Womens' rugby Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Caranica

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117886059#Comment_117886059

We've squandered two very decent try opportunities, we should be well ahead.

Lost Ormond

7-3 hallf time. Spain have had some good attacking opportunities but Irelands defence held up well.

Lost Ormond

Try Spain. from quick tap in irish 22. moved across pitch and try in corner. 8-7 conversion to come. under 10 minutes to go

molloyjh

Wow. Just wow.

sydthebeat

That's the death knell of this management team in my opinion.

Caranica

Brutal. Error after error, no sign of structure or a plan.

DellyBelly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117886455#Comment_117886455

Your a bit harsh here...god love them they tried their best but it wasn't good enough unfortunately. Spain played well.

bluedex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888298#Comment_117888298

I don't think it's harsh, they were inexplicably appalling. So many good players on the pitch, giving their all, and they could hardly do any of the basics right. Very hard to fathom. I feel sorry for the players, this is a problem not of their making.

arsebiscuits1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888713#Comment_117888713

Your last sentence is absolute patronising bull.

Absolving the players of any semblance of responsibility is just as bad as placing all the blame on them. The tired trope of management is ruining the plucky underdog story does this group absolutely no justice whatsoever.

They failed to show up and do some of the bare minimum that is expected of them as international athletes. They gave little account of what they could do.

A large part of that is absolutely on Griggs and his team. Bad prep, bad headspace, incorrect priorities... who knows?

But the players cannot be absolved of some of the short comings that were on display yesterday

Caranica

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888298#Comment_117888298

They didn't play their best, and if trying their best is conceding 2 yellow cards, so so so many penalties conceded, tries squandered, and being beaten by a team like Spain, then we're really in trouble.

I think eyes were on Italy and we didn't play our strongest team, nor have a game plan for a team that might challenge us. It's all on the management and IRFU, the players can only play the hand they're dealt.

molloyjh

Gotta love a good blame game.

There was only 1 yellow btw. Spain were shown 1 too.

I didn’t get to see much of it, but what I did see looked a bit of a mess. Lots of unforced errors on both sides. But I also thought the ref added to that too. She was blowing penalties for offside at kicks without playing any advantage. She was also very inconsistent at the ruck too. At one point Monaghan was pinged for going off her feet at the ruck, but she had latched onto the ball carrier and never released the carrier or collapsed onto her. It was in a prime attacking position and it gave Spain a lifeline. Yet I lost count after that of the number of times the exact same action occurred without being penalised.

Spain looked a lot more organised than I had expected. I wonder if this shows where Wales, Scotland and Italy are at in some ways too. Spain seemed a lot better than certainly the Welsh or Scottish. Ireland had very little space to work or time on the ball.

connemara man

I'll be honest Spain were my biggest worry of the three teams as an unknown entity they had the ability to come in and give a shock and well they were putting in better performances before the 6 nations got rejigged to align with the men's.

They had a chip on their shoulder and a point to prove

Ireland weren't nearly clinical enough but a lot of times it looked like we didn't know what to do at times.

Core skills were a let down catch pass especially. Because bit was an issue during the 6 nations and you'd think as it was something obvious to us on the outside that, that would have improved.

Parsons and Murphy-Crowe didn't get on the ball nearly enough and they are game breakers our attacking gameplan shou revolve around getting them involved.

And there were times we needed to just go through 2 or 3 phases of bgood pod work in the Spanish 22 and we would have had them beat but game management was severely lacking. Flood needs a Nicole Cronin type at 9 to make up for her lack of 15s experience

Larbre34

We can debate it here till the cows come home, but take a look at Off The Ball on Youtube interview with Fiona Coghlan, Niamh Briggs and Ali Miller.

Coghlan in particular was absolutely furious. And all of them were suggesting it didn't look like the Irish side had actually trained in months. They questioned whether low standards were being tolerated by the coaches in training, so low were the skill levels. They eviscerated Considine for shooting out of the line for the Spanish try, said you wouldn't see it on an underage club pitch. One of them suggested, that quite apart from the result, it was the worst actual performance by an Ireland senior women's side in many years.

Now, they have enough experience of the environment to be taken very seriously when they say this stuff. So, the question is, what is Griggs presiding over? Has the personal training and network of excellence and elite women's development broken down at local level? Is Anthony Eddy supervising this whole effort and is he satisfied with the standards and the cohesion?

