Ireland Team Talk X: The Long Hard Road to a Semi. MOD WARNING POSTS #1, #1474, #5707

clsmooth

yerrahbah wrote: »

Henderson clear to play.

Thats great news. He'll be needed for France and Wales. Maybe Henderson and Roux vs Italy with Beirne from the bench? Let Ryan have a few weeks off.

bilston

Former Former wrote: »

The guy chairing the disciplinary committee is the same guy who overturned Steff Evans' red card against Leinster a couple of years ago, after deciding that another guy made the challenge dangerous.

If he decides that Murphy was a factor and follows his own precedent, then Henderson could be OK.

You heard it here first folks.

Awec...buy that man a Harp

Squidgy Black

Is two tightheads for an away game not cutting it a bit close for comfort? None of the 3 looseheads can cover that side of the scrum if there was an injury in the warm ups or anything like that.

awec

Even though he was cleared, he pretty much just wasted an entire day in the lead up to the game and missed training, so may not be picked to start anyway.

Eod100

awec wrote: »

Even though he was cleared, he pretty much just wasted an entire day in the lead up to the game and missed training, so may not be picked to start anyway.

Wasn't it a video conference? Might have been less disruption then

Buer

He dialled in from Carton House. Didn't miss anything.

awec

Ah sure that's grand so.

Paul Smeenus

JUSTICE

Clegg

I'd start Ryan and Hendo together on Sunday. Get them primed for France.

leakyboots

troyzer wrote: »

To be fair to Adam Byrne, he's a ****ing unit who's great in the air and a serious carrier.

The only thing ever stopping him from making a run at a starting Jersey for Leinster and Ireland was his poor decision making at time, his aversion to contact and his questionable defense.

He's improved noticably in all of these areas so far this year. I think it's a year too late for this world cup but I think he has a good chance of contesting for the 14 jersey for Ireland and Leinster after the world cup.

Has his defence improved? Thought he was still prone to the misreads. Any player can do that from time to time obviously but he seems to have a consistent issue when there's traffic coming his way


This is all moot anyway, I doubt he'll get gametime

ionadnapokot

Clegg wrote: »

I'd start Ryan and Hendo together on Sunday. Get them primed for France.

Ryan surely needs a break?
Don’t want him to suffer like Itoje did - 2016 to 2017 included that 16-month, 31-game unbeaten streak.
But by last years 6 Nations he was played out.

Ryan is coming up on 40th game in 15 months.

Clegg

ionadnapokot wrote: »

Clegg wrote: »

I'd start Ryan and Hendo together on Sunday. Get them primed for France.

Ryan surely needs a break?
Don’t want him to suffer like Itoje did - 2016 to 2017 included that 16-month, 31-game unbeaten streak.
But by last years 6 Nations he was played out.

Ryan is coming up on 40th game in 15 months.

There was no game last week and there'll be no game next week. Plenty of time for recuperation. Itoje played almost every game for Saracens as well as England. Ryan hasn't been flogged in the same way.

He's one of our most important players already and the only nailed down starter in the second row. We need him playing. Especially in away games.

The Rape of Lucretia

Clegg wrote: »

There was no game last week and there'll be no game next week. Plenty of time for recuperation. Itoje played almost every game for Saracens as well as England. Ryan hasn't been flogged in the same way.

He's one of our most important players already and the only nailed down starter in the second row. We need him playing. Especially in away games.

Its Italy though. Barely a game. Ryan can easily be rested. Even the risk of him getting injured justifies not playing him in pointless games when other players can benefit from the gametime or experience.

ionadnapokot

Clegg wrote: »

There was no game last week and there'll be no game next week. Plenty of time for recuperation. Itoje played almost every game for Saracens as well as England. Ryan hasn't been flogged in the same way.

He's one of our most important players already and the only nailed down starter in the second row. We need him playing. Especially in away games.

I think he’s played allot of rugby for a 22 year old Lock
& it’s ****ALY away! Ireland will bonus point them with Henderson & Nagle!

