what a completely miserable, one eyed, biased way to look at the situation.
No one from the irish team "ducked for cover" after the paris game. Andy Farrell and Caelan Doris were both up in front of the media and took on those tough questions. Even had to deal with french whinging about being hit hard. If you didnt see it here it is:
as far as Bryn ward taking some media duty, isnt it a great news story??
The only player to shine from the A game, an ulster academy player with 6 pro starts to his name, now training with the senior squad, playing with his older brother etc
i dont know about others but id much prefer to hear about how hes finding the step up, what his goals are etc…. but i guess some people only like wallowing in misery.
again, if you missed it, heres the interview. maybe watch it and have a little smile to yourself. Doesnt look like Bryn took it as any kind of 'unfairness' to him.
Think this is on the money re: Ward being out in front of cameras.
Bench. I would hope. Only every played 9 senior games but he's ready (physically).
Thought it was weak by Farrell/IRFU to put him up for media.
Rest of them are ducking for cover after Paris.
Unfair on Bryn Ward.
I have a horrible feeling Ireland will stick with this unsuitable kicking game and stick with the same unsuitable wingers and full back.
and youll STILL have people trying to argue that he doesnt "take it to the line" (hugh cahill and others, im looking at you)
The opta stats for 6 nations also have a stat now for line breaks created which I think is a metric that Sam will do well in. It is a key part of his game. He had 2 on the weekend. The most across the competition was 3.
Time will tell how this metric plays out over the course of the tournament.
Prendergast had a more positive impact on the game in my opinion. He was very good at the lineout, particularly the defensive maul, was decent in contact, and seemed to be unlucky to be penalised for what looked to be a good jackal (would need to see that again though).
I don't think Josh is done or anything but he was very poor at the weekend.
I was only responding to eagle eye that the stats prove Harry Byrne is the best offensively. The only offensive stay in that list is try assists. On which Harry Byrne was last.
The try assists are a relatively simplistic stat in fairness - a player could throw the pass that leads to a linebreak, and a team mate then draws and passes on the final man and the guy who creates the original linebreak gets no assist stat from that.
Opta's analyst hub has a stat on try involvements per 80 mins -
on that stat Harry Byrne is on 0.9, the same mark as Jack Crowley. Sam Prendergast is on 1.1.
Maybe he is the solution long term at 12? He's certainly is defensively capable of doing so. Playing both Sam and Crowley may be the solution.
Volume of tackles is symptomatic of how shite we've been in Munster this season unfortunately.
Yes but his try assists per mins played are very low. Approx 1 every 130mins i.e. less than 1 per game. How does that translate to better offence?
Byrne is worse in defence than Crowley.
Worse in attack than both.
Marginally better than both at place kicking.
If you want a good defender you pick Crowley.
An attacker to unlock defences it's Prendergast. With Crowley in 2nd place.
And if you want to kick goals Byrne will score approx. 1 more kick for every 25 taken than the other 2. Hardly a reason to pick him.
All statistically speaking of course.
The numbers don't prove that. The try assists do not in any way prov he is better offensively.
They show he is the worst offensively but has a slightly better kicking percentage.
Seeing Bryn Ward doing media this week is interesting. Wonder if theres a chance of a debut, not sure ive seen someone to media who isn't involved in a long while
Crowley's tackle completion % paired with his volume of tackles is kinda nuts for a 10.
Maybe, just maybe, the coaching team is not very good. Sexton and o Connell were brilliant players but they have no coaching experience. Farrell's message may be getting stale. Throwing the players under the bus last week was not a good look. If Leinster go to the Prem leaders next week they start 10 point favourites. These players are better than they have looked in the last few internationals. Look at Man. Utd in the last few weeks. Same players but they look entirely different with a new coach.
Byrne is above both in kicks and ahead of Prendergast in tackles.
My contention is he's better on offense than Crowley and better on defense than Prendergast. Your numbers prove that.
I posted on this a few days ago, Doak is the most reliable kicker of those in the current squad. The difference isn't huge but 8% better means making 1 more kick out of every 12 attempts. Maybe adds up to 2-3 over the course of a 6N.
Below is combined URC / European Cup data for this season.
Doak: 79%, 30/38 kicks.
