Ireland Team Talk XI: Team of nervoUS MOD warning Post 1

Paul Smeenus

aloooof wrote: »

My suspicion is that any publicly available data would be too simplistic won / lost type stuff. If a defence can disrupt / slow down quick ball off a line out, it could still show up as a “line out won” in the stats but is a very different platform from secure, quick ball.

I think Henderson was coming in and obviously being groomed to take the mantle - there were a couple of ropey games in the early days and there was a touch of "this would never have happened with Toner The Unsung Hero (c)". I remember on here people saying "he can't be selected if the lineout's going to be that bad". I recall especially pointing out that when we won the Six Nations he had called a 10/10 lineout against England, when people afterwards said he just couldn't get his head around it.

Long story short, I think a lot of the lineout nonsense came down to provincial sniping.

Hands Like Flippers

Zzippy wrote: »

Jesus Christ, move on lads. Take it to PM or put each other on ignore. But it ends here.

Hiw do you know they are both lads?

Joma4good

briandebum wrote: »

I have very little faith in Farrell & think this selection is ****. I think if we continue our current trajectory we're looking at the standard quarter final world cup finish. You could argue that we don't have the players at the moment to do any better, however when Schmidt's game plan was working a lot of these players were beating the All-Blacks.

Looking down the line, it'll be interesting to see have the IRFU the balls to move on quickly from him. Would they let him go if we finish 3rd again behind France & England? I would hope so, but I'm not sure.
With Wales potentially also looking for a new coach soon, do we try and get the jump on them? Pivac's contract is up July next year.

Looking internally, Lancaster & Cullen are obviously an option, however is more continuity from within the Irish system what's needed?

Outside of Ireland, Mark McCall & Scott Robertson would be the big names to look at. Throw the cheque book at them. If we have a world class coach in place then it becomes easier to identify which players are not performing, as opposed to saying the gameplan isn't working.

(I'm undoubtedly overly negative on the situation but no harm thinking about these things.)

Clegg wrote: »

Just throwing this out here, I don't think Mark McCall would be a success with Ireland. His Saracens side is brilliant, but they're very attritional and rely a lot on dominance up front. It would be a rehash of Joe Schmidt's Ireland but with less innovation at set plays.

Hard to judge McCall, if Saracens hadn’t had the money for so many top players would he have been able to achieve so much? He does seem to engender a v.good atmosphere and loyalty from his players, they always talk about the ‘Saracens family’. I think Pat Lam is worth consideration, he got Bristol playing some great stuff. If ROG keeps La Rochelle going he’s got to be in the future mix too..Would he be accepted or still too soon for provincial rivalry? I think they’d be serious meltdown every week on this forum.

TRC10

Joma4good wrote: »

Hard to judge McCall, if Saracens hadn’t had the money for so many top players would he have been able to achieve so much? He does seem to engender a v.good atmosphere and loyalty from his players, they always talk about the ‘Saracens family’. I think Pat Lam is worth consideration, he got Bristol playing some great stuff. If ROG keeps La Rochelle going he’s got to be in the future mix too..Would he be accepted or still too soon for provincial rivalry? I think they’d be serious meltdown every week on this forum.

Big Pat Lam fan myself. However I'm not sure his philosophy would suit the brutal nature of international rugby these days. And he doesn't have much international coaching experience.

Does anyone know how much longer Jamie Joseph is contracted with Japan for? He did a wonderful job of carrying on Eddie Jones' legacy and even took them one further and reaches a QF. If the the IRFU were to go for a world class external appointment like England in 2015, I think hed be a great shout.

TRC10

TRC10 wrote: »

Big Pat Lam fan myself. However I'm not sure his philosophy would suit the brutal nature of international rugby these days. And he doesn't have much international coaching experience.

Does anyone know how much longer Jamie Joseph is contracted with Japan for? He did a wonderful job of carrying on Eddie Jones' legacy and even took them one further and reaches a QF. If the the IRFU were to go for a world class external appointment like England in 2015, I think hed be a great shout.