Burkie1203

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Its Italy though. Barely a game. Ryan can easily be rested. Even the risk of him getting injured justifies not playing him in pointless games when other players can benefit from the gametime or experience.

Ryan will play 3 games between February 10th and March 29th. (Day after Scotland v Ireland to day before Leinster v Ulster)

Italy away
France home
Wales away

After the Euro QF he won't play pro14 in the following 2 weeks. Its likely his next pro14 game could be in the playoffs in May. Between now and then he is likely to play 6/7 games max. In 3 months.

Jump_In_Jack

Looking at the squad named for the Italy match, would guess the following is how Joe has them lined up this week to prepare for it:

Probable team:
Cian Healy, Rory Best, Tadhg Furlong, James Ryan, Iain Henderson, Peter O’Mahony, Sean O’Brien, Jack Conan, Conor Murray, Jonathan Sexton, Jacob Stockdale, Bundee Aki, Robbie Henshaw, Keith Earls, Rob Kearney.

Training team:
Dave Kilcoyne, Sean Cronin, John Ryan, Ultan Dillane, Quinn Roux, Tadhg Beirne, Josh van der Flier, Jordi Murphy, John Cooney, Joey Carbery, Adam Byrne, Tom Farrell, Chris Farrell, Andrew Conway, Jordan Larmour.

Reserves:
Jack McGrath, Niall Scannell, Jack Carty, Caolin Blade.

sydthebeat

Surely a game to rest best and give scannel and cronin full reign

Jump_In_Jack

sydthebeat wrote: »

Surely a game to rest best and give scannel and cronin full reign

Ideally would rest Healy, Best and Sexton.

troyzer

Jump_In_Jack wrote: »

sydthebeat wrote: »

Surely a game to rest best and give scannel and cronin full reign

Ideally would rest Healy, Best and Sexton.

You can't rest Sexton. He's undercooked as it is, he has very little recent gametime.

Buer

troyzer wrote: »

You can't rest Sexton. He's undercooked as it is, he has very little recent gametime.

He can do with 20 minutes. He's not injured and looked sharp in his 25 minutes against Scotland.

There is a more pressing need. Carbery needs game time in green desperately and this is the last genuinely competitve match before the RWC.

aloooof

troyzer wrote: »

You can't rest Sexton. He's undercooked as it is, he has very little recent gametime.

Pre-tournament, everyone would have said Carbery needs to start this game at a minimum, with the RWC on the horizon. I don't see any reason why that needs to change.

thomond2006

I don't see much point in Sexton starting this. The Championship is more or less gone anyway.

Buer

aloooof wrote: »

Pre-tournament, everyone would have said Carbery needs to start this game at a minimum, with the RWC on the horizon. I don't see any reason why that needs to change.

It shouldn't. Even if Carbery managed to get 55 minutes against Scotland, it just highlighted that he is developing and needs more time. This is the ideal opportunity for him to get a little confidence in a full blooded game as part of a strong line up.

If the same scenario occurred against SA in the RWC quarter final, Carbery will need to be a lot more comfortable in the Irish 10 spot than he was for his first 20 minutes in Murrayfield.

Wegians89

1. Healy
2. Scannell
3. Furlong
4. Ryan
5. Henderson / roux (if Henderson isn’t fit enough)
6. Pom
7. Sob
8. Conan
9. Murray
10. Sexton
11. Stockdale
12. Bundee
13. Henshaw/ c Farrell / t Farrell (who ever is fit)
14. Larmour
15. Kearney

16. Best
17. Kilcoyne
18. Ryan
19. Dillane / beirne
20. Murphy
21. Cooney / blade
22. Carbery
23. Conway

conf101

Buer wrote: »

He can do with 20 minutes. He's not injured and looked sharp in his 25 minutes against Scotland.

There is a more pressing need. Carbery needs game time in green desperately and this is the last genuinely competitve match before the RWC.

Maybe you can write off France, but you don't think Wales is a competitive game?

Buer

conf101 wrote: »

Maybe you can write off France, but you don't think Wales is a competitive game?

