Totally agree with this. From my own perspective I rarely read a match report of a Irish rugby or soccer game, big GAA championship match etc because I’ve been at the game or seen it on TV so I know the facts of the game - who scored, was sent off etc.
So I’m looking to read those opinion pieces / analyses by ex-players and journalists to see what their take on the game was and if they’ve been astute enough to make similar conclusions as myself. Then I like to read the quotes from the players and managers to get an understanding of their mindset heading into the next challenge and what they’ve taken out of the game.
To be honest I don’t foresee myself ever reading a report by Martin Breheny, Malachy Clerkin, Emmet Malone or somebody.
PS: Cronin’s call for O’Sullivan to be sacked was hilarious. He’s been forced to backtrack due to our continuing improvement but every now and then he has a little pop to try justify his original article. For example he had a piece with Geordan Murphy about 2 weeks ago and he was saying any other coach would have been able to get more out of such an unbelievable talent and ensured he transferred his Leicester form to the international stage. I was reading it thinking that it was more Murphy’s responsibility than O’Sullivan’s to be honest.
Yeah, I thought exactly the same thing when I read that Cronin article with Murphy. He walked himself out on a ridiculous limb for the sake of one article and now he’s forced to try and reassert a little credibility whenever he can.
O’Sullivan’s not the perfect coach but I certainly wouldn’t hold anything against him regarding Murhpy’s performances. Apparently him and O’Sullivan don’t get on and I thought that Ronan O’Gara’s comments in that documentary thing about the tackle Murphy missed against France were pretty unforgiving.
That documentary was fairly average - plenty of potential but not much actual behind the scenes footage. The one insightful moment in the whole thing was O’Gara’s damning of Murphy on the video. He didn’t even offer him a semblance of an excuse. Hung him out to dry. I think it’s fairly clear that Murphy doesn’t fit in with either the management or the squad and to be honest the problem seems to be Murphy.
Not much to fear from watching Australia v South Africa yesterday.
Looking at Australia first they did well to come back from 17-0 down but they didn’t exactly blow the South Africans away at any stage and that was a weak opposition. First try was a classic Australian backline move with Larkham passing the ball back inside to Gerrard from a quick wide ball from Gregan. (0:50 into video below)
All they do is get the number 8 and a couple of other guys to run off Gregan to stop the forwards from drifting. Then when they give it to Larkham all the backs out wide drift out to keep the SAfrican backs going wide. A simple pass back inside from Larkham and with the backs forced wide and the forwards stopped narrow by the 8 running there’s a massive hole.
They do those sort of things very well Australia but it’s nothing special and really a decent (or more organised) South African back row would have made it across to hit Gerrard. And the left winger for South Africa just never bothered looking for his man as he jogged across.
There wasn’t much to their second try either (1:16 on video). They just seemed to get numbers over from a ruck and the defensive line was abysmal. Other than that they didn’t create an awful lot. South Africa had 14 men for a good 15 minutes and never really looked like they’d ship a load of points. Australia were certainly the better side but nothing to frighten Ireland.
South Africa are harder to judge because that was a weakened team they had out there. Out half wasn’t up to much and the backline saw nothing of the ball (but that’s the case no matter who they pick). Up front they were more than a match for the Wallabies despite picking a lot of second string guys. I still think they’re too limited though because when a game opens up (like NZ did in the last few minutes against them over in SA) they really struggle. They’re great at building slow phases and driving forward but they’ve no plan B.