Ireland V Australia. Saturday 15th Nov. Build up thread

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned already, but one clear advantage Ireland will have this weekend, other than home advantage of course, is that pretty much the majority of this Irish coaching ticket (& side?) were on the winning Lions tour to Aus just a few months back really. So they really know this Australian squad, their players & their likely gameplans & moves in great detail, and they're well used to plotting plans to overcome them. The onus will be on Australia to try to innovate & come up with some new plays to try to outfox Ireland, which won't be easy at this stage of their season, tbh. Advantage Ireland!!

I couldn't agree more with you. As a Munster fan it drives me mad to see him played at flanker. He's a big tall lad, get him on the steak and full fat milk diet and into the no.5 jersey ASAP. Him and Edogbo would be a great pairing for us going forward if thay can stay fit. Also allows us play Coombes and Gleeson in the backrow then.

I see Aherne and Edogbo as the perfect pair to replace Kleyn and Beirne.

have had a few conversations around this lately and I think there is a subconscious thing where we had 3 long term very good outhalves in a row, each a bit better than the last and coming along at the right time to usurp the man ahead of them. This has created a subconscious thing where we think a 4th cab will just arrive and whoever gets out will continue the trend and it just isn’t happening right now. Both are good but neither look to me currently like they will be the long term quality international 10 we sort of expect now. One might be, or one might end up the long term guy but I suspect that’s because we just won’t have the better option we really need.

We could (and people are) arguing over whether he was poor or 'very poor' but we were not winning when he left the field. we had just gone 21-13 down. Always irks me when people try to slip in blantant inaccuracies

Aye, agreed with this.

Get him in the row, mould him into our Thibaud Flament.

They were playing Spain.

"Very stale"?

The backline against Japan featured Casey, Crowley, Farrell, Stockdale, TOB and Osborne, none of whom were starters in the most recent 6N. Notwithstanding the bizarre and deeply personal (yes) crusade against Henshaw, by what measure is that a stale backline? Now this week, McCloskey is back in, Hansen is in for his first start at FB and Prendergast is in at 10. Again, this is stale how?

Now, you believe that Farrell is a terrible coach, fair enough, but your argument is that picking worse players and giving them the same coaching will improve things, that's not logical.

Saying that only TOB makes a combined team of the senior and A backlines is ridiculous, there's no other word for that. Hearing something on a podcast does not make it true, surely we have all realised that by now?

10:00 Missed touch with a penalty

10:25 free kick from our ten metre line, way too long and a mark inside the 22 by Jordan.

21:00 another kick from the same position, this time gets his distance right and we regather just outside their 22.

24:00 up and under, makes very little distance comes down on Lowe being challenged by Jordan on the other side of the field. Knocked on, turn over.

29:00 11th phase just outside their 22, making good ground off fast ball, Barrett shepherds Crowley's grubber over the try line before dotting down. Not a terrible idea but Barrett was too close and alert to it getting there before Osborne. No reason not to keep going through the phases imo.

29:44 Crowley regathers inside our half and puts one up for Osborne, well measured but Jordan competes and catches it.

36:00 Another free kick goes too far, into their 22 and easily caught by Jordan for a mark.

43:30 grubber inside their 22 regathered by Jordan who was well positioned and oriented. Not a terrible idea but a long shot when we had good possession going forward.

48:24 ruck on the half way line, JGP passes back to Crowley who kicks an uncontested fairly flat one caught by Barrett on their 22, "into no mans land" as the commentator put it. I have no idea what our idea was there. Barrett put it into touch just outside our 22.

52:12 turnover from an AB attack, ball is passed back to Crowley inside our 22, he boots it into open field into their 22. Good relieving kick. Barrett kicks it back into touch on our ten where Lowe takes a quick throw to Crowley. Crowley sends it up for himself to chase but sends it too far, Jordan catches it unchallenged and steps Crowley as he arrives. The AB attack goes nowhere.

64:00 chip for TOB from just outside the 22, TOB gets a hand to it but he's well covered. Good idea. Doris is clapping the ambition.

I hadn't seen the match on tv but I attended it in Chicago and remember being frustrated with much of Crowleys kicking. Rewatching it I kept notes on that part of his performance. I'm leaving out a few kicks to touch but I think I have most of his kicks from play here. Use whatever adjective you like but at this level this is a fairly poor kicking from hand performance and one thats highly unlikely to beat the all blacks. Plenty of other mistakes and and bad ideas let us down but when your ten is misfiring in a game like that where momentum and pressure are almost everything, things won't go well.