RWC 2015 - build-up thread

aimee1

Ceadog wrote: »

Add to that list:

2 hookers
3 wingers (one of whom has 3 caps and another is Cuthbert)
1 half-crocked fullback (I'm assuming that Priestland or Morgan will be cover, both of whom are nominally outhalves)

Makes Ireland's squad look like the All Blacks in terms of depth :P

And North has had his issues this year too. If he or Biggar get injured against Uruguay then they might be playing england with a few of the spare 2nd rowers on the wings.

penybont exile

aimee1 wrote: »

Ball, Davies, AWJ, Charteris, Day are the locks

King, Faletau, Warburton, Lydiate, Tipuric and now Moriarty are the back rowers. King can cover Lock too apparently.

Maybe warren just cant count.

I wouldn't be surprised to see one of Day or King jettisoned after the England game .....

Zzippy

thomond2006 wrote: »

Has Liam Williams played in the warmups? Wales are taking a huge gamble.

Ehh.... Cian Healy?

Ceadog

Zzippy wrote: »

Ehh.... Cian Healy?

Yeah but Wales literally don't have another fullback right now. Their next choice is a guy smaller than Stringer or Rhys Priestland.

aimee1

Zzippy wrote: »

Ehh.... Cian Healy?

Healy has been training for several weeks now, and ireland schedule allows him to be managed back into gametime against canada and romania

Wales have no such luxury.

Healy is fit

Sangre

Ceadog wrote: »

Yeah but Wales literally don't have another fullback right now. Their next choice is a guy smaller than Stringer or Rhys Priestland.

Wales are kinda like Ireland 2007, very good first team but big drop-off after that in terms of experience and/or ability. Of all the big teams, I thought they would struggle most with injuries so they've been very unlucky to date.

Ceadog

Sangre wrote: »

Wales are kinda like Ireland 2007, very good first team but big drop-off after that in terms of experience and/or ability. Of all the big teams, I thought they would struggle most with injuries so they've been very unlucky to date.

It's probably because Gatty has a very similar man management style to Eddie. He has his favourites, and if you're not one of them you don't get picked.

CatFromHue

Ceadog wrote: »

It's probably because Gatty has a very similar man management style to Eddie. He has his favourites, and if you're not one of them you don't get picked.

I know this is said alot about Eddie but he only ring fenced the first team just before the RWC.

There was an awful lot of chopping and changing before that but people just ignore it.

irishbucsfan

Ceadog wrote: »

It's probably because Gatty has a very similar man management style to Eddie. He has his favourites, and if you're not one of them you don't get picked.

He brings young players into the squad quicker than any other international coach in rugby! It seems every year there's another random 18 or 19 year old making their Welsh debut. He gave Sam Warburton the captaincy when he was 21. He had George North starting much younger. He's absolutely nothing like EOS.

God some of the stuff people say about him is such nonsense.

EDIT: As an example, Tom Prydie made his Welsh debut at 17 years old in the 6 Nations, 2 years before he even made his debut for the Welsh u20s.

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

He brings young players into the squad quicker than any other international coach in rugby! It seems every year there's another random 18 or 19 year old making their Welsh debut. He gave Sam Warburton the captaincy when he was 21. He had George North starting much younger. He's absolutely nothing like EOS.

God some of the stuff people say about him is such nonsense.

EDIT: As an example, Tom Prydie made his Welsh debut at 17 years old in the 6 Nations, 2 years before he even made his debut for the Welsh u20s.

It always seemed to me he was happy to bring in young lads like that on the one hand, but on the other he also knew his first string squad and he put all his focus on them. He can bring guys into that group of 20-25, but can he develop a 30+ man squad? Depth is a massive issue for Wales and we're kind of seeing that now.

Of course this is all "from the outside looking in"....

molloyjh

Deleted User wrote: »

Healy is fit

That is some quality PS-ing. I actually did laugh out loud.

pickarooney

Is Rhys Patchell not going to make the grade? I haven't seen him play in a while but I thought he'd be WC squad material by now.

Trivia Q - without looking, which surnames appear in the most WC squads?

sydthebeat

Ill guess pisi or smith?

Ceadog

pickarooney wrote: »

Is Rhys Patchell not going to make the grade? I haven't seen him play in a while but I thought he'd be WC squad material by now.

