6N '25 Ireland v France Match Thread: Sat8th Mar 2:15 Farewell & Adieu to you POMs, Murrays & Healys

Some accusations by Galthie:

“Our players did not return to the pitch,” he said. “We would like to understand why. On this issue, we are angry. We want to protect our players. There are means, [there are] rules. The [citing] commissioner must study the actions that are reprehensible or not. Neither Antoine nor Pierre-Louis returned to the pitch. One for a cleaning, the other for a contact.

“For Antoine, there is suspicion of a fairly serious knee injury. I won’t go into details due to medical confidentiality, but Antoine is suffering. We have cited players to appear before the [Six Nations disciplinary] committee – Tadhg Beirne and Andrew Porter. Calvin Nash has also been summoned before the committee, for Pierre-Louis Barassi because he did not respond favourably to the protocol.

“We feel bad for [Antoine]. In terms of the action, in my opinion it was reprehensible, and there are ways to study and analyse it. We feel for him today. He is suffering and we are suffering with him.”

Squidge is another one vastly overrated

damnit anyway

our invincible team was vinced

Isn't it basically the same team these days?

Nonsense. The forwards tried to take it on themselves most of the time.

Also, it's not the first time a fecking Shaun Edwards defence did a lot of damage to us.

I'm especially thinking of RWC 2011.

Lenihan is shocking. I absolutely hate listening to him

In 2023, Antonio smashed his shoulder onto Herring's jaw so spare me the guff from Galthie.

I expected us to lose (said it here) but not that badly. We've fallen back a bit from last year. The YCs didn't help, we missed Ringrose and Lowe, we should have taken our points from penalties early on and a few players (McCarthy especially) were just plain poor. You can't win them all but POM will be missed. We have no other dog of his calibre.

you need to go to a Leinster Senior Schools Cup game - in the top 2/3 teams they have players who can do all of above. The quality of passing is insane at time. It’s like everything SP does is amazing and anything poor it’s because he’s only 22. It’s not his fault, he has been thrown into to the deep end way too early. He will be a very good Ireland player in time but he has been mis-managed. Young players nowadays who show any potential are massively overhyped in every sport. It’s the world we live in, up to the manager to manage potential.

Farrell/Easterby/Cullen doing a bang average job at that

I think that's an over simplification. The team is now playing a different style and whilst our previous attack has been somewhat found out it appears we're not even attempting any of the short pop pass play that made us so effective. We now kicking the leather off the ball (poorly for the most part), and as such, instead of pressurising the opposition we are inviting pressure into ourselves.

As I said earlier, absolutely nothing in that. Beirne is straight in through the gate and it's a French player that pushes him into DuPont.

I hope the Irish management team don't take this crap lying down after been taking a one sided beat down from Gardner.

I'll also add that any citings should look at the two clear outs on Belham and Osborne because both looked like head shots in real time.

Lets take a look at Ireland's change in play-style, it started with the NZ game, well it started with Mike Catt leaving really. Andy's knee jerk reaction to losing the NZ game was to double down on whatever Leinster does.

Leinster decided that a coach that had literally the best forwards on the planet to call on would be a good choice for them, along with that coach they brought in RG Snyman and Geordie Barret adding some much needed size. They are currently beating the **** out of weak URC teams, like they always do.

Andy literally just copied Leinster's style because that's what he does - Cohesion, it reduces the coaching load and leaves him free to talk about adversity (his number one, mastermind subject).

So Ireland went from having a world beating, counter attacking game to an off ball territorial game. Mike Catt's short passing, counter transition game was flushed down the toilet for an off ball game.

We've seen what off balling teams like France does when you have smaller forwards. Likewise SA and NZ will probably blow through this team like wet tissue paper.

So where does this leave Andy?

2 Choices,

1 - Reverse course back to what worked previously but, with an inferior attack coach in Goodman.

2 - Double down. Andy is all about doubling down (see: adversity).

Regardless of his choice, he'll definitely be looking for a scapegoat. Joe Mac, Nash or Sam?

You'd certainly know about that mister hot takes.