Ireland Team Talk/Gossip/Rumour Thread

val_jester

CatFromHue wrote: »

nice roll eyes smilie! now look at what kearney does. he shoulder charges elsom, he didnt tackle him. this highlights what i was talking about.

kearney is still standing when elsom is touching the ball down. thats not a position i want my full back to be in when a guy has just ran past/through him to score.

people have mentioned his attempted tackle on juan smith in nov. its a good clip of his pace but to me it also highlights his poor tackling technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8tu6-GvK2g

i think jolley summed up better was i was trying to say regarding his passing. spatial awareness is a better term.

dont get me wrong i think he is a good player but like luke fitz's overrunning of passes there are a few areas of his game that drive me mad.

You can't blame Kearney for that try, he had a huge amount of ground to make up and Juan Smith is an extremely powerful player who had a lot of momentum at the stage, it would have been one of the tackles of the year for him to stop a try in that situation.

val_jester

jacothelad wrote: »

D'Arcy has played eight and a half months of professional rugby with no pre-season training and was rather thrown in at the deep end. He came here as a part time player from Manly Marlins.

He has ability and pace and though we haven't seen it, he is apparently a dead eye goal kicker. He has plenty of room for improvement but has been a revelation at times and undroppable. He has made one or two big mistakes but those mistakes need to be put it in a bit of perspective. The good he has done far, far outweighs his errors and he has scored 5 tries in 24 games. This could easily have been 10 or more given a bit of luck. It isn't totally beyond the realms of possibility that he might actually become very good indeed as an I.Q. 15. He is in need of putting on a few kilos of muscle as he is 6'0" tall but only 13st. 4lbs.

Payne will play 15 and at times at 13 so we may see less of him or see him on the wing. We do have plenty of wings though with guys like Gilroy and Cochrane and Gaston (who is also a full back, is very, very quick indeed and built like a tank) never mind Trimble and Danielli.

He was only undroppable due to the quality of the other players. I know he has shown quality in periods but there have been a lot of mistakes.

This kid is going to be quality, well I have great hopes for him anyway, only 20 and like you say blessed with pace and strength, I really hope he can overtake Darcy next year. In future a back 3 of Gilroy, Cochrane and Gaston with Marshall and Spence in the centres and Jackson at 10 would be great for Ulster and Ireland

CatFromHue

i dont blame him but i think he could have stopped it...if you know what i mean.

he made up all the ground on smith, its about 8m out from the line were he is in a position to tackle smith. coming in the back/side is a great position to grab a guys leg in the tackle but kearney misses.

i think he should have done better.

irishbucsfan

jacothelad wrote: »

" Fingers crossed. He's the best Irish full back of all time. We could really do with him in top form."

He certainly isn't though he is good and of course has played in the professional era. Tom Kiernan, Hugo MacNeill, Tony Ensor, (Mike Gibson towrds the end of his career),Rodney O'Donnell, Girvan Dempsey were all better.

Well I'd love to hear you have that debate with a Leicester fan. He was their Brian O'Driscoll for 13 years. None of those players had the impact for their teams that Murphy has had. As the above poster corrected me, 88 tries for his club is an absolutely incredible achievement. He never showed it at international level, but he was not selected by O'Sullivan because of his decision to play in Enlgand. He is still the most talented Irish person to play the position. Unless you pull out an Irish passport with Christian Cullen's name on it.

val_jester

CatFromHue wrote: »

i dont blame him but i think he could have stopped it...if you know what i mean.

he made up all the ground on smith, its about 8m out from the line were he is in a position to tackle smith. coming in the back/side is a great position to grab a guys leg in the tackle but kearney misses.

i think he should have done better.

I still don't think he could have stopped him especially if you remember that the weather was very bad and there was a lot of rain.

I know what you mean but I still think he did as well as expected in the situation and i wouldn't be worried about his defence if he is picked for Ireland.

val_jester

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well I'd love to hear you have that debate with a Leicester fan. He was their Brian O'Driscoll for 13 years. None of those players had the impact for their teams that Murphy has had. As the above poster corrected me, 88 tries for his club is an absolutely incredible achievement. He never showed it at international level, but he was not selected by O'Sullivan because of his decision to play in Enlgand. He is still the most talented Irish person to play the position. Unless you pull out an Irish passport with Christian Cullen's name on it.

