Ireland Team Talk XI: Team of nervoUS MOD warning Post 1

Clegg · 31-10-2020 10:58pm

That second half was as bad as anything we've seen since 2018. Our set piece disintegrated and our players made unenforced error after unenforced error. I'm not going to single out Stockdale in particular. He's inexperienced at 15 and needs time to develop. But that should probably be at his province for now. He's being exposed badly at test level. No guarantee whoever fills in will be any better. But right now we're better off taking him out of the firing line.

But underneath all the individual errors there's a huge issue at a tactical and coaching level. We're so poor defensively once the first line is breached. That's a big problem considering who our coach is and what he was a specialist in for years. There's also the issue that our midfield is devoid of creativity when Ringrose isn't available. He doesn't always pass either, but he's always there for a tip on to shift the attack or to put a clever kick in behind the line. We get none of that with Henshaw, Aki or Farrell

Positives for me are Keenan and Doris establishing themselves as decent test level players. They're the guys who'll be mainstays for the next five years.

accensi0n · 31-10-2020 11:06pm

Keenan has looked very comfortable and his defensive reads, positioning and tackling is good. Any chance he'll get moved to fullback for the next few games?

Clegg · 31-10-2020 11:07pm

accensi0n wrote: »

Keenan has looked very comfortable and his defensive reads, positioning and tackling is good. Any chance he'll get moved to fullback for the next few games?

Maybe shift him to fullback and Lowe to 11?

clsmooth · 31-10-2020 11:12pm

Clegg wrote: »

Maybe shift him to fullback and Lowe to 11?

I’d go with that. Stockdale should be nowhere near an Irish 23 on form over the past 2 years. Hopefully he can come back stronger and mature as a player but we’re doing him no favours starting him these days. He’s cost us badly today and against England this 6N.

sydthebeat · 31-10-2020 11:13pm

Clegg wrote: »

Maybe shift him to fullback and Lowe to 11?

Watching fickou tonight and I was just thinking about how Lowe could charge our game.
He's box office and can make things out of nothing... So we need to create a game which gets the ball wide to wingers in space

ScrubsfanChris · 31-10-2020 11:15pm

15. Conway
14. Keenan
11. Lowe

Anyone? :pac:

Enquiring · 31-10-2020 11:38pm

O'Mahony - 1 pass, 5 runs for 6 meters made. 1 turnover conceded, 2 tackles and a yellow card.

Oh no wait, that wasn't O'Mahony's stats!

D15er · 31-10-2020 11:44pm

ScrubsfanChris wrote: »

15. Conway
14. Keenan
11. Lowe

Anyone? :pac:

I'm not seeing what Conway has done in the last two games to keep his spot on the wing, let alone earn a move to 15.

Assuming that Earls is fit and Lowe is called up, Conway may struggle to keep his jersey.

Burkie1203 · 31-10-2020 11:46pm

https://twitter.com/TheRugbyPaper/status/1322652677902340096?s=19

UAEguy2020 · 31-10-2020 11:50pm

Clegg wrote: »

That second half was as bad as anything we've seen since 2018. Our set piece disintegrated and our players made unenforced error after unenforced error. I'm not going to single out Stockdale in particular. He's inexperienced at 15 and needs time to develop. But that should probably be at his province for now. He's being exposed badly at test level. No guarantee whoever fills in will be any better. But right now we're better off taking him out of the firing line.

But underneath all the individual errors there's a huge issue at a tactical and coaching level. We're so poor defensively once the first line is breached. That's a big problem considering who our coach is and what he was a specialist in for years. There's also the issue that our midfield is devoid of creativity when Ringrose isn't available. He doesn't always pass either, but he's always there for a tip on to shift the attack or to put a clever kick in behind the line. We get none of that with Henshaw, Aki or Farrell

Positives for me are Keenan and Doris establishing themselves as decent test level players. They're the guys who'll be mainstays for the next five years.

To be fair, I dont think many teams can live with France once they break the line. Once that happens with their support runners you require a miracle to stop them.

