2025 Nov 01 | AI's Round 1 | Ireland v New Zealand | 20:10 GMT | VM in Ire / TNT & Discovery+ in UK

Crowley was poor but I really hope he starts next week. A good player learns and I'm sure he will. He wasn't the winning or losing of the game. I'm not going to redigest what most reasonable posters have written. The problems positions can be seen.

I still have no idea what Goodman brings to the table. Also if your lineout is malfunctioning throw to 2. It's not great but it tends to work.

We didn't play for an hour with 14 men

How long and how many?

20min! Which even the best Irish team will struggle against any NZ team.

when the team was in its pomp it was overwhelming mainly due to the forwards. The forwards were excellent and did damage at set piece but also in general play. Our attack was based on the set piece and we rarely attacked through our centres. The problem is since last autumn other nations are all focusing their energy on our forwards and not worrying about our backs as they believe our backs cannot threaten them on their own. And they are right.

Thoughts now the dust has settled and saw some highlights (any full link up yet?):

Front Row - Porter is very hit and miss at scrum-time, and has been for ages. Furlong rolled back the years at times, less prominent as the game went on. Both props tackled well, good numbers. Sheahan had some individual wobbles at lineout time, others were systemic errors. Not as prominent in the loose as he can be.

Second Row - Ryan made his tackles and battled well... caught for one of their tries with Bealham on the 5m tap and won't be happy with how the lineout went in the negative column. He hasn't turned out to be the colossus many thought in the first season or two but he did the job in terms of dirty work today, very industrious. Henderson was serviceable too to be fair but really should be out to pasture. Beirne a huge loss, the other two are nowhere near his level. Farcical red card, even the NZ commentators were laughing at it. Officials were a mess for this incident. 

Backrow - JvdF looks mortal now, which is a worry. He had a woeful clearout for that Crowley penalty, terrible wing forward cover at the try at the death and just a lot of silly errors. Did have huge workrate and good steal on the deck but didn't hit the high standards we associate with him. All our eggs are in his basket at 7 (still, worryingly). Baird had his best game for Ireland, great lineout work in particular. @Clegg - you did the inevitable and anointed him with the usual hyperbole out of you. Consistency has always been his issue, he could make shite of Munster's lineout in Thomond and be the star of the show… and then be poor for a few games after. He's put his hand up majorly on a bad team day at the office, very encouraging performance but I'd like to see him back it up consistently. I'd still like to see someone like Ahern/Prendergast get a shot to stake a claim similarly in at least one of the 3 games left. Conan did okay, carried well and worked hard, decent performance. Backrow got outplayed on the deck, we missed Beirne hugely here, think JvdF was only one to win a turnover?

JGP - absolutely superb clearance kicks, passing was on the money. Good game out of him.
 
Crowley - not a good game, but not the utter travesty some were intent on making it out to be. There's others, far more experienced, who performed way, way worse. Execution will be his word of the week. Biggest mistakes were over-cooking several garryowens and missing a touch. Long-distance penalty he gets on another day (not a 'gimme' though, pure gas bias at play there!). A pre-planned grubber in the 22 with 2 chasers didn't work out and was the wrong call, he should have held on to the ball, Jordan read it well. He found a beautiful banana kick from 22 to almost 22 with no angle that no-one mentioned when on about his line kicking. Beauden Barrett missed 2 if not 3 touches. 

On another day the crossfield kick works, Osbourne holds the ball on that great line, TOB collects the dink over the top (he gets pushed as he goes for the ball by their 8 btw, watch it back, we could have made more of that). He also tackled well, held the back field well when covering. Don't think you can fault the effort, probed and brought the ball to the line repeatedly but the execution was off a too many times.

