Stringer’s renowned quick ball hardly worked a treat in the two games he played. Reddan doesn’t deserved to be dropped.
It didn’t but he nor did Reddan’s renowned snipping runs last night. Stringer is a better player than he showed against Georgia and Nambia and certainly the better player for the Irish team against Argentina.
Totally disagree there larry and in fairness Reddan was up against France and not some backwater teams.
Matt Williams and Ciarn Fitzgerald just had some good analysis on Setanta there about our inability to get our backs moving. Williams concentrated on O’Gara’s habit of standing flat and motionless waiting to receive every ball. As he’s not running onto the ball to receive the pass then there’s no danger he’s going to arrive at pace and make a break himself. So the defence can drift right across to the centres and close them down.
They showed numerous examples of O’Driscoll getting a pass from a static O’Gara and then facing up to three French shirts converging on him to make the tackle. In that sense I think it’s extremely harsh to finger Reddan for blame, whose service I thought was fine. I also thought the speed he got the ball under control and out of rucks was excellent so we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Williams had a good line regarding our conservative tactics and the shocking use of (or inability to use) O’Driscoll and D’Arcy: “It’s like hiring Michelangelo to paint your garden fence.”
Ireland team to face Argentina:
G Murphy (Leicester); S Horgan (Leinster), B ODriscoll (Leinster, capt), G DArcy (Leinster), D Hickie (Leinster); R OGara (Munster), E Reddan (Wasps); M Horan (Munster), A N Other, J Hayes (Munster), D OCallaghan (Munster), P OConnell (Munster), S Easterby (Llanelli), D Wallace (Munster), D Leamy (Munster).
Replacements: A N Other, S Best (Ulster), M OKelly (Leinster), N Best (Ulster), I Boss (Ulster), P Wallace (Ulster), A Trimble (Ulster).
So Murphy in for Dempsey and Hickie for Trimble. Disappointing that again there are no changes up front. I’d have started both O’Kelly and Neil Best. Stringer doesn’t make the bench again.
not a fan of rogbee but its a bit late to be experimenting/panicking with team selection
Vamos, vamos Argentina,
vamos, vamos a ganar,
que esta barra quilombera,
no te deja, no te deja de alentar.
Interesting point from Fats:
If France fail to get the bonus point against Georgia, our game will be a dead rubber, oder?
Our goal is to beat Argentina with a bonus while denying them one, leaving us both on 14 points, with us going through on the basis of the head-to-head result.
However, if France win without the bonus point they will also be on 14 points. Each side having beat each other, it will revert to points difference where we’re lashed out of it.
Seeing as how France play before us, our game could be pointless. Apart from Argentina playing to avoid NZ of course.
Is that information from Fats definetly correct. If it is we have virtually no chance. As for the team disappointed Neil Best and Ferris don’t start. Leamy has not done nearly enough. Also would have started Stringer as its vital we get quick ball to our backs which we didn’t get last day.
I misread that point from Fats I thought it was if France did get a bonus point. Interesting nonetheless.
What an absurd selection. Geordan skips ahead of 3 other people in the queue now. Hickie also comes in from outside the 22 into the starting XV. I’m not saying their inclusion is wrong, it’s just the consistency of selection and the basis for it is a joke and shows the coach has completely lost his marbles. Great to see Reddan in there though after his smashing display on Friday.
Unbelievable game there. Finished 12-12 between Canada and Japan. This competition must be up there with the Winter Olympics in terms of entertainment. Amazing.
The more I look at that Irish team the more disappointing it is.
There’s conservatism and then there’s just plain cowardice. If EOS recalled Stringer would he be admitting he was wrong to drop him?
Dempsey is injured so Murphy is back in. It would have been very interesting if Dempsey was fit. As I said on here (I think) I’d have dropped both wingers for Hickie and Murphy but effectively Eddie has made one change which is Hickie for Trimble (and therefore is just a reversal of the change he has already made.
Not changing the pack is criminal. Malcolm O’Kelly should be playing at a minimum. We could still beat Argentina and would have expected to do so a few weeks ago so we should still have that intention. To do so we’ll need a big lineout performance though because there’ll be plenty of kicking in the match.
Anyone know the inside track on Simon Best? The tone of reports last night almost suggested he had a stroke.
Seems to be something like that alright. Certainly sounds very serious.
No feeling in the right side of his body, I always though having a heart attack would do that to the left hand side if anything.
Another disappointing game today though the performance itself wasn’t awful. We’d hung ourselves in earlier matches of course and were forced to play a wild game today.
They were well capable of dealing with us but a couple of things were really frustrating:
- They stole so much ball from us on the deck it was unreal.
