The Rugby Thread (Part 1)

Sport
461

Ugly game today. What’s the story with the ELVs lads? Is this similar to the Golden Goal experiment in football? They thought it would encourage more attacking play in extra time but teams were instead petrified to commit too many men forward and risk conceding the Golden Goal on the break, with the result that sides were generally conservative and played for penalties. These ELVs seem to be encouraging long punts back and forth rather than any running and attacking rugby and it was a poor enough spectacle.

There was an absolute load of jawjacking going on and it mainly centred around O’Gara. I knew of the recent history of the rivalry since Lens in 1999 but I hadn’t realised how much they despised O’Gara and vice versa until reading the papers this morning.

Hook and the lads were disgusted with O’Gara losing his focus and discipline and getting involved in bickering and mouthing, whereas Ward gave him MOTM! I think both points of view are extreme - if those cunts were giving him verbals then he’s well within his rights to tell them to ‘Shut The Fook Up’ as you could lipread him doing. But he was going into rucks and making a few sly digs and wasn’t controlling the game all that well, albeit having some class moments with the drop goal and crosskick for the try.

462

[quote=“Bandage”]Ugly game today. What’s the story with the ELVs lads? Is this similar to the Golden Goal experiment in football? They thought it would encourage more attacking play in extra time but teams were instead petrified to commit too many men forward and risk conceding the Golden Goal on the break, with the result that sides were generally conservative and played for penalties. These ELVs seem to be encouraging long punts back and forth rather than any running and attacking rugby and it was a poor enough spectacle.

There was an absolute load of jawjacking going on and it mainly centred around O’Gara. I knew of the recent history of the rivalry since Lens in 1999 but I hadn’t realised how much they despised O’Gara and vice versa until reading the papers this morning.

Hook and the lads were disgusted with O’Gara losing his focus and discipline and getting involved in bickering and mouthing, whereas Ward gave him MOTM! I think both points of view are extreme - if those cunts were giving him verbals then he’s well within his rights to tell them to ‘Shut The Fook Up’ as you could lipread him doing. But he was going into rucks and making a few sly digs and wasn’t controlling the game all that well, albeit having some class moments with the drop goal and crosskick for the try.[/quote]

Ya a mixed bag from ROG. I thought Ferris, O’ Connell, Hayes, O’ Callaghan were all good to very good. I’d have given MOTM to O’ Connell for about 5 or 6 turnovers or penalties won in the tackle.
I think Ward is a poor commentator, he loves out-halves because of his own playing days

463

Got home relatively quickly from the stadium. Christ what an embarrassingly poor display.

Toothless, benign, terrible kicking. We should have won by 30 points but we are kicking balls when we should be building phases. The hallmarks of everything bad with rugby at the moment.

Ireland win the match by default and Ronan O’Gara wins the MOTM award by default.

Can anyone explain why teams persist with this fad of overusing Garryowens? The chasing of Ireland’s Garryowens was so poor. It’s like they have this plan to put up Garryowens at every opportunity but have no plan for chasing the kicks.

If teams want to use kicking as a primary tactic then fine but for god sake if you are going to kick, make sure it is a good one and has a purpose. About half a dozen of Ireland’s kicks today were useful. One especially so. The rest were somewhere between adequate and shocking.

On my final kicking note I’d like to thank Santiago Fernandez for some of the worst kicking I’ve seen particularly his penalties from the hand.

464

[quote=“cluaindiuic”]Got home relatively quickly from the stadium. Christ what an embarrassingly poor display.

Toothless, benign, terrible kicking. We should have won by 30 points but we are kicking balls when we should be building phases. The hallmarks of everything bad with rugby at the moment.

Ireland win the match by default and Ronan O’Gara wins the MOTM award by default.

Can anyone explain why teams persist with this fad of overusing Garryowens? The chasing of Ireland’s Garryowens was so poor. It’s like they have this plan to put up Garryowens at every opportunity but have no plan for chasing the kicks.

If teams want to use kicking as a primary tactic then fine but for god sake if you are going to kick, make sure it is a good one and has a purpose. About half a dozen of Ireland’s kicks today were useful. One especially so. The rest were somewhere between adequate and shocking.

