Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Former Former Former

Teferi wrote: »

It's the overall context that matters lads, not one or two individual events.

I couldn't give a shyte about that tweet. Pretty tasteless but ultimately just a bit of "look at meeee, I'm still here" mentality.

What I could never get over was when he announced his move to Racing... via an interview on the Racing website... a few days before he had to go to play against Racing for Munster. Incredibly self-centred but par for the course.

He spat in the face of every Munster fan that day and bizarrely, many of them swallowed his phlegm and to this day maintain it was ice cream.

thomond2006

theVersatile wrote: »

Source?

Pat Geragthy was not a fan of munsterfans, for example. I can't point to an individual event, but it's known.

Teferi

The Inbetween is mine wrote: »

He spent 3 years whinging? ....lads....mods wouldn't allow us discuss Zebo on here with regards to Ireland...and it wasn't because of his whinging....
I've really got to wonder at the level of disdain shown towards Zebo throughout his career....it's not a good look

Be brave enough to say what you are insinuating.

theVersatile

thomond2006 wrote: »

Pat Geragthy was not a fan of munsterfans, for example. I can't point to an individual event, but it's known.

Go raibh maith agat

aloooof

Former Former Former wrote: »

I couldn't give a shyte about that tweet. Pretty tasteless but ultimately just a bit of "look at meeee, I'm still here" mentality.

What I could never get over was when he announced his move to Racing... via an interview on the Racing website... a few days before he had to go to play against Racing for Munster. Incredibly self-centred but par for the course.

He spat in the face of every Munster fan that day and bizarrely, many of them swallowed his phlegm and to this day maintain it was ice cream.

That's not my recollection whatsoever, tbh. The Racing game you're referring to was in January 2018. It was widely reported on the previous October that he was leaving:

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/racing-92-make-simon-zebo-an-offer-he-couldn-t-refuse-1.3266364

The news of him leaving came out the week before the November International squad was announced, iirc, which he wasn't included in because of that. You're making out like the announcement in January came as a big surprise, when that's not the case.

This is making a mountain out of a molehill, which seems to be par for the course when it comes to Zebo.

sydthebeat

The Inbetween is mine wrote: »

He spent 3 years whinging? ....lads....mods wouldn't allow us discuss Zebo on here with regards to Ireland...and it wasn't because of his whinging....
I've really got to wonder at the level of disdain shown towards Zebo throughout his career....it's not a good look

Hes a divisive character... he plays to his crowd and does nothing to quell his divisiveness ... openly admits his hatred for leinster every chance he gets.

so if fans have a disdain towards him, its not exactly unwarranted.

Buer

Former Former Former wrote: »

many of them swallowed his phlegm and to this day maintain it was ice cream.

F*cking hell.


Is anyone else turned on right now?

thomond2006

If someone could tell me how to turn my phlegm into ice-cream, could we focus on that instead of Zebo.

Podge_irl

Swallow some liquid nitrogen.

There may be some side effects.

phog

sebdavis wrote: »

Im not a huge fan of Zebo but come on now. Hardly something terrible

Ah come on, people want to be outraged.

Let them have their moment.

sebdavis

phog wrote: »

Ah come on, people want to be outraged.

Let them have their moment.

Seems to be the case to be honest.
I am wondering did Madigan respond or not?

Teferi

The last bastion of people without an argument is the strawman & the ad hominen. I'm sure it's much easier to accuse people of being faux-outraged then responding to an accurate summary of events

nerd69

sydthebeat wrote: »

Hes a divisive character... he plays to his crowd and does nothing to quell his divisiveness ... openly admits his hatred for leinster every chance he gets.

so if fans have a disdain towards him, its not exactly unwarranted.

I'm not particularly fond of his personality tbh but the people on here that where saying he's a nothing player essentially make no sense either

sebdavis

Teferi wrote: »

To be clear, here is the timeline:

Zebo tells Joe he doesn't want to play for him. (Fair play, it's your right to tell a coach that (even if it is the only coach you've won a significant medal with))

Zebo takes a big pile of cash to go to France knowing there is a soft rule that you won't be selected for Ireland if you play abroad. (Again, fair play - it's a short career and you should leverage it as much as possible. I hope his bank account looks like scrooge mcduck's).

So, after telling a coach he doesn't want to play for him AND knowing there is a soft rule in place knowing he won't get picked, he proceeds to spend the next 3 years whinging about not being selected in the media, sending tasteless tweets about Ireland losing and generally being happy when Ireland do badly etc.

It's the overall context that matters lads, not one or two individual events.

Again I must admit I am no huge Zebo fan but some of the stuff on here is unbelieveable

I couldn't believe this line about telling Joe he didn't want to play for him and as I expected that is not true

Joe is a super coach who has had great success with Ireland. [However,] we talked about it face-to-face. I said to him that I couldn't play in such a rigid structure.

