My point is he wasn’t really ever an option. It was only a case of injuries he ever got a look in but you seem to constantly pigeon that it was his performance v Japan that was being held against him.
You were saying it last year too when he was dropped by Connacht and you hadn’t realised it.
He isn’t related to a top class ten.
I never said he was a top class ten. You never stop going on about the Japan game, which is nonsense. You’ve completely contradicted yourself about three times in your last two posts. If he’s in the top three - and he was - he’s a realistic choice.
Pigeon?
With a lad like Doak next to him who could take on kicking duties out of hand and off the tee, he might have had a chance as he was a fine running fly-half there for 18 months.
Exciting player, surprised he hasnt gone to France where the money would’ve been bigger and the nature of the 9s there would’ve minimised the stuff he doesn’t do so well. Admirable he stuck with Connacht and Ireland.
I never mention the Japan game. You constantly say it’s being held against him. When it’s pointed out he only played that day due to injuries you’ve nothing.
Incoherent gibberish.
He’d get eaten alive versus the French or any good international side.
By picking jack carthy you are waving the white flag before the start of the game.
It would be good from Farrells pov if he did head to France and maybe move harry Byrne over to Connacht.
Playing for a French team I mean where the 9 is the fulcrum of the team and he could do his thing as a running fly half behind a big dominant pack. (Never had this). Thought Clermont or a team of that echelon were mad keen on him and he turned them down.
A game against the Māori next Wednesday looks like a bad idea. We’ll get beat in that.
If we can pick off one test win I’ll be impressed. Whatever happens we want to be facing New Zealand in a World Cup final and not the French .
Seems to be a fairly serious covid outbreak in the New Zealand camp.
She’ll blame Paddy no doubt.
Few of the paddy’s have it too I think
When is the 1st test proper?
Saturday morning
Not ideal but you’d hope a good clatter are through it by mid week if they’ve already had it a few days.
Māori game messy now.
RUGBY UNION | NEIL FRANCIS
Ireland look to be in trouble as they embark on a testing trip to New Zealand
Neil Francis
Sunday June 26 2022, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
There is a joke doing the rounds at the moment which goes along like this: Kate Bush is at the top of the charts, Top Gun is the No 1 movie, and we’re in a cold war with Russia. If Bobby Ewing steps out of the shower, I’ll know that the last 40 years were all a dream. (If you don’t know who Bobby Ewing is, google him.)
Ireland’s inexorable march from bumbling Corinthians to hard-nosed professionals has been remarkable. At no stage, 40 years ago, could you say that Ireland were capable of beating anyone. In the past ten years Ireland have proved they can beat everyone — provided it does not take place during a World Cup. There was never a sense of pressing inevitability about it; progress came along on the back of trial and error and sometimes bitter experience. But Ireland have reached the summit and are a formidable proposition for anyone. We have now arrived at a point where we are about to learn a lot about ourselves as a rugby nation and maybe realise that 40 years of evolution might not count for much in New Zealand.
What happens if Ireland lose all five of their matches this summer? Where does that leave us? The bookies have New Zealand at 5/1 on to win next Saturday — 5/1 on because New Zealand have not lost a Test match in Auckland in 28 years. And 5/1 on because the All Blacks are just a little bit nervous of their visitors and won’t waddle around the paddock thinking that the Paddies will run out of gas after 60 minutes. And 5/1 on because the quality of the Canterbury Crusaders and the Auckland Blues roster is astonishingly good.
The recent Super Rugby final, while not the free-flowing spectacle we anticipated, was a competition played at Test match intensity. It was a final All Blacks trial and if the way the match was played is indicative of what type of game Ireland are going get in Auckland — well, the men in green are in trouble.
Leinster have recruited badly for this season coming. Jason Jenkins is going to deprive Irish players game-time while not producing any performances which would lead you to think that Nathan Hines is back in town. Heft is a very common commodity. Heft and skill and ability is another. Charlie Ngatai has had too many bangs to the head in France and elsewhere and is another bad buy. Michael Aala’atoa is a decent player but is not Heineken Cup knockout-stage standard.
The point in all of this is that Leinster went and bought the wrong tight-head from the Crusaders. In last week’s Super Rugby final the Irishman Oli Jager monstered the Auckland scrum whenever he felt like it. Jager has been in New Zealand long enough to play for the All Blacks, but the Kiwis did not pick him in either of their squads for the upcoming series. That must have hurt, because the kid is ambitious. Whatever the guy can or cannot do, he can scrummage. I watched him as a schoolboy — he has everything. Why don’t Leinster or Ireland pick him up? You might say if the Kiwis don’t pick him, why should we? New Zealand’s stocks of scrummaging props are well served.
It could come down to how New Zealand decide to play in Auckland. They could be rusty and there is no better way to get into a Test series than by muscling your way into it. It is no accident that the first Test is being played there. Set a platform and Ireland might not recover in time for the second Test in Dunedin — a match you would have thought would have given them a chance under the roof at the Forsyth Barr Stadium.
