Provisional Irish squad announced today:
OUT
No Boss (only 2 scrum halfes), Sheahan, Young, Carney, Gleeson,
O’Connell, Simon Best and Ferris excluded due to injury.
YOUNG LADS IN
Cian Healy and Johnny Sexton included. As are Kearney, Fitzgerald, Bowe and Heaslip.
OLDER LADS IN
Cullen, Jackman, Mick O’Driscoll, Johnny O’Connor
Thought Andy Dunne deserved a shout.
No Jennings either.
I’m delighted to see Healy, Buckley and Sexton included, as Prop and Out-half are the problem positions of Irish Rugby at the moment.
Only Buckley has a chance of making the match squad 22 but Sexton and Healy should get starts in the A games. The experience will be crucial for them in the long run.
Neil Best and Easterby are blessed to keep out Jennings and Gleeson.
Easterby in particular looks like, at best, short-termism and, at worst, favouritism.
Again there’s too many sixes. I couldn’t really argue against bringing in O’Connor becos he’s been very impressive in any Connacht games I’ve watched, but surely he could have had another seven instead of Easterby. Jennings would have been the pick for the future.
I don’t have Sky, so hard to say about Bob Casey or this Ross fella at Harlequins. Believe Brian O’Riordan’s doing well at Bristol also.
Couldn’t really complain about the backs. He dropped Boss and brought in Sexton etc. Don’t think Dunne has really had enough game time.
I think Jennings may have suffered from Leamy moving to flanker really. I think Heaslip has the Number 8 spot in the bag which means there’s an extra flanker in the panel in Leamy now. It’s way overbalanced on blindsides though (as usual). Don’t have as much of a problem with Best because while he hasn’t been in form he’s been unlucky not to play more in the past and he’s played very well for Ireland.
Easterby on the other hand is finished. He didn’t do particularly well for Llanelli against Munster, especially at home where Foley destroyed their back row, and he’s not dynamic enough or excellent enough at any facet of play to warrant his continued inclusion. I think he helped himself by announcing he wasn’t retiring.
I have $ky but haven’t seen any English rugby so haven’t a clue about those lads.
No problem with Sexton for Boss but doesn’t say much for our depth at scrum half. Think Dunne is unlucky because he’s closer to playing international rugby than Sexton is and I don’t see much point in persevering with Wallace at the moment - he clearly struggles to play 10 for province so it would be the same for Ireland.
First French squad announced.
Pity they dropped the overhyped Chabal. Some names I’ve never heard of in there but they look weak in the centre with Traille and Fritz.
Chabal axed by Lievremont
22/01/2008 - 12:24:52
New France coach Marc Lievremont has made sweeping changes in his first squad selection ahead of the RBS 6 Nations Championship clash against Scotland at Murrayfield on February 3.
Lievremont had vowed to look to the future after taking over from Bernard Laporte following last year’s World Cup – and the former Dax coach has stuck to his word.
The likes of Sebastien Chabal, Jerome Thion, Clement Poitrenaud, Pierre Mignoni and David Marty are all out, while the experienced quartet of Raphael Ibanez, Serge Betsen, Fabien Pelous and Christophe Dominici announced their retirement from international rugby over the past few months.
There are a number of surprises and new faces, notably in the front row where uncapped props Julien Brugnaut and Lionel Faure – of Dax and Sale Sharks respectively – are selected.
Arnaud Mela and Loic Jacquet are new names in the second row, joining recently appointed captain Lionel Nallet in that department.
And in the back row, Montpellier’s Ouedraogo Fulgence, who has one cap to his name, is chosen and there is a return for Clermont-Auvergne number eight Elvis Vermeulen.
Chabal, Remy Martin, Imanol Harinordoquy and Yannick Nyanga all miss out in the back row.
Behind the scrum, Lievremont has sprung more surprises.
Bourgoin’s Morgan Parra gets the nod over Pierre Mignoni as the second-choice scrum-half behind Jean-Baptiste Elissalde, while uncapped Montpellier fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc will be David Skrela’s understudy.
With Marty dropped and Yannick Jauzion injured, Damien Traille is joined by the returning Florian Fritz at centre.
