Ireland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread IV

LorMal · 08-02-2015 11:09PM

Tox56 wrote: »

New Zealand's first game of 2014 was a seriously underwhelming win at home against an England B team. I'm sure they weren't happy but when you have your first game in a long time with different combinations you'll take the win and look to improve in the next games, which is exactly what we'll be thinking

Sure - but my point was made in reference to people saying they were very happy with the performance.
I was not happy with it. But I will be delighted if they play really well next week and begin to look like champions.

aimee1 · 08-02-2015 11:11PM

LorMal wrote: »

If it was the ABs who put up that performance, would they be happy? Would we be saying 'well, they were missing 4 players'?
Anyway, I am sure most teams will always have 3 or 4 potential first team players missing - that's the nature of the modern game.
Keith Wood really drove change in Irish Rugby. He was the first I can remember saying 'not good enough' when we had a brave loss or a facile victory. Saturday was a very poor performance.
Sadly, I fully expect England to beat us and I think we may end up being third of fourth.

we are not the ABs so thats irrelevant too. we werent missing 3 or 4 potential first teamers, we were missing 4 of our best 5 players, yet we still won a game in the 6n very comfortably away from home. We will always have a certain level of dependency on a group of about 6 players. Its how it always will be for Ireland.

Not a single player will be in carton house this week thinking saturday was anywhere near what they want to achieve but there was a lot of positives from the game too. I saw what I expected to see on saturday, just because it wasnt vintage open running rugby doesnt mean there wasnt positives to it.

England did well on friday but they were up against a different side, and they also made a lot of errors in the first half and coughed up a lot of soft penalties, Wales scored 16 points and were only in possession of the ball once in englands 22.

Next week and 3 weeks will be very different days.

LorMal · 08-02-2015 11:18PM

aimee1 wrote: »

we are not the ABs so thats irrelevant too. we werent missing 3 or 4 potential first teamers, we were missing 4 of our best 5 players, yet we still won a game in the 6n very comfortably away from home. We will always have a certain level of dependency on a group of about 6 players. Its how it always will be for Ireland.

Not a single player will be in carton house this week thinking saturday was anywhere near what they want to achieve but there was a lot of positives from the game too. I saw what I expected to see on saturday, just because it wasnt vintage open running rugby doesnt mean there wasnt positives to it.

England did well on friday but they were up against a different side, and they also made a lot of errors in the first half and coughed up a lot of soft penalties, Wales scored 16 points and were only in possession of the ball once in englands 22.

Next week and 3 weeks will be very different days.

Fair enough. Hope you're right. ( I think trying to play down that England performance might be whistling past the graveyard. Thye were excellent and we would have been delighted with it)

First Up · 08-02-2015 11:19PM

LorMal wrote: »

Sure - but my point was made in reference to people saying they were very happy with the performance.
I was not happy with it. But I will be delighted if they play really well next week and begin to look like champions.

I was happy with the result. It was a poor game to watch but I reckon Schmidt had a clear plan and they stuck to it. Italy often play best in their first game and are dangerous in Rome. Their style makes it hard to beat them prettily and with an untried 10 and a few top guys out, I'll take it.

Professional job.

aimee1 · 08-02-2015 11:28PM

LorMal wrote: »

Fair enough. Hope you're right. ( I think trying to play down that England performance might be whistling past the graveyard. Thye were excellent and we would have been delighted with it)

i thought england in the 2nd half very very good, but i also thought they were very functional at times. The offloading was very good but I also thought Wales kicking was poor and they didnt turn england around at all. Italy lost 4 of 7 lineouts and Englands lineout wasnt great, two areas i think Ireland can exploit.

Ireland also only kicked 20% of possession on saturday too according to the 6n site

LorMal · 08-02-2015 11:28PM

First Up wrote: »

I was happy with the result. It was a poor game to watch but I reckon Schmidt had a clear plan and they stuck to it. Italy often play best in their first game and are dangerous in Rome. Their style makes it hard to beat them prettily and with an untried 10 and a few top guys out, I'll take it.

Professional job.

Is that actually true (I heard it mentioned a lot but I'm not sure?).
I was happy with the result too, but not the performance. Lets see how England fare against them.

