Positives to take from that match. Baird looked great, was a menace in the lineout and showed up across the pitch. Doris made an impact when he came on. McCloskey was brilliant, absolutely has to be the starting 12 going forward. Ryan had a good game too, much better showing than on the Lions.
With a bit of luck Robertson will look to add Goodman to his ticket to replace the outgoing Jason Holland. Four tries to one says it all. The attack kept just breaking down after a few phases.
There are certain areas of our game that looked good. Felt we smothered New Zealand for a good 50/55 minutes. Their best attacks came when we were a man down.
But we've declined badly in attack. We can't play multi phase as much anymore as the rules are weighted more in on the defensive side of the ruck these days. Feels like we don't know what we're trying to build towards.
No joke, I hope Harry keeps playing well. Neither of these 2 tens are at the level to compete for a WC.
I was joking but now..
I suppose the one overwhelming positive was Ryan Baird's performance. I think he's played well for Ireland in flashes and especially off the bench. But this was a career establishing performance at test level. Did a lot of good work defensively and especially as a counter jumper at the lineout. Some powerful carries when he had the chance also. Think he has claimed that blindside jersey at least in the short term. He's still just 26 so has plenty of years ahead of him as well.
Him and McCloskey were the positives from tonight. Baird is a very useful player when he's in this sort of form. Great defensive lineout player just like POM but more dynamic in the carry. His greatest appeal is the ability to play lock which also frees up our options on the bench.
Aye, but I'd add McCloskey and O'Brien to that.
I also thought Osborne was having a really good game, but his drop (after to be fair picking a terrific line) was arguably a turning point moment in the match.
It was a frustrating game. The Red card was IMO an embarrassing decision, it felt like a few decisions went against us, but I suppose by the end the result was fair enough.
Moved to NZ match thread
Moved to NZ thread
Seems like we're all thinking the same things.
Well I'm glad Tommy put this one to bed. Getting done on the wing by 34 year old Beauden Barrett would be the definition of slow. We were also done on his wing multiple times.
With the combined age of this Irish Squad it's going to be very lean years ahead
Maybe going into a world cup 'under the rader' is best
It was a spirited performance tonight but you could see the AB onslaught coming sadly
not really, plenty of talent in the other provinces, which is the point we are making.
post world cup seeding, we need to be dipping into that pool.
Farrell needs to freshen up his coaching staff imho.
Replacing POC & Goodman with better coaches would go a long way to reviving Ireland's performances imho...
We're down for kicking once every four possessions. New Zealand kicked once every eight. I don't have a problem with our relatively higher amount, but rather that we kicked poorly when we went to contest.
Unfortunately Crowley had a bad day with his boot and kicked too long on quite a few of them. We couldn't consistently pressure the New Zealand receiver in the tackle as they could run into free space or just mark it in the 22.
We still could have made it work if Beirne was on the pitch. He's brilliant at the ruck and will slow ball down all day, if not turn it over outright. We currently lack someone to slow the ball down. Doris is probably the next best in the pack, but he's been out almost 6 months and even then his work there isn't as outstanding.
Crowley had no go forward options. NZ swamped us and we had nowhere to go.
JUst a bad day at the office for everyone. Especially Ringrose and Conan
Genuinely don't know how you think Conan was one of the two worst players on the pitch.
I'd have him and Baird as our best forwards.
People are seriously watching different matches to me when they pick and choose players who were poor.
There is no point picking out a poor player on one performance. But there is justification on picking out a player on many moderate performances. So the front row is a real worry. Other than Sheehan there isn't much. And when you add the replacements in it's actually worse. Second row is just a mess. Beirne isn't even a second row but he's doing his best to hold the second row together. Back row has always been an Irish strength but it can't work if the first and second row ain't working.
And if your heavies ain't working well then your scrum half/out half are flucked and your nippy wingers are pointless
Imo any chance we had of winning this game was kicked away by Crowley between 30-60 minutes. Can't figure out if this was our tactic or what. But either way this loss is on Farrell first and last. His tactics or else he left on an under performing player.
Line out shambles didn't help but at least NZ were nearly as bad as us.