Finlay Bealham has played in some serious matches since he first got capped. Quite how he has managed not to be exposed probably comes down to the fact that Furlong normally stays on for 70-odd minutes. You can be as energetic and all-action as you like in 10 minutes. Tight-heads won’t win you a Test series or a World Cup, but if you don’t have one you won’t get anywhere.
If Ireland don’t find a credible back-up tight-head they may as well not turn up in France. For the “blood the young fellas” brigade, Tom O’ Toole may be somebody’s idea of a Test-class prop, but he’s not mine, certainly not yet. The brigade has no clue as to how difficult a Test against New Zealand is, and throwing in young players who are not up to it yet is a really bad idea. If the No 3 does not play 210 minutes in the three Tests, Ireland are gone.
The same applies to No 10. I can’t see Johnny Sexton lasting for the series and that militates against Ireland repeating their recent feats against the All Blacks.
It may be harsh, but Ross Byrne has cost Leinster dear in the past two seasons. His Heineken Cup semi-final performance against La Rochelle in 2021, the 20 minutes against the same opponents in this season’s final, and the United Rugby Championship semi-final against the Bulls were what pretty much lost those matches.
The Crusaders went to town in the Super Rugby final. They went after the Auckland pack with cold-blooded determination. They stole nine of 20 lineouts from the Blues. They got men into the air on all the Blues’ throws — can you believe that?
Ireland know what’s coming and should be able to perform with their first-choice pack for the first Test. I think that is as far as they get. Tadgh Furlong had a long rest in 2021 but showed signs of fraying at the edges in the big games at the end of the season, and if he falters Ireland are in real trouble.
The same applies to No 10. I can’t see Johnny Sexton lasting for the series and that militates against Ireland repeating their recent feats against the All Blacks.
It may be harsh, but Ross Byrne has cost Leinster dear in the past two seasons. His Heineken Cup semi-final performance against La Rochelle in 2021, the 20 minutes against the same opponents in this season’s final, and the United Rugby Championship semi-final against the Bulls were what pretty much lost those matches.
Ireland decided that Byrne was a decent player but not a Heineken Cup knockout-stage player and by no means an international-class player, and before the touring squad was announced his name was never in the discussion.
Sport is cruel and Leinster, and by extension Ireland, have to make a decision here. If Leinster keep picking him to do a job in the URC — which he usually does well — when will Sexton’s replacement convince Ireland he is good enough?
Harry Byrne has been making the big breakthrough for three seasons now and has still not convinced, and it may take another three seasons to realise that he is not the answer either. Leinster have, for erroneous and self-serving reasons, picked their future out half at outside centre, in the process trying to fool us into thinking that Ciarán Frawley does a good job.
I am not quite sure who gives it that badge, but just because he can kick from that position, does it justify playing him there? Part of the reason is that you can’t play Byrne there, and so your best replacement for Sexton and your guaranteed future out half is shoved into the centre to accommodate him and give him game-time in the wrong position. It took Ronan O’Gara and Sexton time to accumulate the necessary wherewithal to acclimatise to the demands of out half, even though it was patently obvious they were good enough to play at that level.
Why on earth are Ireland/Leinster retarding Frawley’s progress when it is obvious that he is the man to replace Sexton?
Joey Carbery’s move to Munster has been a disaster. In five seasons he has played a total of 37 games. He was never fit to go to Japan in 2019 and that decision cost the player dearly, and his injury profile since has reflected that. Munster and Johann van Graan simply never had any idea how to maximise his talent. He can’t go back to Leinster and must stay marooned in a team who have no idea how to use his extravagant skills.
When the penalty shootout against Toulouse in the Heineken Cup quarter-final came about, it was obvious Conor Murray would take the kicks in front of the posts. Whose idea was it that Carbery would take the kicks from the easier left-hand side of the park? If Carbery acceded to Van Graan’s demand, than it is an indictment to how far he has fallen. Carbery has 32 senior caps and Ben Healy is his uncapped deputy.
How could anyone who plays at out half and leads his team not have the confidence and cojones to step up and say, ‘Actually I am the man, I want to take the difficult kicks.’ Where are Carbery’s confidence levels at now? In selection parlance maybe the management might just say “We know what Joey can do” and keep him out of harm’s way until he recovers his confidence.
What we are looking for here are one or two players to ignite. The No 10 and No 3 positions are the most important on the field. Ireland have true world-class in those positions but both are fragile at any given moment and this not going to be a good tour for the team if they are lost.
The players mooted to replace Sexton are either not good enough or consistent enough to play for seven or eight years after he is gone, which might not necessarily be after the World Cup. The call is to pick the proper heir to Sexton because I don’t think Ireland are going to get a lot out of this tour.
Am I calling it? No retro-style 60-nils, but it would take an exceptional performance to win just one Test in New Zealand, and I don’t think Ireland are up to that level right now. So 3-0 to the Kiwis, despite their head coach, Ian Foster, being the least impressive All Blacks coach in living memory.
That will be if and when they meet at a World Cup i suppose.
She needs to DO BETTER
Hearing that Ian Henderson is out? He’d be a fair loss in the second row.