I meant it's the last genuinely competitvely match where Carbery has an opportunity to start. There's no chance that he starts against France or Wales.

Former Former

I don't see huge value in rotating large numbers of players. This is a very, very poor Italy team.

I don't doubt that Cronin would run riot, that Roux would look like a titan of the pack and that Carbery would run the show with guile and elan. What would it really tell us? That these guys can hack it against an XV that would be mid-range in the Pro14? Sure we already know that.

If we really want to test players out, we need to see them playing against France and Wales.

thomond2006

Former Former wrote: »

I don't see huge value in rotating large numbers of players. This is a very, very poor Italy team.

I don't doubt that Cronin would run riot, that Roux would look like a titan of the pack and that Carbery would run the show with guile and elan. What would it really tell us? That these guys can hack it against an XV that would be mid-range in the Pro14? Sure we already know that.

If we really want to test players out, we need to see them playing against France and Wales.

It's a poor Italy team but I think someone like Carbery would get a lot of value playing alongside the first team.

Former Former

thomond2006 wrote: »

It's a poor Italy team but I think someone like Carbery would get a lot of value playing alongside the first team.

Yeah, he would - but if there's too much rotation, then he loses that value. Those tests we played in the Autumn against Italy and USA were utterly meaningless for just that reason.

TLDR - a couple of changes, no more, be grand.

Mr Tickle

Former Former wrote: »

I don't see huge value in rotating large numbers of players. This is a very, very poor Italy team.

I don't doubt that Cronin would run riot, that Roux would look like a titan of the pack and that Carbery would run the show with guile and elan. What would it really tell us? That these guys can hack it against an XV that would be mid-range in the Pro14? Sure we already know that.

If we really want to test players out, we need to see them playing against France and Wales.

Is there much more benefit in sending out a team of Lions and tearing them apart?
We still have a handful of positions where our depth is either inexperienced or uncertain (no clear hierarchy). This is the kind of game where we can work on that a little.
I'd also like to see some rotation in the France game for what its worth.


edit: Just re-read your post and saw your next reply. Yeah we shouldn't rotate a huge number. but there's surely room for 3 in the starting 15 and maybe another one or two on the bench.

sydthebeat

Former Former wrote: »

I don't see huge value in rotating large numbers of players. This is a very, very poor Italy team.

I don't doubt that Cronin would run riot, that Roux would look like a titan of the pack and that Carbery would run the show with guile and elan. What would it really tell us? That these guys can hack it against an XV that would be mid-range in the Pro14? Sure we already know that.

If we really want to test players out, we need to see them playing against France and Wales.

Ireland is a highly structured team, in both attack and defense.... so a high rotation will be very useful for a few reasons.

we should still play players who are starters but short of game time ie henderson, SOB, murray etc alongside greener players

Rotation will tell us who can run the attack patterns in a test game, off both first and multi phased play.
also who has difficulty staying aligned in defense, who understands the calls and who takes leadership in making those calls.
Lineout plays can be experimented with.

It may be italy, but its still a test game and all we have to do is look at the Italy wales game 2 weeks ago to see the threats they can have.

Theres high value in a large number of rotations for this game too.... as thats what we will have to do in RWC times ie when playing the likes of russia and samoa.

troyzer

You rest the likes of Ryan, Furlong and Best and start the likes of Sexton, Murray and Kearney to get some more game time.

Then you can go full experimental against France at home.

thomond2006

Former Former wrote: »

Yeah, he would - but if there's too much rotation, then he loses that value. Those tests we played in the Autumn against Italy and USA were utterly meaningless for just that reason.

TLDR - a couple of changes, no more, be grand.

Yes, I agree. Five changes or so is fine.

Perifect

I think changes in personnel are kind of irrelevant! Yes, it'd be nice to see some other players get a run and stake a claim but developing our style is far more important. We might throw the ball around a bit more against Italy but we have to see some change against France and Wales. I'm not saying throw the old game plan out the window, we have to add to it. We need new points of attack, make us harder to predict, to add more threat from our wide play.
Joe has been brilliant for us and I'm sure he realises this. He doesn't appear to be extremely stubborn, that cost previous coaches. He's more flexible and open to advancement. Let's hope we see some in this 6 nations. Maybe he's saving it for later in the year though. A risky strategy but one that could prove fruitful.