Have to re-address this as I watched it again - refuse to accept that penalty is all his fault - Osbourne spilled a pass from him to go through a gap, Jordan hacks clear, Jack's back chasing a dodgy bouncing ball towards the touchline and has defenders rushing up against him. Can hurriedly kick long perhaps on his bad foot some will say... risk of a bad kick is very high and our defensive structure is also very broken at this point. He turns towards VdF, backs his footwork, gets scragged but battles and stays upright in absolutely plenty of time for support, who dither. Three players (Aki, JvdF and eventually Furlong) can't clear out one of theirs. James Lowe did the same thing he did against Munster btw if you watch it, barely jogs back as everyone passes him and then looks at the ruck. Maybe I'm wrong… but I don't think the coaches are going to be pointing the finger at Jack 100% here, there was plenty of cavalry in situ. 

Anyway, not a good day at the office and he wasn't the winning or losing of it, but poor Sam coming on and throwing an intercept and hiding on the wing in the defence didn't do anything to take the jersey off him. I'd back Jack for Australia and South Africa, maybe let Sam start against Japan and get time off the bench and see where we're at at the end of the month with them both or see how they go pre-Six Nations in URC/Europe and make a new call then. I'd give him 6/10, seems to be the consensus elsewhere you look at the ratings, don't agree with the 7s some are saying at all, mind.

Centres - McCloskey was totemic, he usually plays well and I've always felt there was never a whole lot between him and Henshaw when both were fit and firing. Super game and shouldn't have been taken off, he had them back-pedalling with every carry and some more savvy support play would have made hay with his offloads.

Ringrose - I posted about his missed tackles stats v contemporaries at 13 a few seasons ago and he's still doing it. And posted about him rarely passing to his winger (off his left anyway) for years. And he's still doing it. One pass in the whole game. One bone-shuddering hit but that was about it from him. One swallow etc. He looked very slow out there, beaten on the outside, slow chasing back. A couple of carries in the tight in the second half. There are other options at the other three provinces who you could argue deserve game-time. Some will argue he has credit in the bank, I just don't see it with him in the past couple of seasons.  

Back 3 - of the units I think they performed the most adequately. Osbourne did well in the air and was solid positionally. He's not pacy and won't have searing counter attacks but he's not letting us down at 15, you want a safe pair of hands first and foremost. TOB got bounced in a few tackles and gave away a penalty and poor positioning for one of their tries, but tried his heart out in attack with limited opportunities. Did as well as you'd expect a greenhorn to. Unlucky not to regather Crowley's chip in the red zone as I said above, he got a bump as he went to jump. Did superbly in our in-goal with broken ball to not get snagged.

I'm amazed to see those saying Lowe played well, he had a stinker of a first half (but a much better second half). Still don't have him as one of our better performers though on the whole, lots of turnovers, kicked out on the full. He didn't stop trying to be fair. Took a great ball in the air and some of his other kicks made them turn around. Let's be honest though, he's very limited (but what he does he does well), if we're delighted with a slow winger that runs into his opposite number and kicks the ball far, well that's indicative of where we're at I guess. Another position where we need to start giving opportunities to others. Maybe others feel differently on him.

Subs - Casey had good pace about him in terms of getting ball away but got caught at that try along with JvdF. Poor cameo.

Sam - bar making a couple of tackles he did very little right I felt in that short time (didn't have a lot to work with either). First thing was throw an intercept, which is becoming a bit of a habit of his. Stayed out on the wing in defensive sets. As average and all as Crowley was out there, I shudder to think how he'd have coped from the off. Both 10s need time to find their feet. Don't think it's fair to say 2 years out in the circumstances they're in in terms of experience at this level they're not WC leading 10s yet. In a way they've both been poorly treated by management. Crowley for being jettisoned having won a URC and a Six Nations, SP for being brought to this level too soon. Anyway, tough to come on when he did in the circumstances he did, I wouldn't read too much into his cameo but it wasn't unexpected. 

Bealham/Kelleher - ineffectual really in terms of turning things around but hard to blame them, worked hard. Kelleher put in a big shift tackling-wise to be fair, 11 tackles in 20 mins. Bealham had 9 but won't be happy with one of their tries.

Aki - poor. 24 mins to make an impact and never looked like doing it.

