Nations cup November 2020 GENERAL THREAD

Kraftwerk

Brutal stuff.

griffinlee

Scotland will slice us up next week.

I've never seen an Irish team so slow to clear rucks.

awec

Using POM for carrying. We have nothing upstairs.

Larbre34

Kevin Keegan looked pleased.

Soups123

Absolute shocking performance. 3pts in over 40 minutes against Georgia.Farrell needs to sort something with this team fast, hard to see what he’s trying to do

ScrubsfanChris

Final whistle..... best moment of the game.

UAEguy2020

Clegg wrote: »

It's hard to point to what's exactly gone wrong for Ireland since the turn of 2019. The players say that we training in Schmidt's final season became too regimented and fixated around the pressurising tactics which had finally been worked out by top level opposition.

But by all accounts Farrell has given the players license to attack the way they want. Theoretically they have the freedom that they wanted under Schmidt, but performances haven't improved. In fact I'd say they've gotten worse as we're now making errors at set piece and at the ruck which we never would have under the old regime.

I wonder did Ireland underestimate Georgia in the 2nd half and thought they’d coast home, the first half wasn’t too bad but was passable at the very least but this 2nd half we have been a collective mess. I wouldn’t blame an individual player as when so many are this off it’s very difficult for loads of changes to make a difference.

irishbucsfan

leakyboots wrote: »

I thought both centres played alright today, not sure they're the problem. Both made good ground, nice kicks and passing (Farrell for the try in particular).

They’re not bad players. They’re just not the right combination to play outside someone like Ross Byrne. There’s almost no creativity in that back line.

Either one of them would be considerably more valuable if there was someone else in the back line capable of creating a line break.

And they’re also probably exactly the players Georgia are happiest to face, given how physical and consistent their defense is. Same for Stander at 8

Paul Weller

Second half was entirely forgettable..or at least I hope I can forget it

sydthebeat

Mike catt now has some serious questions to answer.

Piss poor back play. Feck all line breaks.

No invention at all, and pedestrian system plays

thefridge2006

Now, over to the Hurling to see a bit of passion, skill and excitment instead of that utter $$hite

awec

irishbucsfan wrote: »

They’re not bad players. They’re just not the right combination to play outside someone like Ross Byrne. There’s almost no creativity in that back line.

Either one of them would be considerably more valuable if there was someone else in the back line capable of creating a line break.

And they’re also probably exactly the players Georgia are happiest to face, given how physical and consistent their defense is. Same for Stander at 8

Stander was getting stopped dead in his tracks by their centres.

Sanjuro

sydthebeat wrote: »

Mike catt now has some serious questions to answer.

Piss poor back play. Feck all line breaks.

No invention at all, and pedestrian system plays

How in the hell did he get the job in the first place?

degsie

Woeful game. Rugby is being destroyed as a sport with this type of game.

Asus X540L

sydthebeat wrote: »

Mike catt now has some serious questions to answer.

Piss poor back play. Feck all line breaks.

No invention at all, and pedestrian system plays

That tool was hardly known for his sublime attacking play.

AbusesToilets

Sanjuro wrote: »

How in the hell did he get the job in the first place?

Old mates network

Movementarian

sydthebeat wrote: »

Mike catt now has some serious questions to answer.

Piss poor back play. Feck all line breaks.

No invention at all, and pedestrian system plays

Yeah, I mean why get any of the coaches from the ticket that made Japan into a super attacking exciting team when you can have the failed lineup from the England team that didnt make it out of group stages at their own world cup!

OldRio

I enjoyed the first half as for the second. Utterly shocking.
Another wonderful half time team talk given to the players.
On the plus side the Hurling has started

tabby aspreme

awec wrote: »

Stander was getting stopped dead in his tracks by their centres.

And John Ryan

Larbre34

sydthebeat wrote: »

Mike catt now has some serious questions to answer.

Piss poor back play. Feck all line breaks.

No invention at all, and pedestrian system plays

I think the Head Coach is the one to be answering questions, to the High Performance Director.

UAEguy2020

You know you’ve been bullied when the Georgia centre is more effective at the break down than the Irish back Row.


It’s like when we come up against physical teams we switch off upstairs and try to outmuscle our opposition but inevitably play into our oppositions hands.