Buer

So the rumour is that Sexton is to start. I'd find that pretty disappointing, to be honest. We're in danger of repeating our history all over again.

Ian Madigan went into the last RWC with 21 caps having never started a 6N match. Joey Carbery is close to going to the RWC in exceptionally similar circumstance (18 caps with no 6N starts) albeit better placed through playing more regularly at 10 for his province this season. Madigan would have had much more game time at 10 overall at this point, though.

I never expected multiple changes and Richie Murphy's comments yesterday confirmed that they won't be making many. But I did feel that Carbery was the one change that was necessary.

Aside from that, I'm not sure we'll see much more beyond guys returning from injury coming back into the team i.e.the likes of Henderson or Henshaw etc.

bennyl10

Was not rotating 10's not a huge part of the issue we had at the last RWC?
Johnny may not look the sharpest, but we need Joey to get test match game time!
Put him in against Italy and give johnny the last 20 minutes leading into a full start against France then!

troyzer

Starting Carbery against France makes more sense.

Buer

troyzer wrote: »

Starting Carbery against France makes more sense.

It's also massively unlikely.

awec

Can't help but think, given Carbery's lack of starts, and given Schmidt's refusal to sub 9 and 10 until he has absolutely no other choice, that he hasn't really learnt his lesson from last time round.

Buer

awec wrote: »

Can't help but think, given Carbery's lack of starts, and given Schmidt's refusal to sub 9 and 10 until he has absolutely no other choice, that he hasn't really learnt his lesson from last time round.

I think he has probably learned his lesson generally when you look at the depth we have built up across the field. The number of players that we simply cannot afford to lose has dropped considerably.

In relation to outhalf, we have to keep in mind that Schmidt lost the guy who was, by a considerable distance, the back up 10. Jackson had started 2 of the matches in the 2017 6N and it was only in late 2017 (18 months ago) that he became unavailable).

I would say the problem is twofold:

1) Carbery isn't fully trusted. He's still learning the ropes and I don't think we've really seen a performance in green to date that makes us think he is ready to step in at 10 in a crunch match and dictate proceedings.
2) Sexton/Murray are two of the best players in the world. Regardless of who is behind them, there will be a gulf and Schmidt struggles to select others when they're so central to Irish success.

At the end of the day though, the only way that gap narrows is with game time as we've seen with someone like Marmion.

AdamD

Not really sure how much benefit there is to starting Carbery against Italy anyways, it'll be a rout.

thomond2006

AdamD wrote: »

Not really sure how much benefit there is to starting Carbery against Italy anyways, it'll be a rout.

If Carbery can't do the business in a game like this, then you know where his ceiling is right now. Sexton is being held together with masking tape at this stage. Save him for the final two games.

molloyjh

What other games could Joey have started up to now that he didn’t? And given the respective form of the two half backs, surely going into the France game with Sexton on 25 mins in 4 weeks would be a huge issue. I know people say now that they would rather focus on the RWC, but I’d be curious to know what those same people would say if we lost to France and Wales and came 4th by the end of the 6Ns.

There seems to me to be a pretty fine balancing act to be played to ensure we’re winning enough games, while also managing injury and form. In terms of bringing Joey on in games, how many times have we had the lead enough to do that?

I think it’s incredibly harsh to say that Joe hasn’t learned his lessons from the last RWC, and probably more realistic to say he’s developed depth in as much as he could. There was no way he could have known he’d lose Jackson who had started a number of 6Ns games as well as all the games away to SA (I know Sexton was injured). Carbery is still only 23 and simply isn’t any better than Mads was in 2015. He might get better, but he isn’t there now. An extra 40-60 mins against Italy isn’t going to change that. If we want to be real about this, it’s hardly reasonable to suggest a 23 year old out half with just a single season as first choice for a province, is ever going to be in position to do much more for us than Mads did 4 years ago who at the time had 3 years on where Carbery is now.