Clegg · 31-10-2020 11:51pm

Burkie1203 wrote: »

https://twitter.com/TheRugbyPaper/status/1322652677902340096?s=19

Probably going to see a few senior players departing. They're on the biggest contracts and the IRFU is losing money hand over fist right now. On the long term it's best to move him on, I think. Not an Ireland starter anymore and in his 30's.

molloyjh · 31-10-2020 11:52pm

France beat England by 7 and us by 8. I think a lot of people need to get some perspective here.

Dave_The_Sheep · 01-11-2020 12:03am

molloyjh wrote: »

France beat England by 7 and us by 8. I think a lot of people need to get some perspective here.

Absolutely a fair point, but also needs to be said that France had to work a lot harder for their win against England than they did today.

Squidgy Black · 01-11-2020 12:03am

Earls, Sexton, Healy are all also coming off central contracts next summer too. Will be hard to see any of them being offered bumper deals considering age profiles and the current situation.

Bigger concerns would be Furlong and Henderson to be honest.

UAEguy2020 · 01-11-2020 12:13am

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Absolutely a fair point, but also needs to be said that France had to work a lot harder for their win against England than they did today.

Did they really? They were 17-0 up at half time.

kilns · 01-11-2020 7:34am

Overall it was a good performance and apart from a few sloppy mistakes we could have won that game.

However, although there are lots of positive s going into the future we also have some very concerning things,

Our Front row replacements was not even provincal standard and we have a huge probably at 2, we need Kelleher and another to really come though

Stockdale can mix the sublime with the awful, if he can work on his basics, tackling and positioning he could be a great option at 15 but can he?

Ross Byrne for his short cameo was awful and just sums up our options at 10, we are in big trouble in that position

Apart from that it looks like we have a great back row going into the future and have good depth there we just need to find some world class players at 1,2 and 10 and we're fine, easy

Farrel had us playing off the cuff rugby which was nice to see however, I have a lingering feeling that a Schmidt coached team would have won that game

Buer · 01-11-2020 8:29am

Enquiring wrote: »

O'Mahony - 1 pass, 5 runs for 6 meters made. 1 turnover conceded, 2 tackles and a yellow card.

Oh no wait, that wasn't O'Mahony's stats!

You best check again. Stats at the end of the match are reviewed and updated to be accurate in the hours afterwards.

WhoamI2022 · 01-11-2020 8:49am

So at the start of the season the management said they would make Sexton captain which would be reviewed at end of it, also they would give the current squad a chance.

So it’s been a long season and what have we learned, well Ryan is a year older and I would expect he will take over captain, or comes in as vice captain and Sexton helps him over the next season. Only other option I see if Furlong

Fullback we have Larmour and Stockdale, both hugely talented, both need time at 15 but people need to give them a chance. The two could be world class with the right coaching, also I think we should have a fit Carbery at 15 - positive

Wing: Lowe, Conway, Keenan, plus others, Earls is on way out unfortunately but with Lowe/Conway we have two quality wingers with loads of options coming up. With the option of either Stockdale/Larmour to drop in if required - positive

Centre: I would expect all options can make next WC - positive

10: Sexton is an incredible player and a one life time, we need to pick our next player, is it Byrne, Burns etc....other younger options coming up. People are complaining I am not sure why, we have plenty of good 10s, a few seasons ago we would of had no-one. At this stage the prospect of Carbery has to be discounted, he is too injury prone and you can’t build a team around a player who is never available.....negative

9 - Murray is not playing terrible let’s gets that straight, he isn’t up to 2018 standard, plus his game seems to have slowed and ireland need fast ball, again we have plenty of options around the squad, but the future is the two young lads, one at Munster and one at Ulster, need to transition to them with whoever in the medium term, maybe that is Murray - potential to be positive

Front row - Healy is getting on, maybe move Porter back over, Furlong and Solano(sp) on other side, Kelleher As hooker - evens

Second row- Henderson, Ryan and Baird with some young lads on way up which could see a strong second row - positive

Backrow - loads of options, POM unless he has a huge return in form needs to be dropped out of match day squad, offers nothing off bench, positive

Lots of things to be positive about, the doom nd gloom I don’t see

Burkie1203 · 01-11-2020 9:18am

WhoamI2022 wrote: »

So at the start of the season the management said they would make Sexton captain which would be reviewed at end of it, also they would give the current squad a chance.

