Has He linked back up with the squad or is he out of the squad because of the concussion?
I'd love to see him come on against a tiring Japan and have a stormer. Really make it easy for farrell to have him on the bench for the 6N.
Second Row isn't an area of weakness with Beirne, Ryan and McCarthy, but Edogbo is a real prospect so I hope he can reach his potential
I like Edogbo but he's played 60 minutes of rugby in 2 years. Let's allow him to put a run of games together before we start hanging all our hopes on him.
We have one big physical player who is a try scoring machine and line breaker for his province and Farrell has never picked him. Gavin Coombes.
Edogbo also fits this bill but was unfortunately concussed against Leinster. At least Farrell was willing to select him.
The concern is that we would lose significant ranking points if we lost to Japan. A loss to them and a loss to Australia would put us in a very precarious position.
A win on Saturday and I think we can chill on the top 6 question.
Not assured 100% ... But that last forward pass against new Zealand has greatly reduced the chances of it happening.
We'll beat Australia and this will all be axiomatic anyway
When Crowley kicked wide or long, there were one or two stray kicks, but also, a couple of kicks that would have been perfect if the winger was quicker off the line.
Ian Madigan analysed the kicking strategy of both Crowley and Gibson Park. Gibson Parks contestables were on the money. Crowleys not.
We Get minimal ranking points for beating Japan. Think we'd have to lose all 3 and other results go against us for it to happen. We are 6 full points ahead of Australia in 7th. As good as assured already
I assume if we beat Japan then thats the top 6 spot secured regardless of the remaining to games, is that correct or are we assured already
if Prendergast had been turned over for that penalty in the way Crowley was the uproar from certain posters would be unholy so it can be hard to take the arguments on here at face value at times.
I'd agree with a lot of your post, but it's fair to say the exact same thing can be said the other way round too amongst other certain posters.
And fwiw, I think the talk about Crowley's "ceiling" is wide of the mark. Here's what Ian Madigan, for me the best pundit around at the moment, has said on the topic, and I don't think one poor game has changed that:
One thing that does frustrate me and you hear it sometimes when you hear people talking about the ceiling of players, and this was coming up last year, "Prendergast has a higher ceiling than Crowley".That's trying to predict the future. And sometimes players don't fulfil their predicted ceiling. And I'm not saying that Prendergast won't go on to be a brilliant outhalf, I think he will. But Crowley maybe is showing that his ceiling is actually higher than you thought it was. "Maybe I've got more layers than you originally thought".
One thing that does frustrate me and you hear it sometimes when you hear people talking about the ceiling of players, and this was coming up last year, "Prendergast has a higher ceiling than Crowley".
That's trying to predict the future. And sometimes players don't fulfil their predicted ceiling. And I'm not saying that Prendergast won't go on to be a brilliant outhalf, I think he will. But Crowley maybe is showing that his ceiling is actually higher than you thought it was. "Maybe I've got more layers than you originally thought".
I don't think Crowley was as bad as some are making out, as above he had some clangers and some good moments, and a few thing that didn't quite come off. I don't think it's a droppable performance given the team was melting down around him. I am concerned he has a bit of a ceiling and don't see him improving much more. On the other hand I don't think there's anyone putting pressure on him atm so he's goignt o get another decent run to establish himself as undisputed no.1.
all that being said if Prendergast had been turned over for that penalty in the way Crowley was the uproar from certain posters would be unholy so it can be hard to take the arguments on here at face value at times.
The lack of pace and set piece are bigger issues than crowley though. Worrying as well that the only plater who showed some spark was Ccloskey who is older than both henshaw and Tom Farrell
I watched 2 games on Saturday, the first was Munster v Argentina XV, and later the Irl v NZ game. The Argentina XV pack brought more intensity and ferocity and dare I say, cohesion in an exhibition match that wasn't even televised, than the Irish pack brought in a showcase event. Every collision was full intensity, every time they carried the ball, they did it in a pod with support and challenged Munster to stop them by committing players and energy.
The number of times I saw Irish forwards players carry the ball on their own into two man defence and get knocked backwards while another irish forward lazily joined the ruck from the side afterwards to help recycle and Park then slung it to the next available forward to his left or right.
We do not have big powerful players who can win collisions on their own, and neither do we have the gameplan, or ability to pre-latch before contact to allow us to win the collision and maintain forward momentum.
Its a combination of poor coaching, poor selection and possibly the players just not having the drive or motivation to put their bodies on the line moment to moment anymore.
Our attack was utterly toothless. People blame Crowley for not playing well, but for most of the time he was on the field, it was Gibson Park who was the main playmaker. This is probably the scheme that Farrell went for, and it didn't work at all. He passed short and predictably to a pack that were losing ground, and then every few phases when we ran out of forwards, passed back to Jack so he could run undefended or kick wide.
