Very disappointing second half. All the fizz went out of the game with the penalty try at half time. They just strolled it in the second half and we couldn’t live with them.
Some decent individual performances from O’Leary, O’Driscoll, Fitzgerald in patches and Wallace.
O’Gara was very poor and we can’t survive with an out half playing that badly, particularly against that quality of opposition.
Two lads who pissed me off no end today were O’Connell and Horan. Horan for his pass to Quinlan when he tried to miss Wallace. First of all it made no sense, second of all he’s not capable of it, third of all it was appalling execution. Fucking arseholery. Not the first time he’s made a stupid decision. Know your limits you clown.
O’Connell was even more disappointing. I don’t watch rugby to see some prick grimacing to let us know how much pain he’s enduring just to be on the pitch. If you’re not going to tackle then get the fuck off. Fair enough you’ve done your bit for Ireland in the past but you’ve no divine right to be on the team and if you’re injured then get off. The All Blacks must have been laughing at how pride got in the way of O’Connell coming off. And as for taking a tap penalty to himself - for fuck’s sake. He taps it to himself then passes it because he’s injured. If you’re not going to take responsibility then again don’t play. And certainly don’t be taking penalties quickly if you don’t want anything more to do with it.
Other than those two I thought Heaslip was quiet, Bowe picked some good lines but never looked dangerous enough, centre partnership was promising.
This defeat needs to be taken in context it is kidneys first real game in charge(canada doesn’t count) while this is New Zealands 12th since they played Ireland in June…We created very liitle scoring opportunities and our offloading was poor today…
Ratings:
Dempsey: did little wrong, was his usual soild if unspectacular self…6
Bowe: Handling was poor, defense looked suspect and didn’t look up to this level…4
O Driscoll: had a good enough game, tackled well, kicking wasn’t bad and tried hard including a nice kick and chase…7
Fitzgerald: Defended well and made a few smart breaks in the second half, but got litle or no decent ball to do more damage…7
Kearney: Handling was good but like fitzgerald didn’t get enough decent ball to showcase his talents, looks like he could be stuck on the left wing for a while as we have no other real alternatives…6
O Gara: did some things well tried a few breaks but nothing ever really fell into place for him, looked a small bit laboured in his game today and was charged down early and sliced a kick to touch badly…5
O Leary: Can be very happy with his first cap, kicked well and mixed it when he had to, by no means the finished article but is still improving, if he could quicken up his pass a bit more he would be a serious player…8
Heaslip: Disappointed with jamie today, Can’t remember one thing of note he did today, didn’t carry well and will be lucky to keep his place…4
Wallace: was the best of the back row and carried plenty of ball, made a few nice bursts and looked dangerous, defended well…7
Quinlan: tried hard and certainly seemed to disrupt new zealand at the breakdown, gave away too many penalties…6
O Connell: played well til the injury, looked for work and was solid in the lineout…7
O Callaghan: similar to heaslip, didn’t do much of note…4
Hayes: held up well in the scrum and worked hard around the fringes…6
Best: Line out and scrum went well and defended well…6
Horan: same as the other two front rowers…6
my team for Argentina:
Geordan Murphy
Shane Horgan
Brian O Driscoll
Luke Fitzgerald
Rob Kearney
Ronan O Gara
Tomas O Leary
David Wallace
Shane Jennings
Alan Quinlan
Mal O Kelly (presuming O connell is injured, if paul is fit he would start ahead of o callaghan)
Donnacha O Callaghan
Bull Hayes
Rory Best
Marcus Horan
[quote=“therock67”]
Two lads who pissed me off no end today were O’Connell and Horan. Horan for his pass to Quinlan when he tried to miss Wallace. First of all it made no sense, second of all he’s not capable of it, third of all it was appalling execution. Fucking arseholery. Not the first time he’s made a stupid decision. Know your limits you clown.
O’Connell was even more disappointing. I don’t watch rugby to see some prick grimacing to let us know how much pain he’s enduring just to be on the pitch. If you’re not going to tackle then get the fuck off. Fair enough you’ve done your bit for Ireland in the past but you’ve no divine right to be on the team and if you’re injured then get off. The All Blacks must have been laughing at how pride got in the way of O’Connell coming off. And as for taking a tap penalty to himself - for fuck’s sake. He taps it to himself then passes it because he’s injured. If you’re not going to take responsibility then again don’t play. And certainly don’t be taking penalties quickly if you don’t want anything more to do with it.
.[/quote]
yeah twas a stupid decision from horan alright, as for o connell i think you are being a bit unfair on him rock, I would lay more blame with the management for this, it was obvious that he was fucked and he should have been taken off 10 minutes earlier than he was…
I think he’s experienced enough now to make the decision himself. Hard to know what Kidney can see about every player at the same time but O’Connell can have no doubt himself that he was getting roasted so he should have called a day on it himself.
Agree with most of your ratings by the way, think you’re harsh on Bowe and generous to O’Connell but agreed on the rest.
