Ireland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread IV

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

These numbers are meaningless. Neither has attacked, ball in hand, to gain yards, so comparing them tells us nothing about how they have played. Or as much as comparing which of them has thrown better into the lineout.
For the same reason, the possible merits of playing Fitz, Earls or others in place of one of them as advocated by many here, has no relevance to the Schmidt game plan. Defence-beating through the 3/4ers, other than after multiple plays and overlaps or mismatches present themselves and swinging it wide for a try is almost a formality, is not the strategy.

You act as if Schmidt has one gameplan which he is going to apply rain or shine. Years of watching Joe Schmidt, even in the time since he has taken the national job, would suggest this is not the case.

Mahatma Geansai wrote: »

Its largely down to tactics. We aren't trying to play rugby, so there is little to be seen from our attack. Whether this tactic is due to our centre partnership, or whether Joe thinks this conservative brand of rugby is our key to winning games, remains to be seen.

I agree with you that it is largely down to tactics. You prepare for and play what is front of you.

You and maybe Joe think that it is a conservative brand of rugby and to be honest after 9 wins on the bounce it does seem to be key to winning games.

Would you want the ball to be flung around a bit more and for us to lose a few more games or are you happy to see us on a good winning run?

I know it's not the greatest spectacle in the world to watch but I'm sure we'll all be happy if we complete the slam!!

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I have a question here: What do people mean by it "not clicking?"

I think personally we really haven't tried anything at all in attack so far. Against France we were kicking on 2nd and 3rd phase under no pressure in their half at times. I don't think that's all we have in our locker at all, Joe is obviously an exceptionally talented architect of incisive attacking play, yet we haven't tried anything in that department really. .

I'm almost in full agreement with this. The only pedantic difference I would suggest is that we have tried very little in attack (in the line-break sense.)

Cast your mind back to last year. We beat Scotland comfortably without playing beyond 80% of capacity.(The previous game to that had been the all-blacks; I would have described that as 110% capacity.) Scotland were a shell of a team. Any stats from that game are difficult to place import on.

Then we beat Wales scoring 4 penalties and 2 converted tries. 1 of those tries being from a lineout/maul, the other being at the very end of the game when Wales had capitulated, but arose from a lineout/maul build-up.

Then England. We didn't score in the first half, trailed 3-0 at half time. But had plenty of the backs involved in that first half; plenty ball-thro-hand.
Interestingly too we attempted no maul in the first half. Our first was with 44mins gone, we rolled it on 15 metres and then won a penalty from it. Followed by another on 5/6 minutes later which also resulted in a penalty (from which Sexton got our final score of the match).

I think Joe was trying to keep the English guessing in the first half, and was probably pleased with the score at half-time. Almost as if he was fooling them into thinking that we weren't going be to using the maul, then unleashed it (somewhat) in the 2nd half with good effect. (I counted 4 mauls in total; each of which gained ground.)

I've said this before, and I still am of the belief that we are hard to plan against. I reckon if Lancaster were to design his gameplan around what he has seen from us in the first 2 games (not saying he will), then we would have ample surprises for him.
Given we're 12 months later (Joe older and wiser*), at home, with close to a first choice 23 available, I really don't see us losing this match. (Barring an insane/extremely unlucky referee's decision.)

*Annual gain of wisdom accelerates with age. I.e. Joe will have accrued more wisdom than Lancaster in any given time frame!!

Henshaw and Henderson both legend-status already for me. Would love Henderson to start at 6/7/8 while Heaslip's getting some Thai messages for himself:)
Payne has done nothing to warrant being replaced in my book; as has been said: has done everything that's been asked. Very interested in what an earlier poster suggested that Joe might be choosing his centre pairing (partially at least) based on resistance to injury. Hadn't considered that myself but makes reasonable sense.

Murray and Sexton invaluable to us. Simple as that.

Zebo being recognised as valuable to our defence due to great tackling technique.

Best worries me a little. (Nothing to do with yellow card.)

Healy & SOB always remind me of this (from 3:32 onwards):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0I96BK_lMw

I think we'll beat england by more than a single score, and that Joe will finally unleash the backs. (Cue youtube montage after the game of Ireland's 3 tries scored shown to the background music of "who let the dogs out")

In Joe we trust.

kuang1 wrote: »

while Heaslip's getting some Thai messages for himself:)

I assume that's fish sauce and lemongrass?

I think when people use terms like creativity in attach, or offloading game, they need to remember that this centre partnership only has played 3 games together, and both players have a handful of caps between them, and they're playing against the best teams in the world...

Joe's not going to ask a very green midfield to start trying very complicated first phase ball movement, or offloading in the tackle. I'm sure he's encouraging them to play what's infront of them, but I doubt he's asking them to do anything out of their comfort zone.

Payne and Henshaw may be absolute tanks, it may seem like we don't want to 'play rugby', but that's ridiculous. These are both x-factor players, capable of amazing things, once they settle I imagine we'll see a lot more movement from them. But for now, a good coach would be encouraging them to play simple, and play to their strengths.

They wouldn't be my pick, but I can certainly see the logic in picking them and I believe they've only played in 1st gear so far.

.ak wrote: »

I think when people use terms like creativity in attach, or offloading game, they need to remember that this centre partnership only has played 3 games together, and both players have a handful of caps between them, and they're playing against the best teams in the world...

Joe's not going to ask a very green midfield to start trying very complicated first phase ball movement, or offloading in the tackle. I'm sure he's encouraging them to play what's infront of them, but I doubt he's asking them to do anything out of their comfort zone.

Payne and Henshaw may be absolute tanks, it may seem like we don't want to 'play rugby', but that's ridiculous. These are both x-factor players, capable of amazing things, once they settle I imagine we'll see a lot more movement from them. But for now, a good coach would be encouraging them to play simple, and play to their strengths.

They wouldn't be my pick, but I can certainly see the logic in picking them and I believe they've only played in 1st gear so far.

Italy will be delighted with their elevation to being one of the best teams in the world.

BoardsMember wrote: »

Italy? Zero line breaks. Very few attempted moves or complexity in the centre. You'd have to ask yourself why. Answer one would probably be Keatley at 10, then all the other excuses, but not to try anything against them still seems very unusual.

They're still a good side, and to make your centres play complicated moves against them on their 2nd test would be stupid. Which is exactly what Joe is not.

.ak wrote: »

They're still a good side, and to make your centres play complicated moves against them on their 2nd test would be stupid. Which is exactly what Joe is not.

We did try a few things against Italy but we had an inexperienced guy at 10 on the day so that was always going to limit what we did in the middle of the park. But on the 5 minute mark we ran this play off a scrum where Murray passed to Payne, who popped an inside ball back to Kearney on the angle (while Murray offered himself for the wrap around) who then cut across one of the Italian defenders on his run and popped it to Keatley coming straight through the middle. Unfortunately Gori had it covered in the end. I think some of the forwards timed their runs badly as they were probably meant to be running blocking lines for Keatley but it was reasonably complicated in a tight channel beside the scrum. And the backs seemed to execute well. TOD and Murphy seemed to time their runs a little early though.

SaveOurLyric wrote: »

I'd have been shocked had he been involved.
With Heaslip, Henry, and Ruddock out of the England game, if I were Joe, I'd shove game time, and wouldnt allow O'Brien, Murphy, O'Mahony, or O'Donnell even tackle a marshmallow this weekend.

Saw POM's stats last time he tried to tackle a bag of Marshmallows, 8/17