Ireland Team Talk Thread IX: Grand Slam Champions SEE MOD WARNING POST #1122

Rocko

Rocko wrote: »

What are the chances of snow n Twickenham on Saturday??

I'd say there is a decent chance of a bit of Charlie alright.

prawnsambo

Rocko wrote: »

What are the chances of snow n Twickenham on Saturday??

There'll be a bit. Just seems to be isolated showers though. The temperature is set to drop like a stone though. 12 degrees tomorrow and 2 degrees on Saturday.

7oakse

prawnsambo wrote: »

The ruck marks by Murray Kinsella show that Bundee was one of the busiest at the breakdown last weekend. That's a big positive in itself. But I also noticed that he's added a bit more to his passing game; he's drawing his man more and giving a lovely pass before contact.  A couple of Garry Ringrose's half breaks came from those kinds of passes.

Completely agree. His power and size fixes defenders creating space for others and he's taking advantage of the space he's created. For the Ringrose wraparound he's barely jogging but he's got Horne and McInally (I think) planted waiting for a powerful bosh creating space for Ringrose on the outside.

irishfan9

the scummy comment is a non-story, the assistant referee Van der Westhuizen being at english training is a much bigger story..

S.M.B.

The snow is due on Sunday. It'll be fine for the game. Anyone at the stadium might feel the chill but the weather should have no impact on the game.

prawnsambo

irishfan9 wrote: »

the scummy comment is a non-story, the assistant referee Van der Westhuizen being at english training is a much bigger story..

Ah, it's only a story if both Gardner and Peyper pull out. He's AR2, so he's behind both of them before he can take the whistle.

But World Rugby need to update their rules, so it doesn't happen in the future. It may be meaningless, because afaik it's not happened before, but there shouldn't be the merest hint of impropriety in how ARs prepare before a game.

irishfan9

irishfan9 wrote: »

the scummy comment is a non-story, the assistant referee Van der Westhuizen being at english training is a much bigger story..

Agree entirely. It's funny watching him and the RFU squirm a bit over it but I really don't care about his comment.

Matt Williams things VdW may have put his career at risk. Though looks like he'll be the AR for the game still, no indication otherwise?

prawnsambo

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

Agree entirely. It's funny watching him and the RFU squirm a bit over it but I really don't care about his comment.

Matt Williams things VdW may have put his career at risk. Though looks like he'll be the AR for the game still, no indication otherwise?

Mutty Wulliams has become a bit hysterical in his old age. That's a nonsense comment from him. It's not against the rules and for all he knows, VdW asked for clearance before doing it.

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

Mutty Wulliams has become a bit hysterical in his old age. That's a nonsense comment from him. It's not against the rules and for all he knows, VdW asked for clearance before doing it.

Well the media reports have all contained stuff like this (this line from the42 for example):

The42 understands that World Rugby is not pleased with the development and that rugby’s governing body, who make the refereeing appointments for the Six Nations, could also speak to England’s coaching staff to ensure this will not happen again.

So I don't think so.

prawnsambo

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

Well the media reports have all contained stuff like this (this line from the42 for example):

So I don't think so.

Yeah, I saw that on The 42. In fact I posted it here when it was published. But it's not a direct quote and may be construed any number of ways. And why talk to England about it? Just change the rules. No need to talk to teams who are doing something that's quite legal.

And it doesn't preclude the possibility that VdW asked for clearance from the referees committee or wherever up the line he thought fit. And WR may not be happy that they said yes. That's the kind of nuance that could be applied to WR's supposed unhappiness.

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

Yeah, I saw that on The 42. In fact I posted it here when it was published. But it's not a direct quote and may be construed any number of ways. And why talk to England about it? Just change the rules. No need to talk to teams who are doing something that's quite legal.

And it doesn't preclude the possibility that VdW asked for clearance from the referees committee or wherever up the line he thought fit. And WR may not be happy that they said yes. That's the kind of nuance that could be applied to WR's supposed unhappiness.