We’ve become a very dumb team in the last 18 months, where did this come from? We have have 23 BV’s but it might as well be 23 Stringers if we aren’t going to use our head.

griffinlee

We have a problem at 10 for creativity. Burns showed good lines and seems to have an attacking pass in his locker. Byrne passes always go 5 metres behind.

bilston

Not great.

At least the lineout went a lot better, although playing England and Georgia is chalk and cheese.

I thought we missed Burns in the second half who plays a lot flatter than Byrne.

Don't really know what else to say.

The scrum was obviously poor. The idea of switching Porter to LH makes a bit more sense, provided Furlong comes back

We need to get Leavy back asap, and if he is as good as he was before his injury he will make an absolutely massive difference to our game.

Bit of a waste of a Sunday afternoon!

The performance maybe vindicated the selection, if we had had Casey and H.Byrne out there they would probably have found it pretty tough.

As for Georgia, well they scored probably the try of the tournament, and they showed a lot of heart. We need to keep giving them exposure. I'd say with a properly funded squad who were able to spend time together that they could pick a few scalps in Tblissi in front of 50,000 fanatical supporters!

Asus X540L

The BFG aka Leo Cullen should take over Monday morning. Stuart Lancaster can take over at Leinster.

It's not cool a bunch of inept Englishmen running the national team.

Pudsy33

Asus X540L wrote: »

The BFG aka Leo Cullen should take over Monday morning. Stuart Lancaster can take over at Leinster.

It's not cool a bunch of inept Englishmen running the national team.

Lancaster is the brains behind the Leinster team and Cullen has admitted as much. Both of them or neither of them, Cullen alone would not sort this out.

Paul Smeenus

Mightily concerned about playing Scotland.

The Lost Sheep

griffinlee wrote: »

We have a problem at 10 for creativity. Burns showed good lines and seems to have an attacking pass in his locker. Byrne passes always go 5 metres behind.

We do have issues at 10 and Byrne isnt it. Its not so much that his passes go behind but that he sits so deep he isnt a threat and defences can easily drift onto the centres and smother them.

Asus X540L wrote: »

The BFG aka Leo Cullen should take over Monday morning. Stuart Lancaster can take over at Leinster.

It's not cool a bunch of inept Englishmen running the national team.

Leo isnt good enough to move to Irish role yet. Lancaster is the brains behnd the Leinster coaching team and nationality of coaches is irrelevant.

bilston

bilston wrote: »

Not great.

At least the lineout went a lot better

Georgia barely jumped. The lineout was a training run and nothing more.

And we still failed to use it effectively as a platform.

Darkie Hughes

Asus X540L wrote: »

The BFG aka Leo Cullen should take over Monday morning. Stuart Lancaster can take over at Leinster.

It's not cool a bunch of inept Englishmen running the national team.

Tend to agree. Players seem flat and unmotivated. Devoid of coherent gameplan and tactics are a shambles. 6 Nations won’t be pretty.

Asus X540L

The Lost Sheep wrote: »

We do have issues at 10 and Byrne isnt it. Its not so much that his passes go behind but that he sits so deep he isnt a threat and defences can easily drift onto the centres and smother them.

Leo isnt good enough to move to Irish role yet. Lancaster is the brains behnd the Leinster coaching team and nationality of coaches is irrelevant.

Not good enough? As opposed to Andy Farrell who couldn't play rugby union as a player and never was a head coach.

rodge123

Wonder how long of a contract Farrell and coaching team have? Until next World Cup?
They do need to be given until end of next six nations to see if there is any semblance of game plan / strategy starting to work...but I do get the sense we are going to go further backwards with this setup.

IRFU ain’t exactly rolling in cash with COVID this year, payout to end contracts and replace with world class replacements ain’t going to be cheap!

bilston

Deleted User wrote: »

Georgia barely jumped. The lineout was a training run and nothing more.

And we still failed to use it effectively as a platform.

Thanks for deleting the rest of sentence on the lineout Venjur!:pac:

Asus X540L

Asus X540L wrote: »

The BFG aka Leo Cullen should take over Monday morning. Stuart Lancaster can take over at Leinster.

Absolutely not.

There is a huge amount of player development happening at Leinster under the current setup that I would be loathe to disturb.

I'm not sure how impactful it would be either given how much Lancaster is involved in day to day coaching at Leinster.

Asus X540L wrote: »

It's not cool a bunch of inept Englishmen running the national team.

