I agree VDF was excellent. They picked three second rows in an effort to shut down our line out. It worked. The Ireland 6-2 bench split worked well before and made sense going into the game considering how England would go after us but it backfired, that’s the risk.
My worry overall would be that Ireland have a record now of coming out the wrong side of big and close games. When things go well we tend to hockey teams but when we get shut down a bit we seem to struggle. I’d agree with apples that the pattern is the same with Leinster in finals with the same group of players.
Leaving sexton on in that NZ game was baffling, especially in the last five minutes, at least roll the dice. But he’s gotten most of the big calls right in fairness to him. At some point you have to look at the players as a group.
Id agree with a lot of that. I’m not sure I fully believe the “losing close game” theory though. We’ve won several close games in recent years vs SA (twice), Aus and NZ on the tour. In many ways your theory also doesn’t recognise our success in that games against the likes of France, Eng etc aren’t allowed to be close - we just pull away. I’d also suggest that a silver lining from the likes of Sat and the QF is how hard it is to beat us. On Sat Eng were performing better, got the breaks etc but still needed a last min score to get over the line. Even playing poorly by our standards we stayed in the fight and almost nicked it.
I think Ford left ten points behind, we were well beaten in all honesty. Without getting into age old rugby arguments on the importance of test games, it’s finals and big games where we seem to have a problem. I think so anyway. Coming out the wrong side of big games that were winnable. I think Ireland’s defence was the biggest issue in the game just gone. The injuries and configuration maybe compounded it but it was second best from the start.
On the back row, I don’t think I’d change much immediately. Baird has huge potential but he needs to force his way into the team the way McCarthy has done and he hasn’t, he needs to be more impactful. POM is probably the best lineout operator in the starting team and it’s an area of weakness for a while, expect he’ll move on in another year or so. Conan is a physically bigger player than doris but I don’t think he’d change much. I’d have thought coombes would be an ideal impact player at 6 but Farrell doesn’t seem to rate him and he’s maybe gone off the boil a bit.
Surely if England have their house in order anyway at at all they should be beating Ireland 9 times out of 10. France should be too. It’s kind of ruined rugby for me that Ireland are more or less as good as them. The whole point of it is that Ireland are meant to be the plucky underdogs with fellas turning up with cowshite on their togs and no teeth to play a bunch of arrogant officer class toffs. The roles being reversed makes no sense.
I meant more in terms of the unfortunate early injury to Nash and then Frawley.
I think the stats you reference, and @glasagusban point about us being well beaten are kinda what I was saying. England had the better of us in most areas so it was a testament to this team that they managed to stay in the fight and almost nicked it.
Re Baird vs POM in the lineout - I think that’s closing very quickly. That’s been a massive improvement by Baird in both Blue and Green this year. On the other hand I was surprised how little POM even got in the air to challenge them on Sat
I find this kind of response from rugby fans a bit odd. Rather than be critical of them for losing another big game, that was winnable, that they were widely expected to win, they instead are applauded for being close. The thornley effect I call it.
Anyway, not many are calling for wholesale changes to the team and Farrell seems to get most calls right. Until they start winning these kind of big games there’s probably question marks over the flakiness of the group.
Farrell is a busted flush? In fairness he’s done a good job. Took over a team in decline after a horrendous 2019 under Joe Schmidt. He’s played a nicer brand of rugby and performed better at a World Cup. Incredibly close to winning a quarter-final that would’ve ultimately led to a final appearance at least. A Grand Slam followed by a 6 Nations championship isn’t a bad innings either. Factor in the series win in New Zealand and overall he’s been a success.
Obviously his legacy will be determined by the quarter-final result at the 2027 World Cup but he didn’t inherited the most talented Irish team of all-time. Leinster have been the only province pulling their weight during his tenure and he doesn’t have the same number of generational players as coaches like O’ Sullivan and Kidney would have benefited from. He’s eking out some performances from lads like JGP, Mack Hansen, Calvin Nash and Finlay Bealham who wouldn’t necessarily have been viewed as international quality. It does help though that Wales are in crisis and Scotland are average.
We def should have won the game based upon the teams put out and definitely underperformed. I’m not trying to minimise that.
I suppose my point was in the context of that underperformance - which is probably unavoidable as all teams will have off days - we’re still really hard to beat.
