The Official Declan Kidney is God Thread

epaddy · Post by **epaddy** » February 8th, 2006, 12:20 pm

I think everyone is forgetting that Ieeland where a foot away from a world cup semi final last in 03. If Humps drop kick had gone over we would have played scotland in the q/f and the all blacks in the semis. We are never going to be favorites for a world cup but upsets happen.

ruck · Post by **ruck** » February 8th, 2006, 12:22 pm

EP, even if we did draw the Scots in that world cup, if we put in the same performance as we did against France, even the Scots would have beaten us!

epaddy · Post by **epaddy** » February 8th, 2006, 12:28 pm

ruck wrote:EP, even if we did draw the Scots in that world cup, if we put in the same performance as we did against France, even the Scots would have beaten us!

Thats total b*%&!cks, Scotland where appauling in the world cup thaey barely beat fiji. Eddie took a chance so the Aus match as more winnable and it nearly paid off

Dave Cahill · Post by **Dave Cahill** » February 8th, 2006, 12:36 pm

epaddy wrote:
ruck wrote:EP, even if we did draw the Scots in that world cup, if we put in the same performance as we did against France, even the Scots would have beaten us!
Thats total b*%&!cks, Scotland where appauling in the world cup thaey barely beat fiji. Eddie took a chance so the Aus match as more winnable and it nearly paid off

He never has and he never will.

Leinsterman · Post by **Leinsterman** » February 8th, 2006, 12:55 pm

We would definitely have beaten Scotland in the Q/Fs. Going out on the lash after a moral victory against Australia combined with injuries to key players possibly led to the dismal performance against France. It almost looked as if the Q/F was the sum of Ireland's ambition at the last WC.

Ballyman · Post by **Ballyman** » February 8th, 2006, 1:17 pm

After Ireland lost to Australia they were always going to be on a hiding to nothing against France.
We do not have the quality of players that the larger nations have and never will. Simple as that. We can raise our game every now and then but we will never be able to beat the top nations on a consistent basis with the current player pool. Beat one every now and then, yes. Beat them regularly, no.
Look at Scotland last weekend. Upped their game million fold to beat the French yet they'll be underdogs for every game in future bar Italy. Are you telling me that they are better than France cos they beat them? On the day, yes. They also can raise their game on occasion. We won't beat France and anyone who thinks we will is delusional yet we struggle past Italy and we will be hot favourites to beat Scotland. Why is this?
This is why we will always struggle to get beyond Q-Finals and win 6 Nations. On any given day we can beat anyone but to do it on a consistent basis is where we fail.

Flash Gordon · Post by **Flash Gordon** » February 8th, 2006, 1:25 pm

Don't agree Ballyman. I think the player base is partially (though not totally) irrelevant. We have an elite system that protects and nutures top talent. Our advantage of England France is that we can call on these players whenever we want to, we can rest them, they are familiar with each other (less clubs) and we can keep them in Ireland because we pay massive salaries.
With the right coach, we would have won the grand slam last year. Drico says in his book that the attitude wasn't right for France and we totally choked the WElsh game.

CM · Post by CM » February 8th, 2006, 1:30 pm

Ballyman

God you're full of cheer today!

Your attitude is the reason Gatland was sacked. He took the same attitude with Ireland and it led to defeats against Wales in 2000 and Scotland in 2001, if either of those were victories we may have won a championship (less likely in 2000 on points difference).

The reason Ireland are favourites to beat the Scots is because we have got more consistency into our game over the years. We may never get a good run with injuries to ever challenge the best consistently but the fact is that Gatland thought we'd never win consistently with our 1st choice team while EOS knows that our 1st choice team is good enough to beat anyone we play. And now we're getting a bit of strength in depth too. People are bemoaning the exodus to the GP. I'm embracing it, we're still maintaining competitive provinces while expanding our player pool. Look at England, for all their playing numbers we've got 4 international quality opensides to their none.

CM · Post by CM » February 8th, 2006, 1:33 pm

Drico says in his book that the attitude wasn't right for France and we totally choked the WElsh game.

And he blames this on EOS does he?

EOS has already admitted we fell short last year and that he might change things if given a chance to go back and right the wrongs but the same team played excellent rugby against SA that drew praise for EOS from all the players. We'd just beaten England with a dominant display and when it came down to it some key technical areas (mainly the lineout) were the root of losing to France. It wasn't an awful performance but our lineout is our most important asset and any time France have beaten us recently that is the area that has won them the game.

Ballyman · Post by **Ballyman** » February 8th, 2006, 1:41 pm

Flash Gordon wrote:Don't agree Ballyman. I think the player base is partially (though not totally) irrelevant.

How can it even be partially irrelevent? You either have the player pool or you don't. As CM says we have "4 international quality opensides" Thats great when you have an injury crisis there. What happens if John Hayes is injured? Murphy? (don't mention swirve) Do we replace them with our "4 international quality opensides"
I'm not denying that we have strength in depth in some areas but in others there is none. We CANNOT compete with the larger nations like this. NZ put out almost 3 completely different teams in November and beat everybody. What's the point rebuilding for the RWC when you're going to come up against this? France could conceivably put out 2 teams that could almost do the same.

Flash Gordon wrote: With the right coach, we would have won the grand slam last year. Drico says in his book that the attitude wasn't right for France and we totally choked the WElsh game.