Heaslip was certainly the big disappointment for me.
before the injury O Connell was playing great stuff rock…think the management didn’t want to take him off because they had no real replacement on the bench…ferris and quinlan might do alright in the celtic league playing in the second row but not in a test match against the all blacks…
as for bowe…he did pick some nice lines but hsi handling let him down two or three times in the first half when we actually made a few line breaks…think he would hold his own against the likes of italy and scotland but against the top teams he looks pedestrian enough…would like to be proved wrong on him though
What’s the story with O’Gara throwing in a performance like yesterday every once in a while? He’s 30 or 31 now, you’d think he’d have attained a level of consistency but he’s prone to having a real stinker on occasion.
yweah tis unfortunate that he has the odd stinker…but i suppose nobody is perfect…But if you were to look at any of the big games Ireland have won over the past 5 years, Australia, south africa, the wins in Twickenham etc O Gara has been on his game so if O Gara doesn’t play well then Ireland don’t play well
[quote=“The Puke”]before the injury O Connell was playing great stuff rock…think the management didn’t want to take him off because they had no real replacement on the bench…ferris and quinlan might do alright in the celtic league playing in the second row but not in a test match against the all blacks…
as for bowe…he did pick some nice lines but hsi handling let him down two or three times in the first half when we actually made a few line breaks…think he would hold his own against the likes of italy and scotland but against the top teams he looks pedestrian enough…would like to be proved wrong on him though[/quote]
no shame in comming off if you re fucked and to be honest very disappointed with o connell, regardless of how the management felt he should have held his hand up the man couldn’t run and he was the only one who knew that, he is to blame. Not the sort of thing you want to see from a man touted as captain material, gone way down in my estimation, a bad bad decision.
Brawn over brains and against the ABs thats not good enough.
the game over all made me think that if eddie os let out a team like that he would have been slaughtered, and rightly so, kidney is getting a good honeymoon period, if they lose against Argentina the knives will be out
[quote=“caoimhaoin”]As are you, Dan Carter, Michael Jordan, Maradonna, Best etc etc.
People have off days, a pointless point really.[/quote]
Not really. I don’t watch Munster very much and I believe he plays well for them most of the time. But when he steps up to international level, he often plays poorly. Imagine being Paddy Wallace and watching that on Saturday. He must have been thinking, ‘What the fook do I have to do to get a game here?’
Paddy would do well to ask not to be considered as a 10 for a start. He would have been eaten alive at 10 by the AB’s.
Disappointed on Saturday, no shame in losing to the AB’s, but to go down so poorly against them when in reality we had one of the better chances we’ll ever have to take them on at home, is saddening. Far too much kicking the ball away, never once did we try to have a cut at them in the first 30 minutes, and when you invite the AB’s on you get what we got on Saturday.
Disappointed in Kidney, but considering he’s only 2 games into his reign, I’ll give him a pass, this time. I’d hope we wont see this sort of thing again, but with the Argentina game coming up, perhaps he targetted it instead of the AB’s, Saturday will tell.
Anyone know if any players have been let go back to Munster for tomorrow night?
It’s surely naive to think he hadn’t placed as much emphasis on the AB’s. I think you’d want to test yourself against the best in front of an 80,000 home crowd and set out to do everything possible to beat them for the first time ever.
Thats what I thought they would do, but even BOD was kicking the ball away instead of taking a cut. Every backline member kicked any decent possession we received, we didnt go out to win that game imo.
Paddy Wallace, your having a laugh. He shouldn’t be in the squad. The whole Irish team bar maybe Horan (who i usually don’t rate) Paul O’ C until injury, Tomas O’ Leary and Luke Fitz were crap. You picked out O’ Gara. Why not ask why hasn’t Brian O’ Driscoll played well for Ireland for 2 years. Whoever the conditioning coach at Leinster for the past 5-6 years should be put up against a wall and shot, he’s been ruined, and while i believe they have changed his training, it’s probably too late.
I would say staying in the top 8 far outweighs it. His job is to have a good World Cup, thats what all International managers are judged on now. Been in 9th place means we get two big guns again in our group. With our lack of depth players wise that would almost certainly ruin our next WC as well, he’s thinking ahead.
Well with 2 HC’s i can forgive him everytime. We all know us down here in Munster put more into Munster than Ireland, so we really don’t give a fuck at the end of the day!!!
what position are we now? there arent that many rogbee playing nation are there? by my reckoning there is S Africa, some posh schools in Aus,new Zealand,a tiny minority of argentinians britain, parts of france & a village between tuscany & umbria - I make that in & around 8 including us - how wouldnt we be in the top 8?
O’gara has one of the best boots in rugby but maybe he is a bit of a one trick pony…once that isn’t going well he’ll look bad as he doesn’t have much else…he doesn’t have really fast hands and struggles with pace so rarely breaks the gain line or even tries to…the thing i find odd about him is how weak he is for somebody who is lifting weights day in day out…the hand-off the scrum-half for all blacks gave O’ Gara when he went to tackle him was embarassing…feel a bit sorry for the Irish rugby team… they’re as honest a team you’ll meet but simply aren’t good enough for that level but year after year are built up by the prawn sandwich brigade to be something special…