We know he went to the training session. We think WR aren't happy about it based on media reports. We don't even have a scrap of evidence this was sanctioned in any way though.

molloyjh

Personally I'd have faith in most professional referees to be able to perform their duties in a non-biased manner regardless of things like this. There seems to be real mountain out of molehill type stuff going on generally here IMO. Neither the Jones comments nor the refereeing of the training session are really that big a deal. I'd rather we just discussed the game.

Like maybe the fact that Joes insistence over the years that our backs be able to resource rucks is not only paying off, but also in stark contrast to what the English have been doing, which has seen backs tend to stay out of rucks a lot of the time when they should really have been getting involved. Our ball retention and security has been top notch, allowing us to build performances that have won us the title. England have had 2 relatively bad losses in a row because their ball protection has been really poor. We'll be going to Twickenham without having to make any fundamental changes to how we play the game there. England need to completely review how they manage that area. This has got to be a major advantage for us.

Our set piece is strong and I can't see England getting much in the way of advantage there. So what are they going to be able to build their performance on unless they can rectify the gaping hole in their game at the breakdown? And even if they can do that, they are still coming up against the best team in the competition thus far in that area. Can they turn that around enough? And if not, where do they win the game?

irishbucsfan

Or what happens if England don't make the same mistakes that Scotland did in the Aviva on Saturday that let us into the game in the first half, what can we do to address our own problems rather than just sitting back and patting ourselves on the backs and pretending our biggest problem is that our young forwards are working too hard, or whatever it was the42 wrote. My biggest frustration with the media is that is all they're doing at the moment.

Bandwagon is in full swing but they wouldn't hesitate to criticise the exact same problems if the scorelines were different.

whatawaster

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Or what happens if England don't make the same mistakes that Scotland did in the Aviva on Saturday that let us into the game in the first half, what can we do to address our own problems rather than just sitting back and patting ourselves on the backs and pretending our biggest problem is that our young forwards are working too hard, or whatever it was the42 wrote. My biggest frustration with the media is that is all they're doing at the moment.

Bandwagon is in full swing but they wouldn't hesitate to criticise the exact same problems if the scorelines were different.

I would have said that one of, if not the most, talked about aspects of our performances so far is the tries and the chances we have given up out wide.

Despite the fact that we have won all our games and won the championship, there has been plenty of criticism of those aspects of our play, plenty of worrying about what better teams might do to us

prawnsambo

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

We know he went to the training session. We think WR aren't happy about it based on media reports. We don't even have a scrap of evidence this was sanctioned in any way though.

Yeah, but you're assuming that they're unhappy with VdW based on Mutty Wulliams' comment on his career prospects that you quoted. The quote from The 42 said that they were not pleased with the 'development' and that they could be talking to England's coaching staff to ensure it doesn't happen again. That sounds like they are not happy that England asked for him to assist with training, not specifically that they were unhappy that he did.

It's a bit much to conclude that his career is in jeopardy. Whether he asked for clarification/permission or not. And we don't know what channel(s) the England coaching staff made their request through.

And as I said, he's AR2 and only a series of improbable events would have him in the middle. I'd be much more concerned if it was Jaco Peyper.

molloyjh

whatawaster wrote: »

I would have said that one of, if not the most, talked about aspects of our performances so far is the tries and the chances we have given up out wide.

Despite the fact that we have won all our games and won the championship, there has been plenty of criticism of those aspects of our play, plenty of worrying about what better teams might do to us

I'd also argue that we saw definite improvements in that area against Scotland. We drifted more for example, happy to give up yardage to cut down on space on the outside. We also tended to be better at making the calls when shooting. 2 of the Scottish passes to touch were at least in part down to very good defensive pressure from shooters. Their first opportunity was off a quick line out that was aided by a subtle block on Healy. We can't expect good teams to not have chances to score, but for my money we're looked far better set to deal with that against Scotland than we had against Wales. Ringrose played no small part in that as well. If we improved for the last game with Ringrose on such little game time I'd be confident that we'll see some further improvement this week again.

