any link for this?
it is on bbc2
Couple of line breaks from the scots but despite trying to offload at every opportunity they are fairly brainless at it. Great covering and turnover from O’Leary there
Scotland have been poor with their posession. How its still 3-3 i’ll never know. Kearney and Trimble look good in the backs. TOL having a bad game bar a couple of good things their. Leamy has been immense, none of the other forwards have stood out.
doh!
shocking game…
Scotland deserved that, a few Irish lads playing their way out of the squad
Twould have been a serious morale blow for the Scots if they had lost this, they deserve the win in fairness to them
Ireland completed the first of four test matches in the buildup to the 2011 Rugby World Cup today with a dour loss in Scotland. The mixed side assembled for the game performed for all the world like a side thrown together in haste but there were a few pointers towards squad selection for New Zealand.
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Backs:
Rob Kearney impressed at full-back. He didn’t get much of a chance to show off his kicking skills but his line-running and passing (not always his two strongest features) were both pleasing.
Both wings performed very well. Fitzgerald recovered the confidence he lost in an Irish shirt last season with some good footwork and intelligent kicking while Trimble continues to impress as a strike runner. He’s the nearest replacement for Tommy Bowe in the squad and can take heart from a solid effort.
Neither centre covered themselves in glory. Wallace was characteristically creative with a couple of passes but struggled to impose himself in an attacking sense from inside centre. McFadden was direct with the ball but was found badly wanted for the Scottish try where he rushed up and was beaten on the inside. He will want a run at #12 to re-establish his credentials.
The half backs are both certainties to travel barring injuries (or a surge in form for the wild-card scrum halves) and neither did much to change perception today. Sexton was certainly the more impressive of the two - he kicked well and fed a backline that looked dangerous on very limited possession. O’Leary was once again let down by a ponderous pass - it’s not just the speed of his delivery but the thought process behind it that lets him down sometimes. Still he was an effervescent presence and generally coped well with scrappy ball.
Forwards
While the backs generally matched expectations the same couldn’t be said of the pack, though the bar was set lower for a second or third string group.
The front row managed to scrap for parity at scrum times and were never blown away but they were far from comfortable. Court was surprisingly prominent away from set pieces, turning over a couple of balls at rucks and his versatility (coupled with the obvious lack of alternatives) keeps him in the frame. Cronin was one of the bigger disappointments in the match. He had few of his trademark dynamic bursts, he coughed up possession a couple of times (stripped of the ball in contact once embarrassingly) and didn’t look assured at lineout time. He might take some comfort from a sub-par cameo from Flannery but this wasn’t an encouraging effort. Buckley was probably the standout performer of the three. He flopped around a few rucks and used his bulk to reasonable effect but it was a competent rather than convincing performance.
The mediocrity continued in the second row. Donncha Ryan was underwhelming at lock and his versatility is beginning to paint him as a stopgap in a number of positions. He was thoroughly outplayed by his partner and his two opponents. Leo Cullen was certainly better but this wasn’t a dynamic gutsy performance from the captain. He was part of a beaten pack in a trial match so can only be expected to give so much and can be forgiven an average performance.
Whatever weaknesses were evident in the front five were magnified in the back row. Niall Ronan looked out of his depth and for all the understandable talk about Sean O’Brien not being a natural openside flanker, the Leinster man is a far better #7 than Ronan if there is a hole there that needs filling. His performance was typified by a crazy decision to kick possession away (5 yards straight into the hands of an opponent) when Ireland had a rare chance to break on a turnover in the second half.
Leamy and McCarthy were both improvements on Ronan but neither was utterly convincing. The former did manage to carry the ball well on occasion and curtailed many of his more headless moments from the past. It wasn’t the most explosive #8 performance ever seen in an Irish shirt but if Leamy’s aim was for a mature, steady influence then he wasn’t a million miles off with this effort. McCarthy would be an outside shot for a World Cup slot and his contribution today hardly altered that. He looked short on athletic prowess and experience and will presumably not be given sufficient opportunity to turn that first impression around.
Others:
None of the replacements made a significant impact other than McLaughlin stealing a lineout towards the end. Felix Jones brought a bit of pace to proceedings but will have fallen down the pecking order thanks to Kearney’s strong performance. He looked a little at sea for the late try conceded but can rightly point to the mess inside as the true cause of the points conceded.
Finally it was a rather embarrassing moment for Scottish rugby to see them winding down the clock at the end and booting the ball into the stands to finish the match, greeted by roars of approval from the Scottish crowd. Have their ambitions really sunk so low that a lacklustre victory against a scratch Irish side in a trivial fixture represents an achievement worth celebrating?
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Morgan Stoddard broke his ankle today in the Wales v England match.
He wasn’t even supposed to start the match but was drafted in at the last minute after Stephen Jones tweeked something in the warm up
With D’Arcy a big doubt for the WC it will be interesting to see whether Kidney gives the likes of either Bowe or Earls a run at centre beside O’Driscoll.
