Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

OldRio

POC comes in and the lineout and forwards improve massively. That's really good but what was going on before he arrived?

As for the backs? Maybe another change should be made. Or do we stick with Mike Catt and his tremendous C. V.

Niallof9

TRC10 wrote: »

Its actually "Jouez". You add "ez" to the infinitive when it's an imperative. Somebody wasnt paying attention in LC French.

I'll ask again. What would have been an acceptable result for you today?

seeing something a little different.

Our scrum was excellent, our lineout was excellent. our attacking shape and everything along those lines was atrocious.

Not good enough for me and o from 2. could take the defeat if it involved some actual evidence of improvement in functions we''ve been failing at for some time.

look you seem to have decided that its fine. fair enough like many on here i'll never change your mind. we could be losing to Japan in the WC and people still wouldn't wake up (sorry that already happened)

ANyway i'll leave it there as theres no point. Its clear as day we're in serious ****e. Farrell was lucky with POMs card gives him a pass. similarly as ive said many times AF would get a pss from me if he showed some balls instead of his increasingly weird decisions. Cooney should have told him to **** off. Coombes was a stupid decision. Casey today if hes not ready.

If we go 1 from 5 there should be no excuses.

TRC10

Niallof9 wrote: »

seeing something a little different.

Our scrum was excellent, our lineout was excellent. our attacking shape and everything along those lines was atrocious.

Not good enough for me and o from 2. could take the defeat if it involved some actual evidence of improvement in functions we''ve been failing at for some time.

You've just said the scrum and lineout were excellent. And then gone on to say there we're no improvements. You've directly contradicted yourself.

We now have a strong foundation to build our attack on. The attack will improve, just as the set piece improved. You want it all at once. It doesn't work like that.

Niallof9

TRC10 wrote: »

You've just said the scrum and lineout were excellent. And then gone on to say there we're no improvements. You've directly contradicted yourself.

We now have a strong foundation to build our attack on. The attack will improve, just as the set piece improved. You want it all at once. It doesn't work like that.

i have clearly said in regards our attack. I should have just said attacking functions. also our decline in scrum and lineout is on AF in the first instance seeing he took over from Joe. Jesus

its hilarious people seeing this improvement yet it all started coming apart under AF. it would just do your head in. Anyway i look forward to some people seeing sense when this ****show of a six nations is over. They said give it time at the wc, last 6 nations, then the restart, then the nov internationals. Now its the six nations. Its never ending.

TRC10

Niallof9 wrote: »

i have clearly said in regards our attack. also our decline in scrum and lineout is on AF in the first instance seeing he took over from Joe. Jesus

Yeah it couldn't be the fact that our forwards coach was given the defense coach job as well and had a huge added workload when Joe left and we lost our scrum coach. No chance it was that.

Niallof9

TRC10 wrote: »

Yeah it couldn't be the fact that our forwards coach was given the defense coach job as well and had a huge added workload when Joe left and we lost our scrum coach. No chance it was that.

Yeah that was part of it alright. But why was that allowed happen? Why did Farrell not see the issue?

Anyway we can pick this up after the Scotland game, hopefully i'm eating humble pie.

TRC10

Niallof9 wrote: »

Yeah that was part of it alright. But why was that allowed happen? Why did Farrell not see the issue?

Anyway we can pick this up after the Scotland game, hopefully i'm eating humble pie.

He did see the issue. He appointment O'Connell, and literally every one of those things have improved since.

But no way you could give Farrell any credit for that since you probably had your mind made up on him before he even started the job.

You want his head because our attack isnt world class yet.

Brewster

An incredible effort today considering the players that were missing. We were always going to have a period of adjustment. We have come out the wrong side of two incredibly close games. We were inch or two away from having a kick to go 10 nil. It would have been massive. Think about it. It didn’t happen and in a flash we were 7-3 down. Sometimes you need a bit of luck to go your way. I do think we have have younger options we need to go with them now, within reason. I think Stockdale needs to come back in now. He simply has too much X factor not to play. I think he needs to play on wing though, how that is going to work with Lowe I am not sure? If we had a full strength team today, I think we would have got it over the line. Such small margins. Yes we need to do more in attack and Mike Catt does need to up his game. I genuinely think we are building a squad though. Our back row competed so well today, and we had POM and Doris missing, with Leavy possibly to come back into contention, although he still has some way to go. Connors also made an impact when he came on. I am optimistic for the future.

bilston

How has Leavy been doing withe Leinster? Is there a chance that he could get back into the squad for Italy?

