Fucking hell what a chance that was. Cronin could have made a name for himself there but knock ons have been the story of the game.
Done nothing in that time to warrant a start imo.
Some frankly bizarre decisions from Kidney today. Can only hope lessons are finally learned from today (though really they should have been learned in Summer). Wallace and Cullen must be wondering what they have to do to get a place. Best and D’arcy must be wondering what more they must do wrong to get dropped.
Kidney didnt give away all those penalties. Needed to use his bench more, but it wasnt the losing of the game.
Team selection perhaps did lose the game mbb. Selection was wrong prior to the game and substitutions didn’t make sense to me anyway.
Oh and I’m not proud Tom McGuirk. Fooking spare me please
Who was wrongly selected? Best is the only one I can think of. Darcy should have been subbed, but wasn’t anything wrong with starting him?
That was a game nearly handed to us and still we couldnt take it. Thats not to say we played all that badly but we’re not good enough to beat good teams like France with that high an error count.
One or two players back from injury and I thought we’d have won.
Heard the most of the second half on the radio, sounds like indiscipline costs us…Going by the radio O’Connell had a decent game and looks to be getting back to form and O’Brien seemed prominent
I wouldn’t have started either player. Sexton plays far far better with Wallace at 12 than when D’arcy plays there. D’arcy had a shocker again and had a shocker last week. Wallace was our best player on tour with combination of 10 and 12 with Sexton working really well against Maori’s and Oz. Fair enough if he decided to go with him for 40 but was really obvious he wasn’t on his game and change should have been made there. Best hasn’t been in form in a long time either. Cullen has been playing better than DO’C or PO’C. Kidney’s record is very good and I like him a lot but he really needs to start picking on form (be it international or club).
Yea, Darcy is under pressure at the moment, I’d have him out of there, that missed tackle was abysmal.
DOC was one of our best players last weekend and Kidney was justified in picking him.
Former teammate of Cullen and World Cup winner Ben Kay also agreed with O’Callaghan’s selection ahead of Leo…And I think most neutrals would have as well given O’Callaghan’s performance last week
Cullen should have told Kidney to shove it up his fat Cork arse when asked to come on with 6 seconds left - an insult to a fine player.
He put in another good shift today to be fair to him.
Very disappointed with that. Huge improvement on last weeks performance but too many sloppy errors to have any complaints. Reading the comments here Im a bit surprised about people looking for Cullen? DOC had 24 tackles last weekend and possibly his best game in a few years. He had to retain his place, thought both second rows did well to be fair and seem to be carrying the ball a lot better than before.
Shocking missed tackle from Darcy, surprised at the lack of commentary on it here, it was a basic missed tackle. If ROG had done it the place would have gone into fucking meltdown. Playing well all season but has been poor so far in the 6N. Fuck putting Wallace in there, he would have been bumped as well. Throw McFadden in there and see is he up to it. Thought he did reasonably OK today on limited possession, took try v well after playing good part in recovering the ball.
Unbelievably Id say Sexton kicked the ball only once or twice? I know you want to keep it away from their back three but it was screaming out for one in behind to change the pattern at times today. Despite that thought he played great again, the loop is a simple but effective ploy. ROG again made a positive impact when he came on. That strategy is working out quite well.
Other positives?
SOB was savage, great carries, always added momentum. Both Wallace (despite few pens) and Heaslip also did well.
TOL some good carries, delivery was a lot better than last week, see negatives!
Scrum was comfortable all day and came out even, although they were lucky at times maybe, think Pearson might have decided it was going to be a draw in the scum before the game.
Defence, barring Darcy tackle, was very good. Not many missed tackles and committed good numbers to the rucks which killed a lot of french momentum.
In general despite all the errors outscoring the french 3 tries to 1 and being in with a squeak to win it at the end was nice.
Negatives?
Some of TOL decision making was cat. He carried around the back of a line out and got turned over, one exceptionally bad kick, ruined his contribution somewhat.
Shocking discipline, you could clearly hear Person warning them at times to roll away, hands away etc and they still gave away the pens.
