Italy vs Ireland match thread

Scratchly

Anyone know the italian pen count? Must be setting a record here

Buer

almostover wrote: »

Think Connor and Beirne got mixed up for the mom award

Almost certainly. Beirne has been fine but pretty quiet by his standards. Had one big carry down the line and has been fairly quiet otherwise aside from being part of an efficient pack.

Sexton, Stander, Connors probably the pick of Irish performers for me.

sydthebeat

All in all, that's a great result

Cluedo Monopoly

Having the 2 outhalfs on pitch will not do much for Burns confidence. Casey was finding Sexton mainly.

Macdarack

Nice wan Johnny

UAEguy2020

Can’t wait to see the TMO find a way to disallow the try ...

Shelby Foote

Great to see Sexton put 80m in.

Long time since we saw that..

Scratchly

Happy enough with that.

UAEguy2020

France and Ireland two similar win but there will be 2 very different narrative pushed in the media and rugby world

bilston

Sexton plays 80 minutes

His last two acts were a delightful cut off pass try assist and a touchline conversion from the wrong side for a right footed kicker

But of a statement!

mfceiling

Cluedo Monopoly wrote: »

Having the 2 outhalfs on pitch will not do much for Burns confidence. Casey was finding Sexton mainly.

If Henshaw was injured then there's not much Burns could do. He had to take the pitch and Johnny had to stay on.

leakyboots

almostover wrote: »

Think Connor and Beirne got mixed up for the mom award

CJ all the way for me. He was phenomenal

prawnsambo

bilston wrote: »

Sexton plays 80 minutes

His last two acts were a delightful cut off pass try assist and a touchline conversion from the wrong side for a right footed kicker

But of a statement!

Cracker of a little fade he put on the kick to take it through the posts. Skills.

Big Ears

almostover wrote: »

They've been a rabble for a long time. England and France didn't have to play well either to beat them by 30+

England beat them by 23, and were very lucky a couple of their tries weren't disallowed.
Infact if reffed correctly that game could have been very tight.

Granted that's more a reflection on England than Italy.

fitz

sydthebeat wrote: »

All in all, that's a great result

Plenty to be happy about, but disappointing that we didn't kick on after the BP try.

theVersatile

8 from 8. Tidy day from Sexton in fairness.

Scratchly

Good man Tag

mfceiling

UAEguy2020 wrote: »

France and Ireland two similar win but there will be 2 very different narrative pushed in the media and rugby world

You keep trying to make this point.

There will be no different narrative. Italy are poor and you can only beat what's in front of you. Nobody will be getting carried away with this result whether you want it to be that way or not.

prawnsambo

"Tag" Beirne. FFS.

You'd have to wonder where Italy go from here, getting beat out the gate every match for 5 or 6 years now

Big Ears

Ah we've an interview with "Tag" 🀨.

almostover

Things I learned today:

JGP is decent
Connors > JVdF
Stander will get many more caps for Ireland
Beirne is a no.4
Sexton is by far our best 10
We're struggling a little on the wing
Italy are manure
Raynal is pedantic
Casey and Baird 2 to watch for the future

Macdarack

Ireland did what was they were expected to do, but don't be saying the rucking was brilliant and the attacking lines were great etc. Italy aren't a standard. Who here thinks well beat the hagis munchers?

Larbre34

Scratchly wrote: »

Good man Tag

They don't even try, do they? I mean call him Tim if its such a bleedin effort.

Birdnuts

You would wonder what is the point in Italy continuing in this competition - they bring nothing to it other than cannon fodder.

wicklowstevo

Surely we can get rid of the failed experiment that is billy burns and to a lesser extent james lowe

craig casey has proved his ability at the level too

great stuff from the entire pack also

apart from the sanctimonious obnoxious commentary from virgin one of course

theVersatile

almostover wrote: »

Things I learned today:

JGP is decent
Connors > JVdF
Stander will get many more caps for Ireland
Beirne is a no.4
Sexton is by far our best 10
We're struggling a little on the wing
Italy are manure
Raynal is pedantic
Casey and Baird 2 to watch for the future

I don't think you can be making any difinitive statements about player rankings a la Connors VDF off the back of an Italian game. I'd like to see more of Connors though - he showed up well today.

DJIMI TRARORE

During the Sin binning was when we destroyed them, 21 unanswered points(?), we'll on top for all game though

almostover

wicklowstevo wrote: »

Surely we can get rid of the failed experiment that is billy burns and to a lesser extent james lowe

craig casey has proved his ability at the level too

other than that all good

Picking Burns ahead of Carty makes no sense. With Carbery back with Munster now too I think Billy's time in the green jersey needs to come to an end

joseywhales

Healy is a bit of a penalties machine(+knock ons) this championship, I dont know if we can afford that for the sake of scrummaging

clsmooth

bilston wrote: »

Sexton plays 80 minutes

His last two acts were a delightful cut off pass try assist and a touchline conversion from the wrong side for a right footed kicker

But of a statement!

One of his best games in recent times. Shades of his pass to Stockdale v Wales in 2018. Lovely piece of skill. Think the stats showed he had made 8 9 tackles around the 30th min too.

wicklowstevo

almostover wrote: »

Picking Burns ahead of Carty makes no sense. With Carbery back with Munster now too I think Billy's time in the green jersey needs to come to an end

agreed ,

carthy might even be the man for now , carbery would need to prove form more

almostover

theVersatile wrote: »

I don't think you can be making any difinitive statements about player rankings a la Connors VDF off the back of an Italian game. I'd like to see more of Connors though - he showed up well today.