On my final kicking note I’d like to thank Santiago Fernandez for some of the worst kicking I’ve seen particularly his penalties from the hand.[/quote]

Did 80,000 people actually pay in to this spectacle? How bad is Tomas O’ Leary? He would be quicker with a shovel getting the balls out of the rucks and his pass is laboured. What happened to our backs. It was not too long ago or was it that Darcy, BOD and Horgan would regularly look dangerous and break the line.

O’ Gara is a fucking idiot of the highest order. Granted he made the try but I thought that apart he was useless. Ya sure he got a drop goal but how many did he miss. The ‘sledging’ he was going on with made him look like a complete tool as the cameras kept zooming in on it. The only ones to benefit were Argentina as his concentration was gone and his performance reflected that

465

[quote=“KIB man”]Did 80,000 people actually pay in to this spectacle? How bad is Tomas O’ Leary? He would be quicker with a shovel getting the balls out of the rucks and his pass is laboured. What happened to our backs. It was not too long ago or was it that Darcy, BOD and Horgan would regularly look dangerous and break the line.

O’ Gara is a fucking idiot of the highest order. Granted he made the try but I thought that apart he was useless. Ya sure he got a drop goal but how many did he miss. The ‘sledging’ he was going on with made him look like a complete tool as the cameras kept zooming in on it. The only ones to benefit were Argentina as his concentration was gone and his performance reflected that[/quote]

Agree on O’ Gara been an idiot, but in the context of todays game, but he wasn’t useless.
Tomas O’ Leary is a slower passer than what we have been used to, but he brings so much more in terms of strength and kicking in comparision to his rivals for that position. He’s a good player, not sure if he’s a good International player though.

All in all when you look at it from a 6Nations point of view we probably have as good a chance as anyone. France are probably not as good as they might be in other years, Wales are beatable, Ireland, Scotland, England and Italy are all pretty muck at the moment, but Ireland and to a lesser extent England have scope for improvement.
The Southern Hemisphere is streets ahead.

466

[quote=“caoimhaoin”]Agree on O’ Gara been an idiot, but in the context of todays game, but he wasn’t useless.
Tomas O’ Leary is a slower passer than what we have been used to, but he brings so much more in terms of strength and kicking in comparision to his rivals for that position. He’s a good player, not sure if he’s a good International player though.

All in all when you look at it from a 6Nations point of view we probably have as good a chance as anyone. France are probably not as good as they might be in other years, Wales are beatable, Ireland, Scotland, England and Italy are all pretty muck at the moment, but Ireland and to a lesser extent England have scope for improvement.
The Southern Hemisphere is streets ahead.[/quote]

V disappointed with the game.
Atmosphere was very poor. Couldn’t believe ROG got MOTM, what game was Ward watching? I’d have give to Wallace or Murphy before him. Thought we were fairly clueless once the backs got their hands on the ball. Running over and back the pitch. There was one phase where we ran through about 6/7 phases in the backs and made no ground. Most of the kicking was aimless. The aggression was neither controlled, satisfactory or constant. Seemed like a very narky game all told. Was it ROG fighting at the end with Argies? There was a bit of a dustup with about 2 min to go and the Irish lad appeared to run after the Argie to give him a belt even though the ball was down the other end of the pitch. Fair play to whoever did that because it laid down a marker for the future.
Thought O Connell took too much ball on and most of it was from a standing start. Meat and drink to the Argies.
To’L seems to take too much out of the ball before passing with the result that the opposition midfield are up too quickly. Thought OGara could have put a few chips in behind to keep the midfield on the back foot, but there was little variation to the game plan.
More anon.

WBY

467

Yeah that was shocking today alright.

Thought O’Connell was decent enough myself but more defensively and in rucks and at the lineout. His ball carrying was average.

Wallace was prominent again but we’ve nobody taking good support lines off him. Caught a restart in the second half and got no runner off him. First half he supported Bowe well for his break but then Kearney overran him badly for the next offload. Kearney was too far behind Bowe and then too flat for Wallace. Any sort of timing for either pass and he’d have jogged home.

O’Gara was poor enough, in fairness he delivered a smashing drop goal and kicked well for the try but he didn’t execute a gameplan at all. O’Leary didn’t help - that wasn’t a good performance from him. I still prefer him to Reddan but he has to get the pass quick first and foremost.