Ref wasn't going to let a game break out which probably helped us a little.
Think most people on this forum and with any common sense knew that the scheduling of this game as irelands first game of the season with zero warm up was a terrible idea if we actually wanted to win a rugby game.
Having said that I thought we did well for 60 minutes and then lack of top end match fitness cost us aswell as a number of terrible Crowley errors (Prendergast was worse when he came on).
Problem is the stop start nature of the game actually helped Ireland and allowed us to take NZ's fluidity and pressure out of the game for the first hour but we just couldnt hang on.
I think we need to start bleeding more young guys in now with an eye to a world cup. Iain Henderson is not an international quality player anymore and was completley out of his depth around the park yesterday and needs to be moved on.
I think the integration of guys like Gleeson, Edogbo, Izuchukwku, mccarthy, Boyle and the rest of the talented u20s cohort of the last 5 years needs to start being prioritised more than it is in bigger international games, we want to avoid the slow slide of what happend with Schimidt leading into his last WC.
All this is easier said than done and injuries have hampered this integration.
Andrew Porter also pretty dissapointing and has been for quite a while, his ability is massive, but now he just doenst have those big game moments he used to have a couple years ago - turnovers, big carries/hits. Now he just seems satisfied with locking out scrums and thats it, same goes for Tadhg, when we were beating big teams like NZ guys like Porter and Furlong were playing out of their skin, winning scrum penalties and dominating in the loose, this just doesnt happen anymore.
Bright side, thought we hung in well and had good fight for 60mins, hopefully more match fitness can can make this an 80 minute thing. Doris back massive plus he showed glimpses of what he can do. tommy o'brien showed if youre in form pick them, zero experience in big internationals and looked like a a natural out there. Mccloskey epic. Ringrose some big shots in defence but still offering zero attacking threat.
Lowe fought hard and had good moments, Osbourne solid. Pack was largely solid and competed well but our outhalves have no ability to run a backline or get us posing any sort of threat and this has been a constant issue since Mike Catt left there has been zero inovation or attacking flare produced by our backline - very concerning and I dont think our backs coach is up to standard.
Changes for Japan?
Need a new openside. Van der Flier is making little impact.
I'm not as down on Henderson as some, but this might be a good time to get Ahern involved - maybe even in a starting capacity if Beirne gets banned.
It's probably time to move on from Aki.
Farrell over Ringrose for me. Far more running threat.
I've been thinking for a while they should make greater use of Stockdale as #23. Playing in a different position than usual would be a good way to prep him to be versatile off the bench.
But personnel changes are a pretty small thing with big issues in the coaching.
"Need a new openside, Van Der Flier is making little impact."
F*ck me the dramatics and the hysterics and the panic after one game of rugby genuinely astounds me.
Farrell has become too complacent imo . He's not going to rock the boat now, nice cushy number for the next 2 years and then sayonara
Ireland is becoming a concern, our ball efficiency in the 22 is similar to Munster under JvG, easy enough to get in there with penalty kicks, converting the entries to scores is a huge issue.
Leaving aside our poor conversion rate in the 22, if the opposition take away those penalty kicks then how do we compete, our attack seems dependent on kicks. Farrell took off the one threat we had last night to get Aki on the field, I couldn't fathom that out.
I think rugby has changed since RWC2023. Kicking has definitely come back into vogue with defenders no longer able to escort chasers. See what England did yesterday with (from memory) two of their tries coming from kick contestables where either the ball was won by the chaser or the attacking team won the breaking ball. Do we have the chasers (and the kicking accuracy) to play this game? The other two top teams, SA and France, are also happy enough to put boot to ball. It was something we used to excel at under Schmidt with Murray’s kick accuracy and the likes of Conway, Trimble, Bowe, Henshaw and Kearney all super at contesting.
I read somewhere that McCloskey was hurt. Its the only rational explanation.
I'd wait for the injury report before I'd hang Farrell.
I also await that ridiculous red card being downgraded on appeal.
Ringrose missed 7 tackles yesterday, 2 of which led directly to NZ tries. The shooting out of the line for the big hit needs to end. He was abysmal.
Apparently a groin issue according to ROC.
