Ireland v Scotland

[harryp]

Harry

Sorry, misread it! I take your point.

I think some people are underestimating our backrow at the breakdown. We don't actually turn over much ball in that area and indeed usually get more joy than the opposition. However what we don't do, deliberately I presume, is protect the ball well enough which means that our ball is slowed down - not stolen - which obviously makes us less effective. How many times does Stringer have to go into a ruck to search for the ball? Too often in my opinion. When you've got limited halfbacks whose strength is the speed of their pass then you need quick ball to use their talents best.

I too would love to see Gleeson there but I do think that Wallace is the form backrower in the country this season. Should he be played at 8? Perhaps. But with our backrowers all quite small as it is dropping Leamy is not an option. So Wallace or Leamy go to 6. But that leaves us with a need to rebuild our lineout. I personally think that Easterby hasn't been as bad as some make out, he really does do a lot of unseen work, but no-one can question that he's the only world class backrow jumper at our disposal (Quinlan obviously is too but he's not available) so for me I grudgingly accept that he has to stay. So it comes down to Heaslip or Leamy at 8 and Gleeson or Wallace at 7. Again, I grudgingly accept that the two incumbents marginally deserve their places and Leamy especially has been growing into his role. I expect Heaslip to be a feature next year once he's bedded into pro-rugby and has spent a year in the squads.

CM

I don't want to get in on the whole Back Row argument again. You just don't get anywhere. Everyone has a viewpoint, be they right or wrong.

Scotland should offer the toughest backrow test to date. Hopefully we can match them. Then we can all have our revised selections with Hookeys constructive criticisms on Monday.

[CM]

I don't want to get in on the whole Back Row argument again. You just don't get anywhere. Everyone has a viewpoint, be they right or wrong.

Very true. I have two different preferred backrows between my head and heart. I can't say for sure which is right so I'd find it hard to disagree with other people putting forward their backrow. I'm just looking at the reality of the situation and figuring out why it makes sense.

[upfront_1979]

anyone know who the ref is tomorrow?

[jezzer]

CM,

Good post. I don't always agree with you, but your line of thinking is always well-considered...

I hear ya on the back row. I can see in principle why Eddie is going with the current lineup. I know Easterby is very solid and not a glamour player, but I have misgivings about how indispensible he is. I have been a fan of his over the years, but much more when we needed him for our route one playing style. Munster manage to cope without him in the lineout - using 2 jumping locks and Leamy/Foley/Wallace at the tail. So we don't have Foley (TG ) in there, but I'm just not convinced our overall lineout performance would suffer enough to make him a necessity in the pack. Of course he brings more than his lineout presence, but his lack of dynamism around the park (or, should i say the extra dynamism that a Gleeson, O'Connor, Jennings or Heaslip would bring) hurts our ability to commit bodies to the breakdown and ultimately slows ball up for the backs. He doesn't make the big hits - similar to Mal (and Bryce Williams for Leinster) he makes a lot of stops or double tackles at the fringes, but someone would pick those up in his absence.

Easterby doesn't feature in the stats on tackles, offloads, carries and he's used less than the locks in the lineout.

Leamy just feels like the natural 6 for the kind of game we're playing. Ditto Wallace and Gleeson at 8 and 7.

[Flash Gordon]

Flash

1. Italy - terrible, should have lost, backline neutralised because of slow ball and flat positions vs the blitz

There's no way we would have lost to Italy. We never looked like losing. You're not one of these people who take the disputed tries out and say 'look, we would have lost', are you? Even if you are it's worth noting that both tries have since been proved valid tries and even if Bowe's wasn't given the ref was playing a penalty advantage. It's also worth noting that the ref wasn't doing either side any favours. There really should have been at least one or two Italians in the bin for persistent infringing at the breakdown.

2. France - murdered by the French by the blitz;

That's stretching it to the extreme. We regularily made ground in the first half while only 1 of the tries could be put down to blitz defence and even then it was our own players who handicapped us.

played 30 minutes without a game plan

We played the exact same way in the first half. It's bizarre that you can't see it. We made as many errors and mistakes in the last 30 mins as we did in the first 50. It's just that where before those errors were bouncing the French way they started going our way. Good example is when a backline move broke down due to a dropped pass near the touchline. Heymans, I think it was, hacked on. Ball bounced into touch instead of down the pitch as it would have in the first half. 3 of our tries in that game were off quick tap penalties with the first one being a carbon copy of what we attempted in the first 5 mins of the match.