The first part of the sentence is why you can't regard him as the best ever, and the second part is untrue. Dempsey was the safer option and that is why EOS chose him.

CatFromHue

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well I'd love to hear you have that debate with a Leicester fan. He was their Brian O'Driscoll for 13 years. None of those players had the impact for their teams that Murphy has had. As the above poster corrected me, 88 tries for his club is an absolutely incredible achievement. He never showed it at international level, but he was not selected by O'Sullivan because of his decision to play in Enlgand. He is still the most talented Irish person to play the position. Unless you pull out an Irish passport with Christian Cullen's name on it.

murphy has 53 starts for ireland with 27 of those in the 6 nations and 21 in friendlies.

he was selected plenty of times!

being the most talented is one thing but girvan dempsey overall contribution to the team was more than murphy.

jacothelad

val_jester wrote: »

He was only undroppable due to the quality of the other players. I know he has shown quality in periods but there have been a lot of mistakes.

This kid is going to be quality, well I have great hopes for him anyway, only 20 and like you say blessed with pace and strength, I really hope he can overtake Darcy next year. In future a back 3 of Gilroy, Cochrane and Gaston with Marshall and Spence in the centres and Jackson at 10 would be great for Ulster and Ireland

Yes. You know when someone has that extra something and I can see it in Gaston, Gilroy, Jackson, Luke Marshall, Spence and to a certain extent in Chris Cochrane. Also McKinney is no slouch as a 10. I've seen Michael Allen play and he kas a fair bit of talent also. I think that given the right coaching etc, that D'Arcy could be a gem but he hasn't time on his side. Worryingly, all these guys are backs so unless the whole thing goes to 7s we could be in deep dodo in about 4 years. Only Henderson is an academy 2nd row forward of note. Adam Macklin has looked - shall we say - out of his depth art 3. Maybe guys like Sandford will mature and develop and return like Stevenson and McComish have.

val_jester

jacothelad wrote: »

Yes. You know when someone has that extra something and I can see it in Gaston, Gilroy, Jackson, Luke Marshall, Spence and to a certain extent in Chris Cochrane. Also McKinney is no slouch as a 10. I've seen Michael Allen play and he kas a fair bit of talent also. I think that given the right coaching etc, that D'Arcy could be a gem but he hasn't time on his side. Worryingly, all these guys are backs so unless the whole thing goes to 7s we could be in deep dodo in about 4 years. Only Henderson is an academy 2nd row forward of note. Adam Macklin has looked - shall we say - out of his depth art 3. Maybe guys like Sandford will mature and develop and return like Stevenson and McComish have.

Hopefully Annett will come through and we can try and nick a few off the munster/leinster forwards. I know we tried to get David O'Callaghan(last years u20 team) a year ago maybe go for him again and jordi murphy from leinster and then there is leckey. I'd prefer Irish born players play for us and id prefer gaston ahead of d'arcy because i don't agree with your assessment of him, hes 25 at this stage. The future is looking promising at the moment anyway.

jacothelad

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well I'd love to hear you have that debate with a Leicester fan. He was their Brian O'Driscoll for 13 years. None of those players had the impact for their teams that Murphy has had. As the above poster corrected me, 88 tries for his club is an absolutely incredible achievement. He never showed it at international level, but he was not selected by O'Sullivan because of his decision to play in Enlgand. He is still the most talented Irish person to play the position. Unless you pull out an Irish passport with Christian Cullen's name on it.

Well Tom Kiernan had a little bit of an impact, captaining the Lions in 4 tests and Ireland 24 times including to a draw against the All Blacks and all that.
Mike Gibson is one of the greatest players of all time.... 5 Lions tours.
Hugo MacNeill - Lions and Ireland full back.
Rodney O'Donnell was potentially the best of them all but his career was cut short by a neck injury in South Africa.

