Autumn Internationals 2022

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900310#Comment_119900310

It's just a statement of fact. The top three teams in the world are in one side of the draw, plus the rugby world's largest consumer of performance enhancing drugs, it'll be tough.

Rugbymad2020

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900351#Comment_119900351

U really are a clueless idiot.but whatever helps u sleep at night.going to be so much fun watching u go home early and all the excuses that will follow

stephen_n

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900405#Comment_119900405

It will be more fun watching Rassies video meltdown blaming anyone and everyone except himself.

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900405#Comment_119900405

I know, right?

We'll probably come up with some outlandish nonsense about a global conspiracy against us and our coach will get his second ban in two years for his insane ramblings, and everyone will laugh at us and hate us in equal measures, and legions of deeply, deeply unpleasant people will launch an online hatred campaign against the referees.

Sounds like us alright.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900184#Comment_119900184

Clearly he is. Its a travesty that he wasn't awarded player of the year over the weekend, and the fact that he was the only OH nominated shows how he is clearly the best around.

TRC10

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900302#Comment_119900302

How many "easier" draws have we had over the years and shat the bed?

Say what you will about Wales, they turn up when it matters. When we do the same, maybe then we can slag them off.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

I don't understand your point with this. Wales rugby in general is in a state of borderline crisis. Their domestic teams are probably the worst they've been in the past 25 years or more. Their attendances for domestic rugby are on the floor. Their underage structures look under pressure.

They do have an uncanny ability to be better than the sum of their parts at international level, and a large part of that has been some great coaching over the years, but would you really think there's any structural part of their rugby set up and infrastructure that we should be looking to aspire to?

Former Former Former

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

I'm not sure what your point is, other than to sh*t all over Ireland again.

Wales lost to GEORGIA at HOME on Saturday. I think it's reasonable to say that's a bad result for Welsh rugby, regardless of what happens at the World Cup.

Shehal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

Like against Italy in the 6N...

CatFromHue

Have to say I do worry at the state of rugby in Wales at the moment. Yeah they did win the 6N in 2021 but there's a bit of papering over the cracks with that win. You can only play against what's in front of you but they do have the bizarre statistic of their opposition receiving a red card in 3 of the games. POM after 14 mins in the first game and Fagerson after 54 mins in their second game as they won by 6 against us and by 1 against Scotland.

They only have one team in the HEC this year and that's because the shield winners get a spot, otherwise they wouldn't as Ospreys finished 9th last season. There's a good chance this will happen next season too.

OldRio

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

Do you know how many wins Wales have managed this calendar year? That's the reason Welsh fans are up in arms about the coach, the WRU, the URC, the structures and everything else inbetween.

CatFromHue

Only one win in each of the 2020 and 2022 6N too.

lawrencesummers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

Didnt it matter last weekend?

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

That one is easy. We never had an easier draw in the years that they “turned up”. They made the SF in 2019 and 2011. In 2019 they faced a French team that hadn’t turned things around yet and were focusing on 2023 while we had NZ who were the best in the world at the time. In 2011 we faced each other. That was arguably the Welsh close to their peak and Kidney bottled his selection. So of those years where they advanced and we didn’t we never had an easier draw.

We did have an easier draw in 2015 when they had SA and we had Argentina. But we lost the spine of our team so neither of us progressed.

Dubinusa

Wales are not developing many good players. You look at the u20's and they have been dire. Scotland have been dire at u20 level too.

The fans in Wales aren't supporting the regions. Whatever the problems are it's apparent that the union is not being managed well.

Wales have a good record at the world cup. Better than ours. But, Wales are poor, with the 6nations coming you'd wonder how they'll go? I think they'll be lucky to win 3 matches. I can't see them win the tournament and the pressure on Pivac must be huge.

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901145#Comment_119901145

This is something that I’ve never fully understood about people comparing us to Wales. Their Regions are a lot less successful or competitive than our provinces. Their national team can get up for big occasions at times but are horribly inconsistent (remember their 10 in a row losses vs Oz or losing at home to Fiji and now Georgia). They have come in the bottom half of the 6Ns table a few times over the last decade or so. That’s only happened to us once and our coach was sacked for it. The Welsh record against SH opposition is way worse than ours.

Given the choice between a consistently competitive side who don’t let you down very often over a side that can lose to Fiji and Georgia at home while coming 5th in the 6Ns every few years but do manage an extra trophy and an extra round in the RWC (without winning it) then I know who I’d go for myself. Especially when you factor in the performances of the provinces to boot.

I often wonder if those that talk about trophies being the only measure are people who just watch rugby on Wikipedia and not actually watch games. Because those same people would invariably be the ones calling for coaches heads if we had some of the years and/or performances that the Welsh have had over the last decade. They’ll happily ignore the actual rugby (where Ireland have been more consistently competitive) in favour of what Wikipedia tells them.

aloooof

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900659#Comment_119900659

With the regularity you criticise Ireland and Leinster (even in victory), I'm pretty confident if we lost to Georgia (repeat: Georgia!), you'd be absolutely slating us.

