Ireland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread IV

smiley_face wrote: »

You are guilty of ignoring the vast majority of what I had posted...

No, I read it. I read where you said that kicking the ball is bread and butter stuff. You clearly misunderstand that importance of it and just how difficult it is to be as good as Kearney.

If it was easy then fullbacks wouldn't keep winning player of the tournament. In recent years Halfpenny and Brown, with Kearney being nominated as well as Lee Byrne not so long ago. None of them known as untouchable counter-attackers, all of them sensible defensive players with excellent positional awareness and excellent ability to give their teams an advantage in the territory battle.

smiley_face wrote: »

Kicking is a part of a fullback's job, but it's not as if that one aspect is the only one, and that nobody else can do a similar job, you're shifting the goalposts. I never said what you're claiming I did...

Nobody else in the Ireland squad can do a similar job to Kearney in that regard, why else do you think he starts every single game of any importance

smiley_face wrote: »

Zebo MOTM
How'd you like them apples?

What?

I never said anything about Simon Zebo? Is there a language barrier at play here or something?

smiley_face wrote: »

Zebo MOTM
How'd you like them apples?

Honest to god, are you 12 years old? I think Im going to steer clear of this place post-match for the actual world cup games

Where could one purchase one of those green Ireland jackets? I've looked in Lifestyle Sports & Elverys online and couldn't find one- although I may have blatantly missed it! Actually come to think of it maybe they aren't available with Canterbury and it was just Puma?

First two games have demonstrated some very good rucking and pilfering at the breakdown. Scrum and rolling mauls have been effective too although our line out wobbled a bit today.

Negatives outweighed the positives though. Boss and D'arcy are finished at test level, although I struggle to recall if Boss was ever good enough to begin with.ndont get anything in attack of defence with Darce anymore. The service from the nine was crap too so Madigan, who was patchy anyway, couldn't deliver ball to our outside backs to attack. Tuohy and Toner were empty jerseys today. No physicality or presence on the pitch. Toner has credit in the bank, but Tuohy won't travel on that performance. On paper this wasn't as strong a pack as last weeks and it definitely showed on the pitch too. Too passive in defence and fell off too many tackles in broken play.

total former wrote: »

My predicted team for Wales:

R Kearney
Trimble
Earls
Henshaw
D Kearney
Sexton
Murray
McGrath
Best
Moore/White
POC
Ryan
POM
Murphy
Heaslip

Cronin, Kilcoyne, White/Moore, Henderson, Henry, Reddan, Jackson, Jones

I think that's quite likely. A number of people are now out of contention and we won't see them involved again i.e. D'Arcy and Tuohy most obviously.

I think Marmion might get the bench spot again for a showing given Reddan has two appearances already. Boss didn't go well yesterday overall and, while I'd still say the likelihood is that Boss travels, Marmion should get more than 10 minutes to stake a claim.

The backs just gets more and more interesting. D'Arcy is gone. Gilroy gone. McFadden probably gone.

A lot depends on Trimble's fitness. He needs to play in this game or I'd think he'll be out of the reckoning; given he's not training at the moment, he might already be.

One guy who I think will have had a sleepless night is Luke Fitzgerald. He didn't actually go that badly yesterday. He got involved a huge amount, made some good hits and took the try well. He had a really poor knock on and a bad kick where he didn't make touch. But he's viewed as an 11 and nothing else for this team, it appears. Versatility is huge for such a limited squad. I think his fate might be out of his hands now. He just needs to hope that either Trimble isn't ready for next week or Schmidt now views Jones as surplus to get another crack next time.

Zebo really should have enough done at this point and Schmidt name checked DK after the game as having had a positive impact. Bowe is already there.

I would think our backs are now something along the lines of: Murray, Reddan, Boss, Sexton, Jackson, Madigan, Henshaw, Payne, Earls, Bowe, Rob Kearney, Zebo and two more from Dave Kearney, Jones, Trimble and Fitzgerald.

If Trimble gets to prove his fitness, I think he travels. If DK goes well next week, I think he travels. With that said, I don't think DK was that great yesterday. He didn't get involved a huge amount in his 25 minutes. Aside from the inside ball break, he touched the ball on only one other occasion. But it does appear he has been tearing things up in training.

bilston wrote: »

The mad thing about the 11 jersey is that you could just as likely be in the starting XV as you could miss out from making the squad completely.

Quite true. It really is that tight. We've had multiple players start in that jersey in the last 18 months and all go well: Zebo, DK and Fitz have all been there in the last two 6N campaigns.

Bowe will travel but I think this will be the last time he'll go automatically as a proven top class performer. He turns 32 in the next Six Nations which is getting into pretty veteran territory for a winger. With the level of competition around him, he needs to hit the ground running this season and lift it from yesterday's pretty flat showing which has gone under the radar a little.

Most people seem to think that we'll be bringing 5 props with Bent being used to cover both sides and I'm happy enough with this as he can certainly hold his own and will be very useful for the group stages, though I'm not sure how much he'll feature in the knock out stages.

A question occurred to me yesterday, who will replace him in the squad if he was to get injured in the first game? We don't really have anyone else who can cover both sides of the scrum