coverage gave SP more.... Not part of the famous Dubbalin meeja conspiracy last I checked.

Enjoy the result lads and lassies, the team just blasted a tough England squad.

This is getting tiresome. Seriously, grow up. The provincial sh1te is so childish.

Not true. Boys grow up to be fine men...let him grow.

Ireland needs to build for the future and SP has a very good future, as do Ireland with him.