Plus, England haven't shown anywhere near the same attacking capability as Scotland or Wales thus far. If they, as some expect, select Farrell at 10 then they'll quite likely have less scope for getting the ball wide in the same manner too.

prawnsambo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Or what happens if England don't make the same mistakes that Scotland did in the Aviva on Saturday that let us into the game in the first half, what can we do to address our own problems rather than just sitting back and patting ourselves on the backs and pretending our biggest problem is that our young forwards are working too hard, or whatever it was the42 wrote. My biggest frustration with the media is that is all they're doing at the moment.

Bandwagon is in full swing but they wouldn't hesitate to criticise the exact same problems if the scorelines were different.

I'm assuming by mistakes, you mean the missed passes and overthrows?

I'm probably being a bit glass half full, but some of that appears to me to be as a result of defensive pressure. I remember one such pass going to touch as a result of Rob Kearney flying up at the passer and forcing the pass.

Yeah_Right

irishbucsfan wrote: »

If there is even one half-competent journalist in the room then there is literally 0% chance that Schmidt won't be asked about this at the next press conference.

I think its well established that most of the rugby journalists are only half-competent

I'd hope Schmidt would respond with something about not commenting on tabloid journalism and that the whole thing is a non-event as far as the team is concerned. If he gets asked about it a second time, he should feed that journo to Furlong as a post training snack.

.ak

irishfan9 wrote: »

the scummy comment is a non-story, the assistant referee Van der Westhuizen being at english training is a much bigger story..

That’s also a non story IMO.

irishbucsfan

prawnsambo wrote: »

I'm assuming by mistakes, you mean the missed passes and overthrows?

I'm probably being a bit glass half full, but some of that appears to me to be as a result of defensive pressure. I remember one such pass going to touch as a result of Rob Kearney flying up at the passer and forcing the pass.

Well for example the were in the ascendancy when they threw the ball into Stockdale's path and he went on and scored. Our 2nd try (and second points) came in stoppage time after Kearney's break, that was off the back of a Scottish overthrow at their own lineout in our half and wasn't long after Huw Jones absolutely butchered a try for them. Against a top 4 team we need to assume these things won't happen and the scoreline could have been reversed.

So my question is what can we do if our opposition isn't giving us try-scoring opportunities off their own errors. Our ability to take advantage of those mistakes is fantastic and means we should continue to put sides like Wales and Scotland to the sword but if they don't happen we still look like we struggle at times to create our own opportunities.

I'm not concerned really by our own defense. Any issues we've had on that side of things I think are directly attributable to disruption and I think we'll be all the better for it. Schmidt and Farrell have built a world class defense.

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

Yeah, but you're assuming that they're unhappy with VdW based on Mutty Wulliams' comment on his career prospects that you quoted.

Eh, no.

prawnsambo

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

Eh, no.

Ok.

.ak

A big improvement is needed from the Scotland game if we plan on winning tbh.

Looking back at it I’d orobably say our worst performance was against Scotland, having said that were very good at times but also very poor. From the stands it looked like we didn’t want to risk losing possession so we kept it tight and that included not standing deep in first receiver. At the end of the day it worked, tactically we made the better decisions, but there’s an awful lot to tidy up there.

It’s also no corncidence that our worst performance cane at a time when Johnny wasn’t playing well.

If Johnny plays well we’ll give this English side a good rattle and I hope we can expose some of their poor decision making on the field.

Away wins are like hens teeth in the 6n (against non-Italian sides), last minute drop against a poor French side solidifies that point, and I’d be wary of the wounded lion that is England. They’re not a bad side but they’re not playing well either. Will be interesting to see if they can play to their potential again, or is there a lack of appetite there. If we also play to our potential it’ll be a cracker.

dub_skav

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well for example the were in the ascendancy when they threw the ball into Stockdale's path and he went on and scored. Our 2nd try (and second points) came in stoppage time after Kearney's break, that was off the back of a Scottish overthrow at their own lineout in our half and wasn't long after Huw Jones absolutely butchered a try for them. Against a top 4 team we need to assume these things won't happen and the scoreline could have been reversed.