Incidentally, on the NZ game Weepu must have played his way into the starting scrum half slot at this stage. Cowan is shocking.

468

Basic skill levels, or the lack of them, over the past two weekends have surprised me.

Stuff like:

  1. passes bouncing before reaching intended targets.
  2. inability to pass accurately on the run off left hand side.
  3. wayward kicking.
  4. failure to convert line breaks into tries, including botching overlaps and two on ones.
469

Awful game. Worst 170 I’ve ever paid. Thought Murphy was the stand out player in the backs.

Was drinking in Gills after the game and the ambulance carrying David Wallace drove back towards Croker with Wallace sitting up looking fine in the back. Hopefully it was just a strain or something but I dont think he’s too seriously injured.

470

Horrendous game yesterday, one of the worst spectacles Iv seen. Neither team displayed any ambition whatsoever. kick after kick after kick, and the quality of kicking was even shite.

We were lucky they were missing their two best players I think. Should still have beaten them though because we definitely had the better pack.

Reason for all the Garryowens cluainduic, is that because of the new rules and the inconsistency in applying them, actually having possession of the ball is a liability. Where they thought it would encourage more running rugby it has done the opposite because the breakdown is a lottery. From Ireland’s perspective this was more pronounced because we played with two SH referees on both weekends who have been applying a different set of rules, with a markedly different attitude for the whole season.

ROG was shite, cant believe he got MOTM, typical Ward, how many times have we seen this! He gives the 10 the award if he is anywhere near the better players in the game. it was a tough game to pick MOTM though in fairness. But in light of the type of game it was surely to fuck one of the forwards deserved it.

The only real positive was that we got a convincing win, we didn’t create much but they wouldn’t have scored if they were still there.

ROG was bitching and moaning for the whole day, I thought he had grown out of that. There is still unfortunately, no viable option at the moment. I would be delighted to see someone else introduced as his time is ticking down, and despite consistently good club form he hasnt played to his form for Ireland in a while. But for people on here asking Kidney to drop him for the sake of it, look at the options

  • Wallace, has played everywhere but 10 for his club, Ulster play a no mark ozzie to kick at goal because hes not a reliable kicker. He is a decent centre but probably not physical enough to play here, and hes 29, so he has only two years on ROG. As I have said many times before, a case study for player mismanagement. The IRFU did not cover themselves in glory in this instance.

  • Sexton, again, not a first choice ten for his club. Plays plenty games to be fair but if Nacewa were fit he wouldnt be starting HEC player. Also is not trusted to kick at goal for his club, are Ireland to carry a kicker to compensate for this? Until he gets comfortable in this aspect of his game he is at nothing IMHO. Has the tools and the size to make a go of it but nobody should expect him to finish his apprenticeship on International stage.

  • Staunton, where do I start!! Again plays everywhere except 10. Crap defender. Unfit. Not a top grade kicker, either out of hand or at goal. Not a viable option at this stage in his career.

  • Niall O Connor/Humphreys, these lads need to duke it out amongst themselves to see who is the better of the two at club level before they can come up for consideration. Humphreys is a better player for me, but, he is missing the most important muscle of all. He wouldn’t tackle his supper, and thats as kind as I can be.

-Keatley, playing well in patches for (arguably) the worst side in the Magners league is not preparation for International rugby. With all due respect to his fans here, how much of his recent support is based on the Leinster game and reports of his kicking prowess? Iv seen the lad in action many times at club level for UCD/Clontarf and at international level underage for several different teams. He is a good young player but he is only 21, and has had little or no exposure to professional rugby until 6 months ago. He isn’t up to it yet, not to say he wont be but game time against any top tier rugby nation is outside his limits at the moment. He was far better than Sexton for Ireland A in the CC during the summer incidentally, despite Sexton being the obvious first choice (Sexton kicked like a pig out there as well).

One fella who never gets a mention is Eoghan Hickey, played well any time I saw him for London Irish last year, played a bit of HEC as well. Learning from Catt cant be a bad thing. Decent kicker if a bit lightweight. I think he is a far better option than any of the home based players to be honest, unlikely he’l get a shot at this stage though, particularly because Kidney didn’t play him much when he was at Munster.