Winning is important but for me it's also important to do it in a certain way. But if you ask me to pick between losing in style or winning ugly, I'd choose the second option.

That is what Zebo said about the situation, now maybe I missed something but I never seen anything saying Zebo wouldn't play for Joe? any source?

In regards to the move, Zebo many years ago said he would play in France before his career was over. He was only in his early 20's when I heard him in an interview saying it, was about family links to France....money of course was bonus

P.S. on the media part, I think Zebo has a few fans in the media....they made a constant point of talking about Zebo at every chance they could get. Can't really blame him.
Apart from the PP video and the tweet, what else can you see of him "whinging in the media"?
Most are interviews when he is asked a direct question, what did you want him to say? no I hate Ireland and dont want to play for them

Teferi

sebdavis wrote: »

I said to him that I couldn't play in such a rigid structure.

You highlighted your own answer.

Former Former Former

aloooof wrote: »

That's not my recollection whatsoever, tbh. The Racing game you're referring to was in January 2018. It was widely reported on the previous October that he was leaving:

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/racing-92-make-simon-zebo-an-offer-he-couldn-t-refuse-1.3266364

The news of him leaving came out the week before the November International squad was announced, iirc, which he wasn't included in because of that. You're making out like the announcement in January came as a big surprise, when that's not the case.

This is making a mountain out of a molehill, which seems to be par for the course when it comes to Zebo.

It was confirmed in November 2017 that he was leaving, but his destination was not confirmed until the week of the Munster game.

I remember at the time that Munster fans were incredibly blase about this utter lack of respect for them or their club. That didn't matter a damn to Zebo because he only cared about himself.

Even if your version was correct, you think it's OK for one of your key players to give an interview to Saturday's opponents about his excited he is to be moving there?

Like I said, ice cream.

sebdavis

Teferi wrote: »

You highlighted your own answer.

This is what you posted

Teferi wrote: »

Zebo tells Joe he doesn't want to play for him

This is what he said

Zebo wrote:

I said to him that I couldn't play in such a rigid structure

I see a huge difference in those two statements. Also Zebo says

Zebo wrote:

But if you ask me to pick between losing in style or winning ugly, I'd choose the second option

I don't see anything in that conversation which would suggest Zebo walks in ands says he doesn't want to play for Joe.

molloyjh

phog wrote: »

Ah come on, people want to be outraged.

Let them have their moment.

I dont think there was any sign of outrage in what I posted, I can't speak for anyone else. Zebo has made himself a divisive character. There can't really be any surprise that conversations on him are divisive. It's okay to like him and agree with that, every but as much it's okay to not like him and admit he's a talented player.

theVersatile

Buer wrote: »

F*cking hell.


Is anyone else turned on right now?

Whatever you're into Buer, you kinky devil.

molloyjh

sebdavis wrote: »

This is what you posted

This is what he said


I see a huge difference in those two statements. Also Zebo says



I don't see anything in that conversation which would suggest Zebo walks in ands says he doesn't want to play for Joe.

Telling a coach you can't play the way he wants is tantamount to telling him he shouldn't pick you. That's like going to a job interview and telling them you can't do the job specified.

jm08

Former Former Former wrote: »

It was confirmed in November 2017 that he was leaving, but his destination was not confirmed until the week of the Munster game.

I remember at the time that Munster fans were incredibly blase about this utter lack of respect for them or their club. That didn't matter a damn to Zebo because he only cared about himself.

Even if your version was correct, you think it's OK for one of your key players to give an interview to Saturday's opponents about his excited he is to be moving there?

Like I said, ice cream.

Isn't there something about the way French clubs can only sign players in a certain window? I don't think that was the case that people were upset he was going to Racing. He wasn't given an international contract which signalled that Joe Schmidt didn't really have much time for him. The timing to go then was right as he wasn't in Schmidt's plans and to go to France where he always said he wanted to go to. ROG was at Racing when he was signed, so presumably he must have rated him highly. Good on him for going off to make some money then rather than now.



Isn't 16th March Zebo's birthday - and he was always pally with Ian Madigan and being messy with him. He used to give Sexton some slagging as well who gave as good as he got.

jm08

molloyjh wrote: »

I dont think there was any sign of outrage in what I posted, I can't speak for anyone else. Zebo has made himself a divisive character. There can't really be any surprise that conversations on him are divisive. It's okay to like him and agree with that, every but as much it's okay to not like him and admit he's a talented player.

Seriously, he seems to be really popular and well linked by all the players and most his coaches (exception Joe Schmidt). It was interesting to see that London Irish gave him an offer (with former coaches Les Kiss and Declan Kidney there).