I'd be quite happy to debate this with a Leicester fan who has seen these guys play and I would begin by agreeing that G.M. is a fantastic player and one of Ireland's top 2 15s of the professional era.

Cpt_Blackbeard

TheHighRoad wrote: »

What on earth are you doing letting facts get in the way of an argument with Cpt Blackbeard? Didn't you know that Kearney is too slow for full back, can't pass, is a poor defender and can't attack?

I never said he was too slow for a fullback, just slow for an international 15. Debate that if you will.

I never said that he can't pass, I said that he doesn't pass.

Kearney does have a poor tackling technique and I wouldn't feel confident with him as the last line of defense. Same goes for all our fullback options tbh.

I never said that he cannot attack, I said that he is unproven under the new interpretations.

But well done, you made a semi-convincing attempt at twisting my words and bringing the thread down into a flurry of personal insults. :rolleyes:

Gelio

Cpt_Blackbeard wrote: »

I never said he was too slow for a fullback, just slow for an international 15. Debate that if you will.

But he's not slow for an international full back??? People are getting annoyed because what your saying is just wrong.

jolley123

Cpt_Blackbeard wrote: »

I never said he was too slow for a fullback, just slow for an international 15. Debate that if you will.

It's impossible to debate. He's not too slow......so how do you debate otherwise.

International full-backs inlcude the likes of Zane Kirchner,Lee Byrne, Ben Foden, Mils Muliaina. And you've said,(I'll be very careful not to "twist" your words.) he's very slow for an international full-back. Not just slow, but VERY slow.

Well, Blackbeard, I have never seen evidence to suggest that the names I have put forward are quicker than Kearney. In fact, if anything, I've seen evidence that he's quicker.


First, the ridiculous comment in the LvN thread and now this. You're on a role.

Podge_irl

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well I'd love to hear you have that debate with a Leicester fan. He was their Brian O'Driscoll for 13 years. None of those players had the impact for their teams that Murphy has had. As the above poster corrected me, 88 tries for his club is an absolutely incredible achievement. He never showed it at international level, but he was not selected by O'Sullivan because of his decision to play in Enlgand. He is still the most talented Irish person to play the position. Unless you pull out an Irish passport with Christian Cullen's name on it.

Murphy played over 50 times for Ireland under EOS ffs.

I will never understand the hype around the man. He's a great club player but he's simply a poor international full-back. Most talented player me arse. His defence is poor and his passing is sloppy. If it had been up to me he never would have played for Ireland again after the France game in 2006. How Bowe made way after that and not Murphy is beyond me. It was the single worst performance I've seen in an Irish jersey ever.

Cpt_Blackbeard

jolley123 wrote: »

It's impossible to debate. He's not too slow......so how do you debate otherwise.

International full-backs inlcude the likes of Zane Kirchner,Lee Byrne, Ben Foden, Mils Muliaina. And you've said,(I'll be very careful not to "twist" your words.) he's very slow for an international full-back. Not just slow, but VERY slow.

Well, Blackbeard, I have never seen evidence to suggest that the names I have put forward are quicker than Kearney. In fact, if anything, I've seen evidence that he's quicker.

Maybe its just an issue of his acceleration over the first couple of yards as Ger pointed out. I never meant to imply that his pace would be a real problem but, rather that his pace can't be used as a weapon like the Earls and Daggs of this world. Just from memory, his sidestep also seems to slow him down some bit too.

irishbucsfan

Podge_irl wrote: »

the France game in 2006.

He was playing out of position. I suppose we can forgive Fitzgerald for looking ****e out of position but not Murphy? A good proportion of Murphy's caps came out of position and few of them were sequential. That is why I say he was never given a chance.

Geordan Murphy was never given a continued run at 15 for Ireland. He fell out with EOS, which is well-known, and by the time Kidney took over Kearney had just played a blinder at 15 in New Zealand and there was no point in bringing Murphy in.

His defence is not poor. That's a ridiculous myth that people bring up because of games like the France one when he let Ibanez score whilst playing out of position on the wing. He has been sure in defense while playing in his own position. Never a problem.