Ah scratch that. I just realised hes contracted through to 2023...

bilston

Farrell has lost three games, twice away to England, and once away to France. I don't think we should be making any judgements until after the 2021 Six Nations.

Also it looks as though Farrell has something to contend with that Schmidt didn't...a very good French side.

Dubinusa

It's premature to call for Farrells noggin. Let's hope he develops a broad squad and can instill a gameplan. It's way to early to convict him imo.

ionadnapokot

bilston wrote: »

Farrell has lost three games, twice away to England, and once away to France. I don't think we should be making any judgements until after the 2021 Six Nations.

Also it looks as though Farrell has something to contend with that Schmidt didn't...a very good French side.

Not make any judgements Bliston?
I certainly think we can make some judgements based on the 6N and also recent England game.

We should also point out that we narrowly beat Scotland (Hogg dropping ball over line at 13-6) with largely the same team that beat them at WC.

I think Farrell is in a difficult situation, one Joe Schmidt also found himself, with Murray and Sexton both playing poorly and no real alternatives immediately (possibility of Marmion/Cooney) available.
Edit:
Farrell should have picked Cooney v Scotland
Schmidt should have picked Marmion in RWC

But my initial judgement is more negative than positive primarily because the apparent disarray in the losses to England and France.
It should also be said that the losses to England in 2020 were worse than the loss in 2019 - performance wise.

We can only assess with what we have seen and unfortunately my expectation is that things are only going to worsen in 2021 6N.

Edit: Cooney and Marmion

OneLungDavy

bilston wrote: »

Farrell has lost three games, twice away to England, and once away to France. I don't think we should be making any judgements until after the 2021 Six Nations.

Also it looks as though Farrell has something to contend with that Schmidt didn't...a very good French side.

But a very poor Welsh side. Agree with the idea though that Schmidt certainly wasn't up against this current standard in his early days.

lawrencesummers

Dubinusa wrote: »

It's premature to call for Farrells noggin. Let's hope he develops a broad squad and can instill a gameplan. It's way to early to convict him imo.

Farrell can stay in the job as long as he wants, or until one of the only two Irish options are available - Leo Cullen or Mark Mccaul. Outside of that the only coach worth considering is Pat Lamb and I’m not sure his approach is suited to International rugby.

shootermacg

McCall pretty much copied the JS game plan with zero variance, while his club threw infinite money at his team and player selection. I'm not sure the Irish people want to go back to a box kicking tackle fest at this stage.

Given the amount of cash that was thrown out to the sarries players for wins etc, I think McCall by association has zero credentials in my book.

irishbucsfan

shootermacg wrote: »

McCall pretty much copied the JS game plan with zero variance, while his club threw infinite money at his team and player selection. I'm not sure the Irish people want to go back to a box kicking tackle fest at this stage.

Given the amount of cash that was thrown out to the sarries players for wins etc, I think McCall by association has zero credentials in my book.

By JS here, are you saying Mark McCall copied Joe Schmidt's game plan?

If so, what are you smoking? :pac:

shootermacg

irishbucsfan wrote: »

By JS here, are you saying Mark McCall copied Joe Schmidt's game plan?

If so, what are you smoking? :pac:

Box kicking anything that was in their half, contesting the box kick and apply pressure, playing keep-ball in the opposition half? This was the first iteration of the JS game plan or does your memory not stretch that far?

Seriously I'm not sure what rugby you watch, but say hello to those in the mothership for me!

theVersatile

Jesus lads have ye no sense of long term planning at all? Rome wasn't built in a day. It's took JVG over a season to implement a game plan at Munster (and then another season to beat it into the internationals) - it's the third season now and we are reaping the rewards. And that's club rugby, where you have a lot more time to implement. Similarly it took Pat Lam three years to mould Connacht into a championship winning team. Now people are calling for Farrell's head after a couple months?

Farrell stays until the end of the next 6N minimum. So discussion otherwise is in vain.

bilston

ionadnapokot wrote: »

Not make any judgements Bliston?
I certainly think we can make some judgements based on the 6N and also recent England game.

We should also point out that we narrowly beat Scotland (Hogg dropping ball over line at 13-6) with largely the same team that beat them at WC.