Trivia Q - without looking, which surnames appear in the most WC squads?

In his two Pro12 games so far:

- scored a hat trick but only kicked 1/8
- was anonymous but kicked 5/5

His only caps came on the tour of Japan in 2013 where he was fairly culpable for a very embarrassing defeat to Japan after coming on for Biggar after 20 minutes in the second test. That probably kept him out of consideration for 2014, and he's been pretty unfortunate with injuries on top of that.

I remember a few years ago he was being hailed as the next big thing in Welsh rugby but somehow Morgan has leapfrogged him. In fairness, based on his recent form, I wouldn't select him either.

Isn't there something mental like 5 "Smith"'s in the NZ squad? That's probably the most common surname.

Wang King

Or the 31 ishvilli's in the Georgian squad

Wang King

Wang King wrote: »

Or the 31 ishvilli's in the Georgian squad

Sure we've 14 Felix Jones's on our team and 5 Kieran Marmion's on the bench.

Ceadog

If Felix had traveled we'd have had more Jones' in the squad than Wales :P

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

It always seemed to me he was happy to bring in young lads like that on the one hand, but on the other he also knew his first string squad and he put all his focus on them. He can bring guys into that group of 20-25, but can he develop a 30+ man squad? Depth is a massive issue for Wales and we're kind of seeing that now.

Of course this is all "from the outside looking in"....

I really don't see what we've done to develop a squad that's any different from them at all. You could very easily say that Schmidt knows who is 23 is and trusts them, he hasn't made very many unforced changes so far in competitive fixtures.

If Rob Kearney got injured I'm sure some people would be criticising our lack of depth at 15.

Akrasia

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I really don't see what we've done to develop a squad that's any different from them at all. You could very easily say that Schmidt knows who is 23 is and trusts them, he hasn't made very many unforced changes so far in competitive fixtures.

If Rob Kearney got injured I'm sure some people would be criticising our lack of depth at 15.

It's not Gatland's fault his squad is lacking players. The Welsh clubs have been performing pretty miserably in the league and the championship in recent years. Irish provinces have been an excellent breeding ground for good solid players.

In the Pro-12 last year, the 4 Irish provinces scored a combined total of 256 points and the 4 welsh teams scored only 208 points

The year before, the 4 Irish scored 261 points and the Welsh only scored 197

And the year before, Ireland 251, Wales 194

aimee1

Couldnt help but laugh....

Akrasia

Akrasia wrote: »

It's not Gatland's fault his squad is lacking players. The Welsh clubs have been performing pretty miserably in the league and the championship in recent years. Irish provinces have been an excellent breeding ground for good solid players.

In the Pro-12 last year, the 4 Irish provinces scored a combined total of 256 points and the 4 welsh teams scored only 208 points

The year before, the 4 Irish scored 261 points and the Welsh only scored 197

And the year before, Ireland 251, Wales 194

Wales have more top internationals playing abroad though.

I think the big difference between Wales and Ireland at the moment is base line consistency.

Wales are not a consistent team, they are capable of big performances but can dip a lot in between.

Joe get's more out of the players at his disposal and I think he can make your average international player looks a much better prospect. The best example of this was when SOB went off early against England, and then Jordi and Tommy tore it up and dominated the breakdown against a big English pack. That's the sort of performance consistency Wales don't have and why we have the appearance of more depth.

Whilst our performances can dip, our minimum baselines is much higher than Wales's at the moment and we have so many players familiar with the game plan, set-up and standards that we can slot people in and out without it overly weakening us.

The really only exception to this is 10. We just don't have anyone to step into Sexton's shoes. People were worried about 9 at the start of the warm ups, but the reality is that Reddan has been better than Murray over the last 4 games, though I don't doubt Murray is going to have a massive tournament for us and is unquestionably first choice.

rrpc

aimee1 wrote: »

Couldnt help but laugh....

Very good.

shuffol

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I really don't see what we've done to develop a squad that's any different from them at all. You could very easily say that Schmidt knows who is 23 is and trusts them, he hasn't made very many unforced changes so far in competitive fixtures.

If Rob Kearney got injured I'm sure some people would be criticising our lack of depth at 15.

