Something something Prendergoat
Have at it.
Some coaches insist that you sit at half time.
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
Nobody on that pitch yesterday was anywhere close to 9/10. Irish papers' ratings are complete nonsense and always have been.
Some points on that game (outside of SP vs Crowley):
Ireland scored 8 points in the third quarter to lead 13-10. That's hardly scoreboard pressure.
Just after Crowley came on they scored and converted a try to make it a 10 point lead, that's scoreboard pressure.
And to be clear I'm not saying that the try had anything to do with Crowley. I'm just pointing out that your suggestion that SP was on the field for the critical moment is untrue.
And Borthwick is incorrect, the scores that won it for Ireland came in the last quarter.
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…
The ageism thing again. Healy is there because there is nobody better than him as an impact sub. When one arrives that gets close to his level I'm sure he'll be moved on.
One performance doesn't decide it's time for him to go.
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:
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.
He was completely flat-footed for their try; it's not ageism to point that out. Nor is it only one performance; we'd be completely hamstrung if, touch wood, Porter had to go off early.
You'd be sacrificing something at scrum-time, but gaining something in the loose, Boyle should be in there. It's a shame Loughman got injured.
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.
I don’t really care that they ship Prendergast for the defence. We all know Crowley is a better defender. But his defensive frailties cost us nothing. He had a ropey start and that first conversion was awful. He completely mis hit it. Crowley was solid when he came on. But he didn’t nothing extraordinary to warrant all the posts of how he was so much better than Sam.
They were both 6.5 out of 10.
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 think there is a level of groupthink among many rugby people. An inability to objectively criticize any of their own players and coaches.
The same people who think prendergast had a better performance than Crowley yesterday probably think Leo Cullen is a great coach.
Unfortunately there is a provincial bias that many fans have and it’s basically “as long as it’s Leinster it’s perfect” and the reality is that 8 or 9 out of 10 things in Leinster are better than the other provinces but unfortunately that hasn’t been good enough at the top level of club and international rugby.
We have two great options at 10. People are quick to forget that For years we only had one and it cost us on more than one occasion.
Now we are on our way to having actual proper depth and competition at 10 and that’s exactly what is needed and what has been lacking from the Irish team.
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.
There's literally a direct quote in the 42.ie where Borthwick name checks Crowley. I don't know why you're bizzarely picking out other quotes from Borthwick as if never said anything of the sort.
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.
Both Prendergast and Crowley made 1 tackle each in the game. Prendergast missed 2 and Crowley missed 1.
And Prendergast missed both his conversions. A very important part of the 10's job.
Absolutely, the first one was a terrible miss and the second never had a chance.
Fair dues to him for nailing the longest kick of the day though to put Ireland into the lead.
The tackle where Prendergast got completely run over? Did that count as a miss or a completed tackle
Sexton or O'Gara at the same age wouldn't have recovered from a bad start and have a positive input to the game, especially nailing that kick.
Both men, with great careers behind them, weren't the finished article until well into their 20's. Sexton kept developing throughout his 30s
O'Gara was always defensively frail.
The two lads are doing fine for their age for a position which demands so much of a player.
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.
Genuine post and I am Munster man
when you really think about it, what a few Dublin schools have achieved is unbelievable
They have produced an Irish team that is a match for france England and South Africa that have large populations and New Zealand where rugby is the national sport and they have been world leaders for decades. Mad stuff.
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!!
11 of the Irish 23 didn't go to Dublin schools.
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.
question for you, did SP have a good game yesterday ?
This is getting tiresome. Seriously, grow up. The provincial sh1te is so childish.
Not as good as JC if that's the angle yer after. I'd said that above......
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.