When Crowley kicked wide or long, there were one or two stray kicks, but also, a couple of kicks that would have been perfect if the winger was quicker off the line. Our back line was Sloooow. Crowley, this season, is used to playing with very fast backs. Ben O Connor, Abrahams, Daly, Farrell etc are all quicker than the backs who played on Saturday for Ireland, and in defence, some of the defensive workrate was just unacceptably poor. James Lowe and Jvdf trotting back to support a ruck on a contestable kick causing a turnover in our 22.. Comparing that with Max Clein, a hooker running 80 metres to make a tackle on our own line a few hours before.
Playing for Ireland vs the All Blacks is supposed to be the pinnacle of a rugby players career. Instead we saw tired, lazy, half arsed performances from some of our veterans on the same day a younger, far less experienced group of players busted a gut to win a game in front of a few thousand people in Thomond and online streaming.
Not saying all the players who played against Argentina XV are international standard, but the work rate and effort was. And if the Irish team cannot match that, then they do not deserve to play for Ireland until they can show that they are prepared to fight for that spot
Agreed. We should get a ridiculously harsh red card for every lost lineout.
Crowley wasn't great, we had a lot of possession and territory in the first half and he did nothing with it. Not his fault but he didn't make anything happen with a lot of ball. Prendergast looked worse when he came on, similar to Crowley last year, trying to make something happen against the odds. But I'm much more worried about the coaching honestly. Scrum and line out are a real mess and both have been for years now. I'm not sure what the attack plan is, though it's hard when noone has any confidence in the set piece, including the opposition. To think we were lethal off scrum and line out, off goal line drop outs, off broken ball, just a few years ago, and now in a game where the wheels came of for NZ for an hour and we couldn't buy a score.
If our game plan is up and under we are doomed, we do not have the pace (nor the kicking accuracy) to make that game work against NZ, France or SA. They will eat it up and use it to score against us as the ABs did a the weekend. We did well on Saturday with a short game, one off carriers pulling in their forwards. We made yards most of the time and it disturbed NZs ability to settle and get into their game. The stop start stuff helped. That game needs great decisions from 9 and 10 to read the room and change the picture to build an attack, that was absent and we seemed to abandon that approach towards the end of the first half. That and our first half defence were the only positives from Saturday. The team will get better as the series progresses but the bigger questions about set pieces and attack aren't going to be easily answered.
His kicking percentages whilst an improvement on previous were still not good enough...last season he was inconsistent in many aspects. Positional kicking & getting length on his kicks were not sufficiently good enough...Castres game in point.
He was excellent then v Nhamptn...few nice line breaks, kicked well & scored...showed leadership qualities
V inconsistent last season imo....he wasn't alone considering what was going on at the club
Thankfully this season he has started better & as I said him & the team are more aligned.
I still don't like the amount hang time on his restarts
Edit to say the above is from a club perspective.
Whatever about last seasons AI's he got kind of shafted in the 6N's re appearances thanks to his versatility to cover 12 & 15 at a push...this has been done to death here already so park that bit
I think this is an excellent summary and, having watched bits of it back, I'd suggest the kicks-from-hand were differing in quality based on the type of kick.
Imo, his contestables were his poorest type of kick from hand. A kick is only as good as it's chase, but there were definitely a decent number that were too long, and gave the chaser little chance.
However, I'd go as far as saying his other kicks-from-hand in play were much better quality and he was unlucky with some. For example:
But more importantly here, they were all good decisions too imo.
His contestables and kicks down the line are the 2 types of kick he needs to improve most, imo (we've seen an improvement on his goal kicking this season that I expect to continue). But his grubbers, kicks in behind and chips, I think he's already got enough quality with.
can you elaborate as to why he wasnt generally fine? i dont agree at all but if you can explain what you mean i am open to hearing it
I didn't think you were slating him, just not giving the full picture. I just think calling it a 'poor' performance, saying "he did very little well", asking "what did he do well?"… was a bit of disservice. I just said I'd point out what I saw that he did well, it wasn't a disaster of a performance by any means. Go back through the comments in time during the game and there's a barrage of negative stuff there and very few to praise anything that went well. Which is fine, people are watching live and you can only take so much in. I find the comments the day after a match are generally a bit more insightful as people have had a chance to watch highlights/replay, read a bit more about it, take in other's opinions, even cool their jets a bit if it's a loss.
That's not to say I'm not happy with his performance and know he can do better, those kicks frustrated me too as anyone can overcook a garryowen but there were a few too many for my liking. He needs to stop missing touch, happens too often. It's a consequence of ekeing every last yard. When it comes off like the banana kick it's great, but it can be a momentum killer in a tight game. If he's only getting 10m on every kick like Sexton towards the very end I'd be annoyed also mind!