I'd agree but I don't really think Schmidt has had an ideal opportunity to bring in new faces. In our AI's since he took over we've had Australia x2, New Zealand and S.A., we have to play first choice in those fixtures. Both 6N's have come down to points difference so he was under pressure to keep his first choice for all them fixtures too.

Unfortunately the only FB we have of Kearneys quality is Payne but once he was seen as a 13 he had to get as much gametime there as possible. I'd be happy enough to see Zebo start there now in a big game though.

My only qualm would be Moore not starting a game last season.

irishbucsfan

shuffol wrote: »

I'd agree but I don't really think Schmidt has had an ideal opportunity to bring in new faces. In our AI's since he took over we've had Australia x2, New Zealand and S.A., we have to play first choice in those fixtures. Both 6N's have come down to points difference so he was under pressure to keep his first choice for all them fixtures too.

Unfortunately the only FB we have of Kearneys quality is Payne but once he was seen as a 13 he had to get as much gametime there as possible. I'd be happy enough to see Zebo start there now in a big game though.

My only qualm would be Moore not starting a game last season.

Yeah, I think Schmidt's approach has been spot on.

However, the time Tom Prydie started as a 17 year old for Wales it was a Six Nations game, so if a Welsh person was to criticise Wales they could probably say we had games against Italy to experiment with etc. I'm more pointing out that particular criticism of Gatland was particularly off base.

I don't worry about our depth. It's about as good as anyone else. We'll rely on luck to keep people fit and so will every other team, luck has somewhat deserted the Welsh so far.

Losty Dublin

Deleted User wrote: »

Wales have more top internationals playing abroad though.

That's more to do with the WRU and Welsh club's not being as able to encourage their players to stay in Wales than anything.

Losty Dublin

Losty Dublin wrote: »

That's more to do with the WRU and Welsh club's not being as able to encourage their players to stay in Wales than anything.

Sure, but in the context of the Welsh provinces not performing - this is part of the reason as opposed to the Welsh teams just being crap.

I actually think the Welsh provinces narrowed the gap last season and the Irish provinces are at their weakest in a long time though Leinster underperformed massively in my opinion.

Interestingly however and something I noticed on the rugbyunion subreddit, in the top 10 in each position discussions threads running the last few weeks, Ireland have someone in every single position bar wing.

Healy, Best, (Ross because of his set piece work), POC, SOB, Heaslip, Sexton, Murray, Henshaw, Kearney Snr are all thereabouts in terms of top 10 in the world, some of the above are top 5.

I also have been re-watching some matches after I get the kids to bed over the last few weeks.

My playlist has been:
Ireland V NZ 2013
Ireland V Scotland 6N 2015
Ireland V SA 2014
Ireland V Australia 2011 RWC
Ireland V Wales 2014 6N
Ireland V England 2014 6N
Ireland V France 2014 6N

One thing I noticed about the NZ 2013 and 6N 2014 games was how bloody good Toner was. Especially NZ 2013. SOB was outstanding that day, he was better than outstanding - it was a transcendent performance for 50 minutes and maybe the best 50 minutes of rugby I've ever seen from an Irish player.

But I'd nearly have Toner as my second best player that day, he was everywhere and maybe only Rory Best before he went off was outperforming him.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

aramush wrote: »

Apologies if this has been asked - Anyone know when do the Irish team depart for Cardiff?

They're still in Carton House as of this morning. Leave tomorrow, I believe.

pickarooney

Smith is one but there's another name in three squads, including ours.

sydthebeat

pickarooney wrote: »

Smith is one but there's another name in three squads, including ours.

assuming strauss then

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I really don't see what we've done to develop a squad that's any different from them at all. You could very easily say that Schmidt knows who is 23 is and trusts them, he hasn't made very many unforced changes so far in competitive fixtures.

If Rob Kearney got injured I'm sure some people would be criticising our lack of depth at 15.

Knowing your first choice and having depth behind that are 2 different things. If we lost 2 back 3 players to injury we'd still have international quality back 3 guys available. We wouldn't be looking to call on back rowers. We've 5 front rows headed over to England but Bent and Kilcoyne could come in and do a job if need be.