So the No10 cupboard is particlalry bare. This is the key reason ROG has had a free ride since Humphreys retired, not misguided loyalty on any coaches behalf. FWIW I think he will struggle with Warwick if not for this season, definitely next season for his Munster place. Id have Warwick ahead of him at the moment, he has been superb all year. Tipokis injury will probably delay this decision for McGahan for the time being.

KIB made a 12 reasons to hate rugby post a few days ago, he made some valid points in it. He made one point though about Irelands call (reason enough to redraft the good friday agreement I think he said!!)

I don’t particulaly like the tune I must say, but FFS can people not see it was done for a specific reason? Ulster unionists stood for AnB with little public complaint about it for many many years. They still do. I personally dont think its a big stretch to make in the interests of the game.

They did the exact same thing in South Africa for similar reasons. I dont see people whinging about that, despite the fact that the anthem lasts about 15 minutes and has 5 different languages. it was a sensible decision, maybe not a popular one, but a sensible one.

471

[quote=“W.B. Yeats”]
To’L seems to take too much out of the ball before passing with the result that the opposition midfield are up too quickly.

WBY[/quote]

I know your a former no 9 so interested to see you say this. Thought his service was far better last week than yesterday to be fair but think he gets it away pretty quickly. Boss and others take a step, TOL doesnt have this problem IMHO.

Time between ball leaving his hands and hitting ROG is slow, but Id say time between ball leaving ruck and hitting ROG is just as quick as Reddan/Stringer and far quicker than Boss.

If you see what I mean? Ball isnt in his hands for long at all.

472

[quote=“dancarter”]I know your a former no 9 so interested to see you say this. Thought his service was far better last week than yesterday to be fair but think he gets it away pretty quickly. Boss and others take a step, TOL doesnt have this problem IMHO.

Time between ball leaving his hands and hitting ROG is slow, but Id say time between ball leaving ruck and hitting ROG is just as quick as Reddan/Stringer and far quicker than Boss.

If you see what I mean? Ball isnt in his hands for long at all.[/quote]

Is the problem then Dan that the forwards dont clear out the ball fast enough. Ireland seem so slow getting the ball out of rucks and out to the backs. Little go forward momentum if any.

I didnt watch the summer Tests but did Paddy Wallace not play really well and is it not a fair summation that we have gone back a distance since

473

[quote=“KIB man”]Is the problem then Dan that the forwards dont clear out the ball fast enough. Ireland seem so slow getting the ball out of rucks and out to the backs. Little go forward momentum if any.

I didnt watch the summer Tests but did Paddy Wallace not play really well and is it not a fair summation that we have gone back a distance since[/quote]

I think so ya KIB. Stringer has looked terrible all season until last tuesday night, his pack gave him the quickest cleanest ball Iv seen any team getting since the ELV came into play. He looked as good as he did at any stage in his career.

Wallace played well alright, but in the centre. Our performance is gone well back since then alright, NZ/Oz have played a lot of games since then though so maybe our performance then flattered us. Remember too the summer tests were played under the old rules, and the SH players had just played a club season under the new rules.

One point I meant to make above, for all the doom and gloom we have had as good a Nov as any of the other 6N teams. Scotland beat canada by 40 and they were thrilled with the result (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_union/7735273.stm), we put 57 on em in a storm and all we got were grumbles!!

England got hockeyed twice by Oz/SA and they got NZ to come. NZ did the same number, if not worse, on the grand slam champions as they did to us.

The best (and im not winding anyone up) performance by any NH team against any SH team was given tuesday night. Should be a template for taking on the SH teams, quick ball and they do not like it up em.

474

Can someone explain what all the fuss was about O’Gara’s comments during the week? Surely they were just an observation that Ireland needed to play with the pride Munster showed on tuesday? George Hook was making out like it was an attack on Drico. I really don’t see what all the drama was about in the media.

475

By new rules do you mean the ELVs? Because this thing of over-using Garryowens has been prevalent since the World Cup last year.

Is there any example of a sport where having possession actually is a liability?

If that is the reality of rugby these days then the game is dying.

476

[quote=“cluaindiuic”]By new rules do you mean the ELVs? Because this thing of over-using Garryowens has been prevalent since the World Cup last year.

