Sorry rocko, I didn’t comment as it’s rugby and I wasn’t interested and I didn’t watch the game.
1 week down, 5 weeks to go.
After the apparent inept start everyone’s piped down a bit it appears. The quicker we’re knocked out the better so I can go and watch the football in my local instead of having to trek into town.
Any thoughts on why northern hemisphere teams are doing so badly? Leninhan was making the point on the Setanta that the timing of the competition is a big disadvantage to northern teams and particularly Celtic Nations. He reckoned it was a month to early. There seems to be something to it as none of the Six Nations teams have performed well at all. Am still hopeful we will come good. That point about Darcy is valid. I forgot how bad he was on that tour.
I don’t think the timing has much to do with it because we’ve known for ages when it was, we didn’t have any extended runs in the Heineken Cup and we played developmental teams in Argentina. I just think we’re coming back a bit slower than expected, Munster in particular always seem to start every season badly so it’s nothing new. If you gave me the choice I’d think that playing a world cup at the start of the season would suit us better than the end of the season.
Christ that was close this evening. Very nearly lost it there at the end and we’d have been stuffed if we’d conceded with 2 minutes on the clock because there was no way we were going back down there end and scoring.
Positives:
Negatives:
Player Ratings:
Dempsey - 7 Did fine under the high ball (good test for the Argentina game when they’ll surely bomb him) other than one early lapse. Took his try well which looked handy but his little dummy was important. Kicking could have been a shade better
Horgan - 3 Very poor. Passed at the wrong times when he didn’t need to, got his positioning all wrong on their kicks where he never seemed to adjust for the lengths they were kicking. Can’t afford to be that bad a kicker - one horrible one out on the full in the first half and then one awful effort from a mark where he sliced it with 5 minutes left.
O’Driscoll - 6 Looked dangerous when he got the ball but it didn’t get out to him often enough. Had nothing to defend.
D’Arcy - 6 One cracking run from good ball when he offloaded to Wallace in the build-up to Dempsey’s try. Other than that he simply wasn’t involved
Hickie - 7 Noting to do in attack or defence but he kicked excellently.
O’Gara - 6 The decision making wasn’t his fault because once it got to him he’d precious little option other than kicking really. Still seems to be struggling a bit with his general kicking but it wasn’t awful and he didn’t get much help from scrum half.
Stringer - 4 Poor performance. Started with a shocking pass after a couple of minutes and he never got quick ball back to O’Gara to build anything.
Horan - 5 Scrummaged very well and tackled fine but really needed to take some initiative in picking and driving from the base of rucks.
Best - 4 Apparently he’s an important part of the scrum but his efforts in the loose were poor and he had one terrible throw at the lineout. Simply not as good as Flannery.
Hayes - 5 Same as Horan. Fine in the scrum and in tackling at the fringes but needs to take more responsibility when we have the ball.
O’Callaghan - 4.5 Bizarre performance. Very competitive on their lineout ball but undermined it all by loss of discipline and poor handling off our clean lineout ball. We can’t afford to have him win quality ball and then just fire it into the ground.
O’Connell - 5 Didn’t see half enough of him as a positive force. Defended manfully though
Easterby - 4 This type of game is supposed to be tailor made for him so why was he so quiet? We badly need someone to make big, gamechanging plays in the pack and that means Best should play
Wallace - 5 Seemed a harsh sin binning considering some of their offences beforehand in their own 22 and the ball had already been slowed down. Had no chance to compete for ball on the ground because they never let it get wide.
Leamy - 4 Bad handling, poor control at the base of the scrums but at least he was prepared to carry ball and was vital in keeping them out at the end.
SUBS:
Boss - 3 one cracking break but he had 3 box kicks and the first two were very poor. Had to make one important pass and he completely fluffed it. Subsequently got great attacking ball and kicked it away dreadfully.
Flannery - 5 Put himself about a bit and neither the lineout nor scrum suffered
N Best - not on for long enough really but made one important tackle near the end on their winger who had skinned Hickie.
S Best - hard to rate but did his bit in defence and at scrums
It goes to show what overconfidence can do to a team. Can’t believe Georgia thought they could beat us with their second string side - fair enough they had 65% possession - but still they shouldn’t have treated us with that type of disdain.
