Very disappointing last night.
Game started brightly enough for Ireland. We had a tactical kicking battle with them in the first 5 minutes and were at least their measure on that front. O’Gara wasn’t kicking brilliantly, but he was outdone on that score by Michalak who had some terrible efforts.
For the rest of the first half the game was fairly even. We seemed to have mor quality ball but we weren’t able to do an awful lot with it. We had a few bad handling errors but I thought they were up very quick a few times with no punishment from the referee. Then we conceded some very soft penalties - soft by us and harsh by the ref. The one against Leamy for stealing the ball at the ruck was just a very poor decision. Leamy was on his feet the whole time until the whistle went and the only infringement was their guy for holding on. When they nearly scored in the corner he brought them back for a penalty under the posts, even though the offside infringement was 5 metres from the touchline on the far side. He gave one against O’Callaghan for playing the ball on the deck even though he didn’t go near the ball. The worst decision of all was around the 30 minute mark. Poitrenaud I think had the ball in his own 22 under pressure and attempted a clearing kick which he sliced appallingly. It went straight into an Irishman and Chabal near the near touchline about 40 yards out and the ball hit Chabal who got in the way of our attempts to catch it, then Chabal flicks it back and they picked up and launched a counter attack which they nearly scored from, but won a penalty anyway. Blatantly offside but Chris White wasn’t interested.
Just to finish off on the referee here I thought that was one of the worst efforts I’ve seen in a long time. It wasn’t the difference between us winning and losing the game in the end but it was a huge factor in us being 9 points down at half time and then losing O’Connell in the second half was a joke. From a lineout they caught in and when they start driving O’Connell is penalised for coming in at the side even though he hadn’t moved from the lineout at all and was merely making his initial contact with his marker. It was possibly a bit lazy from O’Connell in not getting round to the back but it was a harsh penalty and a frankly ridiculous decision to give him a yellow card. There was plenty more petty decisions - the Ibanez “stamp”, the one on Wallace (though that was a bit more silly, but neither had any stamping motion), plenty of offside offences on mauls, giving out to Reddan for hitting their guy with the ball, speaking to Ireland twice for bad language. He was delighted to be on tv and thought he was ever so clever at spotting truck and trailer and accidental offsides when missing far more blatant stuff.
Anyway back to why we lost the game and while we didn’t have a great start to the second half we did manage a couple of periods of pressure in their 22. The best one culminated in Trimble’s decision to force a pass out of the tackle to Horan which was a poor call. We were building pressure and had made plenty of yards from recycling the ball at rucks. Horan wasn’t going to score from Trimble’s pass - in fact he was going to do well to stay in play so it was a pointless risk.
Their first try was the killer and Trimble was hugely to blame. Seeing Clerc coming in off the wing Trimble moved up and let Easterby know he had to cover the scrum half and back row if they went blind. And then Trimble switched off. When the ball is switched to Michalak you can see O’Gara and Trimble moving up on him but Clerc has moved back towards the wing at this stage and Trimble isn’t paying attention. It was a nice kick from Michalak but that was a horrible defensive error to leave so much space unguarded. Two big mistakes were:
- following Clerc to a point and then not matching his run back out to the wing.
- Trimble needed to be sweeping for the grubber anyway and shouldn’t have been pressing with O’Gara. If he’s leaving that post then Easterby can’t cover the kick obviously because he’s bound to the scrum so unless Reddan is leaving the scrum to cover kicks it’s Trimble’s responsibility.
After that it was a disaster. O’Connell’s sin binning didn’t help at all but we were far too long in introducing O’Kelly and Best. The heads went down and they played is off the park for the last 20 and we were lucky they didn’t run in another few tries. Trimble didn’t cover himself in glory for the second try either. Dempsey could probably have done better but he needed to try and play the ball because Trimble wasn’t going to.
PLAYER RATINGS:
Dempsey - 6.5 not brilliant on the second try but other than that he was good under plenty of kicks and he kicked solidly himself.
Horgan - 5.5 took the first kick off superbly and then went a bit quiet. Needs to be used more as a battering ram so we can save the centres for cuts at their misaligned defence.* Cost us 3 points just before half time with a shocking effort at fielding a kick.
O’Driscoll - 6 He got no ball and didn’t get many chances to show his strength as an attacking force which is hugely disappointing and a reflection on a poor gameplan. Put in one super hit in the second half on Poitrenaud.
D’Arcy - 6 stole one ball at ruck time but like O’Driscoll he got precious little attacking ball to work off. Defended well enough.
Trimble - 3 not a winger. Did ok first half under kicks and returned a few relatively decent garryowens but that’s his only kicking strategy it seems. Badly caught out for the first try and just isn’t up to playing as an international wing.
O’Gara - 5 not happening for him. Sloppy kicking from hand early on and missed a straightforward 3 points. Kicked a decent drop goal but that was the limit of our attacking ambitions. The backline doesn’t look penetrative and the outside backs don’t appear to be on the same wavelength as their outhalf.
Reddan - 5.5 got some horrible ball from lineouts which he coped reasonably well with. Takes a couple of steps at the base of rucks which might give him the chance of a break but it pretty much ruins everyone else’s chances of doing so.
Horan - 6 held up well in the scrum until the last 20 minutes. Bad handling in the first half when we’d a chance of a score
Flannery - 6 also solid in the scrum and was prominent around the park early on. Throwing in wasn’t great but it wasn’t all his fault at lineout time. Won us a vital penalty in the first half by stealing the ball on our own line from their driving maul.
Hayes - 6.5 really solid in the scrums. Important part of our maul defence as well.
O’Callaghan - 4.5 Didn’t win much of his own ball at lineouts and didn’t carry the ball much at all. What ball he did win was sloppily presented backwards
O’Connell - 6 put in some good tackles in the first half especially and won our best lineout ball. Also put in a big shift at mauls defensively.
Easterby - 5 supposed to be a lineout specialist but his control of the ball out of touch was shocking with taps all over the place. Like everyone else up front he did well in the first half but faded
Wallace - 5.5 doesn’t look fit to be honest. Needless concession of a penalty but it was harsh and a better referee might have had a word with Chabal’s blatant attempts to bring down our maul first. All his defence was done in tight which meant he didn’t get a chance to hound Michalak who had looked flaky early on
Leamy - 5.5 did his part in defence in the first half as well as anyone but wasn’t dynamic with the ball in hand.
SUBS were brought on too late to have any impact.
*(Not sure if this point was being made last night because I missed the start of a point by Williams but at the moment too much ball goes to D’Arcy and BOD first up to have a go at their defence which is obviously well structured from first phase. When it’s recycled we usually have D’Arcy for example on the ground and BOD rucking which they both do superbly. So when it comes back to O’Gara our next strike runner is Horgan or Trimble or someone. We’ve much better chances of breaking the gainline or doing something off the cuff on the second phase and our better runners - our centres - should be retained for that purpose. The likes of Horgan and Trimble are supposed to be strong men and should be relied on for crash ball off the first phase when necessary).