Ireland Tour to New Zealand 2012 Discussion thread

Taco Corp

clsmooth wrote: »

Is it a 23 man squad for these games, or 22?

22. hence the uncontested scrums for the last 10ish minutes

clsmooth

Surley wrote: »

22. hence the uncontested scrums for the last 10ish minutes

When are they trailing the 23 man squads internationally?? There's not much advantage having a prop who can play both sides unless they're quality at both (we would have been better off having uncontested scrums v England rather than Court struggling there). We should put Ross on the bench and bring him on for Fitzpatrick after 50. Get the guy some experience. If/when Healy comes off, bring Cronin on as today, go uncontested.

Taco Corp

clsmooth wrote: »

When are they trailing the 23 man squads internationally?? There's not much advantage having a prop who can play both sides unless they're quality at both (we would have been better off having uncontested scrums v England rather than Court struggling there). We should put Ross on the bench and bring him on for Fitzpatrick after 50. Get the guy some experience. If/when Healy comes off, bring Cronin on as today, go uncontested.

I believe it should be 23 season so possible with the November tests but not sure. When Ross got injured, Court came on as he was effectively the TH replacement. In order to go uncontested, one of the props (Court or Healy) would have had to go off injured. but neither got injured (or injured enough) to go off. They weren't going to fake an injury either, although some might have argued (wrongly) that they should have.

Edit: is is November for the 23 man squads
http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/mediazone/pressrelease/newsid=2062222.html#irb+unions+sanction+global+law+trials

profitius

irishbucsfan wrote: »

He was one of our best players. Even the kiwi commentators were impressed by him, first thing Paul Wallace said as well. Not sure how you missed all of his contributions!

I didn't. I just spotted his errors as well.

Warper

We are miles off NZ and in fairness we are just an average side. We are able to put in one performance when it doesnt really matter but when it comes to the crunch match we are well beaten.

Fishooks12

Warper wrote: »

We are miles off NZ and in fairness we are just an average side. We are able to put in one performance when it doesnt really matter but when it comes to the crunch match we are well beaten.

We have the makings of a very good side, hence the frustration

Injuries didn't help today but we're hampered by Kidney

GerM

profitius wrote: »

Lads, SOB was certainly NOT excellent today. He gave the ball away a few times with handling errors and I'm sure I saw him slip off one or two tackles. He was good at the breakdown alright.

Those simple errors can kill any momentum and give the opposition a big boost. The team made too made simple errors and every one got punished by NZ who were clinical.

Its about doing the basics well.

Unusual that I disagree with you so strongly, profitius. He was excellent. Schooled the best player in the world at the breakdown and was, by a distance, the top tackler on the field. Didn't carry a lot but that was due to our plan of moving from the forwards out wide as quickly as possible. No Irish forward carried more than a few times because of that.

He made mistakes but they were far outweighed by the good points. One of the best openside displays by an Irish player in quite some time.

maddragon

Look. It's a huge ask to beat the world champions in their own backyard although we did it against England in 2004. However, there were times today I genuinely felt sorry for our boys. They looked clueless and bereft of leadership especially in the forwards. Why was Cullen overlooked. And I actually cry when I see the provincial half back pairings mixed. And why on earth was DOC brought on when surely it would be better to give Tuohy experience. It's not as if we were going to win with DOCs unseen work at that stage. PS: I'm a Munster fan.

Ireland has a coaching problem plain and simple.

Tox56

Pocock barely carried any ball but was still one of the best players on the park in the Aussie match, and it was a similar situation with SOB.

We expect barnstorming runs from SOB for obvious reasons after the way he burst onto the scene, but it was an excellent performance as a true openside, not as the ball-carrying blindside he started his career as.

profitius

GerM wrote: »

Unusual that I disagree with you so strongly, profitius. He was excellent. Schooled the best player in the world at the breakdown and was, by a distance, the top tackler on the field. Didn't carry a lot but that was due to our plan of moving from the forwards out wide as quickly as possible. No Irish forward carried more than a few times because of that.

He made mistakes but they were far outweighed by the good points. One of the best openside displays by an Irish player in quite some time.

Thats one aspect of the game. His mistakes handed back possession to NZ so that balances out his work at the breakdown. One knock on and the ball ends up down the other end of the pitch. Harsh judgement but this is a higher level.

Ireland were very good at the breakdown but look at the scoreboard at the end.

SOB wasn't help by Ireland blunt attack. He got the ball standing still all the time.

lala88

Seems like it was the refs fault they lost. How many more time are they going to use that excuse?

Fishooks12

lala88 wrote: »

Seems like it was the refs fault they lost. How many more time are they going to use that excuse?

Who's blaming the ref?

TonyTonga

profitius wrote: »

Lads, SOB was certainly NOT excellent today. He gave the ball away a few times with handling errors and I'm sure I saw him slip off one or two tackles. He was good at the breakdown alright.

Those simple errors can kill any momentum and give the opposition a big boost. The team made too made simple errors and every one got punished by NZ who were clinical.

Its about doing the basics well.

Did SOB ride your bird or something? You've been desperately banging that drum all morning. He was our best player and the sky pundits, NZ pundits, and nearly every poster here agrees. I thought he outplayed McCaw today.

lala88

Fishooks12 wrote: »

Who's blaming the ref?

Its all over Twitter

The_Kew_Tour

Now maybe Kidney is holding us back some bit, but nothing like 32 points that we got hammered by today.

To have never beaten New Zealand in 25 attempts is pretty embarrassing at this stage.

I think we are overrated being honest. We think we are team that can win WC when in fact we cant.