So my question is what can we do if our opposition isn't giving us try-scoring opportunities off their own errors. Our ability to take advantage of those mistakes is fantastic and means we should continue to put sides like Wales and Scotland to the sword but if they don't happen we still look like we struggle at times to create our own opportunities.

I'm not concerned really by our own defense. Any issues we've had on that side of things I think are directly attributable to disruption and I think we'll be all the better for it. Schmidt and Farrell have built a world class defense.

From my (hazy) memory on Stockdale's intercept. It was a terrible pass that he was the only one in a good position to catch, forced to a certain extent by Ringrose cutting down their options causing the attempted miracle ball.

On a lineout overthrow you have to look at our personnel. With Toner and Ryan selected we have gone for lineout specialists, thereby heaping pressure on the hooker and lifters, they know they need to be perfect to beat us.

Ball retention and heaping pressure on the opposition are part of our gameplan, so I think to question what we would do without opposition mistakes is a little odd. Opposition mistakes - and capitalising on them - are part of the gameplan.

Against NZ, where mistakes are less likely, we may employ a different plan. But, against Scotland and their tendency for wide, flashy passes, we gave them just enough rope.

Saying that, England present a different challenge and certainly Farrell (our one) and Schmidt will be hard at work looking how to exploit England's tendencies.

prawnsambo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Well for example the were in the ascendancy when they threw the ball into Stockdale's path and he went on and scored. Our 2nd try (and second points) came in stoppage time after Kearney's break, that was off the back of a Scottish overthrow at their own lineout in our half and wasn't long after Huw Jones absolutely butchered a try for them. Against a top 4 team we need to assume these things won't happen and the scoreline could have been reversed.

So my question is what can we do if our opposition isn't giving us try-scoring opportunities off their own errors. Our ability to take advantage of those mistakes is fantastic and means we should continue to put sides like Wales and Scotland to the sword but if they don't happen we still look like we struggle at times to create our own opportunities.

I'm not concerned really by our own defense. Any issues we've had on that side of things I think are directly attributable to disruption and I think we'll be all the better for it. Schmidt and Farrell have built a world class defense.

I suppose the flip side of that is that in the modern game, most tries are scored from turnover ball. Whether that's turnovers in play or errors, we certainly seem to be ruthless in exploiting those opportunities.

But we also appear to be getting better at beating defenders if not creating out and out line breaks. Stats aren't everything, but we're top of the 6N chart in defenders beaten. And against Scotland, it was our backs that really hit their straps in that department. That's the positive for me. Our backs are carrying and passing more, not much less than the forwards, which is a big change imo.

aloooof

molloyjh wrote: »

Plus, England haven't shown anywhere near the same attacking capability as Scotland or Wales thus far. If they, as some expect, select Farrell at 10 then they'll quite likely have less scope for getting the ball wide in the same manner too.

The English 10 and midfield selection will be interesting and indicative of whether they'll be looking to go wide to try exploit our wide defense.

The Huw Jones fluffed chance came from Hogg taking a lineout to himself, and 2 passes later, they were attacking the other side of the pitch.

England are capable of putting width on the ball. The one example that sticks out to me is from last year was the try to win it against Wales (interestingly, the only away win, aside of Italy, in last years competition). Two amazing passes from Ford to Farrell to Daly, and they scored in the corner on the other side of the pitch.

They haven't necessarily showed that they can do that this year tho. And Teo was selected last week instead of JJ.

irishbucsfan

dub_skav wrote: »

From my (hazy) memory on Stockdale's intercept. It was a terrible pass that he was the only one in a good position to catch, forced to a certain extent by Ringrose cutting down their options causing the attempted miracle ball.

On a lineout overthrow you have to look at our personnel. With Toner and Ryan selected we have gone for lineout specialists, thereby heaping pressure on the hooker and lifters, they know they need to be perfect to beat us.

Ball retention and heaping pressure on the opposition are part of our gameplan, so I think to question what we would do without opposition mistakes is a little odd. Opposition mistakes - and capitalising on them - are part of the gameplan.