Is there any example of a sport where having possession actually is a liability?

If that is the reality of rugby these days then the game is dying.[/quote]

I think Argentina were the key exponent of high kick after high kick at the world cup. A lot of sides played conservatively but it is the main tactic for the majority of International teams now.

I think the ELV have changed the game completely and for the worse at International level. Club teams have far more time together and can adapt their gameplan over time, international coaches dont have this luxury.

I agree if ELV are retained in current form the game will be in serious trouble no doubt.

477

Only saw the first 20 and the last 15 minutes of the match and it seems fairly poor…argentina out half looked shocking…Seemed to be little or no atmosphere at it…

I think the future is bright enough for Ireland in the front row we have two fairly decent hookers with jackman giving us a bit of depth…Buckley is coming along well considering it is only his second season being in the munster 22 and is progressing nicely but scrummaging need to improve…If Hayes gets injured we are boned…

Seems to be plenty of cover in the second row with Paul and Donnacha as first choice with O Kelly and O Driscoll giving a bit of experience while the likes of Ryan, Cullen, Casey and Caldwell we seem to be well covered…

Back Row is similar to the second row with Leamy, Wallace and Heaslip likely to be first choice come the 6n’s…with the likes of Quinlan, Jennings and Ferris all able to come in…

Scrum half looks like it is between Reddan and O Leary, wouldn’t have too much faith in the rest, Stringer, Boss, Murphy etc are either past it or not up to standard

Out Half: Fucked to be honest

Left Wing: Looks like Kearney is going to be stuck out here for the short-medium term…I would like to see Ian Dowling given a chance with Rob going to 15…

Centre’s: O Driscoll and Fitz have shown a bit of promise, would like to see luke get more games in the centre for leinster, outside of them we haven’t much, Trimble, Wallace, Murphy, D’Arcy(if he can get back fit and in form)…Earls and Cave both look to have a lot of potential but reckon it will be a few years before either will be up to test match in the centre…

Right Wing: Looks like Bowe is first choice at the moment, with horgan second choice with the likes of Earls and Fitzgerald as back up…Johnny Muphy from Leicster could be worth a look

Full back: one from three between Earls, Murphy and Dempsey…HopeMurphy gets the nod for the 6 nations or possibly Kearney…

478

The programme yesterday had Jackmans birthday down as 1985 or something ridiculous like that. Thought it didnt seem quite right.

479

I would say 1975 would be closer…Heads should roll…

On the outhalf issue lads granted O Gara isn’t playing well but if you were to compare his performances in the past three game to Danny Cipriani then you will appreciate how good we have it…Danny has had three poor performances in a row(he is only back from a bad injury) but England don’t have a replacement(with johnny out injured) either as the likes of Hodgeson and Lamb just aren’t good enough for international rugby and Toby Flood is a 12 IMO…The likes of Parks and Godman in Scotland are average Celtic League 10’s and they struggle because of this…Wales are lucky they have two very good 10’s but we are not alone in having a lack of strength in depth at 10…

Argebtina never looked like scoring because they didn’t have a functioning 10…If we were to throw the likes of Wallace, Sexton, Keatley etc in at 10 I reckon we would look as average with ball in hand as the argies yesterday…

480

[quote=“dancarter”]I know your a former no 9 so interested to see you say this. Thought his service was far better last week than yesterday to be fair but think he gets it away pretty quickly. Boss and others take a step, TOL doesnt have this problem IMHO.

Time between ball leaving his hands and hitting ROG is slow, but Id say time between ball leaving ruck and hitting ROG is just as quick as Reddan/Stringer and far quicker than Boss.

If you see what I mean? Ball isnt in his hands for long at all.[/quote]

if i may join the old 9’s club, would another aspect be the way stringer marshalls rucks, sets up pods and demands ball much more urgently than o’leary? he may have to take some of the credit for the quick ball produced on tuesday, o’leary still seems almost apologetic at the base of a ruck sometimes. he extracted the ball a few times yesterday like he was taking a roast out of the oven.

speed of TOL’s pass might be only slightly slower, but it takes forever for him get rid of it. and he does have a habit of stepping when he’s not sure/confident about the next move.