Byrne: 75%, 33/44 kicks.
Crowley: 72%, 36/50 kicks.
Prendergast: 71%, 24/34 kicks.
For context here are the tackle completion percentages for the no.10s.
Jack Crowley: 91%, 93/102
Harry Byrne: 74%, 32/43
Sam Prendergast: 64%, 37/58
And for balance, the number of try assists:
Sam Prendergast: 17 in 478 mins played
Jack Crowley: 12 in 661 mins played
Harry Byrne: 3 in 392 mins played
Based on statistics alone, there is zero reason to select Harry Byrne anyway.
I suppose the question is, are certain players below their best because they're old, or are they just older players not playing well?
Was 32 year-old van der Flier any worse than 25 year-old Cian Prendergast? Was 29 year-old Stockdale any better than the 33 year-old we dropped? 33 year-old McCloskey was probably the best player in the backline.
Let's be clear here. The majority of talk on here is about his defense and it's terrible.
Yes there are some ridiculous bashers and haters of him but there's not many and they are probably tik tok or Facebook members as well.
I'm a Connacht fan and I don't want either of them starting. I want Harry Byrne whose not as good on defense as Crowley and not as good offensively as Prendergast but does a semi-decent job at both. I don't think he's the answer but he's a safer bet than either of the other two.
And I'd guess you are a Leinster fan who sees any criticism of Prendergast as over the top.
I mean, it is definitely an issue, it is just one that he shares with everyone else.
I don’t blame you for getting criticism to be honest. It’s a game of opinions I accept but what on earth and Ryan and Porter doing there…I understand Porter has injuries here or there but still far from worried about weather he’d make the next RWC…same for Ringrose tbh, he’s going through a rough patch but it was only 6 months ago that he was playing great rugby for the Lions.
Realistically 2 or 3 of the older guys will make it (I suspect Beirne, JGP and Furlong) with 2-3 missing out (Lowe & Aki) and it’s just a question of weather VDF or Henshaw can make it.
Was looking back at my comment from 2023. I remember getting a bit of criticism. I didnt include Keenan hopefully he's not going to have regular injuries.
Crowley's issue isn't his place kicking.
Don't recall anyone saying that but if that's a narrative then it's a stupid one.
As far as I'm aware, place kicking stats for all 3 10's in the squad are broadly similar this season.
For me, it's much more Crowley's kicking from hand, particularly when we're putting up as many contestables as we seem to be at the moment.
In that sense, there isn't much value in pairing him with Doak, as you'd lose JGP's box-kicking, which, whatever about the rest of his game, was pretty good last week.
If the main stick to beat crowley is his place kicking is there a case to play him with n doak who does the place kicking for ulster. a few here will remember in Mick Doles triple crown winning team paul dean was at 10 while m Kiernan took the place kicks and that worked well. There is no reason for the 10 to be the place kicker
I wasn't aware of that but stuff like that is unacceptable
While this is a different level from a death threat "tagging" the player/official/coach when discussing their performances is also unacceptable
While I agree about the unpleasantness of the current pile-on, Jacob Stockdale's international-level second season syndrome involved receiving death threats. This has been an issue for some time, and I'd hope there's a robust system behind the scenes to help folk cope.
Correct.
In response to posts ranging from accusations of desperately wanting Prendergast to fail, to posts completely mis-quoting and mis-representing what's actually been said.
And, indeed, posts like this, implying I want him to fail.
A lot of those post aren't criticising Prendergast. They're criticising the over-reaction I've received for criticising Prendergast.
Way to prove my point for me, tho.
For someone who doesn't want Prendergast to fail, you've posted about him maybe 30 or 40 times since the game last Thursday.
This is the thing, a poster should be able to discuss errors in a players game without the name or hate calling. It does nothing for the forum.
Fwiw, Trimble also mentioned some of his mistakes that included, for example, his effort on Jalibert, his hospital pass to TOB and his intercept.
Stuff that, when you point it out on here, gets you labelled as "desperately wanting Prendergast to fail" by some. It's an over-the-top correction too far in the other direction.
That's my point on this; reasonable criticism too often is getting lumped in with unreasonable stuff. And, ironically, leads to completely unreasonable criticism of those posters.