Sure we couldn't compete against the top teams with these guys but who could when down to 3rd or 4th choice players? That we have that depth that could do a job is the point. And that they've all had game time and been a part of the squad (and we've heard how good Joe manages that). I don't get the impression the Welsh have that at all.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I think what Schmidt does better than others, or certainly better than previous Irish coaches, is create a genuine 31 man team. He makes substitutions in big matches and not just giving someone a run for 5 minutes at the end if we're winning comfortably. We may not have like for like cover in terms of quality in all 15 positions but we know we have players who can step in in any situation and do the job that Schmidt wants done. The extended squad are all as well prepped and as committed to the team goal as the guys who would be everyone's starting 15. We're not likely to find ourselves in a position where somebody has to come on and make his debut in a crucial world cup decider. As I said we may not have matching quality in every position but I think we're in a much better position than some other teams in terms of how many injuries we could take before the whole thing falls apart. Fingers crossed we don't have to find out.

These guys are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w6w-0zpjso

Noopti

Deleted User wrote: »

These guys are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w6w-0zpjso

Agreed, I'd say they would be great craic to have a few pints with watching a game!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I watched their Backs selection and they seem to think JDV is going to be ahead of Kriel in the centre for SA. I won't be at all surprised if that's what happens but I think it's crazy.

Yeah_Right

Deleted User wrote: »

These guys are great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9w6w-0zpjso

I really enjoy watching them. If anyone thought Ireland might be off the radar in the Southern Hemisphere then that proves they aren't. Lots of honourable mentions there for Irish players.

Noopti

Yeah_Right wrote: »

I really enjoy watching them. If anyone thought Ireland might be off the radar in the Southern Hemisphere then that proves they aren't. Lots of honourable mentions there for Irish players.

In fairness they seem to honorably mention every single player in the tournament!

WeleaseWoderick

Just spotted this on Facebook...

Might be good for anyone desperately missing them with TV3 having the rights.

baaba maal

rrpc wrote: »

Very good.

Sorry- I'm missing something with this pic- it's very blurry/pixellated and I'm seeing English Australian buses and below that is a grey box which I'm guessing is the punchline, but I'm not seeing
Sorry if this is a daft question!

rrpc

baaba maal wrote: »

Sorry- I'm missing something with this pic- it's very blurry/pixellated and I'm seeing English Australian buses and below that is a grey box which I'm guessing is the punchline, but I'm not seeing
Sorry if this is a daft question!

Should have sent your computer to specsavers

The last pic is an ambulance

baaba maal

Ah- a Welsh one I guess! (I have become Buzz Killington so I'll stop now!)

aimee1

the Man Utd game on tv3 tonight the commentator was plugging the ireland v canada game and said the RWC is available in HD on tv3.

Wang King

aimee1 wrote: »

the Man Utd game on tv3 tonight the commentator was plugging the ireland v canada game and said the RWC is available in HD on tv3.

On sky and upc...not Saorview

Wang King

Not a very productive Irish selection there
http://m.independent.ie/sport/rugby/world-cup/other-news/nine-irish-players-in-english-top-100-rugby-players-list-paul-oconnell-fails-to-make-top-10-31529839.html

Ceadog

Those ranking/list threads are just clickbait rubbish knocked together in half an hour by a bunch of interns to generate a bit of online revenue from the inevitable controversy that they create. Load of ****e.

Ceadog

Ceadog wrote: »

Those ranking/list threads are just clickbait rubbish knocked together in half an hour by a bunch of interns to generate a bit of online revenue from the inevitable controversy that they create. Load of ****e.

Say what you really think...!

Zzippy

Ceadog wrote: »

Those ranking/list threads are just clickbait rubbish knocked together in half an hour by a bunch of interns to generate a bit of online revenue from the inevitable controversy that they create. Load of ****e.

I'm no internet expert (steady now Wang), but how does a controversy create online revenue? Unless the outraged are more likely to click on ads...?

MJohnston

Zzippy wrote: »

I'm no internet expert (steady now Wang), but how does a controversy create online revenue? Unless the outraged are more likely to click on ads...?

Controversy = clicks
Clicks = pageviews
Pageviews = ad impressions
Ad impressions = money

Ads generally aren't charged per click.

errlloyd

Does other things in terms of analytics right. Boost their site up searches, gives them cookie access and just generally make us more familiar with their site

exiledelbows

Apparently Gatland can call Walker back up in a few weeks if necessary as the tournament hasn't started yet. Is that correct?