No we wouldn't. Wales beat us because they were better than us. Why didn't Wales choke? Why wasn't France's attitude wrong? Why are there always excuses when we are beaten? Is it possible that we are not world beaters? What would O'Driscolls excuse have been if Italy would have won on Saturday? It was too cold?

Flash Gordon · Post by **Flash Gordon** » February 8th, 2006, 1:50 pm

CM wrote:
Drico says in his book that the attitude wasn't right for France and we totally choked the WElsh game.
And he blames this on EOS does he?

EOS has already admitted we fell short last year and that he might change things if given a chance to go back and right the wrongs but the same team played excellent rugby against SA that drew praise for EOS from all the players. We'd just beaten England with a dominant display and when it came down to it some key technical areas (mainly the lineout) were the root of losing to France. It wasn't an awful performance but our lineout is our most important asset and any time France have beaten us recently that is the area that has won them the game.

You don't honestly think that the players would do anything but praise the coach??? Look what happened to Axel when he stepped out of line!
EOS's record speaks for itself - we lost the last two games of last years 6 nations, got creamed by the All Blacks, lost to the worst Australian team i can remember. Even Romania dominated us in phases. And we were total shoite last Saturday against the worst team in the 6 nations! This with the most gifted set of players we've had for 20 years!

CM · Post by CM » February 8th, 2006, 1:52 pm

Ballyman

I do think our strength in depth is better now than it used to be, in all positions. Let's take the starting 15 out of the equation and we could put out a team of:

Corrigan, Best, Best, DOC, MOD, Best, Jennings/Gleeson, Heaslip/Foley, Reddan, Humphreys, Hickie, Trimble, Lewis/Murphy, Kearney, Dempsey

Now I'm not saying that that team are world beaters but it's not a bad side at all. As a replacement to the incumbent very few of those players would weaken the team and some might even strengthen it.

Despite the doomsayers we are actually better off at prop than we used to be. Corrigan will do a job if needs be. He couldn't last a 6N now but for a one off game, no problem. Best won't weaken the scrum so we'd only lose Hayes' lineout skills. Behind those two players there's Young, Bracken, Hogan and McCormack who are better options than we used to have. Leinster now have 4 or 5 props who can do a decent job whereas, with respect to Peter Coyle, the cupboard was quite bare two years ago.

Flash Gordon · Post by **Flash Gordon** » February 8th, 2006, 1:54 pm

Player base plays its part. But then again Japan has over 100.000 players, we've only got 14.000. So player base isn't everything is what I meant. A well managed and well coached elite can compete.
We did choke against Wales in my view - The moment that epitomises it was when Rog was charged down by a prop. We played an error strewn game....
As for Wales, they were choking - the first ten minutes, they were all over the place and Jones missed an absolute sitter of a kick. However, we put no pressure on them and they were allowed to settle and play their own game......we choked it big time.

CM · Post by CM » February 8th, 2006, 2:00 pm

EOS's record speaks for itself

Yes it does. Same amount of victories as England and 2 less than France in the 6N since he took over. With our player base that's not bad.

Look I'm not trying to say everything's been rosy for the last year but I'm not as despondent as a lot of people. I think the media have a lot to answer for. They don't like EOS (his personality) and have said as much. They have launched a serious campaign against him and I'm sure the HEC victories had them rubbing their hands because they were able to raise false public expectations and then stick the knife in when, predictably, we had yet another poor game against the Italians (a team we have never, under anyone, played well against).

If we had such a brilliant crop of players Leinster and Munster would have a handful of HEC's between them by now given that the squad is primarily drawn from those sides. But we don't. We have a couple of outstanding players but we also have quite a few players who wouldn't get into any other top 10 team in the world. I'd have taken 5 or 6 Italians over our players. So my opinion is that we have always had the players (and we know we've always had the players - it was the link between school and international that was the problem) but EOS has moulded them into a team over the years that can compete with everyone. He's lost his way recently and with the new change in style and personnel perhaps a new coach would give the team that extra oomph but to dismiss all he's done for Irish rugby is ridiculous.[/quote]

sewa · Post by **sewa** » February 8th, 2006, 2:15 pm

Just to get the thread back on track. Declan Kidney is God.

JoseFantastique · Post by **JoseFantastique** » February 8th, 2006, 2:16 pm

As long as we're all in agreement that Declan Kidney is a God I'm not overly concerned.

bluesky · Post by **bluesky** » February 8th, 2006, 2:18 pm

JoseFantastique wrote:As long as we're all in agreement that Declan Kidney is a God I'm not overly concerned.

Gosh, the dyslexia in Munster is rampant, that should read Declan Kidney is a Dog...

Ballyman · Post by **Ballyman** » February 8th, 2006, 2:22 pm

Nah, nah, you have it all wrong. He's the prophet Muhammed at the minute. God status will be adorned on him on May 21st in Cardiff!!

I hope we're not attacked by crazy mussies after that comment. Better batten down the hatches of Leinsterfans.com. Maybe if I add a cartoon to this.......................

JoseFantastique · Post by **JoseFantastique** » February 8th, 2006, 2:23 pm

Bluesky, he's a married man, with kids!!

Bitter As a Lemon · February 8th, 2006, 3:55 pm

bluesky wrote:
JoseFantastique wrote:As long as we're all in agreement that Declan Kidney is a God I'm not overly concerned.
Gosh, the dyslexia in Munster is rampant, that should read Declan Kidney is a Dog...

NO NO...let me re-iterate...the MAN IS GOD !!!