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

sydthebeat

Clegg wrote: »

They tried that in 2017 and were snuffed out. So why couldn't our best side do that again? Or at least, why did we seem so ill prepared for it?
?

because joseph was only 6 months into his tenure as Japan coach... was playing almost a whole brand new squad from his predecessor... and didnt have tony brown with him yet.

joseph went on to have 3 years with the sunwolves, getting them to play in the style that he wanted and that suited their strengths.. Brown joining him in 2017.. and taking the sunwolves himself for 2018.

joseph also took his japenese squad on basically a year long training camp in 2019 as preparation for the RWC.

so the reason "why couldn't our best side do that again? Or at least, why did we seem so ill prepared for it?" was because japan became a HELL OF A LOT BETTER than they were in 2017

why we were ill prepared... well thats for the coaches to say.
perhaps they should have been better forewarned coming into the game.

One thing i will say is that while Japan won the pacific nations cup quite comfortably... they progressed their game a good bit beyond that. tamura doing a lot less kicking in the RWC than he did in the PNC games.

Shefwedfan

mfceiling wrote: »

Stuart Barnes has a stab at his lions team for 2021.
James Ryan.
That's our entire representation.

Who cares?



It would be better for our players to get a rest that summer, maybe a mini tour and then a long rest. Not been flogged on a Lions tour

sydthebeat

mfceiling wrote: »

Stuart Barnes has a stab at his lions team for 2021.
James Ryan.
That's our entire representation.

hard to disagree right now really.... hes talking about the starting 15


Furlong obviously should be included IMO... but iys close between himself and sinckler.

carre should be no where near that team though, but theres no other stand out loose head currently.

id also shudder going into a game with webb and russell as halves.

Shefwedfan

We are back to the World Cup

This is best description of how I feel....

bilston

mfceiling wrote: »

Stuart Barnes has a stab at his lions team for 2021.
James Ryan.
That's our entire representation.

I don't think he is wrong.

Furlong maybe, but fair fecks to Sinckler.

bilston

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Who cares?



It would be better for our players to get a rest that summer, maybe a mini tour and then a long rest. Not been flogged on a Lions tour

Plenty of people care

Shefwedfan

bilston wrote: »

Plenty of people care

Who? Stuart Barnes is pushing it because Sky have invested millions in it.....

From a purely Irish point of view the less players we have travel the better. Don’t get me wrong I like the Lions but having a team full of Welsh and English slogging it out for a few weeks always increases our chance of winning a 6 nations the following year

Former Former

mfceiling wrote: »

Stuart Barnes has a stab at his lions team for 2021.
James Ryan.
That's our entire representation.

Fair enough. But 18 months ago we'd have had a hape of lads in there and 18 months from now it will all be different again.

Squidgy Black

mfceiling wrote: »

Stuart Barnes has a stab at his lions team for 2021.
James Ryan.
That's our entire representation.

I mean he's not wrong for the starting test 15 going off our performances in the 6N and the RWC. Considering we're assuming he's picking off current form

Furlong is a close call with Sinckler, Curry and Underhill are better than VdF and we're yet to see what Leavy will be like when he returns, Sexton and Murray are out of form, you could maybe argue for Ringrose but Henshaw is completely out of contention.

You also have to remember Barnes is the same fella who's still stating only 3 of the Boks would get into the English team.

Squidgy Black

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Who? Stuart Barnes is pushing it because Sky have invested millions in it.....

From a purely Irish point of view the less players we have travel the better. Don’t get me wrong I like the Lions but having a team full of Welsh and English slogging it out for a few weeks always increases our chance of winning a 6 nations the following year

Article is in the Sunday Times not Sky, and plenty of Irish fans are interested in the Lions and want to see Irish representation.

Former Former

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Don’t get me wrong I like the Lions but having a team full of Welsh and English slogging it out for a few weeks always increases our chance of winning a 6 nations the following year

We've won the Six Nations after each of the last two Lions series, but we've been almost equally represented with England and Wales on those tours. Correlation rather than causation I think.

bilston

Shefwedfan wrote: »

Who? Stuart Barnes is pushing it because Sky have invested millions in it.....

From a purely Irish point of view the less players we have travel the better. Don’t get me wrong I like the Lions but having a team full of Welsh and English slogging it out for a few weeks always increases our chance of winning a 6 nations the following year

Who? Tens of thousands of rugby fans in Britain AND Ireland.

OldRio

I think the Rugby fans in Ireland have a damn sight more to worry about than who or who may not get picked for the Lions.

Podge_irl

Clegg wrote: »

But it's not hyperbole to say the defeat to Japan was on of our worst ever results.