Those Irish heroes will be guananteed a heroes welcome when they come back now. Dempsey’s try will be played over and over again as will Leamy’s tackle at the end. With this defeat of a superpower like Georgia Irish rugby has turned the corner…
Flannery will start against France. Think he is the better player so not too disappointed Best is out. Are we allowed call up another hooker for Saturday? Would be very risky not to have another as if Flannery gets injured that would put us in big trouble.
Best out for ‘two to three weeks’
Sunday, 16 September 2007 20:04
Ireland hooker Rory Best has been ruled out of action for ‘two to three weeks’ after a scan revealed a fracture to his thumb.
Best dislocated the thumb during Saturday’s shambolic victory over Georgia and a scan today revealed further damage that will rule him out the next two Pool games with France and Argentina.
The other injury news from the Ireland camp is that Denis Hickie suffered a bruised knee during the game.
Hickie’s knee has responded to treatment today and although the player will not train tomorrow, he will not be ruled out of contention for selection against France.
Elsewhere, John Hayes has a tight calf muscle following the game, but he will take a limited part in training tomorrow and is expected to be available for the France game.
Not sure what the rules are. We have Sheahan for cover anyway so it’s not as though it’s an immediate danger.
Those who believe in the Ulster selection theory may be “proved right” if Flannery replaces Best but Neil Best gets in ahead of Easterby. Otherwise it looks like there’ll be no Ulster representation.
Personally for rugby reasons I’d like to see Flannery and Neil Best start anyway. They’re both big on dynamism and hitting rucks and mauls hard and that’s something we’ve been hugely lacking in.
Ireland team for France game:
Dempsey
Horgan
O’Driscoll
D’Arcy
Trimble
O’Gara
Reddan
Horan
Flannery
Hayes
O’Callaghan
O’Connell
Easterby
Wallace
Leamy
Hickie and Best are injured so replaced by Flannery and Easterby. Stringer has just been dropped though and at least it’s for Reddan and not Boss.
The bench has
Sheahan
S Best
O’Kelly
N Best
Boss
Wallace
Duffy
So Murphy isn’t in the 22 now.
Well it seems none of Hickie, Stringer or Murphy have any injuries - they’re all just dropped which is astonishing really.
Hickie looks in much better form than Horgan at the moment. He can kick better, he’s a more elusive runner and he has real pace. Trimble, Horgan and Dempsey isn’t exactly a lightning-quick back 3 and with Duffy on the bench as cover it’s not going to get much quicker.
The rationale from Eddie for each of them not getting a place is:
"Andrew Trimble came back into consideration after his injury so that was just a straight swap. Im happy to have Andrew back in there, he said.
"Im not particularly unhappy with Denis form but when it comes down to a straight choice between two players you have to give the nod to one of them. And in this instance I think Andrew deserves to be in there.
"I thought Andrew played very well in the first game so I think hes the right choice for this game.
How exactly did Trimble play very well against Namibia?
"It was a tough one. Peter has been a stalwart of the team but his form of late hasnt been the best. Hes struggling a wee bit, so it was a decision that I think needed to be made.
"The decision to bring Eoin straight into the starting line-up is based on the type of game we want to try to play. His form was very good at the tail end of last season so we feel he fits the bill for this particular game.
Isaac is a different style of player to Peter and weve always used him as an impact player off the bench," he pointed out. "He can also cover a number of positions. Hes performed for us on the wing before and he can also play at full-back.
The first two paragraphs make sense but Boss isn’t versatile. That’s utter bullshit.
"Geordan hasn’t played well in his last two games against France. So, for this particular game, Im putting Gavin in there. He covers the same positions as Geordan but also gives us a bit of extra cover at centre.
Past games against France? He’s right that Murphy hasn’t played particularly well against them recently but he’s a far superior player to Duffy. And why do we need more cover at centre with Trimble and Horgan already in the team. We hardly need a fifth option.