I'm realistic as to what else was going on around him on the team. We were on something like 44% possession (poor Sam had 12% possession to work with in the last 10 minutes which is why I was saying to largely discount his time on the pitch apart from being a bit annoyed at two poor passes). We were getting so little traction due to scrum/lineout/turnovers he would have needed to conjure up some magic and some of those riskier plays like the grubber in the 22 or the dink to TOB to come off. He did try them (to his credit) and was unlucky with the TOB one in particular as that was on the money.
He showed against largely the same players he was playing with a couple of weeks ago he can put in a performance doing all of those things he is being criticised for (I genuinely think it was the most encouraging performances of an Irish 10 in a few years). The difference the other day is he got snagged this time where he danced away from JGP/Larmour, the dink didn't go to hand to TOB and it did to Farrell, the garryowens were better measured (or better chased on some occasions..?). Fine margins I guess.
I think ultimately we're a bit on the same page and ultimately arguing over semantics/appearances of "poor" and "mixed" and the balance of positive/negative contributions. You have it weighted negative, I have it in the middle of the two. That's just our own viewpoints and we're probably not going to bridge that divide, which is fine too, that's what this place is for.
I'm not even sure it was a marginal call. The alternative was to kick under pressure off his weak side. Either slicing it out on the full or returning it to a dangerous NZ back 3. And retuning it to said back 3 while his entire team would have to retreat onside and that entire team was already well out of the defensive shape. It was a Hobson's choice and Jack picked the least worst option. The clear out by his team mates was poor then.
Ultimately this all came from a gilt edge chance to make a line break deep inside the NZ 22 which Osborne knocked on. That was the epitome of what lost us the game. Inaccuracy in the opposition's 22. It was a 14 pt swing in that instance.
And before I'm accused of shifting blame for the game changing moment to Osborne, I do recall in the moment thinking the pass to him was a hair low. I still think he should have taken the pass though. My point is that to win at this level these passes need to be on the money and also receivers must be capable of taking slightly imperfect passes at speed. I haven't rewatched the game so open to challenge on the quality of pass and if it should have been caught or not.
Thanks for that. I was thinking it might be like that. He will be happy enough with it
For a young fella that likes sirens and flashing lights if you could watch them en route it's much better but they pass so fast it might be a disappointment.
A few years back I saw them with outriders turning left on the canal, bus drive up the right lane then sharp left and up the canal.
But yes standing in front of the stadium would be your best bet to stand & watch with a young fellow but even then, it's like clockwork and the bus doesn't really slow down too much.
I'm guessing that you'd want to be there at least 70-90 mins before kick off
Hi Im bringing my 8year to his first Irish game on Saturday. Im was wondering would we get to see the team bus arrive at the Aviva. What time would we need to be at ground if so. Very excited lads
Cheers
The point isn't whether it was the right call or not (personally, I think it was marginal either way).
The point is that, even if going for the decision to step Holland was the wrong call, the lack of support after was a way bigger issue / mistake leading to the penalty.
The irony here is that the laziest thing in this discussion was 2 of the 3 players not getting back quick enough…..
And as it happened I thought yes, run it and when I saw Aki & Josh I thought we'd recycle but we know now, they were ineffective.
Yep definitely less lazy to ‘blame’ 3 other players 😀 I didn’t think it was the right call to try and run that back at the time and still don’t. Unfortunately it didn’t work for us this time. It’s something that our other 10 has been caught out with before too. Risky plays with little upside that you don’t get away with at the top level.
Had Aki and or Josh made a decent attempt to protect the ball and Lowe made a better attempt at getting back then there wouldn't have been a turnover and this wouldn't even be a discussion point of the game. But they didn't so the lazy thing here is to blame Jack.
The main difference here is that he failed to step the NZ second row and got caught putting us under pressure which lead to the turnover. Great that he had the confidence to do it but he didn’t execute this time.
Ringrose has always been a selfish carrier, see the 2019 HC final. He has many fine qualities, but I'm eager to see what some of the new lads can bring. Gavin, Cooney, Osborne even. We're getting much from our centres.
hats off for really excellent analysis. I watched live without the benefit of a second look but you have confirmed what my impression was post game.
His form isn't great, but looking at Ringrose for the last few years even when he is playing exceptionally well, which is most of the time, I find him to be a very predictable player, he almost always comes back off his right and rarely passes to the outside, same on the other side of the field. That means he narrows defences and doesn't often get turned over on the ground as he's running back into support, but it also means we don't get as wide as we might as often as we might. His defensive shooting is an asset most of the time too, but it is also very predictable and Im sure Jordi briefed everyone on it, and we paid the price a couple of times on Saturday. Not the end of the road for Ringrose but he needs competition for the shirt. He has been living off being defensive leader for a few yers.
He was anything but generally fine last year
I say that as a munster fan & want him performing alot better than last year, otherwise we are at nothing
Last year was a mess of a season at munster, he looked to be trying to hard & carry the team.
This season the other players are more in sync with him.
Hopefully he'll get enough autumn minutes to prove the same at test level
