Ah lovely Jerry will be fine and rested for the Heineken Cup quarter finals and Cronin will hopefully get some gametime with Ireland…Win win situation
Ah I think one game would have been far too lenient.
I don’t think he meant to kick him full like that but it was crazily reckless. Sometimes ineptitude deserves punishment, just as much as callous foul play. I’d say he’s lucky enough to get 6 weeks as he could have done serious damage there.
How so? Intent is the thing that should be punished severly and clumsiness should be punished if it is reckless as it was in this case but not as severly.
Brady deserves to be in 22 now imo
Cronin to get some decent game time. This is no bad thing. Could be a raw front row at times with Court and Cian getting gametime too.
Who was the last Connacht player to start a six nations game for Ireland? Johnny O’Concrete? Or did he ever play since he came home?
I’ll answer my own question - was probably Gavin Duffy. Definitely against Scotland the time Hayes got a try in the corner but since then?
Most likely was, didnt Gav get some gametime at the WC? Was he at Conn for that Scottish game? Cant be sure.
Yeah he came on against the Argies or the French I think. Maybe the French when Eddie dropped Murphy altogether. Was the 6 nations I was trying to remember cos it’s so rare. The last player before Johnny and Duffy takes a bit of thinking!
Elwood?
Nearly certain that O’Conner won all his caps(6 nations appearances) when at Wasps…
Presume there was someone since Elwood
From wiki:
Ireland
The following Connacht players have represented Ireland at full international level.
Peter Bracken
Tony Buckley
Kieran Campbell
Victor Costello
Sean Cronin
Gavin Duffy
Johnny Dooley [2]
Pat Duignan
Eric Elwood
Ciaran Fitzgerald
Jerry Flannery
Simon Geoghegan
Brendan Guerin [3][4]
Bernard Jackman
Ian Keatley
Charles Lydon [5]
Noel Mannion [6]
Mark McHugh [7]
Ray McLoughlin
Matt Mostyn [8]
John Muldoon
Johnny O’Connor
John O’Driscoll
Tony O’Sullivan [9][10]
Eoin Reddan
Richard “Dickie” Roche [11]
Jim Staples
Stephen Blake-Knox
I can’t think of many of those who played while they were with Connacht bar Duffy and then Elwood.
The Green Pimpernel Conor McGuinness?!
edit
I thought McGuinness was a Connacht player when Gatland capped him?
Was either Elwood or Mostyn
yeah either one or the other…so it seems Duffy is the only Connacht player to have played in the 6 nations…
Bit like drink-driving. Doesn’t matter that you didn’t set out to injure someone but if you’re that careless and reckless then you should be punished hugely.
It’s hard to be definitive on intent so you have to look at the outcome. Flannery was nowhere near the ball, he was extremely late and extremely wide with his kick. At best it was pure stupidity that was very dangerous. Worse than most of the deliberate stamping that goes on IMO.
Just looking it up and looks like he might have been with Harlequins when he played for Ireland! I can’t remember him playing in the 6 nations for at least 4 or 5 years and he only came back to Connacht in 2006/2007. Not that it really matters.
You could well be right, forgot that he was at Harlequins actually…
I don’t remember Gavin Duffy playing with a ‘first choice’ Irish XV since he entered the dragon’s den away to South Africa a few years ago.
As an aside, I agree with Kev’s earlier post about paying little or no heed to certain posters on this thread. Some have called for Brian O’Driscoll to be dropped and claimed that Tomás O’Leary is decisive at the base of rucks, just to cite two amusing examples.
he definately came on in a 6 nations game against the Scots(2005???), scored a decent try as well in the same match if I remember correctly…He was a sub V France in the WC in 2007 but don’t think he saw action
Flannery’s enforced absence means that the best player in the Number 2 jersey Rory Best will now be selected. For that we can give thanks.