Worst result of Schmidt's tenure maybe, though I think frankly even that is pushing it. You can only possibly characterize it as one of the worst ever results or embarrassing if you do a complete disservice to Japan to be honest. This was not a once-off screw-up like akin to losing to Italy or bloody Namibia(!), we are talking about a 7 points loss in difficult conditions to a team that easily dispatched Scotland, even if the score ended up tighter by the end, and were well in touch at half time against the eventual champions in a knock-out match.

Japan are a good team, the only way to view the result against them as embarrassing is to refuse to acknowledge that. Japan were not a good team the last time we played them, they have done a great job in improving.

molloyjh

Podge_irl wrote: »

Worst result of Schmidt's tenure maybe, though I think frankly even that is pushing it. You can only possibly characterize it as one of the worst ever results or embarrassing if you do a complete disservice to Japan to be honest. This was not a once-off screw-up like akin to losing to Italy or bloody Namibia(!), we are talking about a 7 points loss in difficult conditions to a team that easily dispatched Scotland, even if the score ended up tighter by the end, and were well in touch at half time against the eventual champions in a knock-out match.

Japan are a good team, the only way to view the result against them as embarrassing is to refuse to acknowledge that. Japan were not a good team the last time we played them, they have done a great job in improving.

It's also worth noting the incredible access to players that the Japanese national team had this year. It was unprecedented and not likely to ever happen again. The coaches are top class coaches and they had the whole thing set up for them in a way no other team ever has. There was some generous refereeing, some exceptional work from Japan and still only 1 score in it. It was hugely frustrating and disappointing. But embarrassing? Humiliating? That's hyperbole.

ionadnapokot

Pfft....This is like the retelling of Agincourt!!

aloooof

ionadnapokot wrote: »

Pfft....This is like the retelling of Agincourt!!

I think I've found George Hook's username.

ionadnapokot

I'M ABSOLUTELY BLOODY DELIGHTED!

Dubinusa

Losing to Japan was not our worst result under Schmidt, imo.
The loss to France in Paris a couple of years back was awful. We put up 9 points whilst totally dominating the 1st 50 mins.
The loss to Wales this year was also very poor. We didn't fire a shot and looked like abject failures with possession. We were not at the races at all.
We should beat Japan of course, the fact that Japan had the best part of a year together does not matter, imo. Our squad have been together for several years. Some even as long as Schmidt's tenure.
The world cup was a complete failure! Abysmal!
Completely off the pace and 2nd best in the collision for the most part.
Nobody saw this result a year ago. The 6nations was a prelude and we were unable to fix our shortcomings.

Former Former

The result against New Zealand was our worst under Joe.

Against Japan, we were well on top to begin with and for a while it looked like we would run them ragged. Then a few things went against us, Japan seemed to get all the breaks and suddenly we were in trouble. But a few knock-ons going the other way, one or two penalties not conceded and it would have been a very different game. The result itself looks better in hindsight with Japan's performances against Scotland and SA.

Against NZ, we never fired a shot. Everything we touched turned to sh*t and we looked beaten from the very early stages. It was our worst performance since the days of Kidney and everyone just looked like they wanted to be elsewhere.

aloooof

Dontspeak wrote: »

Japan defeat was an embarrassment. Did no one see South Africa swatting them away with ease? I think trying to talk them up now is laughable. Losers talk.

It was 11-3 until the 64th minute. It was nowhere near the facile victory you're making out. SA electing to take their penalties after HT (when it was 5-3) tells you as much.

awec

Former Former wrote: »

The result against New Zealand was our worst under Joe.

Against Japan, we were well on top to begin with and for a while it looked like we would run them ragged. Then a few things went against us, Japan seemed to get all the breaks and suddenly we were in trouble. But a few knock-ons going the other way, one or two penalties not conceded and it would have been a very different game. The result itself looks better in hindsight with Japan's performances against Scotland and SA.

Against NZ, we never fired a shot. Everything we touched turned to sh*t and we looked beaten from the very early stages. It was our worst performance since the days of Kidney and everyone just looked like they wanted to be elsewhere.

I dunno. Wales in the 6N was fairly abysmal. We were almost nilled that day.

bilston

To be hones the Japan defeat isn't even in the top 3 bad defeats under Joe.

The Scotland game where we turned up late was a bad one (2017?).

The Argentina defeat in 2015 was bad given we had a major major opportunity to reach the final

The NZ defeat wasn't a surprise but the manner of it was pretty embarrassing.