Fishooks12

lala88 wrote: »

Its all over Twitter

Saw that actually. Owens let NZ away with a bit but he in no way cost us the game

profitius

TonyTonga wrote: »

Did SOB ride your bird or something? You've been desperately banging that drum all morning. He was our best player and the sky pundits, NZ pundits, and nearly every poster here agrees. I thought he outplayed McCaw today.

I highlight a few SOB mistakes and you presume I have something against him when in fact I'm a big fan of SOB as you can see by viewing my previous posts. Just goes to show how you think.

molloyjh

Fishooks12 wrote: »

lala88 wrote: »

Its all over Twitter

Saw that actually. Owens let NZ away with a bit but he in no way cost us the game

I'm assuming it's just fans saying it though...

TonyTonga

How many posts have you made stating he was poor when EVERYONE is telling you that your wrong? It just seems odd. You said SOB was poor when it is quite clear he was our best player. Why?

You didn't highlight mistakes, you said he was poor. Now how could any reasonable person think SOB was in anyway poor?

Fishooks12

TonyTonga wrote: »

How many posts have you made stating he was poor when EVERYONE is telling you that your wrong? It just seems odd. You said SOB was poor when it is quite clear he was our best player. Why?

You didn't highlight mistakes, you said he was poor. Now how could any reasonable person think SOB was in anyway poor?

It's called an opinion and he's entitled to it

SOB made some mistakes, so did every player but he contributed so much in defense that he nullified his. Our best player IMO, but hey that's just an opinion

Tox56

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

Now maybe Kidney is holding us back some bit, but nothing like 32 points that we got hammered by today.

To have never beaten New Zealand in 25 attempts is pretty embarrassing at this stage.

I think we are overrated being honest. We think we are team that can win WC when in fact we cant.

People think we can do better than 3rd in the Six Nations and something like winning 30% of matches against Tier 1 teams in the last 2 years and apparently we think we should win the WC??

Who's overreacting there? Today wasn't the problem, it's the results and performances over the past few years that is the problem

lala88

Tox56 wrote: »

People think we can do better than 3rd in the Six Nations and something like winning 30% of matches against Tier 1 teams in the last 2 years and apparently we think we should win the WC??

Who's overreacting there? Today wasn't the problem, it's the results and performances over the past few years that is the problem

How many of them were in competitive games?

Tox56

lala88 wrote: »

Tox56 wrote: »

People think we can do better than 3rd in the Six Nations and something like winning 30% of matches against Tier 1 teams in the last 2 years and apparently we think we should win the WC??

Who's overreacting there? Today wasn't the problem, it's the results and performances over the past few years that is the problem

How many of them were in competitive games?

I don't know off the top of my head but I'm fairly sure that stat includes Italy and Scotland, who we should be beating.

Fishooks12

My team for the next test with a view to working on some promising combos and keeping things fresh:

15 Kearney
14 Trimble
13 BOD (Cave on after 50)
12 Earls
11 Gilroy
10 Sexton
9 Reddan
8 Heaslip
7 Henry
6 SOB
5 Ryan
4 Tuohy
3 Fitzpatrick
2 Cronin
1 Healy

19543261

Fishooks12 wrote: »

It's called an opinion and he's entitled to it

SOB made some mistakes, so did every player but he contributed so much in defense that he nullified his. Our best player IMO, but hey that's just an opinion

Alright, close the forum, lads; we're just spouting opinions!

Scioch

Fishooks12 wrote: »

My team for the next test with a view to working on some promising combos and keeping things fresh:

15 Kearney
14 Trimble
13 BOD (Cave on after 50)
12 Earls
11 Gilroy
10 Sexton
9 Reddan
8 Heaslip
7 Henry
6 SOB
5 Ryan
4 Tuohy
3 Fitzpatrick
2 Cronin
1 Healy

If you were calling Gilroy up I'd bring Madigan too and stick him on the bench with Marshall.

Bench of Best, Ross, McCarthy, POM, Marshall, Madigan, Cave.

PhatPiggins

Fishooks12 wrote: »

My team for the next test with a view to working on some promising combos and keeping things fresh:

15 Kearney
14 Trimble
13 BOD (Cave on after 50)
12 Earls
11 Gilroy
10 Sexton
9 Reddan
8 Heaslip
7 Henry
6 SOB
5 Ryan
4 Tuohy
3 Fitzpatrick
2 Cronin
1 Healy

I'd be surprised if it wasn't very close to that. If we take nothing else from this tour lets at least get 4/5 players up to test standards

Fishooks12

PhatPiggins wrote: »

I'd be surprised if it wasn't very close to that. If we take nothing else from this tour lets at least get 4/5 players up to test standards

Agreed. I think the BOD Earls center combo is definitely worth looking at further

Throw Cave in then for the 3rd test

FireStart

The issues with this game seem to be the follwing.
If you look at the NZ tries, which are important beacuse this is where we lost it, all bar one was scored in the 14 channel.

We had a centre playing out there and in the playbacks every time you can see McFadden out of place or tackling a player who was already covered

We seemed sluggish in our play. When we played Wales we gave them a few yards to attack before they were tackled. After that game we were told we had learned from that and the line speed would be faster. We were back to slow line speed today. So either we were sluggish/lacked match speed, learned nothing or frightened of them today.

Next week we need to up the speed and play players in their position.

Earls and Trimble on both wings. Let reddan have a go at 9

Podge_irl

Was up til 5am then made the rookie error of trying to grab a couple hours sleep before the game so I entirely slept through it.

It appears that may have been a good thing.