Fitzgerald was poor at FB today. Needed to be more commanding coming forward for high ball. Though Trinh Duc exposed him a bit, although he may have been carrying a knock.
Selection of bench. Felt that Kidney had his hands tied somewhat with his selection, Darcy should have gone, BOD was struggling a few times, and any of the back three could have been replaced. But having only Wallace to cover 12-15 meant making a call meant leaving himself v short elsewhere. Need either McFadden or Earls on the bench I think, could spell bye bye for Paddy Wallace.
6N is England to win now
Well that’s the Six Nations over for another two years anyway. Between France and England now. Given that France are still giving that shaper Chabal a run and he nearly cost them the game again at the death I’d have to fancy England. Traille is another anomaly on the French side.
On the Cullen point I thought Kidney defended the decision reasonably afterwards but there is an argument to be made that a player should be replaced even when he’s going well. I wouldn’t have started Cullen but I would have introduced him.
Don’t agree on Wallace, he may have been bumped by Rougerie but maybe not. But he’d have added more in attack and if they’re level defensively then Wallace deserves a go I think. Anyway I’d have given him 10 minutes anyway to see what he can do. He offers something different and D’Arcy wasn’t going to make a linebreak in the last 10 minutes.
At the end, don’t understand why teams don’t give away penalties to challenge for possession again. May as well go offside and challenge them to kick it to touch. They might tap and go but at least you give yourself a chance of targetting that next ruck with 8 forwards if they just tap the penalty. Anything could happen then.
But why not play Wallace at 12? He has done extremely well outside Sexton on the last few times he has been put in there for Ireland (with exception of Samoan game) and our backline has performed much better which is no coincidence either. Either way we need a 12 who can pass and kick the ball (Darcy is poor at both). Agree with you on most of the other points and fair enough re DOC. While SOB carried very well I’d like to have seen him try and offload it a bit more as this could be dangerous attacking ploy. As it is while effective he is a little predictable.
Ulster just been beaten by a point to Ospreys which caps off miserable day for Irish sides.
The main advantage for me of playing Wallace at 12 is the options it gives Sexton. We could have played more territory today with Wallace and Sexton both capable of kicking so the decision for Sexton to pass doesn’t always have to translate into an expansive backline move. I think they play well together and I’d certainly like to see them given a chance.
In any event I didn’t think a 10-12 of O’Gara/D’Arcy at the end was going to cause many problems so introducing Wallace at the end would have been good.
Where I do agree with Dan is that Wallace might not be the best guy on the bench, particularly if Kidney doesn’t trust him defensively. I probably wouldn’t have him on the bench against Scotland. Either start him in the centre or go for Trimble on the bench.
Much depends on injuries for that game anyway but I’d be looking at a choice between McFadden or Wallace ahead of D’Arcy at 12 with Earls, D’Arcy or McFadden on the bench if Bowe returns.
Problem is I dont think they are next or near defensively. Darcy had a howler today but he is normally very solid. Wallace has ended up covered in blood and half concussed in a lot of his international games. Far superior going forward to Darcy but overall I think the clamour for Wallace is faintly ridiculous. He has played reasonably well in recent internationals but anyone who thinks he is the answer to our prayers at 12 needs to think again. Your later comments that he would have been another kicking option doesnt make sense when kicking was clearly not part of the strategy at all.
I must say at this stage I am starting to doubt that Larry is on the wind up about Paddy, which has been my assumption for the last 12 months! I suppose we all have our blind spots.
But kicking should have been part of the strategy, or at least the option to kick. It’s probably easy to criticise the lack of kicking too much because it kept Poitrenaud out of the game for example, but I don’t think we can afford to have D’Arcy in there if he isn’t going to contribute in attack at all. He was almost Danaher-esque today. He’s a better player than that but he isn’t playing well and if his defence isn’t holding up either then it’s hard to justify his inclusion.
Anyway whatever about the starting team I think it’s hard to see the logic in leaving him on for the 80. The message to Wallace today was that he’s only playing if there are injuries, and even then Kidney said afterwards that he didn’t play bring him on because there were injuries. He might have made a big difference in attack today for the last 15 minutes or so and I don’t think D’Arcy deserved to stay on at all.