Is it worth investing in Setanta for the WC?
RTE are only meant to be showing 7 matches… I assume BBC and ITV will be showing more than this?
If you are only getting Setanta for the rugby alone I would hold off. ITV have teh exclusive English rights and will show the vast majority of the games, presume some of the more low key ones will be on ITV 4
France:
15 Damien Traille, 14 Vincent Clerc, 13 David Marty, 12 Maxime Mermoz, 11 Alexis Palisson, 10 François Trinh-Duc, 9 Dimitri Yachvili,
8 Raphaël Lakafia, 7 Imanol Harinordoquy, 6 Thierry Dusautoir ©, 5 Romian Millo-Chluski, 4 Julien Pierre, 3 Luc Ducalcon, 2 Dimitri Szarzewski, 1 Sylvain Marconnet
Replacements: 16 Guilhem Guirado, 17 Jean-Baptiste Poux, 18 Lionel Nallet, 19 Julien Bonnaire, 20 Morgan Parra, 21 David Skrela, 22 Maxime Médard, 23 Fabien Barcella.
Very strong team with about 8 or 9 definite starters, everyone else are very close to the team as well.
Ireland’s teams
15 - Rob Kearney (UCD/ Leinster)
14 - Andrew Trimble (Ballymena/Ulster)
13 - Keith Earls (Thomond/Munster)
12 - Paddy Wallace (Ballymena/ Ulster)
11 - Luke Fitzgerald (Blackrock College/ Leinster)
10 - Ronan O’Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster)
9 - Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster)
1 - Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster)
2 - Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster)
3 - Mike Ross (Clontarf/Leinster)
4 - Donncha O’Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster)
5 - Leo Cullen (Blackrock College/Leinster) Captain
6 - Donnacha Ryan (Shannon/Munster)
7 - Sean O’Brien (Clontarf/Leinster)
8 - Denis Leamy (Cork Constitution/Munster)
Replacements:
16 - Jerry Flannery (Shannon/ Munster)
17 - Tony Buckley (Sale Sharks)
18 - Paul O’Connell (Young Munster/Munster)
19 - Jamie Heaslip (Naas/Leinster)
20 - Conor Murray (Garryowen/ Munster)
21 - Fergus McFadden (Old Belvedere/Leinster)
22 - Felix Jones (Shannon/ Munster)
Interesting team, Kearney getting the chance for the fullback. Straight shootout between Fitz and Trimble for their place on the plane. Earls getting a chance as McFadden was poor against Scotland. Reddan and TOL on the plane, straight fight between the other 3 for the last. Pack no real surprises, Ryan seems to be in pole postion for that 5.5 position. Leamy at 8 is a bit of a strange one and i hope Jennings is still injured, if he is not he can forget about going to NZ.
I don’t think Kidney rated Jennings and i don’t think he will bring him. Don’t think he is up to openside at Test match level and I think if Ferris is fit then the 5 backrow spots are set in stone
Heaslip
O’Brien
Leamy
Wallace
Ferris
Earls and Wallace in the centre outside ROG?
God help Kearney.
I agree Kidney doesn’t rate Jennings and I’d say you are right with the 5 you picked. I think Jennings is international standard, but is too often dismissed by Kidney. Leamy is 3rd choice 8 behind SOB and Heaslip and the same at number 6. Jennings is a proper 7 and I think we need him at the WC. We might badly need a fetcher, link player and I think he should go. If we get to the latter stages of The WC, McCaw, Brussow and Pocock will cause us serious problems and the breakdown will become a major issue for us. The only way i’d bring Leamy was if Ferris was ruled out through injury. Still Kidney will more than likely pick the 5 mentioned above.
Don’t like the look of O’Gara, Wallace and Earls. Would like to see Wallace outside Sexton again as they play very well together. O’Gara and Wallace do not. Another combination I’d like to see is PO’C and Cullen paired up. I don’t see Cullen starting next week and he deserves to get a chance to develop partnership with PO’C instead of just putting DO’C and PO’C together again. I fear Kidney has his mind made up about definite starters PO’C and DO’C are nailed on.
Would be amazed if Trimble were not on the plane Anto. He should be a starter imo.
I agree
Both Trimble and Fitzgerald will travel
I can’t see the logic of bringing both. The only way both will go if Kidney decides to leave Jones at home or he doesn’t think McFadden is good enough to cover centre and leaves him at home, therefore Bowe or Earls will be needed for centre, freeing up a space. I think he has to bring Jones with Kearney. We need 2 proper 15’s as Fitz proved he is not good enough to play their at international level. Earls is nailed on to start on the wing and Bowe almost certainly as well. Trimble will get the 3rd spot as he can play both wings better than Fitz can. I’d have Trimble on the plane anyway as he has been playing better, while Fitz is nowhere near the level he was before his injury.