I can't believe you would debate it TBH. If Murphy played the way he has at Leicester for Leinster he would be described as one of the best the country had seen but instead he went abroad and now people criticise him without watching him. Not only that, over the past 10 years he has played over 250 times for a team that has been better than Leinster and Munster and is still one of the best in Europe. Now he is their captain. To say he is poor is absolutely ridiculous.

Dr.Evil

Murphy's poor ability in defense has been highlighted many times. Whether or not he is worse than Kearney or anybody else you can argue, but his has been highlighted more, and that counts against him.

They're both talented enough that a strong case can be made for either. I'd personally try an opt for which is in better form.

Podge_irl

Murphy was crap for Ireland as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what he did for Leicester (though the times I saw him he was quite good).

He's the perfect example of someone who simply couldn't bring their game to international level. Be it the slightly less time he had or the extra physicality involved.

He took poor options, he had poor defence and was absolutely woeful going into contact. Those are not the marks of a good fullback.

He was playing out of position

He played 15 in that game and was beyond terrible.

Edit: he also started at 15 for every single one of the games in that 6N. This idea that he never got a chance is pure make-believe. Dempsey was simply a better international full back.

CatFromHue

irishbucsfan wrote: »

His defence is not poor. That's a ridiculous myth that people bring up because of games like the France one when he let Ibanez score whilst playing out of position on the wing. He has been sure in defense while playing in his own position. Never a problem.

this is a link to highlights of the maori againts ireland in nz 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRNlJ8sVT94

he is far from sure in defence.

i was watching the highlights dvd of the lions 2005 tour to nz. his defence is far from sure then too.

profitius

Murphy played many times for Ireland (50+) but I can't remember him ever doing much. Dempsey was a way better player as far as I'm concerned. I think Murphy struggled with the step up to international rugby. No doubt he is talented but you can only make so many excuses.

Tomtom364

On the Fullback debate, but not on the kearney thing.

IMO, I think Munsters back three of Howlett, Jones and Earls started looking very sharp at the end of the season. Obviously Howlett isnt Irish, so in the warm ups I'd love a chance to see 11.Earls 14.Bowe 15.Jones.
Just to see how strong an attacking force that could be.

Im not saying by any means that Jones deserves to go to the WC yet.
But to me that sounds like a very promising combination and though it is early days for Jones I think its worth at least one run out in the warm up games.

GerM

Leinster front row? Munster back 3?

The sky is falling down.

myflipflops

People forget certain things about Geordan Murphy. Mainly, they forget that he was 1st choice Irish full back and in the form of his life leading into the 2003 World Cup. He looked like he could be a real star of that competition. He then broke his leg in the warm up game against Scotland and missed out on the opportunity. I don;t think he touched those heights since (although he has been excellent).

No more than Alan Quinlan injuring his shoulder while scoring against the Argies in the group stages, that injury probably cost Murphy a lot of caps and much more recognition as a world class full back.

theboss80

myflipflops wrote: »

)

No more than Alan Quinlan injuring his shoulder while scoring against the Argies in the group stages, that injury probably cost Murphy a lot of caps and much more recognition as a world class full back.

I was at that game:D:D

CatFromHue

myflipflops wrote: »

People forget certain things about Geordan Murphy. Mainly, they forget that he was 1st choice Irish full back and in the form of his life leading into the 2003 World Cup. He looked like he could be a real star of that competition. He then broke his leg in the warm up game against Scotland and missed out on the opportunity. I don;t think he touched those heights since (although he has been excellent).

he was looking pretty good alright but he started another 38 games for ireland after that injury.

he had plenty of chances to try and get that form back

Podge_irl

myflipflops wrote: »

People forget certain things about Geordan Murphy. Mainly, they forget that he was 1st choice Irish full back and in the form of his life leading into the 2003 World Cup. He looked like he could be a real star of that competition. He then broke his leg in the warm up game against Scotland and missed out on the opportunity. I don;t think he touched those heights since (although he has been excellent).