08-02-2015 11:31PM

Schmidt said himself the performance wasn't good enough for the likes of England.

errlloyd · 08-02-2015 11:35PM

LorMal wrote: »

Is that actually true (I heard it mentioned a lot but I'm not sure?).
I was happy with the result too, but not the performance. Lets see how England fare against them.

Another poster here did a statistical analysis of it before the game, it is definitely not true. Italy win a much higher percentage of later games.

rrpc · 08-02-2015 11:38PM

LorMal wrote: »

Sure - but my point was made in reference to people saying they were very happy with the performance.
I was not happy with it. But I will be delighted if they play really well next week and begin to look like champions.

I don't see anyone saying they were happy with the performance. People are saying they are happy with aspects of the performance. It's not a binary situation.

There are lots of things to work on, players to come back but some aspects are already pretty good and others will improve with time and some first choice players back.

If you want to read criticisms, well I'm happy to oblige:
1. Rory Best had a very poor game
2. Some players got tackled into bad ball presentation positions; Zebo and Toner being two that I recall.
3. Keatley would need a lot more game time at this level to even approach effectiveness.
4. Murray is not fully match fit yet.
5. We can't seem to offload or don't want to.
6. We ran very few lines in attack.

Any criticism of the backs has to be tempered by the fact that they got a lot of static ball and not much ball in any case.

On the other hand, not many were giving us more than a ten point advantage for this game, planet rugby had us winning by eight.

First Up · 08-02-2015 11:47PM

errlloyd wrote: »

Another poster here did a statistical analysis of it before the game, it is definitely not true. Italy win a much higher percentage of later games.

Fair enough if that's the case but I recall several timez them winning their first game.

Not sure Twickenham will tell us much. Good match for an hour and then....

LorMal · 08-02-2015 11:49PM

Yeah I'd agree with most of that. As I said, happy with the result - I thought the score would be closer.

First Up · 08-02-2015 11:56PM

rrpc wrote: »

I don't see anyone saying they were happy with the performance. People are saying they are happy with aspects of the performance. It's not a binary situation.

There are lots of things to work on, players to come back but some aspects are already pretty good and others will improve with time and some first choice players back.

If you want to read criticisms, well I'm happy to oblige:
1. Rory Best had a very poor game
2. Some players got tackled into bad ball presentation positions; Zebo and Toner being two that I recall.
3. Keatley would need a lot more game time at this level to even approach effectiveness.
4. Murray is not fully match fit yet.
5. We can't seem to offload or don't want to.
6. We ran very few lines in attack.

Any criticism of the backs has to be tempered by the fact that they got a lot of static ball and not much ball in any case.

On the other hand, not many were giving us more than a ten point advantage for this game, planet rugby had us winning by eight.

Thought Best scrummed OK and showed around the pitch. Botched a few throws but he usually does.
Don't think we lost many rucks but always scopr for better presentation - and protection.
Apart from his habit of jogging to rucks, thought Murray was OK.
Game plan didn't involve off loads or adventurous attack lines. Plus third choice 10 limits options.
We were better running at them at pace than at the bash and arm wrestle stuff but a plan is a plan...

rrpc · 09-02-2015 12:01AM

errlloyd wrote: »

Another poster here did a statistical analysis of it before the game, it is definitely not true. Italy win a much higher percentage of later games.

In the last four times we met Italy in the first round (home or away) our cumulative winning margin was 35 points; less than a nine point average. Our lowest winning margin was two points and our highest was eighteen. This result was actually our highest margin in the first round against them ever.

S12b · 09-02-2015 12:25AM

https://twitter.com/KearneyRob/status/563707636991160320

aimee1 · 09-02-2015 12:32AM

First Up wrote: »

Fair enough if that's the case but I recall several timez them winning their first game.

Not sure Twickenham will tell us much. Good match for an hour and then....

Last 4 years italy have begun with .....
2 pt loss to ireland in rome
18 pt defeat in paris
1 score win over france in rome
8 pt defeat in wales

-24 ish points difference over the 4 games.

First Up · 09-02-2015 12:36AM

aimee1 wrote: »

Last 4 years italy have begun with .....
2 pt loss to ireland in rome
18 pt defeat in paris
1 score win over france in rome
8 pt defeat in wales

-24 ish points difference over the 4 games.

It is their first game record at home I was thinking about.

molloyjh · 09-02-2015 01:08AM

errlloyd wrote: »

Another poster here did a statistical analysis of it before the game, it is definitely not true. Italy win a much higher percentage of later games.

