O’Learys kicking and passing decisions were awful. Every single one of his box kicks was terrible, including the one where he decided to hand possession back to South Africa with 2 minutes left. I’d also blame him for deciding to pick out forwards with passes from 5 yards out when our backs outnumbered theirs. We needed quick snappy ball out to the backs rather than slow ball to forwards.
No they weren’t-a few bad ones-not all of them.
Paul O’Donoghue needs to be given a chance at scrum half.
I don’t remember any good ones. In every case a pass back to Sexton for him to kick would have got us at least another 15 to 20 metres further.
Your showing a real lack of understanding of the way we play, and O’ Learys role in it.
But i wouldn’t expect much else from you Mac.
Look the Leinster players are great, and they are the best, and Munster are shit, and they are the worst.
We said what you want to hear, now run along child.
Mac eventually catches a fishy 
:rolleyes:
[quote=“caoimhaoin”]Your showing a real lack of understanding of the way we play, and O’ Learys role in it.
But i wouldn’t expect much else from you Mac.
Look the Leinster players are great, and they are the best, and Munster are shit, and they are the worst.
We said what you want to hear, now run along child.[/quote]
Ok Mr. expert, how do we play and what is O’Learys role in it? Good to see that despite all that has happened its impossible to have a debate with you without you bringing it back to provincial or county rivalries.
Typically well thought out argument from Kev. :rolleyes:
Nevermind the bandwagonner Mac, Tomas was poor, and I’m a big fan of his. Kev generally knows fuck all about Rugby.
I remember a couple of good ones anyway-a couple at the start possibly where SA were lining up to say hello to Johnny but O’Leary box kicked. It’s obviously Kidney’s gameplan anyway as I think TOL kicks way too much but thought he did well enough on Sat.
I also think POC gives us nothing with his ball carrying as he very rarely gains any advantage, and for such a big man this is a weakeness-great in the lineout yes (a lot of the plaudits has been given to the Bull though for this) and good in a maul (even Stringer would look good in a maul).
What would be your opinion of the milkman mac?
So kicking horrendously, being ridiculously ponderous at the base of rucks and passing slowly with a fair chunk of these deliveries reaching the intended target on the half volley is all part of the Irish tactical masterplan. :rolleyes:
No he was just talking through his hole, i think he genuinely believes o’ Leary was poor. Which i believe you disagree with as well.
Mac - Your the one blantently bring up Munster players for criticism for the past while, some warrented, some not.
I am well able to give balanced debate on all the players, and i’m not jesting when i say that right now, most of our leading players come from Leinster, and from an “Irland” point of view, i couldn’t give a fuck where they come from, yet you seem intent on running down Munster players all the time.
On the game plan. Ireland, and this is according to the most successful manager ever in Irish rugby DK, are moving slowly to a more expansive game, because he, and the players believe this is needed, along with our kicking and mauling old school game, to bring Ireland to the very top. I agree with this.
Now for last saturday, O’ Leary (to me) was clearly under instruction to try and catch SA offside alot, and put them on the back foot with penalties. SA tend to loose the plot when there is a run of penalties against them. They play right on the line, Burger was offside all day saturday, but unfortunately the ref let him off with alot. If O’ Leary throws it out really quickly and we go ruck to sideling too quickly then SA’s very good defence comes up too fast. They are huge men, and they are brilliant at turning it over against smaller men like P.Wallace or sexton. Ireland give it to the forwards to carry and set up attack, its also brings in the SA defence a couple of times in a row it will fragment them slightly, and you keep them guessing. There was alot of variety to Irelands game saturday, and this was planned.
You do know that sometimes an outhalf or a centre call for the ball as well as a decoy, and that much of the time they don’t really want it at all. Then with Ireland sucking them in a few times, they would try and go wide. It nearly worked a few times as well. It also seemed to me that at certain times the SA full back would cover across to the far wing, or slightly head over there at least, Kearney and Sexton were clearly watching this as well, and we nearly caought them badly there as well.
ireland are heading to a very mixed game, keep the oposition thinking all the time, this series of Internationals was phase one of this. SA are now being found out to be one dimentional, NZ were that way for a while, and they and the Aussies have recognised, along with Ireland that you need to be adaptable, and are aiming at the WC with these plans in mind.
Yup, seems to be. TOL kicks way too much and more often than not, the kicks are shite. It seems to be part of Kidney’s plans alright, even thinking back to the 6 Nations, it was frustrating the amount of times TOL failed to set the backs free deciding to (or decided for him) kick instead.
[quote=“Pikeman”]I remember a couple of good ones anyway-a couple at the start possibly where SA were lining up to say hello to Johnny but O’Leary box kicked. It’s obviously Kidney’s gameplan anyway as I think TOL kicks way too much but thought he did well enough on Sat.
I also think POC gives us nothing with his ball carrying as he very rarely gains any advantage, and for such a big man this is a weakeness-great in the lineout yes (a lot of the plaudits has been given to the Bull though for this) and good in a maul (even Stringer would look good in a maul).
What would be your opinion of the milkman mac?[/quote]
O’Connell was excellent in the lineout on Saturday and did excellent work at the breakdown winning at least 1 and maybe 2 penalties. He gave a poor one away as well if I recall. I think he needs to try to carry less as while he consistently makes a yard or two he slows play down when we have a numeric advantage out wide.
If he wants to carry out around the middle of the park to keep ball moving and set up a decent position then thats fine. But doing it 5 yards out when the opposition have most of their numbers around the ruck and have left gaps out wide is not necessary. He’d have to share the blame with O’Leary for this. I don’t recall O’Connell ever scoring a try from close in like that. Wallace is the best Irish player in that position and we tried him a number of times in the first half and he couldn’t get over. Rather than releasing the backs, we continued with this which resulted in a SA penalty for one of our lads holding on. In the second half, we had numbers out wide to the right and O’Leary went left to Earls who was doubled up on by 2 South Africans. Regardless of it was Earls, Darcy, O’Driscoll or anyone it was a bad decision as it was always going to be 1 on 2.
Hayes worried me as well at times late in the game, he left himself in positions where he was up against a speedy back and I thought we’d have a Vincent Clerc moment all over again. We need to find competition for him soon as I don’t think he can keep going much longer. Thought Flannery was very good as was Wallace. O’Callaghan did well in the lineout as well with O’Connell. Earls did ok, mixed the good with the bad but seemed to lack confidence.
Hold on now for a second, I’ll ask you to dig out the relevant posts here before I’ll take anything you say ever again with any level of seriousness. I’d like to see some “blatent” examples.
Beaten man.:rolleyes:
the wexford boys certainly get the blood up when a D4 jock plays well for Ireland.
Sorry Kev, I never realised this was a competition.
I’ll be sure to throw some random nonsense statements into my debates in future with no substance and then accuse the other side of being beaten when I’m questioned. Maybe MBB was right all along 
Wexford is in Leinster, Leinster is in Ireland-what’s your point?