It stacks up to me. Even Look at the amount of minutes the forwards played in the group.
Basically full strength in all of those games.
Beirne played the full 80
v Romania
v Tonga??
v SA
Stated v Scotland and played 50
NZ forwards had nothing like that. AND they had a full 8 day rest before the game after a facile win over Uruguay.
Ireland had 6 days.
That’s before we look at the backs…starting with the 38 year old 10 and 33 year old 12 who both looked bollicksed by the 60th minute of that NZ game.
Of course you love to see this:
You get to move away from the actual points we were discussing
You then attack me by saying “I don’t know what I’m talking about”
And Im definitely reporting this. With no further engagement whatsoever
I always liked Connors but injuries have taken there toll.
Its over 4 years since his last cap. He's not capable of stringing multiple 80mins performances back-to-back-to-back like vdF and Doris.
If no vdF. Doris-Glesson-Baird backrow has the potential to be the best unit Ireland can field.
6 years ago Ireland had a raft of promising uncapped loose forwards coming through.
Beyond Gleeson there is no one jumping off the list with exceptional potential as Test players.
I dont see Deegan, Coombes or McCann at this stage making the step-up to get into a RWC squad.
Same for James McNabey, James Culhane and Ruadhán Quinn.
They all look like good promising players. Quinn may have the most potential out of that group?
Sean Edogbo has massive potential as a ball carrier. Anyone know whats happening with him? Injuries?
From current Squad named age at RWC:
Conan 35
vdf 34
Timoney 32
Doris 29
Baird 28
Prendergast 27
Its not exactly bursting with youthful vim and vigor.
Need at least Gleeson and prob one other to make a breakthrough in RWC Squad contention.
And all of this contributed to us getting into a 13-0 hole after 20 minutes how exactly?
The players pretty much all played less than they would have in the preceding GS 6N campaign.
(also we started the game with a 38 year old 10 cause he was far and away the best 10 in Ireland and still one of the best in the world)
Should we have played a second team against Scotland?
We looked knackered come the end of the New Zealand game because we failed to take our chances earlier and were forced to run the ball from inside our own half for 30+ phases. I don't believe it was down to playing guys too much in the preceding games.
Could not disagree more that we lost the NZ game because we were tired. Posts above have run the numbers, the players had plenty of rest. The older cohort had played about 40 mins in the past 3 weeks, if they can't manage that we had no hope in the first place.
I don't know why people can't just accept that it was an extremely high quality game with razor tight margins, and someone had to lose.
The width of Jordie Barrett's leg, some absolutely shite refereeing at the scrum, Ireland's slow start to the game (note - slow start, not slow finish), Sexton missing a kick he gets 95 times out of 100, Doris dropping a basic restart that he catches 999 times out of 1000. It was such a close game that all these things had a huge influence.
Aggregated from individual match stats on RugbyPass, which has reasonably detailed stats per game. They match other sources that have fewer stats (like Provincial sites and IrishRugby.ie).
It is indeed both international and provincial so plenty big sample size.
Also, same thing applies to Crowley for the 6N's with regards not all minutes at 10. If you look at the games where they both played 10, Crowley had 41.9 possessions per 80, while Prendergast had 44.8.
That itself is a small sample size too, but tally's with the whole season so seems reasonably reflective of things.
It might well be the case that's why he lost his place in the Autumn after those 2 games, but claiming he gets on the ball far less than other 10's more broadly (or at least did last season) doesn't seem to be accurate at all.
Saying "played in the group" doesn't adequately reflect the fact that the tournament started on September 9th, and it was more than a month later (14th October) by the time we were playing NZ.
Tadhg Beirne played 287 minutes in the 35 days before played NZ. For clarity - that's 3.5 games in 5 weeks.
When Ireland won the 6 Nations earlier that year (42 days start to finish) plenty of players racked up well over 330 minutes over the same time period.
You picked out Tadhg Beirne, as he had played the most minutes, but the average for our starting forward pack & replacements that day was 166.5 mins (just over 2 games in 5 weeks), and the average for the starting pack was 2.7 games over a 5 week period.
If you're seriously saying we can't sustain that amount of wear and tear over that length of time and frame then there is honestly no hope for us.
It also doesn't address the fact that for a team that was "knackered" how we were the team who were finishing the game much stronger, we were pushing to win the game at the death and had a try held up in the last 10 mins.