McCarthy - coughed up a scrum penalty but made his tackles, give him a run v Japan.

Coaches - spotlight on them all really. POC for the lineout shambles. Goodman for a shapeless attack. Farrell for overly loyal selections and having blindspots for specialist positions where 15 is a utility back position and 7 is shoe-horn in an 8 if JvdF isn't free. Shake-up needed, team selections for the next 3 games will be interesting. Time to back more of the kids.

Random Stats I Found:
McCloskey 12 carries. Lowe/Crowley/Baird next up with 7. 
We only won 67% of our received restarts. 
JvdF top tackler with 17, James Ryan behind him with 15. 
James Lowe with 4 turnovers lost, Crowley with 2. 
Offloads - Lowe, Crowley and JGP with one each. 
Ringrose made 1 pass in the whole game, same as Furlong and Kelleher. Porter made 3. Ian Henderson made 4.
Ringrose had 7 missed tackles (2 of which led to tries I reckon).

I think VdF had one snatch at the breakdown, a clean poach so no penalty.

As for your other points, you're on the money.

Commiserations. I think the difference between the sides was the benches, particularly in the front row.

This game highlights all I dislike about modern rugby. Leaving aside the pedantic French ref, rugby is a contact sport. By definition, contact will happen. If you bite someone, eye gouge someone, stamp on someone, kick someone, you get a red card. If you brace late for contact when both yourself and the attacker are on the gain-line, it's not a red card. A red card will not reduce this sort of incident, because these type of incidents are intrinsic to a contact sport with the laws of rugby. I doubt any of the crusaders on this forum for "red means red" will have complained about it only being a 20 minute red. But it shouldn't even have been a red card. With the faulty tech, we wasted 10 minutes (which I fast-forwarded) for a complete bullshit decision. Just kills the momentum and it was this carry on that harmed RWC 2023.

NZ will be better once Mounga is back and Ireland need a bit more depth on the bench.

Henderson was fine, but fine will not win you a game against the All Blacks. I'd love to believe that had he been fit, Izzy might have been on the bench, but I'm not sure.

I love Hendo and he has been good for Ulster this season, but these AIs should be his last hurrah.

Some thoughts on yesterday:

• Beirne’s red was probably a letter of the law red but if it had not been picked up then no one would have batted an eyelid. I expect a ref like Barnes would have been more empathetic. The TMO was strongly directing the referee which I thought was not supposed to happen!
• We missed McCarthy, Hansen and Hugo.
• Crowley had an ok game. A few bounces of the ball going Ireland’s way and it could have been a very good game. He was not why we lost.
• The lineout is not working and this needs to be fixed over the next three games or else there should be a change in the coaching staff.
• We are missing a spark in the back line. Hansen has it which explains part of why it was missing but for games going forward I think Farrell should get a chance.
• Not going into negative territory but some players are past prime and will not be getting better. Need to take a call on where a player is right now vs where they will be in two years time. We will not know until the end of this series where some are as a lack of match fitness and rustiness was on show yesterday.

I don't think Henderson is alone in that category

Lowe was poor but Henderson was fine?

Definitely watching a different game to me, so.

Yeah, agreed, thought the Kiwi backs looked good. Roigard is such a difference maker (even when he wasn’t at his best yesterday), and thought Fainga’anuku was excellent and really dangerous throughout.

We already have Tadgh Beirne at 6 who is exactly the same size but also stratospheric levels beyond Baird. Baird will never start if Beirne is fit and doesn't do enough in the tight exchanges to justify being a lock. I'm of the opinion that Ahern can get into the air as quickly as Baird, but has a huge wingspan advantage once there.

One cross field kick was on the full, but the slow guys weren't even near a lot of the contestables, like not even within 10M of them. This may be because they didn't get off the line well (cohesion issues) or because they're probably the slowest back 3 in international rugby.

Some of the kicks were too long, two from Crowley in particular were totally aimless.

A few others were far too short from both Crowley and JGP. Cannot seriously be Blaming the wingers for poor execution at half back.