The idea that they start well and end poorly isn't true. But it's rare they get beaten badly at home in the opening rounds. As I said in the match thread the last time Italy were beaten by 20+ at home in the opening rounds was in 2009 when we beat them by 29 points. And before that was 2007 when France beat them by 35. Given the context that we had a weakened team out it's a pretty good result. And while we weren't fantastic we were solid enough.

phog · 09-02-2015 08:57AM

I think people are nervous about the points difference but they'll be more clarity around that next week after we know the result of the English/Italian game. I think we could be competing with them for the 6Ns and they have Italy at home.

Of course we need to keep the pressure on by winning our games too and next week requires a huge step up for us, we're well capable of it so just hope we've no fresh injury concerns and that Sexton & Heaslip are ready to start.

Utah_Saint · 09-02-2015 10:26AM

The chat is that Trimble could start for Ulster this weekend..!

could he get himself into contention for the last 2 games of the 6N ?

bilston · 09-02-2015 10:31AM

Utah_Saint wrote: »

The chat is that Trimble could start for Ulster this weekend..!

could he get himself into contention for the last 2 games of the 6N ?

If he were to play this week and next week then he could even be in contention for England. That said I think unlike SOB and Sexton and possibly Healy he probably wouldn't be thrown straight back in as those three are pretty crucial to us and don't really have anyone competing with them, where as Trimble plays in a competitive position. Mind you Schmidt clearly likes him.

LorMal · 09-02-2015 10:44AM

bilston wrote: »

If he were to play this week and next week then he could even be in contention for England. That said I think unlike SOB and Sexton and possibly Healy he probably wouldn't be thrown straight back in as those three are pretty crucial to us and don't really have anyone competing with them, where as Trimble plays in a competitive position. Mind you Schmidt clearly likes him.

I think he is a great asset and I would rate him as our second best winger after Bowe (if we count Luke as a centre!)

First Up · 09-02-2015 10:47AM

LorMal wrote: »

I think he is a great asset and I would rate him as our second best winger after Bowe (if we count Luke as a centre!)

I'd put him in the squad ahead of Earls.

Utah_Saint · 09-02-2015 10:51AM

LorMal wrote: »

I think he is a great asset and I would rate him as our second best winger after Bowe (if we count Luke as a centre!)

agree...

He might not be a flashing winger but his work rate is through the roof. He just seems to have endless energy..

stats don't lie

http://cf.datawrapper.de/eornT/1/#0

CatFromHue · 09-02-2015 11:45AM

I wouldn't expect to see him during the 6N tbh. There's a big queue ahead of him and I wonder how fit he is due to it being a toe injury.

bilston · 09-02-2015 12:26PM

CatFromHue wrote: »

I wouldn't expect to see him during the 6N tbh. There's a big queue ahead of him and I wonder how fit he is due to it being a toe injury.

I would think he might bunk a lot of that queue.

awec · 09-02-2015 12:43PM

I don't think he'll get fit enough fast enough so I don't think it'll matter anyway.

MJohnston · 09-02-2015 12:48PM

Murray Kinsella doing his usual great analysis work on each individual Irish try scored in the 6N: http://www.the42.ie/analysis-ireland-italy-conor-murray-try-1928118-Feb2015/

.ak · 09-02-2015 01:24PM

MJohnston wrote: »

Murray Kinsella doing his usual great analysis work on each individual Irish try scored in the 6N: http://www.the42.ie/analysis-ireland-italy-conor-murray-try-1928118-Feb2015/

I'd like to point out this paragraph to people who constantly moan about kicking.

Having the ball inside your own half simply isn’t worthwhile in international rugby at present. Though there are obviously a number of individual examples that could disprove that assertion, the data shows that teams who kick out of their own half regularly are successful.

rrpc · 09-02-2015 01:42PM

.ak wrote: »

I'd like to point out this paragraph to people who constantly moan about kicking.

And in response, I've two words for you: Dan Biggar :pac:

I do actually agree, just Biggar looked like there was an invisible line between his boot and the English back three.

thomond2006 · 09-02-2015 01:45PM

.ak wrote: »

I'd like to point out this paragraph to people who constantly moan about kicking.

Box kicks are awful. A poor box kick that goes a yard and gives the opposition the ball should be a penalty offense.

Ireland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread IV

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