- They were able to get a 50/50 chance of possession in our 22 simply by bombing Murphy - way too straightforward
- Our backs scored two cracking tries off setpieces - what might have been
Ratings
Horan 7 did fine in the scrum and put in a couple of important tackles, one our line in the first half when he drove one of their forwards back. Dropped a simple pass though and those mistakes were typical of our world cup
Flannery 7 throwing in was fine and he got himself about the park early on anyway
Hayes 7 again no problems in the scrum really and he was decent around the fringes of rucks and mauls
O’Callaghan 6 not involved enough really. If O’Connell wasn’t taking the restart then O’Callaghan didn’t want to know. Some decent hits but need more
O’Connell 8 one mistake early on from our first lineout which was crucial. But after that he worked tirelessly in fairness to him and he carried well and tackled well. Took some excellent restarts as well and stole one cracking ball.
Easterby 6.5 Quieter today than last time. Doesn’t carry the ball much at all which is a serious limitation for a backrower
Wallace 6.5 Outplayed on the floor but it’s hard to blame him on his own because they all rucked very well. Did very well for Murphy’s try
Leamy 7 Not a great world cup and didn’t impose himself enough. Doesn’t look as strong as he did last year when he was shrugging tacklers off. Excellent steal for O’Driscoll’s try though
Reddan 7 Did quite well with difficult ball. No chance to make any breaks but he matched Pichot which is all you can ask
O’Gara 7 A couple of poor kicks in the first half cost us and his kicking in this tournament was shocking. Having said that he had two great passes for the two tries and he had a couple of decent chips early on that we were unlucky not to score off.
Hickie 7 Great pace to get back and cover on Contepomi and kicked excellently for the most part.
D’Arcy 6 Not a great tournament for him. Wrapped up Contepomi once but hasn’t looked great with the ball in hand at all.
O’Driscoll 8 Superb involvement in both tries and put in a serious shift. A class act.
Horgan 5 Nowhere near involved enough. Messed up underneath a high kick again and then seemed to go hiding when it became a kicking game. No point in him being out there.
Murphy 4.5 Shocking under the high ball and that allowed them to get so much territory on us. Did a few nice things but we badly missed Dempsey who would have been far more secure under the bombardment. The clamour for his inclusion was understandable but misguided. He might have been better on the wing instead of Horgan with Dempsey at fullback in the earlier games but today didn’t do anything to suggest he’s a hardluck story.
Subs didn’t get to make much of an impact because the qualification chance had gone but O’Kelly was poor at the lineout. The two Bests hit rucks with some ferocity though.
Rocko, O’Gara 7? He was way, way worse than woeful. How he was still on the pitch at the end will become one of life’s great mysteries. O’Driscoll really is a sublime footballer (sic) and I felt incredibly sorry for him trying to carry things practically on his own all tournament.
O’Gara had a couple of poor moments alright but both tries were more down to his passing than anything else.
O’Driscoll took his try very well but it was O’Gara’s flat powerful pass that put him through the gap. It was a similar ball in the second half that gave Wallace the couple of yards that resulted in Murphy scoring.
He had a couple of poor kicks alright (and he always struggles with a new ball - though he’s not alone here as Carter has complained about it) but in the first half he had one chip and chase that he recovered well and we nearly got in from it. He also nearly put Hickie away with a clever grubber and Horgan should have scored a try from another O’Gara kick if he’d been disciplined enough to stay onside.
The first pass was excellent but I’d give O’Driscoll equal credit for the line he ran. As far as I was concerned the second try was all about O’Driscoll and Wallace. The way O’Driscoll took the ball, changed direction at full tilt and then offloaded to Wallace was fantastic and Wallace did equally as well to move it on to Murphy.
The grubber kick was hardly an awesome display of skill. We had a scrum in a wonderful attacking position position and he basically kicked possession away. It was akin to a similar situation last week against France when he launched a garryowen early on from a setpiece when we’d a chance to move the ball wide from inside their 22. The fact we scored two tries in the end from set piece moves through the backs indicate the folly of O’Gara trying that grubber kick.
His general kicking game in the first half was awful and it didn’t improve in the second half. 10 first half points came from O’Gara kicking the ball away even though the situation required we retain possession and work through the phases rather than kicking the ball straight back to them and allowing them to happily return the ball into our 22 or kick into touch with Argentina having a near perfect line-out on their own throw.
He might have been following O’Sullivan’s crap, conservative gameplan but he still executed it appallingly.
I simply don’t agree with any of that. The grubber kick was a fine kick. He disguised it well and had their winger in trouble. It just didn’t bounce kindly so they recovered. Would you accuse Michalak of kicking the ball away for France’s two tries last week? We didn’t score off those kicks but Hickie was unlucky while Horgan should have scored.
His defensive kicking wasn’t up to scratch and I’m happy to point that out. The important thing yesterday though was to try and score tries and he was heavily involved in the first two. O’Driscoll ran two cracking lines but without the excellent passes from O’Gara there’d have been no point. He wasn’t superb or anything but he did create chances for the backline.
Reading around elsewhere last night and the amount of people who thought Murphy was one of our better players was unreal. The same guys were slating O’Gara. I presume they think that’s what the papers will be saying.