November Rugby Internationals (aka Kev - "Should BOD be dropped?")



How long of a gap between the first game of the Beer Cup to the final?

Ah here.

You’re like a parrot. You’re so bereft of any rugby knowledge or insight, you’ve repeated the same line in at least three different posts this morning. Tradition is important in any sport or indeed any walk of life, but sport is not a slave to tradition. How do you explain the Chicago Cubs winning the World Series after a losing tradition of 108 years, the Tyrone footballers winning the All Ireland in 2003 after a losing tradition of 116 years stretching back to the inaugural championship of 1887?

Good players and a good coach are the most important ingredients to winning in any sport. I have stated that I believe Ireland can win the World Cup in 2019 as we tick both those boxes.

Having lost the argument you’re doing your usual throwing the toys out of the pram routine and resorting to personal insults - the last vestiges of a beaten docket. For a fairly unremarkable statement that Ireland have a terrific group of players and an outstanding coach, I’m accused of a flip flop moment and having reneged on your principles and ideology.

Your anti-rugby hatred is just consuming you. A soccer type calling the Ireland rugby team West Brits.

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Long winded waffle that fails to address the abandonment and direct contradiction of your most trotted out line.

Not a scooby mate.

Throw up some of those posts so where I said that tradition and principles and ideology would prevent the Ireland rugby team from ever winning a Rugby World Cup.

That appears to be a very good point. Ireland seem to lose 3-4 players in every game to a mixture of concussion and collision injuries and the effects take a greater toll in tournament play due to lack of recovery time in a condensed schedule.

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Exactly.

Tradition which seems to be a fundamental barometer for you is neglected when it comes to the West Brit rugby side.

It’s utterly bizarre.

And not being able to sweep the head injuries under the carpet because of the oversight of World Rugby.

Throw up some examples there in a rugby context. Are you still all hot and bothered about Tyrone on three All Ireland’s to Kerry’s 37? Tradition is important in any sport but its not the only ingredient to winning.

Don’t ever let me hear you shitting on about tradition again when you are willing to dismiss its importance willy nilly when the narrative suits you.

Would you like to respond to the assertion that Ireland getting injuries isn’t unlucky but a by-product of their style of play?

Show me where I’ve dismissed tradition? I’ve said tradition in any sport is an important ingredient but not the only one.

The style of play is evolving. The likes of Carberry, Ringrose, Josh van der Flier don’t seek out physical confrontation they way the likes of Sexton or Sean O’Brien do. Injuries are inevitable in a physical contact sport, but as evidenced by Saturday we are developing a strength in depth and a playing pool to cope with such injuries, which wasn’t there when we lost all those players for the Argentina game last year.

Would Oirland have beaten Argentina with all of those players available, in your opinion?

Too many piano pushers, not enough piano players.

Too many players who look for the collision, not enough who look for the gap.

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+1
I think this was one of the lessons learned by Schmidt after the world cup and he has used the summer and November tests to rebuild and develop fringe players. Yes he has been lucky to a cretain extent but he has used his luck well.

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Its conjecture now and I don’t see any great point in speculating on it. If you’re to push me on it, with a full hand, or close to a full hand I think Ireland would have beaten Argentina and possibly Australia in the semi final as well. They wouldn’t have beaten New Zealand in the final though. Those four absentees for Ireland were akin to New Zealand missing Dan Carter, Richie McCawe, Kieran Reed and Brodie Retallick.

I fully accept the point that some of the injuries in the 2015 World Cup were a product of the attritional type of game Ireland were playing last year. Schmidt is a shrew coach though and with the type of young player we now have emerging, our style of play is slowly evolving away from that.

If its conjecture don’t bring it up as mitigation. For what its worth we both know the way Argentina attacked out wide was something Ireland hadn’t prepared for and none of the four being back would have stopped the result.