Now there may be cause for discussing why we so regularly find ourselves in a position where we can’t afford to change our half backs in games....

arsebiscuits1

Buer wrote: »

So the rumour is that Sexton is to start. I'd find that pretty disappointing, to be honest. We're in danger of repeating our history all over again.

Ian Madigan went into the last RWC with 21 caps having never started a 6N match. Joey Carbery is close to going to the RWC in exceptionally similar circumstance (18 caps with no 6N starts) albeit better placed through playing more regularly at 10 for his province this season. Madigan would have had much more game time at 10 overall at this point, though.

I never expected multiple changes and Richie Murphy's comments yesterday confirmed that they won't be making many. But I did feel that Carbery was the one change that was necessary.

Aside from that, I'm not sure we'll see much more beyond guys returning from injury coming back into the team i.e.the likes of Henderson or Henshaw etc.

That is completely disregarding that when our hand was forced against Argentina and we had to play Madigan, we also had lost, POC, POM, SOB and Payne then lost Bowe after 10 minutes.

That's 5 players who would have been part of the leadership group with over 200 caps between them. Not sure we'd have won that game even with Sexton on the field.

I do think that Carbery should be getting better exposure.

But using Madigan as an example is just not applicable here.

Shefwedfan

Either Sexton plays against Italy or you play Carberry and he plays all the remaining games....it is that simple. Sexton hasn't enough minutes on the pitch since the Munster game and he needs an easy game to be honest.

I don't know how we could go into the France and Wales game with out best 10 and World Player of the year sitting on the bench.

This stuff about Joey needs time at 10, he is playing week in week out with Munster at 10 with the Irish 9, he is getting loads of experience. The issue going into the last WC was Madigan was not playing 10 at international or club level. He was playing 13 or 15 or bench.

So it is not the same at all. Joey will hopefully get a good run in Heneiken Cup and also maybe a Pro14 semi and final in the next few months. Huge experience. Also against alot better sides than Italy.

Anyone who is talking about throwing a 6 nations which Ireland could still win is an.....an't get another yellow card so I wont say

Also from IRFU point of view, they get more money the further up the table they get, I doubt they are telling Joe to throw the next couple of games.....

thomond2006

If Sexton needs game time prior to France, he can play for Leinster next weekend.

I really hope we won't be having the same conversations to 4 years ago later this year. Sexton is almost certain to be unavailable at some stage during the RWC.

Shefwedfan

thomond2006 wrote: »

If Sexton needs game time prior to France, he can play for Leinster next weekend.

I really hope we won't be having the same conversations to 4 years ago later this year. Sexton is almost certain to be unavailable at some stage during the RWC.

What good will playing against a SA team that the Leinster kids will put 50 on by half time?

He needs time with Murray as well, they haven't had much game time together at all......especially as Murray is out of form

molloyjh

thomond2006 wrote: »

If Sexton needs game time prior to France, he can play for Leinster next weekend.

I really hope we won't be having the same conversations to 4 years ago later this year. Sexton is almost certain to be unavailable at some stage during the RWC.

The conversation 4 years ago was about depth across the board. That’s been dealt with well. But when we lost 2 young 10s in quick succession and had 2 years to try and develop a 21 year old who had barely played any senior rugby then we were always going to struggle at 10. There isn’t really a whole lot anyone could have done. Apart from try and ensure that Joey was first choice at one of the provinces and developing there.

Southdubin6

thomond2006 wrote: »

If Sexton needs game time prior to France, he can play for Leinster next weekend.

I really hope we won't be having the same conversations to 4 years ago later this year. Sexton is almost certain to be unavailable at some stage during the RWC.

Not a good idea. Sexton and Murray need to have minutes together as it's not clicking at the minute. Johnny hasn't played near enough he needs game time. Johnny and Madigan completely different comparisons

aloooof

Is it absolutely definitive that Sexton needs game time tho? I think I remember pre-Lions 2017 he was in pretty poor form, but was able to turn that around pretty quickly. I'm sure there are other examples as well.