Against NZ, where mistakes are less likely, we may employ a different plan. But, against Scotland and their tendency for wide, flashy passes, we gave them just enough rope.

Saying that, England present a different challenge and certainly Farrell (our one) and Schmidt will be hard at work looking how to exploit England's tendencies.

No, it's not odd to question what we would do without opposition mistakes.

- Peter Horne was under no pressure when he threw that shocking pass.
- We didn't put up any jumpers at the lineout they overthrew.

Trying to take credit for those errors is far more odd than questioning what we would have done without them. We should be taking credit for our ability to capitalise on those errors (namely Stockdale for his interception, James Ryan for hoovering up the ball at the tail and Rob Kearney for his subsequent break). We shouldn't be pretending it was down to anything other than poor play from Scotland though.

When our opponents didn't make those kinds of mistakes in Paris we were very, very close to losing the game against a poor French team. The same weaknesses in our game almost cost us this chance at a grand slam.

And to be honest I'll be absolutely sick if the same flaws cost us a shot at a world cup. So instead of pretending they don't exist and being surprised when they surface again (like they did last year against Wales and Scotland), I'd rather familiarise myself with them now.

If teams are having so much difficulty breaking us down that they have to resort to lengthy and risky skip passes to get wide of us then I'm ok with that. We'll keep running in intercepts and building our own scoring opportunities through phases and territory.

That on the opening weekend of the championship having not played as a team in months we had enough discipline and continuity to hold onto the ball through 41 phases against a determined France speaks volumes about the intelligence, clarity and cohesion that exists within the squad.

A settled and more experienced mid field and a bit more gelling of our back 3 and some of those scores by Wales and Scotland dry up.

We have become extremely formidable and I think there is a good deal more to come.

Our biggest weakness now is that our reserve halves are seeing very little game time. We need to rectify that before the World Cup or we are leaving ourselves open to another quarter final exit.

irishfan9

A lot of people seem to think the Slam is already won.. I fear not yet nor will it be.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

If teams are having so much difficulty breaking us down that they have to resort to lengthy and risky skip passes to get wide of us then I'm ok with that. We'll keep running in intercepts and building our own scoring opportunities through phases and territory.

Wales in the last play the other week had a fantastic chance to win the game and they really did not have to resort to a long skip pass. This came after they'd beaten us out wide twice to score. If the ball had gone to Tipuric they'd probably have won. I'm really not fine with it because the weakness exists, just because Wales didn't take advantage of it doesn't make that ok.

irishbucsfan

irishbucsfan wrote: »

- We didn't put up any jumpers at the lineout they overthrew.

Are you saying the pressure we applied at previous line outs and the general quality of our defensive line out had no impact on the type of throw Scotland conspired to make to retain possession?

This is the problem with these kinds of posts. It supposes that decisions and errors happen in a vacuum. If was a Scottish mistake but it may well have been driven by the fact that our defensive line out was causing them all kinds of problems up to that point.

dub_skav

irishbucsfan wrote: »

No, it's not odd to question what we would do without opposition mistakes.

- Peter Horne was under no pressure when he threw that shocking pass.
- We didn't put up any jumpers at the lineout they overthrew.

Trying to take credit for those errors is far more odd than questioning what we would have done without them. We should be taking credit for our ability to capitalise on those errors (namely Stockdale for his interception, James Ryan for hoovering up the ball at the tail and Rob Kearney for his subsequent break). We shouldn't be pretending it was down to anything other than poor play from Scotland though.

When our opponents didn't make those kinds of mistakes in Paris we were very, very close to losing the game against a poor French team. The same weaknesses in our game almost cost us this chance at a grand slam.

And to be honest I'll be absolutely sick if the same flaws cost us a shot at a world cup. So instead of pretending they don't exist and being surprised when they surface again (like they did last year against Wales and Scotland), I'd rather familiarise myself with them now.

Fair response. I don't think there is anything wrong with looking at where we can improve and where we have been exposed, you're absolutely correct there.