The selection for Italy will be interesting. I guess there might be a squad update this week?

Farrell might feel like his back is against the wall and will resort to Murray and Sexton, but that feels like it would be a missed opportunity.

Italy aren't as bad as many think IMO...they can play a bit of rugby now, but at the same have a loose defence...then again we have a blunt attack.

dublin49

strange game.Burns miss and non try could easily have seen us 11 ahead .and yet the clumsy France try miss cud have opened the flood gates to a hammering.The lineout and scrum were great which is a joy to watch having watched us go backwards for yonks against french packs.Lowe really does mix the good with the bad more than most.Stander is a warrior but too easy to read and I would give Conan or Boyle or Coombs a go.
How is Carty not due a go,?Earls has had his time and need something new,lamour really spending all his equity now.

Neil3030

If all the talk is about Lowe and Burns, it shouldn't be (at least, not all of it).

French pack carries / yards made:

1. 8/23
2. 9/38
3. 4/18
4. 5/7
5. 4/7
6. 3/12
7. 2/11
8. 14/71

Irish pack carries / yards made:

1. 0/0
2. 2/0
3. 7/4
4. 7/2
5. 6/10
6. 10/10
7. 5/15
8. 19/44

We were fairly beasted up front.

leakyboots

Must love hardship wrote: »

Healy/ byrne. Healy made a lot of tackles but missed a couple too.. looked very tired before he was taken off for the 2nd time. Byrne.. limited was caught flat-topped for the try. A worrying position for me coming from a time we had mcgrath and healy in tandem. Kilcoyne looks to be made of glass. You'd hope Eric o sullivan and josh wycherly get a serious opportunity to start maybe with healy to see out the game.

Herring/kelleher. I think kelleher should be given the reigns for the rest of the 6 nations.

Porter/furlong.
Our strongest position.

Beirne/henderson/ dillane.
Beirne not as influential as the last day but a solid outing. Henderson ran the line out well. Neither at Ryan's level but both should be kept around. Beirne Ryan Henderson is a solid trio what ever way you rotate it.

Ruddock. Nice early steal at the lineout. Offered himself to carry all day. Not bad for his first start.

Vdf/connors not a influential as we needed them to be. Connors got a lovely steal near the end. Almost a carbon copy of with beirne got pinged for last week. For me I think leavy cannot get back to full fitness fast enough.

Stander. Carried well. But not the most inventive with the ball.. seriously need to look at Coombes here if Doris is out longterm.
Plenty of options in the back row.

JGP/Casey gpark spent 80 minutes today probably for the first time in his career. Missed 3 very important tackles 2 I think in the lead up to the first try. Poor passing to the right. Kicks poor faster than Murray to get ball away from the base of the ruck. Didnt direct play well. Criminal that casey didn't see game time.

Burns /byrne. Byrne looks to be a more solid option. Does the basics right.

Midfield lacked innovation

Lowe terrible in defence.

Earls better.
Keenan not as good as last week

Agree with a lot of what you're saying but can't agree on Stander, this is the kind of thing that we see regularly

"Not the most inventive with the ball"... he passed it 4 times and had an offload. JvdF and Ruddock... 1 pass each, 0 offloads. Why weren't they as inventive?

This happens again and again in games and people simply refuse to see it about CJ. Because he carries so much (most in the tournament...by 7 carries!) and I think people get blinded by when he actually does pass.

Incidentally, he's the 8th most metres made in the tournament, the first forward behind the 7 backs leading the way. He's an absolute machine. Why oh why would we drop him like some are saying on here?

Not a go at you, I liked your well thought out post, it's just a comment that always catches my eye about CJ that seems to be perceived knowledge on here but nowhere else.

prawnsambo

Neil3030 wrote: »

If all the talk is about Lowe and Burns, it shouldn't be (at least, not all of it).