Where they are from hardly matters. But it's hard to look beyond the coaching setup now.

bilston

bilston wrote: »

Thanks for deleting the rest of sentence on the lineout Venjur!:pac:

Fair enough but given we were never challenged I'm not sure we can say anything at all about the lineout - positive or negative!

bilston

Darkie Hughes wrote: »

Tend to agree. Players seem flat and unmotivated.

Those games are flat at the best of times, but it really can't be easy playing Georgia on a Sunday afternoon in front of nobody.

Paul Weller

bilston wrote: »

Those games are flat at the best of times, but it really can't be easy playing Georgia on a Sunday afternoon in front of nobody.

I hope not a single player thought like that tbh

clsmooth

Do we need to stop trying to ‘play’ so much? Kick for territory. Take points when on offer. Focus on set piece and defence aka England/Saracens? Can’t help but feel the game has moved on in the past few years and you’re almost better off not having the ball. We certainly aren’t getting over the gain line consistently and struggling to secure our own ball. Again as in England a few of our best moments seemed to come from dinks and grubbers through. Only issue is our set piece and defence isn’t good enough at the moment to rely on it.

clsmooth

Paul Weller wrote: »

I hope not a single player thought like that tbh

I don’t think there’s any suggestion that it’s intentional. Bound to be a factor though. Most Italy games for example have a similar feel but at least normally you have a crowd to push you on. It’s a bit easier to get psyched up for England in Twickenham regardless of the crowd.

davepatr07

When you look at the highlights of how France played against Italy and England against Wales that's what you are aiming for.

Maybe we have too high expectations because we know we are a lot smaller country than either France or England and Rugby is 4th most popular sport. Should this even be an excuse for poor performances..... Ireland I fear are stagnant even possibly going backwards under Farrell. Can't even get some of the basics right or consistency the past 2 years. Would be nice if Lancaster came into the national coaching.

UAEguy2020

davepatr07 wrote: »

When you look at the highlights of how France played against Italy and England against Wales that's what you are aiming for.

Maybe we have too high expectations because we know we are a lot smaller country than either France or England and Rugby is 4th most popular sport. Should this even be an excuse for poor performances..... Ireland I fear are stagnant even possibly going backwards under Farrell. Can't even get some of the basics right or consistency the past 2 years. Would be nice if Lancaster came into the national coaching.

The size of the country and the popularity of the sport isnt an excuse for the players to not turn up. Im sick to death of us coming up with cliched excuse for the team to not get the basics right and not perform.

bilston

Paul Weller wrote: »

I hope not a single player thought like that tbh

Human nature Paul...I'm not saying they weren't 100% committed, but in the same way that players.comment on how the crowd can push them on, the same is true on the other side of it. Lack of a crowd is bound to impact the intensity of the match and performance.

ebbsy

bilston wrote: »

Human nature Paul...I'm not saying they weren't 100% committed, but in the same way that players.comment on how the crowd can push them on, the same is true on the other side of it. Lack of a crowd is bound to impact the intensity of the match and performance.

True

OldRio

Flannery put the blame on the players. Not doing the basics.
Whoever or whatever happened in that second half IMHO it was utterly unacceptable. We seem to have coaches who analize the first half. Find out the strength of the opposition and change our game plan to play into that strength. I'm utterly baffled.

UAEguy2020

OldRio wrote: »

Flannery put the blame on the players. Not doing the basics.
Whoever or whatever happened in that second half IMHO it was utterly unacceptable. We seem to have coaches who analize the first half. Find out the strength of the opposition and change our game plan to play into that strength. I'm utterly baffled.

Its scary how Georgia were able to do just that, Georgia did exactly to us what England did last week and like last week we continued to run into brick walls instead of trying to kick in behind.

razorblunt

OldRio wrote: »

Flannery put the blame on the players. Not doing the basics.
Whoever or whatever happened in that second half IMHO it was utterly unacceptable. We seem to have coaches who analize the first half. Find out the strength of the opposition and change our game plan to play into that strength. I'm utterly baffled.

Ireland thought they had georgia sussed after 40 mins, in truth the Georgians realised the Irish were going to truck it straight up and Ireland duly proved them right. Ireland were too stupid or too pig headedor too afraid or whatever you want to call it to change it up.