I haven't forgotten but it was 8 years ago. It's of little relevance now.

rockman15

Given neither kearney, jones or murphy are certain to go for various reasons, i think for the time being we should just discuss the very real problem of either fitzgerald or earls being in the 15 slot.

Neither exactlly inspire me with confidence. When we play against the wallabies in the group they are going to bring a very expansive and dynamic game. Their backline is more than a match for ours, if not better in certain positions. Im thinking Beale and Genia certainly. arguments for Cooper and Mitchell too, although the later is currently doubtful for selection.

Having watched Coopers progression over the past few weeks the guy is shaping up to be a serious game changer for the tri-nations. I envisage a lot of first phase line breaks when we take them on and Im not sure who Id want in the FB slot as our last line. Equally Cooper likes the short chip and his field kicking has come on leeps this season. Earls arguably the better ball in hand returner, Fitzgerald capable of returning possession to us from Oz ball. We really are stuck with two different players whos 15 game suits different oppositions. But as I said neith are exactlly awe inspiring.

jacothelad

rockman15 wrote: »

Given neither kearney, jones or murphy are certain to go for various reasons, i think for the time being we should just discuss the very real problem of either fitzgerald or earls being in the 15 slot.

Neither exactlly inspire me with confidence. When we play against the wallabies in the group they are going to bring a very expansive and dynamic game. Their backline is more than a match for ours, if not better in certain positions. Im thinking Beale and Genia certainly. arguments for Cooper and Mitchell too, although the later is currently doubtful for selection.

Having watched Coopers progression over the past few weeks the guy is shaping up to be a serious game changer for the tri-nations. I envisage a lot of first phase line breaks when we take them on and Im not sure who Id want in the FB slot as our last line. Equally Cooper likes the short chip and his field kicking has come on leeps this season. Earls arguably the better ball in hand returner, Fitzgerald capable of returning possession to us from Oz ball. We really are stuck with two different players whos 15 game suits different oppositions. But as I said neith are exactlly awe inspiring.

Who is going to catch the ball for him?

val_jester

rockman15 wrote: »

Given neither kearney, jones or murphy are certain to go for various reasons, i think for the time being we should just discuss the very real problem of either fitzgerald or earls being in the 15 slot.

Neither exactlly inspire me with confidence. When we play against the wallabies in the group they are going to bring a very expansive and dynamic game. Their backline is more than a match for ours, if not better in certain positions. Im thinking Beale and Genia certainly. arguments for Cooper and Mitchell too, although the later is currently doubtful for selection.

Having watched Coopers progression over the past few weeks the guy is shaping up to be a serious game changer for the tri-nations. I envisage a lot of first phase line breaks when we take them on and Im not sure who Id want in the FB slot as our last line. Equally Cooper likes the short chip and his field kicking has come on leeps this season. Earls arguably the better ball in hand returner, Fitzgerald capable of returning possession to us from Oz ball. We really are stuck with two different players whos 15 game suits different oppositions. But as I said neith are exactlly awe inspiring.

There isnt really an argument Earls is better at running the ball back. I'd have no issues with him at full back he dealt comfortably with high balls during the six nations on the wing and has done so for Munster since then. Like I said earlier I would love to see a backline of trimble bod bowe horgan and earls given a shot in one of the warm ups.

And on Cooper he is as likely to cost Aus a game in defence as he is to win it. Can't wait for sob, fez, wally and heaslip smashing into him

myflipflops

CatFromHue wrote: »

he was looking pretty good alright but he started another 38 games for ireland after that injury.

he had plenty of chances to try and get that form back

He wouldn't be the first to never reach the same heights after a big injury like that. Unfortunately, I think that moment was the most influential of his ireland

Podge_irl wrote: »

I haven't forgotten but it was 8 years ago. It's of little relevance now.

It's relevant to the player (not the 2011 squad selection) when you are dismissing a mans 69 cap international career with this:

Murphy was crap for Ireland as far as I'm concerned. I couldn't care less what he did for Leicester (though the times I saw him he was quite good).

He's the perfect example of someone who simply couldn't bring their game to international level. Be it the slightly less time he had or the extra physicality involved.