Dubinusa

Zebo will have to perform at Munster before he gets a call. He will have to hit the ground running. I expect Conway will regroup and find his form. Haley and Zebo will battle for the 15 shirt. Zebo is guaranteed nothing!
He's a nice option to have. Then there's Larmour, Stockdale, Keenan etc, not to mention Balacoune. He has his work cut out.

nerd69

molloyjh wrote: »

Telling a coach you can't play the way he wants is tantamount to telling him he shouldn't pick you. That's like going to a job interview and telling them you can't do the job specified.

Ya to be fair rob kearney massively stiffled his creativity for the system he was put in and it worked well for him I'd argue zebo would lose much more of what makes him valuable though it's more like telling finn russell to play like rog it's not really his game and probably makes selecting him pointless anyway

phog

Dubinusa wrote: »

Zebo will have to perform at Munster before he gets a call. He will have to hit the ground running. I expect Conway will regroup and find his form. Haley and Zebo will battle for the 15 shirt. Zebo is guaranteed nothing!
He's a nice option to have. Then there's Larmour, Stockdale, Keenan etc, not to mention Balacoune. He has his work cut out.

Is there anybody saying otherwise?

We have a quality player back playing in Ireland and a few people want to be upset about it. If he proves he still has the ability he gets gametime, if not, we have cover elsewhere. It's a win win for Munster and Ireland.

sebdavis

molloyjh wrote: »

Telling a coach you can't play the way he wants is tantamount to telling him he shouldn't pick you. That's like going to a job interview and telling them you can't do the job specified.

Maybe, but Joe is now gone and nothing to do with the management team anymore. I miss Joe

Anyway, Ireland are now playing a system which is supposed to be based on "head up" rugby. So the exact game that Zebo wanted to play for Ireland. So is that not a good thing?

aloooof

Former Former Former wrote: »

It was confirmed in November 2017 that he was leaving, but his destination was not confirmed until the week of the Munster game.

I remember at the time that Munster fans were incredibly blase about this utter lack of respect for them or their club. That didn't matter a damn to Zebo because he only cared about himself.

Even if your version was correct, you think it's OK for one of your key players to give an interview to Saturday's opponents about his excited he is to be moving there?

Like I said, ice cream.

Everything I said was correct. His destination wasn't confirmed until January, but it was pretty much the worst kept secret in rugby at the time. The actual announcement will have come as a surprise to very few.

With regards the interview, would I have preferred if he didn't do it? Sure, but I don't see it as this massive deal you're making it out to be.

The most important thing is, do I think it had any impact on the game / result? None whatsoever.

Former Former Former

aloooof wrote: »

Everything I said was correct. His destination wasn't confirmed until January, but it was pretty much the worst kept secret in rugby at the time. The actual announcement will have come as a surprise to very few.

With regards the interview, would I have preferred if he didn't do it? Sure, but I don't see it as this massive deal you're making it out to be.

The most important thing is, do I think it had any impact on the game / result? None whatsoever.

Maybe everyone "knew" it but it had not been announced.

I honestly don't see how you can see it as anything other than very disrespectful to Munster. He was still a player, his focus should have been on Munster. He just didn't give a shyte about you. He couldn't have waited another week?

Maybe it on its own isn't a big deal but it's part of a long pattern. The guy has no loyalty to anyone but Simon Zebo. Don't fool yourselves that he's coming back out of love for Munster.

thomond2006

It's an interview.

Jeez. Whatever. Was I supposed to be outraged, or something?

As aloooof says, everyone and their mother knew he was off to Racing. GT reported it as a given in October 2017: https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/racing-92-make-simon-zebo-an-offer-he-couldn-t-refuse-1.3266364

Former Former Former wrote: »

I honestly don't see how you can see it as anything other than very disrespectful to Munster. He was still a player, his focus should have been on Munster. He just didn't give a shyte about you.

Maybe it on its own isn't a big deal but it's part of a long pattern. The guy has no loyalty to anyone but Simon Zebo. Don't fool yourselves that he's coming back out of love for Munster.

I'm a bit lost. Maybe there's something here I'm not getting, at all.

An interview published during the week of the game is a bit crass, but it's hardly a hanging offence.

sydthebeat

nerd69 wrote: »

I'm not particularly fond of his personality tbh but the people on here that where saying he's a nothing player essentially make no sense either

yeah that kind of ridiculous hyperbole deserves to be called out for the crap it is.

equally the posts calling for him to start at 15 ahead of Hogg for the lions is also deserving of derision.

somewhere said it last week.... hes not as bad as some people make out and not as good as others make out. the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Definitely good enough to be part of the irish training squads... and from there we'll see if he can break back into the test 23s