For me and what I've seen of both players is that JVdF is a great workhorse but Connors has just a little extra at the breakdown and around the park. Both are good 7s. And I think we player better with a proper 7 in our backrow. POM is under big pressure now because he's not a 7 and I don't think he's a banker at 6 anymore either. With Ruddock and Conan playing well at Leinster and the rise of Coombes in Munster he will find it hard to nail his spot back down. Not to mention with both Beirne and Baird being decent options at 6.

.ak

Pretty poor second half.

Not as bad as Poite tho. Shouldn't be allowed be involved in an Irish game again, he's obviously got a bee in his bonnet with us and can't hide it now.

.ak

Also I can't believe I picked Lowe as my captain... Have we a team full of left handed backs or something?

TomsOnTheRoof

.ak wrote: »

Pretty poor second half.

Not as bad as Poite tho. Shouldn't be allowed be involved in an Irish game again, he's obviously got a bee in his bonnet with us and can't hide it now.

That level of pedantry is unusual and certainly raises a few flags. They checked everything

Larbre34

Beirne will be the 6 v Scotland. And maybe forever.

.ak

TomsOnTheRoof wrote: »

That level of pedantry is unusual and certainly raises a few flags. They checked everything

The fact they didn't check the try, which clearly was a try, was insane. Kelleher's knock on not a clear knock on at all.

degsie

Can we all agree that Italy bow out and French refs take a long holiday?

ersatz

Really good 20 or 30 minutes from Ireland in the first half. Nice interplay involving Keenan and Ringrose a couple of times. It’s good news if Keenan develops as a player joining the line at angles for offloads from other backs. Sexton had a good game today, excellent kicking. I’d like to have seen them do more against 13 Italians though. Also another couple of breaks without any support! I’d have thought they’d be more tuned in after missing some of those opportunities last time out.

Interesting to see blocking penalized in line out mauls. Big effect if this becomes a consistent policy.

bilston

.ak wrote: »

Pretty poor second half.

Not as bad as Poite tho. Shouldn't be allowed be involved in an Irish game again, he's obviously got a bee in his bonnet with us and can't hide it now.

The Henderson one was baffling...like it didn't matter and was never likely to matter, but what if we were playing NZ or England today?

How does he get that wrong? There is literally no excuse I can think of other than there was a miscommunication between Poite and Raynal.

Akrasia

I think we need to try Kevin O Byrne at hooker, kelleher played really well but I think KOB would bring something explosive off the bench.

bilston

degsie wrote: »

Can we all agree that Italy bow out and French refs take a long holiday?

They need to consider a play off. If nothing else it will give Italy a real kick up the arse if real jeopardy is added.

sydthebeat

fitz wrote: »

Plenty to be happy about, but disappointing that we didn't kick on after the BP try.

we had 3 tries ruled out by the TMO

we pretty much did as much as we could

Lost Ormond

wicklowstevo wrote: »

Surely we can get rid of the failed experiment that is billy burns and to a lesser extent james lowe

craig casey has proved his ability at the level too

great stuff from the entire pack also

apart from the sanctimonious obnoxious commentary from virgin one of course

Billy Burns isnt really an issue and he should have been on the pitch far earlier today. We had the game won well before he came on and when the starting 10 is a 100 cap 35 year old it was ridiculous leaving him on that long.

.ak wrote: »

Pretty poor second half.

Not as bad as Poite tho. Shouldn't be allowed be involved in an Irish game again, he's obviously got a bee in his bonnet with us and can't hide it now.

Poite was poor but it just shows being a TMO is very different to being on pitch official and you need to get specialists doing it

prawnsambo

bilston wrote: »

The Henderson one was baffling...like it didn't matter and was never likely to matter, but what if we were playing NZ or England today?

How does he get that wrong? There is literally no excuse I can think of other than there was a miscommunication between Poite and Raynal.

I think the problem was that play continued and so it didn't get the scrutiny it required and would have got if it had actually taken place during a break in play. The question is whether Henderson had control of the ball or not and I'd say Poite took one look at it, saw it fly forward and thought (wrongly) no control.

Podge_irl

bilston wrote: »

They need to consider a play off. If nothing else it will give Italy a real kick up the arse if real jeopardy is added.

Italy will beat Georgia.

Podge_irl

Lost Ormond wrote: »

Billy Burns isnt really an issue and he should have been on the pitch far earlier today. We had the game won well before he came on and when the starting 10 is a 100 cap 35 year old it was ridiculous leaving him on that long.

Had he come on earlier we would have played the last 20 minutes down a back...

TomsOnTheRoof

.ak wrote: »

The fact they didn't check the try, which clearly was a try, was insane. Kelleher's knock on not a clear knock on at all.

Agreed. Kelleher's came off a knee and he regathered. It wasn't at all obvious and if that's sufficient to constitute a knock on then every second ruck will result in a scrum.

The Henderson non try was as bad. People can argue about whether he was in control but for it not to be reviewed by Reynal was poor. The certainty with which Henderson's claim was disregarded was baffling.

sydthebeat

Podge_irl wrote: »

Italy will beat Georgia.

absolutely, but at least a play off would shut up the empty vessels calling for italy to be thrown out