So it’s been a long season and what have we learned, well Ryan is a year older and I would expect he will take over captain, or comes in as vice captain and Sexton helps him over the next season. Only other option I see if Furlong

Fullback we have Larmour and Stockdale, both hugely talented, both need time at 15 but people need to give them a chance. The two could be world class with the right coaching, also I think we should have a fit Carbery at 15 - positive

Wing: Lowe, Conway, Keenan, plus others, Earls is on way out unfortunately but with Lowe/Conway we have two quality wingers with loads of options coming up. With the option of either Stockdale/Larmour to drop in if required - positive

Centre: I would expect all options can make next WC - positive

10: Sexton is an incredible player and a one life time, we need to pick our next player, is it Byrne, Burns etc....other younger options coming up. People are complaining I am not sure why, we have plenty of good 10s, a few seasons ago we would of had no-one. At this stage the prospect of Carbery has to be discounted, he is too injury prone and you can’t build a team around a player who is never available.....negative

9 - Murray is not playing terrible let’s gets that straight, he isn’t up to 2018 standard, plus his game seems to have slowed and ireland need fast ball, again we have plenty of options around the squad, but the future is the two young lads, one at Munster and one at Ulster, need to transition to them with whoever in the medium term, maybe that is Murray - potential to be positive

Front row - Healy is getting on, maybe move Porter back over, Furlong and Solano(sp) on other side, Kelleher As hooker - evens

Second row- Henderson, Ryan and Baird with some young lads on way up which could see a strong second row - positive

Backrow - loads of options, POM unless he has a huge return in form needs to be dropped out of match day squad, offers nothing off bench, positive

Lots of things to be positive about, the doom nd gloom I don’t see

There is positives and negatives. Reality check required. We have plenty of players who are good. A few who are top level (Ryan, Ringrose, Furlong)

WhoamI2022 · 01-11-2020 9:37am

Burkie1203 wrote: »

There is positives and negatives. Reality check required. We have plenty of players who are good. A few who are top level (Ryan, Ringrose, Furlong)

All teams have positives and negatives, this 6 nations we have England and France away, our two hardest games and normally the 6 nations we fear. We lost both games which is hardly a surprise.

If anything the performance yesterday was better than people could have imagined post England.

Are we still in top 4 in World? No....are we close? Yes

Not too bad for a small island and rugby been our 3rd sport

sydthebeat · 01-11-2020 10:11am

Murray: 1 run for 2 meters
Dupont: 9 runs for 63 meters

Murray has lost a vital aspect of scrum half play, that of being a threat himself. We know he can do it because he has done it before, but is there and reason now that he no longer possesses a snipe threat? Is he worried about getting out quick distribution that his instincts are dampened... Maybe it simply is the conservatism of older age.

Skeetur · 01-11-2020 10:22am

sydthebeat wrote: »

Murray: 1 run for 2 meters
Dupont: 9 runs for 63 meters

Murray has lost a vital aspect of scrum half play, that of being a threat himself. We know he can do it because he has done it before, but is there and reason now that he no longer possesses a snipe threat? Is he worried about getting out quick distribution that his instincts are dampened... Maybe it simply is the conservatism of older age.

Murrays form has been so poor for the last few years its hard to know. Bar the odd performance he's consistently less active than he used to be. Doesn't make much effort to secure the ball when players are isolated, is considerably slower distributing the ball, no real snipe threat as you say, rarely see him running decent support lines on breaks, box kicking accuracy not quite there.

Hes turned into Rob Kearney. Pull out one good performance every 4/5 games so everyone remembers he's world class then goes back to being mediocre.

ionadnapokot · 01-11-2020 10:28am

To try and take 2 positives from a bit of a shambles.

1. Porter did well at Scrum and in the loose. Played like a good test level tight head.
Disintegrated on his side once in the second half when the French LH was burrowing in.

2. Sexton kick in behind for Keenan was a welcome development in our attack.

I think Farrell needs to own his mistake at FB. I hope and expect that he will protect the player and integrate him back in at 11.