And in the back three, uncapped Clermont-Auvergne winger Julien Malzieu is chosen ahead of Toulouse full-back Poitrenaud.
Props Sylvain Marconnet, Pieter De Villiers and Olivier Milloud were not considered for selection as they are currently out injured.
Chabal is what we call in rugby, an impact player.
Anyone got the odds for this. I think Ireland have a cracking chance this year. We have 3 home games against the “minnows” to rack up some wins and then 1 win and a reasonable defeat away from home would be enough.
England overachieved at the World Cup and aren’t anything like as good as Ireland
Wales will be decent but should be beatable
Scotland will try hard but fail ultimately
France are in transition and I think they’ll struggle
For Italy, see Scotland.
Championship Winners
[FONT=Arial]France [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 5/4[/FONT][FONT=Arial] England [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 2/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Ireland [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 9/2[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Wales [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 8/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Scotland [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 14/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Italy [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 100/1[/FONT]
Triple Crown Winner
[FONT=Arial]England [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 5/4[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Ireland [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 7/2[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Wales [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 11/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Scotland [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 20/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] No winner [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 15/8[/FONT]
Grand Slam
[FONT=Arial]France [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 3/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] England [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 11/2[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Ireland [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 16/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Wales [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 20/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Scotland [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 100/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] Italy [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 500/1[/FONT][FONT=Arial] No winner [/FONT][FONT=Arial]LP: 8/13[/FONT]
Thanks Flano.
I think I’ll have a small interest on Ireland and Wales to win the championship. And Wales at 11/1 to win a triple crown looks decent value too.
Ireland won’t win more than 3 games. Fact.
PS: It annoys me when people type ‘fact’ after an opinion they’ve made on a forum.
Typing or saying Fact after giving an opinion means it’s a fact and no one can argue with it. It’s a rule I live by 
8 week ban for Flannery means he misses the whole thing.
But back in time for Munster quarter final.
8 weeks overly harsh imo.
Harsh considering Ibanez got 4 weeks, but Flannery did try to take his head off. The bleeding from the eyeball pictures can’t have helped.
Think he names the 22 tomorrow.
I’ll guess (in this order becos its easier to think out):
Horan
Jackman
Hayes
O’Callaghan
Cullen
Wallace
Leamy
Heaslip
Reddan
O’Gara
Bowe
D’Arcy
O’Driscoll
Horgan (if fit)
Dempsey
Subs:
Buckley
Best
O’Driscoll
Easterby
Stringer
Wallace
Trimble
[quote=“Fats”]Think he names the 22 tomorrow.
I’ll guess (in this order becos its easier to think out):
Horan
Jackman
Hayes
O’Callaghan
Cullen
Wallace
Leamy
Heaslip
Reddan
O’Gara
Bowe
D’Arcy
O’Driscoll
Horgan (if fit)
Dempsey
Subs:
Buckley
Best
O’Driscoll
Easterby
Stringer
Wallace
Trimble[/quote]
I presume this is what Eddie’ll do, not what you want?
I think he’ll have O’Kelly ahead of Cullen (with O’Driscoll on the bench), Stringer ahead of Reddan and I agree with the rest.
Really badly short of wingers - I think I retired too soon.
[quote=“WhyOhWhy”]But back in time for Munster quarter final.
8 weeks overly harsh imo.[/quote]
Don’t think it was that harsh to be honest. Once you find him guilty then there’s no question that it was a bad one.
The Clermont guy got 8 weeks as well for stamping on O’Gara, though bizarrely his punch on Quinlan didn’t get punished. I thought this was because he’d already been yellow carded by the ref at the time but he was cited for it alright by the independent commissioner. The panel apparently believed it wasn’t a red card offence.
It wasn’t an outrageous incident worthy of a couple of months’ suspension or anything but how a right hook like that can be deemed to be not worthy of a red card is beyond me.
On that note did Leicester have anyone cited after the Leinster game last week?
Is that Luke Fitzgerald chap not ready to make the breakthrough yet? Thought he was supposed to be hot shit. And really good at rugby too.
He’s been more shit than hot this year so far.
Got a couple of tries against Toulouse did he not? Is he still developing or just not as good as was initially thought. There were Drico comparisons when he first emerged.