Personally, I think this is a reversion to the mean for Wales, and put's into context that their 2021 6N's victory was... let's say "jammy".

lawrencesummers

Wales have a squad that has long needed some turnover of out with the old and in with the new but they just dont have anything coming through.

They will eventually have to bite the bullet but its probably going to get worse before that happens especially at this stage of the WC cycle.

TheRona

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119901639#Comment_119901639

Let's not forget that Wales should have won the series in SA in the summer.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902150#Comment_119902150

thats not saying much these days.....

in this calendar year they've been beaten by Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and France.

and that Wales win was over a very much south africa A team

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902150#Comment_119902150

Should they? SA selected a much weakened side in the second test because they had won the first and backed themselves to win the third. Had they lost that first game then they wouldn’t have gone so weak in the second. And even against a much weakened SA they only scraped the win. They were behind until the 79th minute. They got well beaten in the final test. You could argue that they should have won the first test, but when you cough up 4 yellow cards you don’t really have any right to complain about losing.

Shehal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902150#Comment_119902150

Um...how should they?

TheRona

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902224#Comment_119902224

Well NZ generally have SA's number, so that's to be expected.

Ireland and France are #1 and #2 in the world, and both scraped wins against SA.

My point is that you can take whatever you want from these games, but I wouldn't write Wales off. I don't think there's any team out there that is looking unbeatable at the moment.

sydthebeat

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902349#Comment_119902349

agreed, theres no team out there looking unbeatable at the moment.... but wales are ranked 9th in the world currently and id rather play them than any of the 8 team ahead of them, in a RWC QF

scotland will definitely fancy their chances in murrayfield in Feb

tmc1963

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119900647#Comment_119900647

''...at the moment''

Always important to fully read something to avoid looking a bit over excitable and one-eyed.

Pete_Cavan

Worth noting that since 2019 (the period in which Wales won a GS plus a 6N Championship while Ireland won nothing), Ireland actually won more 6N games than Wales. I'd be fairly certain Ireland's record outside the 6N is far better too. 2021 is very much an anomaly without which Wales' record would be awful.

molloyjh

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902559#Comment_119902559

This. In the last 10 years Ireland and Wales have both won 3 6Ns titles including 1 Grand Slam. They’ve the exact same number of trophies.

However in that same period the average finish from Ireland is 2nd. The average from Wales is 3rd.

9 of those years we’ve been in the top half of the table with 1 5th place finish (which will be 11 years ago in a few months). 7 of those years Wales have been in the top half of the table with 3 5th place finishes.

We have finished ahead of Wales 6 times in the last 10 years. In the combined totals of the last 10 years we come out on top across the board. More wins, more points, better PD.

2013 is a major outlier for us and drags down our average over the 10 years. And as above, that’ll be 11 years ago in a few months. In the 9 years since, all of the above obviously then shift in Irelands favour (especially as 2013 was one of Wales’ title wins). And all that despite the jammiest of titles to ever have gone a sides way in 2021.

And this is just the 6Ns. In the RWC Wales have gone all of 1 game further than us once in that time period. But they have struggled outside of the tournaments. We’re at a 64% win rate vs the big 3 SH teams compared to their 30% in that time. We have beaten all 3 of NZ, SA and Australia more than we have lost to each of them over the last 10 years (56% vs NZ, 67% vs SA and 71% vs Australia). The opposite is true for Wales (0% vs NZ, 43% vs SA and 38% vs Australia). And of course they lost at home to Georgia!

Add in their Regions fortunes in that time period (2 trophies to our 9 as well as their general lack of competitiveness) and it’s clear that we outperform Wales more than not. Which you wouldn’t get from some comments here.

Dubinusa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902909#Comment_119902909

You're a right prick! Why would you bring facts up? Why? It's not right!

ersatz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119902349#Comment_119902349

Wales are running on fumes and the trend line for performance has been down for years. International results display that and those exceptional days when they win big and over perform are rarer and rarer. Every team goes through doldrums but the game itself is in real decline in Wales and eventually this will tell.

And I'm not sure that you can take anything from results. Some are close games but as we know in Ireland there is a big difference between winning close games and losing them. We were losing close games against France and against the ABs for many years, what I'd take a way from that is that you are losing close games and the rest of the time you're being well beaten. Getting from there to winning close games consistently and not losing badly when you lose is a fundamentally different place to be in sport. For a start teams going out onto the field with real confidence (rather than hope) that you can beat whoever the opposition is, not just on the day but on any day.

pickarooney

Would another loss in Cardiff in February be a shock defeat or just consistent with the last decade?