Those are the three bad defeats that stick out to me under Joe's reign

Dontspeak

Dontspeak wrote: »

Do people forget the game v England leading up to the world cup? A horror show, worse than anything previous.

At least there was extenuating circumstances for that game

Dontspeak

Dontspeak wrote: »

Excuses you mean? Excuses can be made for everything. Sure New Zealand can make excuses as to why we beat them!

If you want to call them excuses, sure. There are excuses to why that performance went the way it did. There isn't excuses for the Wales game in the six nations.

Interested Observer

Our RWC was over after the Japan game, yes we were obviously still on to make the QF but we were done as a serious team in the competition. Might as well have packed up and gone home after it.

blinding

Turning Japanese
The Vapors
I've got your picture
Of me and you
You wrote "I love you"
I wrote "me too"
I sit there staring and there's nothing else to do
Oh it's in color
Your hair is brown
Your eyes are hazel
And soft as clouds
I often kiss you when there's no one else around
I've got your picture, I've got your picture
I'd like a million of you all 'round my cell
I want the doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
You've got me turning up and turning down, I'm turning in, I'm turning 'round
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so
Turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so
I'm turning Japanese, I think I'm turning Japanese, I really think so
Turning Japanese,…

Neil3030

I look more at our performance across the tournament and it simply wasn't good enough. Looking at average stats across all games played (taking out those against Tier 2 sides), and we were noticeably poor in most areas.

Very little distribution (11.6 passes per game) from our 10, no distribution at all from 12 (2.3 passes per game) or 15 (2.0 passes per game). Only Ringrose performed on par with his opposite number (4.0 passes per game).

For perspective, average passes per 10, 12 and 15 for the 4 semi-finalists:
England: 24.3, 12, 7.5
NZ: 20.3, 6, 20
SA: 11.8, 5.4, 10.4
Wales: 15.7, 5, 4.

We then placed a massive over-reliance on CJ (14 carries per game) and Ryan (14 carries per game) to carry.

For perspective:
England: no.8 carried most with 13.5 per game
NZ: no.8 carried most with 10.3 per game
Wales: no.8 carried most with 9.7 per game
SA: no.8 carried most with 7.4 per game

Other teams, despite having arguably better ball carriers, nonetheless spread the ball carrying with far less predictability.

We offloaded 3.7 times per match; only Wales had less:

NZ: 12.3 per match
England: 7.5 per match
SA: 4.0 per match
Wales: 3.3

But I suspect this is inflated by the Sexton loop; in offloads from the backline, we were dead last (2.0 per match) vs:

NZ: 9.7 per match
England: 3.75 per match
SA: 2.8 per match
Wales: 2.3

I understand that a conservative style is probably historically the most successful ploy in a RWC, when you look at the sort of teams who have won it, and how often the most progressive team (NZ) have fallen short in history despite being the best team in the world at that time. But with this said, Schmidt took it way too far. Teams knew what was coming, they got it, they coped with it. Four years to prepare and we had absolutely nothing to offer once teams managed our box kicks, doubled up on CJ and Ryan, and found a way through Farrell's defence.

This simply isn't good enough, and if I'm honest, if Schmidt hadn't stepped down I'd be calling for him to be replaced. The IRFU have developed a system whereby our national head coach easily has one of the best environments to work in, factoring in control of underlying clubs, player welfare, access to players, remuneration, quality of life in Ireland, etc. We should be demanding more than this sort of rugby.

This isn't glossing over all that Schmidt achieved for Ireland. This is evaluating his performance in a key deliverable (the RWC), with data, relative to the other teams that did better than us.

awec

I think that's a fair summation to be honest, agree that it feels like it was time for Schmidt to go either way, and I feel Ireland will benefit from some fresh thinking at this stage. Concerned that Farrell really isn't that fresh, but we'll have to wait and see.

And yes, Ireland have a big problem at 12. Tough problem to solve because I don't see any suitable players to improve things. They really need to invest a lot of time undoing what they've done to Robbie Henshaw the past few years and hope he's not beyond saving.

Mr Tickle

awec wrote: »

I think that's a fair summation to be honest, agree that it feels like it was time for Schmidt to go either way, and I feel Ireland will benefit from some fresh thinking at this stage. Concerned that Farrell really isn't that fresh, but we'll have to wait and see.

And yes, Ireland have a big problem at 12. Tough problem to solve because I don't see any suitable players to improve things. They really need to invest a lot of time undoing what they've done to Robbie Henshaw the past few years and hope he's not beyond saving.

I think both Henshaw and Bundee are capable of playing a more expansive game. They did/do it well in Connacht. It was just part of Joe's game plan for them to keep a lid on it.