Its clear to me that there are guys in this site that it actually gauls for Ireland to do well, 'cos Kidney gets so much of the praise. If it was a foreign manager, or a dub, he’d be feted. They look for any stick to beat him with, even though he hasn’t lost a game in over 15 months. :rolleyes:
Irish begrudgery at its best.
Sad fucks.
Tis fiar enough to criticise at times, but its the nit picking that I just cant get my head around. I
The day will come when Ireland lose and some fellas will be clambering to to take swings, but shur such is life. You’d think they don’t even remember the 15 man fucking line out some of them or the development tour, now those were bad days.
Dont knock tag rugby Kev. Granted like rugby its a makey uppy sport with makey uppy rules but a good place to meet the fairer sex no doubt.
It is clear that you are accepting no criticism of TOL, Kidney and any other Carkie. Predictable as always.
Technically it was a 14 man line out as Keith Wood had to throw the ball in.
The days Irish players feel it is an honour to represent a British representative side, now those are bad days.
Clerc, the last man you’d want to have seen…
France coach Marc Lievremont has made just two enforced changes to the team that beat Scotland for Les Bleus RBS 6 Nations clash against Ireland on Saturday.
Vincent Clerc and Alexis Palisson come in for wings Aurelien Rougerie and Benjamin Fall, who were both forced to withdraw from the match with injuries on Tuesday.
Brive’s Palisson has been preferred to Clermont wing Julien Malzieu while Jean-Baptiste Poux, who was also called up yesterday to replace Luc Ducalcon, starts from the bench with Sylvain Marconnet moving to the stands.
‘You don’t change a winning team,’ said Lievremont.
'Playing Vincent Clerc from the start shouldn’t cause a debate, there was a lot of discussion on who to play on the left wing.
'We decided to go with the versatility and left foot of Alexis Palisson.
‘We know the qualities of Julien Malzieu but it seemed interesting to us to have the presence of Alexis alongside Clement Poitrenaud.’
Controversial centre Mathieu Bastareaud has kept his place in the starting line-up after he made an impressive comeback against Scotland, inspiring Les Bleus to and 18-9 triumph at Murrayfield.
Read Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll’s thoughts on Matthieu Bastareaud and the French defensive system.
Making his first Test start since disgracing himself by falsely claiming he had been assaulted during his country’s tour of New Zealand last summer, the 21-year-old responded with his first two international tries.
France team to play Ireland in the RBS 6 Nations at the Stade de France on Saturday at 4.30pm:
C Poitrenaud (Toulouse); V Clerc (Toulouse), M Bastareaud (Stade Francais), Y Jauzion (Toulouse), A Palisson (Brive); F Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), M Parra (Clermont); T Domingo (Clermont), W Servat (Toulouse), N Mas (Perpignan), L Nallet (Racing Metro), P Pape (Stade Francais), T Dusautoir (Toulouse), F Ouedraogo (Montpellier), I Harinordoquy (Biarritz).
Replacements : D Szarzewski (Stade Francais), S Marconnet (Stade Francais), J Pierre (Clermont), J Bonnaire (Clermont), D Marty (Perpignan), F Michalack (Toulouse), J Malzieu (Clermont).
Leicester tight-head prop Dan Cole will make his full England debut in Sunday’s RBS 6 Nations clash with Italy in Rome.
The 22-year-old has been promoted into the starting XV to replace Bath’s David Wilson, who has been struggling with a shoulder injury since last weekend’s 30-17 victory over Wales.
Cole made his Test debut off the bench at Twickenham after forcing his way into the senior England squad with a series of destructive performances in the Leicester front row.
In the only other change to the England side that took the field against Wales, Riki Flutey has been restored at inside centre after recovering from a dead leg.
The Brive centre had originally been named in the team last week but he was forced to withdraw two days before the game after being injured in training.
England coach Martin Johnson has delayed the announcement of his replacement bench as he waits on a number of injury issues.
England captain Steve Borthwick has missed training for the last two days and has been isolated from the rest of the squad after being laid low with an illness.
Wilson and Lewis Moody were both in non-contact jerseys at training today while Simon Shaw also sat out the session.
Johnson has kept Harlequins flanker Chris Robshaw, Northampton lock Courtney Lawes and Worcester prop Matt Mullan with the squad.
England team to play Italy in the RBS 6 Nations championship at the Stadio Flaminio in Rome on Sunday, February 14; kick-off 2.30pm:
D Armitage (London Irish); M Cueto (Sale Sharks), M Tait (Sale Sharks), R Flutey (Brive), U Monye (Harlequins); J Wilkinson (Toulon), D Care (Harlequins); T Payne (Wasps), D Hartley (Northampton), D Cole (Leicester), S Shaw (Wasps), S Borthwick (Saracens, capt), J Haskell (Stade Francais), L Moody (Leicester), N Easter (Harlequins).
Replacements: TBC.
I think you’ll find that it’s Munster not Leinster that the Irish media have been having the collective orgasm over for the past decade Kev. And I saw a hell of a lot of people in red shirts with very glum faces in Edinburgh on the evening of May 23rd last year.
Irish begrudgery at its best.
What a contrast to the many Leinster supporters who graciously supported Munster in their European finals.
theres the issue right there, recognition and a pat on the back is all they want.
Interesting quote from Kidney on O’Gara’s selection;
“I think Ronan’s experience, that will be more than helpful when we go to Paris,”
The experience of consistently been out of his depth in Stade de France?
He did indeed Puke, I don’t think O’Sullivan used him much after that, I stand open to correction.
It’s all about context though, Murphy got side-stepped in the first quarter of the game.
O’Gara had just put Ireland 17-13 up with minutes left, the only way France were going to win that game is if they were to score a try. It was imperative that Ireland retained possesion from the restart, all they had to do was go through the phases and retain the ball until the 80 mins was up.
In fairness it was a pretty abysmal error to miss the catch under the circumstances.
just read a quote from O’Gara in the indo today.
he says he was ‘hurt’ that Sexton played well against South Africa. so he’d have been happy to see a team mate play shite so he’d feel happy about himself? the old divide is still there.
Agh stop gman, if you are dropped from a team and your replacement does well of course you are going to be cut up about it in any fucking sport and at any level be it international rugby or Junior C gaelic football, if not then there would be something wrong with you…
I wouldnt be writing about it in national media tho. I’d have thought he’d have given the pretence that he’d be supporting sexton to do well.
I am sure on a certain level he didn’t begrudge Sexton the performance…O’Gara to his credit always has been a straight shooter with the media…You are twisting his words to make an arguement and stir the pot
dont know how I’m twisting the words when he said he was hurt that Sexton played well. it is what it is!
Are you having a laugh? His book was full of lies. Bad enough that he had to do it for money before he retired, but to not even tell his real story in it was a disgrace.
you read his book? :o
Surely the most dislikable sportsman Ireland has ever produced.
:rolleyes:
Smugby people are generally dislikeable mate, i can’t see how you can narrow it down to just one.
They are all fucktards.
ya - I was given it for Christmas by an Uncle who played for a certain Limerick based club whose name should only be mentioned in hushed tones around here.
I don’t know how dislikable O Gara is when contrasted with the likes of Cusack, Kelly (Wat) or many others that could be mentioned. Rugby in general has an overflow of dislikable cunts, of which O Gara is only one.I think its a disgrace that he would write a book, for the money, while still playing and fill it up with lies. He has taken the fans money and pocketed it without a blinking of an eyelid.