I was going to post on the ludicrous team and bench selection but you got in there first rocko. Frankly, I don’t care what side he picks but it’s obvious he’s panicked and the reasoning behind all 3 swaps is spurious at best. Murphy hasn’t excelled in an Irish shirt but it appears from this selection that the inept display of the back 3 in the first two games has quite incredibly counted against Murphy. Dempsey, Hickie, Horgan and Trimble have all struggled and the upshot is that Murphy moves from 5th to 6th choice. Ridiculous.
anyone hear any rumours about O’Gara?
I think it was a brave selection. Trimble is an excellent player and has as much pace as Hickie so I don’t see how we lose pace in this back three compared to Saturday’s. Redden for Stringer is a tough selection though I think Redden will deliver on Friday. Don’t think Boss is as bad as some of you make out (he is a very dangerous runner imo) though I would have gone for Stringer on the bench ahead of him. Flannery for Best was the obvious choice. Murphy should be in the 22 imo but is something of a bottler and his big game temperment perhas came into it too. I would have gone for Neil Best ahead of Easterby also.
FingalRaven wrote:
anyone hear any rumours about O’Gara?
you heard them too raven…
heard 3 different ones - all shocking
PM please Baltimore Raven.
larryduff wrote:
I think it was a brave selection. Trimble is an excellent player and has as much pace as Hickie so I don’t see how we lose pace in this back three compared to Saturday’s. Redden for Stringer is a tough selection though I think Redden will deliver on Friday. Don’t think Boss is as bad as some of you make out (he is a very dangerous runner imo) though I would have gone for Stringer on the bench ahead of him. Flannery for Best was the obvious choice. Murphy should be in the 22 imo but is something of a bottler and his big game temperment perhas came into it too. I would have gone for Neil Best ahead of Easterby also.
There’s no way Trimble is as quick as Hickie. He’s also inexperienced on the wing and tends to get caught out with the kick behind. France will know they can hit the corners now in the knowledge that neither Horgan nor Trimble can return kicks with any degree of accuracy.
Boss completely played himself out of the first XV when he came on last Saturday because his tactical awareness was shocking. He made a decent break but was guilty of two poor kicks and one horrific decision to kick. Also he had one important pass to make and he fluffed it. He’s better than that but he didn’t deserve to play on that form. Also Reddan is a very dangerous runner as well. Really looking forward to seeing how he does but it’s a huge first game for him.
The worst decisions for me are:
therock67 wrote:
larryduff wrote:
[quote]I think it was a brave selection. Trimble is an excellent player and has as much pace as Hickie so I don’t see how we lose pace in this back three compared to Saturday’s. Redden for Stringer is a tough selection though I think Redden will deliver on Friday. Don’t think Boss is as bad as some of you make out (he is a very dangerous runner imo) though I would have gone for Stringer on the bench ahead of him. Flannery for Best was the obvious choice. Murphy should be in the 22 imo but is something of a bottler and his big game temperment perhas came into it too. I would have gone for Neil Best ahead of Easterby also.
There’s no way Trimble is as quick as Hickie. He’s also inexperienced on the wing and tends to get caught out with the kick behind. France will know they can hit the corners now in the knowledge that neither Horgan nor Trimble can return kicks with any degree of accuracy.
Boss completely played himself out of the first XV when he came on last Saturday because his tactical awareness was shocking. He made a decent break but was guilty of two poor kicks and one horrific decision to kick. Also he had one important pass to make and he fluffed it. He’s better than that but he didn’t deserve to play on that form. Also Reddan is a very dangerous runner as well. Really looking forward to seeing how he does but it’s a huge first game for him.
The worst decisions for me are:
I think Trimble is as quick as Hickie. He is deceptively quick. Hickie has lost a yard over last couple of years but he has a better kicking game then Trimble. On balance I would have probably gone for Hickie and Trimble on wings with Horgan dropping out. Agree with you regarding Murphy. He is a better player than Duffy but I have no confidence in his game and is just as likely to have a shocker as a blinder. Agree with you on the Best Quinlan issue. Still though these selections are clearly not media driven as tends to be the case when a team has played as badly as Ireland have. This gives me confidence in O’Sullivan. By the way what is Redden’s pass like? Can’t remember.
On the Last Word tonight Neil Francis said that there are reasons for Hickie’s retirement that haven’t been disclosed yet but they will be revealed after the world cup. Anyone know what those reasons are? And do they have any relevance to his non-selection?