I think Farrell is in a difficult situation, one Joe Schmidt also found himself, with Murray and Sexton both playing poorly and no real alternatives immediately (possibility of Marmion/Cooney) available.
Edit:
Farrell should have picked Cooney v Scotland
Schmidt should have picked Marmion in RWC

But my initial judgement is more negative than positive primarily because the apparent disarray in the losses to England and France.
It should also be said that the losses to England in 2020 were worse than the loss in 2019 - performance wise.

We can only assess with what we have seen and unfortunately my expectation is that things are only going to worsen in 2021 6N.

Edit: Cooney and Marmion

Conclusions rather than judgements then

lawrencesummers

shootermacg wrote: »

McCall pretty much copied the JS game plan with zero variance, while his club threw infinite money at his team and player selection. I'm not sure the Irish people want to go back to a box kicking tackle fest at this stage.

Given the amount of cash that was thrown out to the sarries players for wins etc, I think McCall by association has zero credentials in my book.

A book no doubt the world will be queuing up to buy....

Lots of teams have thrown lots of money at their squads and come away with nothing. McCall brought a successful culture and attitude to his team love them or hate them. It can be argued that the English national side owes a lot of their success to McCall as the head man in Sarries.

Look at Racing 92. Wall to wall stars and F all to show for it.

lawrencesummers

shootermacg wrote: »

Box kicking anything that was in their half, contesting the box kick and apply pressure, playing keep-ball in the opposition half? This was the first iteration of the JS game plan or does your memory not stretch that far?

Seriously I'm not sure what rugby you watch, but say hello to those in the mothership for me!

Joe smidth, inventor of the box kick.


Keep up the good work.

shootermacg

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Joe smidth, inventor of the box kick.


Keep up the good work.

Where does it say that? I can see why you get into so many arguments here, making stuff up to suit your view. Go ahead, it's not like you'll ever bother me with it!

TRC10

theVersatile wrote: »

Jesus lads have ye no sense of long term planning at all? Rome wasn't built in a day. It's took JVG over a season to implement a game plan at Munster (and then another season to beat it into the internationals) - it's the third season now and we are reaping the rewards. And that's club rugby, where you have a lot more time to implement. Similarly it took Pat Lam three years to mould Connacht into a championship winning team. Now people are calling for Farrell's head after a couple months?

Farrell stays until the end of the next 6N minimum. So discussion otherwise is in vain.

Nobody is calling for Farrells head. We're just stating the fact that we've gone absolutely no where and shown no signs of development in the year he's been in charge. In Joe Schmidts first season in charge, we were 30 seconds away from beating the All Blacks and won a 6 nations (granted England and France were nowhere near as strong). If anything we've only gotten worse. The England game last week was the most shambolic performance since the Wales game in 2019. If 6 Nations 2021 goes the same as 2020, think his time is up.

aloooof

TRC10 wrote: »

Nobody is calling for Farrells head. We're just stating the fact that we've gone absolutely no where and shown no signs of development in the year he's been in charge.

He'll have capped 10 new players come tomorrow; that's development of a kind.

TRC10 wrote: »

In Joe Schmidts first season in charge, we were 30 seconds away from beating the All Blacks and won a 6 nations (granted England and France were nowhere near as strong). If anything we've only gotten worse. The England game last week was the most shambolic performance since the Wales game in 2019. If 6 Nations 2021 goes the same as 2020, think his time is up.

As well as England and France being stronger, I think we've also regressed, unfortunately. Look at the team that started against in 2013; Drico, O'Connell, Heaslip, Bowe, Sean O'Brien, a 28 year-old Sexton etc.

I do see where your concerns are coming from tho.

molloyjh

TRC10 wrote: »

Nobody is calling for Farrells head. We're just stating the fact that we've gone absolutely no where and shown no signs of development in the year he's been in charge. In Joe Schmidts first season in charge, we were 30 seconds away from beating the All Blacks and won a 6 nations (granted England and France were nowhere near as strong). If anything we've only gotten worse. The England game last week was the most shambolic performance since the Wales game in 2019. If 6 Nations 2021 goes the same as 2020, think his time is up.