However, I will disagree with your analysis of pressure. You say that Horne was under no pressure and that we got no jumpers up. But, when a team has so little possession, they are under pressure any time they do have the ball to do something with it. So, Horne will have felt he needed to make that possession count and likewise McInally will have felt this was his big chance and whether we got a jumper up or not , pre-throw he knew they were there.

On our weaknesses, we made some nice line breaks and it seems Ringrose may have helped a lot there.
On presenting them with chances, certainly we will need to be more aware of leaving space open from kicks, such that Healy is not our edge defender from a quick line out. Apart from that, the drift defence was the improvement and it largely worked.

So, I agree with you that we have weaknesses that need to be addressed. However, I disagree that they are not being addressed, there is just more needed.

Jermaine Big Barium

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

Wales in the last play the other week had a fantastic chance to win the game and they really did not have to resort to a long skip pass. This came after they'd beaten us out wide twice to score. If the ball had gone to Tipuric they'd probably have won. I'm really not fine with it because the weakness exists, just because Wales didn't take advantage of it doesn't make that ok.

The last Welsh receiver was inside his own 40m line and we had far less ground to cover. There was absolutely nothing certain about it whatsoever. They needed that immediate width to have even half a chance of getting around our covering defence.

Either way, like I said, our defence starts in mid field and we've had a real lack of continuity there. This will improve the more game time Aki and Farrell get on top of Ringrose and Henshaw. Look how assured Ringrose was after just one full season last year starting for Ireland.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

The last Welsh receiver was inside his own 40m line and we had far less ground to cover. There was absolutely nothing certain about it whatsoever. They needed that immediate width to have even half a chance of getting around our covering defence.

Couldn't possibly disagree more and the fact their skip pass lead to disaster shows it was the wrong option. Even if there was no intercept Stockdale could have drifted onto whoever received the ball. Simply going through the hands would have let them take advantage of their massive overlap. The underlined just isn't remotely true.

Pause this video on around 8/9s to see the shape we were in. If the ball went to Tupuric we were stuffed. He'd have had a massive gap in front of him and two players outside him, we'd have one defender to deal with the three of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWUwV3IPlRc

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

So my question is what can we do if our opposition isn't giving us try-scoring opportunities off their own errors.

We've scored 17 tries. 5 more than Wales and 6 more than England. Even if you take out Italy we're on 9 tries, which is 2 more than Wales and 5 more than England. Not all of those have come from opposition mistakes. And not all of our opponents tries have come from wonderful invention on their part.

We've been all over the place in terms of our midfield this season which is always going to impact our attacking fluency. We've had 5 different midfield partnerships in 7 games (Aki-Henshaw, McCloskey-Farrell, Aki-Farrell, Aki-Henshaw, Aki-Ringrose), none of which are our first choice (Henshaw-Ringrose).

But we're still identifying and executing at times. The second Stockdale try against Scotland being a fine example. Against Wales we made 11 clean breaks. If you ignore the Italian games that's only been topped by Wales against Scotland (18 breaks), and Scotland were a total shambles that day.

I get that the style that we play isn't the most exciting and that at times we have definitely struggled to create, and in some cases more importantly convert, chances. But for me, given the circumstances, I don't think we are actually doing that badly.

prawnsambo

We also made mistakes that gave Scotland possession and even a score. Furlong popped an offload to a Scottish player after making a break and Aki (I think) popped a pass behind Sexton which was knocked on by a Scottish player (Barnes said he didn't see it clearly) and directly from that, Scotland got their first points as Earls was pinged for holding on.

Jermaine Big Barium

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

Couldn't possibly disagree more and the fact their skip pass lead to disaster shows it was the wrong option. Even if there was no intercept Stockdale could have drifted onto whoever received the ball. Simply going through the hands would have let them take advantage of their massive overlap. The underlined just isn't remotely true.

Well you disagree all you like. Have a look at this quick screengrab I just marked up. Look at the distances Wales have to cover. Look at the distances Ireland have to cover.