Cos something is seriously wrong and perhaps the best thing that could happen now is to miss out on qualification from this tournament, bin the coaching staff entirely and appoint a team of suitable domestic coaches to develop a simple but effective strategy to qualify at the final Repechage in December and then tackle a serious rebuild for the 6N.

sydthebeat

^

this 100%

Lost Ormond

4 changes to team

15. Eimear Considine (UL Bohemian/Munster)(19)

14. Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe (Railway Union/Munster)(3)

13. Eve Higgins (Railway Union/Leinster)(3)

12. Sene Naoupu (Old Belvedere/Leinster)(42)

11. Beibhinn Parsons (Ballinasloe/Blackrock College/Connacht)(12)

10. Stacey Flood (Railway Union/Leinster)(4)

9. Kathryn Dane (Old Belvedere/Ulster)(14)

1. Laura Feely (Blackrock College/Connacht)(20)

2. Cliodhna Moloney (Wasps/IQ Rugby)(27)

3. Linda Djougang (Old Belvedere/Leinster)(13)

4. Nichola Fryday (Blackrock College/Connacht)(19)

5. Sam Monaghan (Wasps/IQ Rugby)(1)

6. Dorothy Wall (Blackrock College/Munster)(8)

7. Edel McMahon (Wasps/IQ Rugby)(10)

8. Ciara Griffin (UL Bohemian/Munster)(Captain)(37)

Replacements:

16. Neve Jones (Malone/Ulster)(4)

17. Lindsay Peat (Railway Union/Leinster)(35)

18. Leah Lyons (Sale/IQ Rugby)(27)

19. Brittany Hogan (DCU/Old Belvedere/Ulster)(5)

20. Claire Molloy (Wasps/IQ Rugby)(71)

21. Emily Lane (Blackrock College/Munster)(4)

22. Enya Breen (UL Bohemian/Munster)(7)

23. Lauren Delany (Sale Sharks/IQ Rugby)(15).

irelandrover

What channel is this shown on?

sydthebeat

See above

sydthebeat

It's also on the rte player if you are into sado-masochism

Lost Ormond

Missed game as at my own.

Scotland beat Spain 27-22

We're second behind Italy ahead of next week. At least Spain Italy is on before the game against Scotland so we'll know exactly what we need to qualify

Caranica

Scotland beat Spain 27-22?

Lost Ormond

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117912338#Comment_117912338

edited my post. thanks. saw that result somewhere..

How many tries in how many irish caps is that now for Parsons??

Larbre34

I think it works out as 8 tries in 14 caps.

Akrasia

i watched the Scotland v Spain match. Spain played really well and could well give Italy a run for their money this weekend

entertaining match too

phog

So, what have Ireland to do to top the group? I know some of it depends on the earlier game Italy v Spain but what do who do we want to see win that game and what are the best results we can hope for?

connemara man

Ideally a draw

But an Italy win by 1 point without a TBP

Just incase it goes to head to head not points difference

And it's quite odd that no one knows and it's being reported differently everywhere

If Italy wins with a TBP we have to do the same but win by more than 11 points

If Spain win with a TBP we'll need to do the same

If either win without a TBP we need to win with one to guarantee top spot

phog

Saw it being suggested on Twitter that RTE will actually broadcast the Ire v Scotland game this weekend.

bluedex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117888857#Comment_117888857

Yeah, yeah, just a persons opinion. No need to get your knickers in a twist ;)

arsebiscuits1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117927713#Comment_117927713

My knickers are firmly untwisted. The lacey stuff tends to not bunch as bad as the others.

I'm also noticing a real silence here this week. People were more than happy to come out of the woodwork completely lumping responsibility on everyone except the girls when they lost.

But not a single comment on what was a good win with attitude and heart where the staff and players clearly identified areas to work on and did so.

Far from a finished product but a step in the right direction. The Italians identified our attacking breakdown as a source of disruption and did so tremendously well.

bluedex

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117927940#Comment_117927940

Okey dokey.

Yeah they were better alright, but still room for improvement.

Caranica

Scrum was a lot better but lineout needs work.

Selection will be interesting, a few big calls to be made.