Let's also put the year in context. We had 3 games followed by several months off. When we came back we had a few injuries that slowly became a mini-injury crisis. By the time we kicked off last week we were missing Kilcoyne, Ed Byrne, Furlong, Sexton, Henshaw, Ringrose & Larmour from our 23. That's 7 players. 8 if you count Carbery. Henderson & Stockdale were on the bench, both only coming back from injury too.

Against England we had 1 LH in the 23, our 2nd & 4th choice THs, one of our first choice locks on the bench coming back from injury, our 3rd & 4th choice 10 in the 23, our second choice centres and 2 back 3 player with a combined total of 6 caps. Away to one of the best teams in the world.

We are also looking to fundamentally change how we play. That requires a series of games with a pretty consistent squad. Something we haven't had.

IMO it is far too early to judge how Farrell is doing. Theres been too much change and nowhere near enough consistency in squads to expect a whole lot. There have been positive elements to what we've seen as well as negatives. Both on the pitch and off it. Let's see where we are after the 6Ns at least.

lawrencesummers

shootermacg wrote: »

Where does it say that? I can see why you get into so many arguments here, making stuff up to suit your view. Go ahead, it's not like you'll ever bother me with it!

In fairness it’s not as bad as the other tactic your ascribing to Joe, the one of keeping the ball in the opponents half!!!

What a novel idea.
Well done.

shootermacg

lawrencesummers wrote: »

In fairness it’s not as bad as the other tactic your ascribing to Joe, the one of keeping the ball in the opponents half!!!

What a novel idea.
Well done.

Half a day to come up with a reply and this is it. Really, I wouldn't have bothered. You seem to just be unable to figure out the difference between a skill and a game plan.

TRC10

molloyjh wrote: »

We are also looking to fundamentally change how we play. That requires a series of games with a pretty consistent squad. Something we haven't had.

Are we though? Like what are we actually doing differently? Because I haven't noticed anything. Same one dimensional attack with no real shape. Same inability to react and adapt to what's in front of us. And we continue to crumble when the opposition bring any line speed. I know hes given plenty of debuts but in terms of tactics nothing really has changed, if anything they've regressed.

I'm not criticising him for losing to France and England x2. They're better than us, fair enough. But we haven't tried to do anything differently since February 2019.

molloyjh

TRC10 wrote: »

Are we though? Like what are we actually doing differently? Because I haven't noticed anything. Same one dimensional attack with no real shape. Same inability to react and adapt to what's in front of us. And we continue to crumble when the opposition bring any line speed. I know hes given plenty of debuts but in terms of tactics nothing really has changed, if anything they've regressed.

I'm not criticising him for losing to France and England x2. They're better than us, fair enough. But we haven't tried to do anything differently since February 2019.

We've moved away from the type of rigid set-play possession based game that Joe used and looked to develop a more attacking style using width and shape primarily and far less of the set play type stuff. We didn't see that vs England because, IMO, we didn't have the players to implement it. Byrne doesn't challenge the line or demand multiple involvements in a single phase. And neither Aki nor Farrell would be considered creative centres.

But against Wales we saw Ireland reacting to what was in front of them more. Now obviously Wales weren't great and between 2 stools on their defensive system, but then that was only game 5 for us, with several months between games 3 and 4.

I think, and I could be very wrong, that Farrell recognises that we aren't going to physically dominate teams the way we did a few years ago. So instead of looking to get physical dominance, we're looking to play smarter and faster. If true, thats a big departure from what these guys are used to so it will take time to get it right. Especially when we end up losing a chunk of players to injury as we are trying to bed that in. Improving our ball playing skills will allow us to better play out of contact for example, which is the kind of thing we needed to be able to do against England.

TRC10

molloyjh wrote: »

We've moved away from the type of rigid set-play possession based game that Joe used and looked to develop a more attacking style using width and shape primarily and far less of the set play type stuff. We didn't see that vs England because, IMO, we didn't have the players to implement it. Byrne doesn't challenge the line or demand multiple involvements in a single phase. And neither Aki nor Farrell would be considered creative centres.