UAEguy2020

razorblunt wrote: »

Ireland thought they had georgia sussed after 40 mins, in truth the Georgians realised the Irish were going to truck it straight up and Ireland duly proved them right. Ireland were too stupid or too pig headedor too afraid or whatever you want to call it to change it up.

I think another factor in that was this was a cup final for Georgia compared to what was essentially what we thought was a training run for Ireland which showed with the levels of intensity from both teams. It is quite concerning how easily fooled we are as a team though.



I dont know what to make of it because even though we havent been amazing under Farrell this second half was uncharateristiclly poor to the point where I dont really know how the judge it.

Kraftwerk

UAEguy2020 wrote: »

Its scary how Georgia were able to do just that, Georgia did exactly to us what England did last week and like last week we continued to run into brick walls instead of trying to kick in behind.

All Georgia and England did though was tackle. Georgia didn't have to change anything, that try just gave them a bit more reason to keep working hard. Meanwhile Ireland just squandered their possession with poor ball protection and weren't accurate enough when they did create chances.

UAEguy2020

Kraftwerk wrote: »

All Georgia and England did though was tackle. Georgia didn't have to change anything, that try just gave them a bit more reason to keep working hard. Meanwhile Ireland just squandered their possession with poor ball protection and weren't accurate enough when they did create chances.

Exactly but the 2nd half was different to the first, in the first half they tackled but the verocity of the tackles in the 2nd half was on another level, youd never see Italy do what Georgia did for example. 13 points while big for a tier 2 nation vs a tier 1 nations isnt a margin that cant be clawed back and it gave them something to fight for, I honestly think if McCloskey's try was allowed in the first half the second half would have gone differently as that would have been a lead that would be too great for Georgia to catch but in the end thats not a good enough excuse for us as we really should be physically beaten by a tier 2 nation no matter who it is.

aloooof

Sounds like I got very lucky missing much of the 2nd half... From the 1st half, I felt there were more positives than negatives tho, some of which below. It sounds like it went to sh*te after that tho?

1. Burns looked good. Some intelligent kicking and passing. One moments hesitation too tho, letting a high ball bounce. Overall, think I'd like him to start next week.
   
   
2. Some variation on the kicking in midfield, from 2 midfielders who wouldn't be known for their kicking. McCloskey with a great kick to touch and Farrell with a decent grubber attempt.
   
   
3. Stockdale, for all his faults, should continue at FB for me. He brings so much attacking threat, which is what we're sorely lacking. (Surely the defensive mistakes are easier to fix?). He also has a massive boot.
   
   
4. Keenan continuing to be rock solid under the high ball. (If we could only marry Keenan's and Stockdale's strengths, we'd be laughing).
   
   
5. Beirne seemed to have a tidy game. Could've done better for their try, which was an absolute cracker. Henderson as well with a good shift.
   
   
6. The lineout issues remain an open question (that was always going the be the case, given the opposition I suppose); the Georgians didn't really compete, and 1 or 2 didn't seem to be collected near the apex at all. Hopefully fires well next week, which will give us a better barometer.
   
   
7. Very little ball getting to Earls and Keenan. We've seen it since the return as well with Conway looking very quiet in games. To my mind, that's more down to the execution inside not being what it needs to be, than anything the are doing wrong themselves.
   
   
8. 3 points in the second half is a pretty awful return. It most've been really poor fare?
   

degsie

Ireland v Scotland, KO 2:15pm. RTE2, Prime Video

Ireland: Jacob Stockdale, Hugo Keenan, Robbie Henshaw, Bundee Aki, Keith Earls, Johnny Sexton, Conor Murray; Cian Healy, Rob Herring, Andrew Porter, Iain Henderson, James Ryan, CJ Stander, Peter O'Mahony, Caelan Doris

Replacements: Ronan Kelleher, Eric O'Sullivan, John Ryan, Quinn Roux, Josh van der Flier, Jamison Gibson-Park, Ross Byrne, Chris Farrell.

Scotland: Stuart Hogg, Darcy Graham, Chris Harris, Duncan Taylor, Duhan van der Merwe, Jaco van der Walt, Ali Price; Rory Sutherland, Fraser Brown, Zander Fagerson, Scott Cummings, Jonny Gray, Blade Thomson, Jamie Ritchie, Matt Fagerson.

Replacements: Stuart McInally, Oli Kebble, Willem Nel, Sam Skinner, Blair Cowan, Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, Huw Jones, Sean Maitland.