We play Wales in 2 weeks
FB, Lineout, Captain & Halfbacks are what I hope to see change.

v Wales
Keenan/Daly; Conway, Henshaw, Aki, Lowe;
Carty, Marmion;
Byrne, Kelleher, Porter;
Henderson, Ryan;
Dorris, Connors, CJ (c)

Replacements
Herring, O’Sullivan, Ryan/Moore, Beirne, Wycherley, Casey, RByrne (Harry v Georgia), Daly/Stockdale (start at 11 v Georgia)

I hope we don’t see any of Healy, Sexton, Murray or Earls for the Welsh or Georgia games.

Enquiring · 01-11-2020 10:32am

WhoamI2022 wrote: »

All teams have positives and negatives, this 6 nations we have England and France away, our two hardest games and normally the 6 nations we fear. We lost both games which is hardly a surprise.

If anything the performance yesterday was better than people could have imagined post England.

Are we still in top 4 in World? No....are we close? Yes

Not too bad for a small island and rugby been our 3rd sport

In fairness, how many countries play rugby at any sort of serious level? We've never made a semi final at a world cup. And we have over double the population of Wales and a bigger population than Scotland.

OneLungDavy · 01-11-2020 11:05am

I actually thought Stockdale done well in attack, he constantly stepped up in that second half and took the game to France. There's just always two or three mistakes in him every game, decision time for Farrell and co.

molloyjh · 01-11-2020 11:25am

Enquiring wrote: »

In fairness, how many countries play rugby at any sort of serious level? We've never made a semi final at a world cup. And we have over double the population of Wales and a bigger population than Scotland.

And more sports to share our talent around than both.

The RWC semi final thing is a bit of a red herring tbh. Wales have made a few, but they did last year off the back of playing a poor France. If we had gotten that draw I would be comfortable saying we'd have made the SF too. We had already beaten that French side in 2019 despite our poor form. And in 2015 we suffered more injuries than any side could cope with, with the possible exception of NZ. Knock out rugby can be a funny thing that way. No matter how we had been playing in 2019 we'd have faced one of the top 2 sides in the world in the QF.

Enquiring · 01-11-2020 11:27am

molloyjh wrote: »

And more sports to share our talent around than both.

The RWC semi final thing is a bit of a red herring tbh. Wales have made a few, but they did last year off the back of playing a poor France. If we had gotten that draw I would be comfortable saying we'd have made the SF too. We had already beaten that French side in 2019 despite our poor form. And in 2015 we suffered more injuries than any side could cope with, with the possible exception of NZ. Knock out rugby can be a funny thing that way. No matter how we had been playing in 2019 we'd have faced one of the top 2 sides in the world in the QF.

Not really, they have other sports there too.

It's not, we've been knocked out by Argentina a few times, Wales, we flop at quarter final stages so no evidence that we would have beaten France. For a sport with so few countries competing, not to get to a semi final is very embarrassing really.

molloyjh · 01-11-2020 11:33am

Enquiring wrote: »

Not really, they have other sports there too.

It's not, we've been knocked out by Argentina a few times, Wales, we flop at quarter final stages so no evidence that we would have beaten France. For a sport with so few countries competing, not to get to a semi final is very embarrassing really.

We have 2 national sports that they don't have. We have soccer, which they both do have. We have more sports competing with rugby. Thats a simple fact.

I've already provided evidence that shows we could beat that French team. We already had done in 2019 despite our poor form. And had done reasonably comfortably. France hadn't improved before the RWC and we hadn't gotten any worse (or better).

OneLungDavy · 01-11-2020 11:35am

Great, the "not our national sport" excuse again.

awec · 01-11-2020 11:43am

molloyjh wrote: »

We have 2 national sports that they don't have. We have soccer, which they both do have. We have more sports competing with rugby. Thats a simple fact.

I've already provided evidence that shows we could beat that French team. We already had done in 2019 despite our poor form. And had done reasonably comfortably. France hadn't improved before the RWC and we hadn't gotten any worse (or better).

We have a rugby setup that wales could only dream of.

We blow our own horn about it often enough on here.

Ireland Team Talk XI: Team of nervoUS MOD warning Post 1

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