But against Wales we saw Ireland reacting to what was in front of them more. Now obviously Wales weren't great and between 2 stools on their defensive system, but then that was only game 5 for us, with several months between games 3 and 4.

I think, and I could be very wrong, that Farrell recognises that we aren't going to physically dominate teams the way we did a few years ago. So instead of looking to get physical dominance, we're looking to play smarter and faster. If true, thats a big departure from what these guys are used to so it will take time to get it right. Especially when we end up losing a chunk of players to injury as we are trying to bed that in. Improving our ball playing skills will allow us to better play out of contact for example, which is the kind of thing we needed to be able to do against England.

But it begs the question, why aren't we doing it against the good teams. Like, it's all well and good playing this exciting new style against Italy and an awful welsh team (I'm not trying to be negative but by calling them awful, but lets call a spade a spade, they're pretty bad atm) but whenever we come up against a decent team we revert to type and continue to truck it up and get banged by bigger men. I agree Aki and Farrell aren't creative playermakers but they're more than adequate passers/offloaders. I'd rather we lost to England by 40 points playing with a new system that will bear fruit in games to come, than the 18-7 loss that transpired.

I hope I'm proved wrong but I just dont see Andy Farrell as the intelligent tactician who can see the current and future trends in international rugby and get ahead of the curves and compete with the big teams.

molloyjh

TRC10 wrote: »

But it begs the question, why aren't we doing it against the good teams. Like, it's all well and good playing this exciting new style against Italy and an awful welsh team (I'm not trying to be negative but by calling them awful, but lets call a spade a spade, they're pretty bad atm) but whenever we come up against a decent team we revert to type and continue to truck it up and get banged by bigger men. I agree Aki and Farrell aren't creative playermakers but they're more than adequate passers/offloaders. I'd rather we lost to England by 40 points playing with a new system that will bear fruit in games to come, than the 18-7 loss that transpired.

I hope I'm proved wrong but I just dont see Andy Farrell as the intelligent tactician who can see the current and future trends in international rugby and get ahead of the curves and compete with the big teams.

Well I'm not sure there's any point in looking at the first England game as it was only game 3. We were never going to have a new approach bedded down that quick. And then the England game last week had us with the worst combo of 10-12-13 that we could have had for the way we wanted to play. I mentioned before that I think we need to look for a more like for like replacement for Ringrose, but I'm not sure there is one in the provinces right now.

So the France game is the only one we can really look to. And that was only game 2 after a several month break. For that game we right right up there in the first half and I think got very unlucky that Willemses antics were missed as it may well have made for quite a different game.

But 10 mins and some outstanding French rugby later we lost the game. We never had the bench to chase that game with the injuries. Add in Kilcoyne, Furlong, Henderson, Ringrose & Larmour to that 23 and no doubt we'd see a difference.

shootermacg

TRC10 wrote: »

But it begs the question, why aren't we doing it against the good teams. L

Joe provided a lot of detail to the players for a long time. The game plan was very simple but the instructions very detailed. They knew exactly what to do in each scenario. This worked very well for Ireland because they seem to be a team that need that level of detail.

Andy Farrell has moved away from this, allowing the players a pattern to play heads up rugby, I'm not sure if the Irish team can cope with this level of freedom or is creative enough to thrive under this system.

There was a great interview with Sam Warburton and Paul o'Connell, where they talked about the game plan for Wales and the Lions. It was very simple, short on detail and basically allowed them to do what they were really good at, which was hit people very hard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3d--NZfpac&app=desktop&ab_channel=OffTheBall

I miss Joe, he took a bunch of lumps with a few exceptional talents and made a cracking team out of them.

Zzippy

shootermacg and lawrencesummers cut out the sniping and condescending remarks. Take it to PM or put each other on ignore. But cut it out in this thread.

Sanjuro

lawrencesummers wrote: »

Joe smidth, inventor of the box kick.


Keep up the good work.

Joe Schmidt was in Ireland coaching for 10 years. How do you still get his name wrong?