Have a look at this from the previous breakdown. Who isn't in the line in the first shot that you see to the left here. We had Kearney in the back field to come in and cover. It was FAR from a certain score.

Podge_irl

molloyjh wrote: »

Personally I'd have faith in most professional referees to be able to perform their duties in a non-biased manner regardless of things like this. There seems to be real mountain out of molehill type stuff going on generally here IMO.

Wait a second now - I don't think anyone actually questioned the professionalism of the ref. I don't think the issue is about introducing bias - it is about England gaining experience of an official who will be involved in their game that weekend. It's only the AR2 so you are correct that it is not a big deal, though I would be concerned if it was the AR1 as they are more likely to have to step in as ref. In that scenario England absolutely would have gained an advantage.

irishbucsfan

molloyjh wrote: »

We've scored 17 tries. 5 more than Wales and 6 more than England. Even if you take out Italy we're on 9 tries, which is 2 more than Wales and 5 more than England. Not all of those have come from opposition mistakes. And not all of our opponents tries have come from wonderful invention on their part.

And we failed to score any against France.

So by the process of elimination, in actuality our tally is so high because we absolutely thrashed Wales and Scotland at home and a huge portion of the tries we scored those days did come off opposition mistakes.

This statistic is great. But it's just an attempt to hide the problem I'm referring to so I'm not personally interested. It means that we're doing a terrific job of taking advantage of opposition errors, which we've already gone over.

molloyjh

Podge_irl wrote: »

Wait a second now - I don't think anyone actually questioned the professionalism of the ref. I don't think the issue is about introducing bias - it is about England gaining experience of an official who will be involved in their game that weekend. It's only the AR2 so you are correct that it is not a big deal, though I would be concerned if it was the AR1 as they are more likely to have to step in as ref. In that scenario England absolutely would have gained an advantage.

Meh, the level of analysis done on referees at this stage should mean something like that shouldn't matter. Teams should know all about the referee if they are doing their jobs right.

irishbucsfan

irishbucsfan wrote: »

And we failed to score any against France.

So by the process of elimination, in actuality our tally is so high because we absolutely thrashed Wales and Scotland at home and a huge portion of the tries we scored those days did come off opposition mistakes.

This statistic is great. But it's just an attempt to hide the problem I'm referring to so I'm not personally interested. It means that we're doing a terrific job of taking advantage of opposition errors, which we've already gone over.

We haven't gone over it. You've dismissed our scoring chances because they occurred from opposition errors. You've refused to acknowledge that if we were making it easy for the opposition a lot of those errors wouldn't be happening.

irishbucsfan

dub_skav wrote: »

Fair response. I don't think there is anything wrong with looking at where we can improve and where we have been exposed, you're absolutely correct there.

However, I will disagree with your analysis of pressure. You say that Horne was under no pressure and that we got no jumpers up. But, when a team has so little possession, they are under pressure any time they do have the ball to do something with it. So, Horne will have felt he needed to make that possession count and likewise McInally will have felt this was his big chance and whether we got a jumper up or not , pre-throw he knew they were there.

Scotland had no problem getting possession up to that point. They were playing a lot of the rugby

If it had come in the 2nd half when they were totally incapable of getting a foothold in the game then I'd be more inclined to agree but in actuality they had been going quite well in the first quarter of the game and were in the lead at the time.

prawnsambo

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

Couldn't possibly disagree more and the fact their skip pass lead to disaster shows it was the wrong option. Even if there was no intercept Stockdale could have drifted onto whoever received the ball. Simply going through the hands would have let them take advantage of their massive overlap. The underlined just isn't remotely true.

Pause this video on around 8/9s to see the shape we were in. If the ball went to Tupuric we were stuffed. He'd have had a massive gap in front of him and two players outside him, we'd have one defender to deal with the three of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWUwV3IPlRc

It's hard to see with the camera angles, but I'm not sure if a pass to Tipuric is on there. Just as he's passing, he seems to have two forwards between him and Tipuric and Murray is cutting off a flat pass. I'm not saying it's not possible that he could have passed to Tipuric, just that it wasn't as good an option as the long pass to beat the defence. He just made a mess of it because it ended up being much closer to Stockdale.