Absolutely, the problem was going 13-0 down in the opening 20 minutes. That we fought our way back and were still pressing for the win at the final whistle suggests that tiredness was not the problem.
Maybe the occasion got to them, maybe they were over-confident, but I agree with Podge that we were not mentally switched on.
Did we need to start a 38 year old v Romania and then Tonga and then SA and then Scot?
That’s the real question. The answer is no.
My point was actually exactly about the end of the game.
However. I can also surmise fatigue plays a role at start of the game. Nervousness is heightened when one feels fatigued. That very much could “contributed to us to getting into a 13-0”
Add in the very fact that NZ were also much fresher.
maybe, just maybe, we were knacked at the end of the NZ game in 2023 because we had run 633 meters with ball, against their 465m off 10% more possession.
325 passes compared to 137.
173 runs compared to 120, with 31 defenders beaten comapred to 22.
Only needed to make 177 tackles compared to their 257.
if those are the stats of a teams that knackered going into a quarter final, id love to see what a fresh team would produce?
what beat us in the QF in 2023 was not lactic acid in our legs during the game, but going 13 points to nil down in the first 20 minutes.
Yes, cause the silly twat got himself banned for the warmups.
If anyone was fatigued going into the NZ game they should seriously reconsider their career as a professional athlete.
Sexton played 40 minutes against Tonga and 40 minutes against Scotland.
Since you're so focused on Sexton. Once again: Between 24th of Sept (day after SA game) and Oct 13th (day before NZ game) he played 44 minutes of rugby. This is a period of 3 weeks. Do you genuinely believe a professional rugby player would be suffering from fatigue at the beginning of a game having played for 44 minutes in the prior 3 weeks?
This does not stand up to any scrutiny.
I am seriously saying it!
I’m saying because you need to compare it to what NZ did. That was my original point.
And I’m saying it because it should have been factored in. And im saying it because of how Ireland played. Multiphase, multiphase flowed by more multiphase.
And I’m saying it because Ireland continues to select conservatively.
It stands up to scrutiny because the man in question could barely stand up near the end of the game
He was 38
Should we have played Uruguay instead of Scotland the week before?
Also to add, NZ had their rest week earlier in their pool than Ireland. So when the Irish squad had their feet up in the rest week after Scotland, NZ were playing a match. Ireland had 1 game in the 3 weeks before the QF, NZ had 2 games in the 3 weeks before the QF. So they'd played more minutes more recently than we had. Once again, this fatigue argument stands up to no scrutiny whatsoever.
Yet he still marshalled the attack to go from our 22 to theirs.
Should we have started Crowley instead of Sexton the week before?
Should we have started Crowley instead of Sexton in any of the weeks before?
No as we blew Scotland away early doors and could afford to take him and a load of other players off early in anticipation of the QF. Should Leinster have started Jordie Barrett in the semi final against Northampton last season?
it more than stands up to scrutiny
It’s fact
NZ played their last game on the 5th of October
Ireland played their last game on 7th of October
NZ had a younger team
NZ were able to rest 6 players
Ireland rested how many?
That’s right. None.
Add in the previous workload and you get what you saw.
I don't think the previous workload caused Rob Kelleher to be (stupidly) held up over the tryline.
All you’re saying here is that the schedule hurt us. Thats not a ridiculous take. The idea that we should have rest players against Scotland when we hadn’t qualified for a QF yet is though.
Good old Rob
It is notable that the two big QFs went the way of the team that had a bye the week before. Resting people for 3 weeks is seriously verging into getting undercooked territory.
?
I don’t think you were or are paying attention
Ireland played 7 days earlier
I don’t think I need to say anymore myself either on the matter.
Former international outhalf, who also played in a World Cup and a respected analyst also happens to think the same.
Some rotation should have been factored in. Not zero.
People can have different opinions. Fine. But for my opinion to be attacked (and allowed to be attacked btw) as “i don’t know what I’m talking about” says everything.
The players who might have been rotated played about 40 minutes. They were not fatigued going into the NZ game.
I actually think they were in comparison to the NZ players.
Anyway, moving on to the games at hand.
Irish players will be seriously undercooked in comparison to v NZ in Chicago.
Not expecting many Irish wins this AI window.