French pack carries / yards made:

1. 8/23
2. 9/38
3. 4/18
4. 5/7
5. 4/7
6. 3/12
7. 2/11
8. 14/71

Irish pack carries / yards made:

1. 0/0
2. 2/0
3. 7/4
4. 7/2
5. 6/10
6. 10/10
7. 5/15
8. 19/44

We were fairly beasted up front.

Interesting that their front row carried more times than their back row. Pretty much the opposite of what you'd expect.

TomsOnTheRoof

leakyboots wrote: »

Agree with a lot of what you're saying but can't agree on Stander, this is the kind of thing that we see regularly

"Not the most inventive with the ball"... he passed it 4 times and had an offload. JvdF and Ruddock... 1 pass each, 0 offloads. Why weren't they as inventive?

This happens again and again in games and people simply refuse to see it about CJ. Because he carries so much (most in the tournament...by 7 carries!) and I think people get blinded by when he actually does pass.

Incidentally, he's the 8th most metres made in the tournament, the first forward behind the 7 backs leading the way. He's an absolute machine. Why oh why would we drop him like some are saying on here?

Not a go at you, I liked your well thought out post, it's just a comment that always catches my eye about CJ that seems to be perceived knowledge on here but nowhere else.

Preach it. The man is a machine and one of the country's best ever backrowers, sadly he will never get the plaudits he deserves.

Niallof9

TomsOnTheRoof wrote: »

Preach it. The man is a machine and one of the country's best ever backrowers, sadly he will never get the plaudits he deserves.

Best ever? nah stop. He's a warrior at times. He's a dogged carrier, workrate off the chart and will take a ton of punishment. When he's on song he steamrolls people through sheer will. but how many big matches has he truly performed? against the top tier. he's been missing in any of the matches recently against England. Doris has already been able to nudge him from the number 8 spot. We need to stop with some of this stuff, we really do.

The lions whenever it happens will be another wakeup for many.

I'd select Stander at 6 though going forward, nobody else is doing what he does.

TomsOnTheRoof

Niallof9 wrote: »

Best ever? nah stop. He's a warrior at times, but he's vastly overrated by many as well. He's a dogged carrier, workrate off the chart and will take a ton of punishment. When he's on song he steamrolls people through sheer will. how many big matches has he truly performed? against the top tier. he's been missing in any of the matches recently against England. Doris has already been able to nudge him from the number 8 spot. We need to stop with some of this stuff, we really do.

The lions whenever it happens will be another wakeup for many.

I said one of. He's been a pivotal player in everything we have won under Schmidt. That's a couple of 6 Nations, two victories over New Zealand and a Grand Slam. So yeah, imo he's one of our greatest backrowers.

Stander is one of the few Irish players who, so long as it goes ahead, will be in the touring squad.

Niallof9

well its not saying much, or maybe it is if one of our best ever backrows/8's is getting nudged from his favoured spot by a 21 year old newcomer.

And at 6 Stander isn't the same player.

His way of playing sums up all thats wrong with Ireland.

Give me the CJ who can score the try versus Italy in his first season rather than the contact seeking player we see now, any day of the week. It looked great smashing a vastly overrated faletau but it did very little and was a nothing moment in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah he'll be in the squad for sure. But he won't be starting or likely in the 22.

Buer

Neil3030 wrote: »

If all the talk is about Lowe and Burns, it shouldn't be (at least, not all of it).

French pack carries / yards made:

1. 8/23
2. 9/38
3. 4/18
4. 5/7
5. 4/7
6. 3/12
7. 2/11
8. 14/71

Irish pack carries / yards made:

1. 0/0
2. 2/0
3. 7/4
4. 7/2
5. 6/10
6. 10/10
7. 5/15
8. 19/44

We were fairly beasted up front.

We weren't though. I'd say a huge portion of those yards came off short offloads around the fringes where France are so good. They certainly didn't outmuscle our pack.

We had the better of the breakdown and the set piece. Our ruck retention was excellent (97% to France's 92%) and France ended up on the losing side of the penalty count in that area too.

We were just completely ineffective with the ball in hand and extremely one dimensional. But in general forward play, we were more cohesive.

Clegg

Very frustrating. We would have scored a try if Keenan, waited until he was closer to Dulin before passing to Lowe. Fickou only makes it to the touchline in time because Dulin hasn't been drawn in and is able to tackle Lowe.