Here's a better view of it from the reverse angle just after he releases the ball.

irishbucsfan

Deleted User wrote: »

We haven't gone over it.

Yes I have.

whatawaster

Wouldn't most tries in international rugby come off opposition mistakes, in some form.

And if the opposition aren't making mistakes, and are well-drilled, it's going to be incredibly difficult to score tries against them.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Well you disagree all you like. Have a look at this quick screengrab I just marked up. Look at the distances Wales have to cover. Look at the distances Ireland have to cover.



Have a look at this from the previous breakdown. Who isn't in the line in the first shot that you see to the left here. We had Kearney in the back field to come in and cover. It was FAR from a certain score.

The Irish guys you have lines coming from are all forwards. None of them would have gotten near the winger in open space, not a chance. I'm aware Kearney was there but his record of making last ditch tackles isn't exactly stellar.

Wales were in no way forced to fling the ball wide, which is what you said initially. It was a terrible option to take.

prawnsambo wrote: »

It's hard to see with the camera angles, but I'm not sure if a pass to Tipuric is on there. Just as he's passing, he seems to have two forwards between him and Tipuric and Murray is cutting off a flat pass. I'm not saying it's not possible that he could have passed to Tipuric, just that it wasn't as good an option as the long pass to beat the defence. He just made a mess of it because it ended up being much closer to Stockdale.

His own forwards bunging up the passing channel doesn't really matter, it's just another error from Wales and doesn't do anything to show we were in decent shape to defend out wide.

connemara man

molloyjh wrote: »

Meh, the level of analysis done on referees at this stage should mean something like that shouldn't matter. Teams should know all about the referee if they are doing their jobs right.

There's a scrum on the sideline he is on. Scrum goes down on his side and England win a penalty.

Now before this story that's grand but now after it, is it because the prop had a day with him picking his brain and knows how he refs the scrum or is it because as he was there in camp the props spent their time painting him a picture, he has subconsciously brought to this.

Like more than likely there's nothing to it but the illusion of being whiter than white is as important as being whiter than white

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

And we failed to score any against France.

So by the process of elimination, in actuality our tally is so high because we absolutely thrashed Wales and Scotland at home and a huge portion of the tries we scored those days did come off opposition mistakes.

This statistic is great. But it's just an attempt to hide the problem I'm referring to so I'm not personally interested. It means that we're doing a terrific job of taking advantage of opposition errors, which we've already gone over.

I'll note you've ignored the fact that we've the highest number of line breaks against good opposition there too. You've also ignored the fact that I acknowledged there was an issue (" we have definitely struggled to create, and in some cases more importantly convert, chances") so I'm not sure how I'm "hiding" anything.

England only scored 1 against France after 73 mins in far better conditions than we had. Scotland only scored 2 at home against them, again in far better conditions. And that was 1 game. In our 7 games this season we've scored 3 or more tries in 6 of them. And that in the context of constant changes to the midfield.

Also, and I've already made this point, not all of our tries are coming from opposition errors. Do you have an analysis of tries scored across the 6Ns that you can point to that compares how we stack up there with others? Aren't NZ regularly praised for being able to turn defence into attack and punish teams off turnover ball? Is it somehow less impressive if we can do the same?

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Yes I have.

Nah, you've just stated it as fact and demanded everyone agree based on a paucity of evidence. You're not really discussing it.

Jermaine Big Barium

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

The Irish guys you have lines coming from are all forwards. None of them would have gotten near the winger in open space, not a chance.

I'm legitimately very surprised you made this comment. It does however highlight the fallacy in your opinion.

Jermaine Big Barium wrote: »

I'm aware Kearney was there but his record of making last ditch tackles isn't exactly stellar.

So you've gone from 'if they go through the hands it's a definite score' to 'if they go through the hands it's a definite score provided Ireland forwards are slow and Kearney misses a tackle.