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361062891592515587?s=09

UAEguy2020

Clegg wrote: »

Very frustrating. We would have scored a try if Keenan, waited until he was closer to Dulin before passing to Lowe. Fickou only makes it to the touchline in time because Dulin hasn't been drawn in and is able to tackle Lowe.

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361062891592515587?s=09

Because like most of the players he’s passing just because he should, not because he’s trying to put Lowe in the corner.

It’s incredible because if they had blue on they would have executed this perfectly.

irishbucsfan

Ireland had like a 97 or 98% ruck accuracy. We were absolutely not beasted anywhere.

We actually played excellently everywhere except in how we used the ball in attack (except a few dodgy mistakes in defense from Lowe/JGP). Unfortunately that's a personnel issue. I think we're a fair bit off solving that, unless the solution is to just not play the ball outside the opposition 22, in which case Ross Byrne might actually be interesting as a starter. I don't think that's the identity they're going to go for though.

Buer

Watching live, I was surprised nobody pulled Lowe up on leading with the forearm to the head of Dulin. It had a strong case for a card for Lowe if it was looked at closely.

bilston

Brewster wrote: »

I think Stockdale needs to come back in now. He simply has too much X factor not to play. I think he needs to play on wing though, how that is going to work with Lowe I am not sure?.

Lowe drops out or moves to 14.

That said I have a horrible feeling they will pick Stockdale at 15 again...which will probably work against Italy, but really Keenan should be 15.

UAEguy2020

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Ireland had like a 97 or 98% ruck accuracy. We were absolutely not beasted anywhere.

We actually played excellently everywhere except in how we used the ball in attack (except a few dodgy mistakes in defense from Lowe/JGP). Unfortunately that's a personnel issue. I think we're a fair bit off solving that, unless the solution is to just not play the ball outside the opposition 22, in which case Ross Byrne might actually be interesting as a starter. I don't think that's the identity they're going to go for though.

It’s not even a personnel issue, just look when they get the ball, they look so rudderless that it’s clear they don’t do much when it comes to back moves. Just compare their attack when they play for their provinces they way they attack is at pace and with depth but for Ireland they stand still and just crash it up, incredibly poor.

TRC10

Clegg wrote: »

Very frustrating. We would have scored a try if Keenan, waited until he was closer to Dulin before passing to Lowe. Fickou only makes it to the touchline in time because Dulin hasn't been drawn in and is able to tackle Lowe.

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361062891592515587?s=09

I'm not seeing that tbh. Keenan is drifting and if he delays any longer the defense has more time to get across. If anything he gave it to late.

bilston

TomsOnTheRoof wrote: »

Preach it. The man is a machine and one of the country's best ever backrowers, sadly he will never get the plaudits he deserves.

Stander?

Good player, but in the last 20 years alone he'd do well to be in the top 10 Irsh back rows.

bilston

TRC10 wrote: »

I'm not seeing that tbh. Keenan is drifting and if he delays any longer the defense has more time to get across. If anything he gave it to late.

Another step and he might fix Dulin, but then he runs the risk of not getting the pass away

TRC10

bilston wrote: »

Another step and he might fix Dulin, but then he runs the risk of not getting the pass away

Dulin would never have bitten there and if he had bitten it would have been a poor decision. The scramble defense was getting across. Dulin defended it really well.

I think we're looking for an issue where there isn't. I dont think there was anything wrong with that move. Just good defending and unlucky to have a toe in touch.

aloooof

Buer wrote: »

Watching live, I was surprised nobody pulled Lowe up on leading with the forearm to the head of Dulin. It had a strong case for a card for Lowe if it was looked at closely.

In real time (and onto my 2nd IPA of the day), I thought the exact same thing and was almost certain it was a card tbh. A lot of the replays for the TMO didn’t seem to go back that far, iirc, and concentrated on the foot to touch. I’d need to see it again, tho.

Clegg

On the one hand you can say we weren't prepared for the turnover in an attacking sense. It was a great lineout steal to regain possession. But really the best sides should be able to quickly flip from defence to attack. We just kicked it away. Alignment wasn't perfect, but there was plenty of space to pass and run into. A couple of quick passed from Burns to Henshaw and then to Ringrose and we're in acres of space.

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344?s=09