Of course we can't play with complete abandon but it's worth noting that when you watch the game ROG did kick when the kick was the right choice (as it was when he was blocked but he was hampered by D'Arcy putting the French 2 metres closer to ROG and Murphy standing in front of his kicking line) but by and large we always made ground with ball in hand and only lost the ball due to our own poor execution. D'Arcy had 7 errors, all handling I think. That doesn't happen often and can't solely be put down to pressure. So the question is, why can't we play the way we tried to against France? The only way we're going to get that increase in ability is to keep playing that way. We certainly need more composure near the line and I think this is our main weakness. Once there is no space to exploit and teams are able to have a flat defence without risk we find it hard to create the openings. So my opinion is that our approach play is just fine and we should continue the promise shown against France but that we need to work very hard on actually getting over the line.

3. Wales - Wales were appalling and their game fell appart when Jones went off.....

I said after the Welsh game that I thought we'd regressed. We went a little back into our shell of conservatism. It won us the game, as it always will against a team as weakened as Wales and would probably be enough for tomorrow too but it's just threading water, no more.

On balance, I feel Scotland have a better pack

Can't see that at all. The only area Scotland are marginally better is the backrow. Our front five is much better, especially our front row with Scotland and Aus the only sides that we can actually look down on when it comes to scrummaging.

Which means it could come down to kicks, and if we look at form this season, Patterson is ahead.....

Ah come on! 12/14 versus 17/21. Not really much in it.

There is no reason why we shouldn't win this game by 20 but Scotland have surprised me all season so it could be tighter. But it shouldn't be.

CM -

1. Italy - there was very little evidence to suggest during the game that we would cross the line, we went sideways, backwards and when we broke the gain line we didn't go far over.

2. France - its not stretching anything in the extreme, France put 43 fockin points on us!!! Not much of a stretch there.

You can't seriously suggest that we were playing the same game plan in that bizarre half hour. Even the most ardent of Eddie O'Sullivan apologists don't believe the Woodwardesque spin that was coming from the dressing room it was so bloody obvious.

I was watching from on high and the backs visably dropped deeper - I think both Murphy and BOD commented post match that you couldn't play that style of rugby for 80 minutes cos they were totally focked.

CM, there wasn't a commentator that I read that actually believed that the 30 minutes were anything more than France easing off and Ireland throwing caution to the wind and ripping up the game plan.

On Wales - I agree with you on that one.

On Scotland - I saw their tight 5 hold the French and the English without too much difficulty. I also saw their maul working very well. I saw our scrum under pressure against the French and the Italians (they troubled us in the line us too) and our maul hasn't really got going.

My view on the backrow is that they are actually quite a bit better.....which is frustrating because I think we have the players in our squad to be very competitive with Scotland in this area.

On place kicking - Rog has missed some absolute sitters (even in good conditions).......and his line kicking has been poor too. Patterson has made some crucial kicks from angle and distance (and in very tough conditions).

[Flash Gordon]

Is anybody surprised we're having this dicussion about winning considering the following 3 facts?

1. The aggregate score of the last 5 games is 37-13
2.Scotland are lower than us in the rankings
3. We're at home.

[StuF]

Is anybody surprised we're having this dicussion about winning considering the following 3 facts?

1. The aggregate score of the last 5 games is 37-13
2.Scotland are lower than us in the rankings
3. We're at home.

Can everyone who believes that an ireland win is guaranteed please get in touch with the team by any means available and stoke the fires of complacency.

Cheers

Go on Scotland!!!

[harryp]

Is anybody surprised we're having this dicussion about winning considering the following 3 facts?

1. The aggregate score of the last 5 games is 37-13
2.Scotland are lower than us in the rankings
3. We're at home.

Fear, by boy, fear

I think that this will be the game that wil define the future of EOS & Ireland. To date there has been luck & circumstances. With Scotland there is neither. We have a better all round side, and to win all we have to do is get the tactics & the basics right. That all comes down to EOS and his coaching staff. If we loose, then it is time to start asking some very serious questions.

[upfront_1979]

On the France game there was a lot of articles in france on how knackered the french players were. I've watched the match twice now and it definitely looks to me like their forwards were wrecked. We looked much fitter and that IMHO is why we were able to punch so many holes and get back in the game. It was the same when Scotland played them, the scottish players looked a lot fitter than most of the French. Actually throughout the 6 nations the 2 fittest looking teams are ourselves and scotland. I suppose it helps when you take a 20 minute nap at the start of every match though

[CM]

jezzer, can't disagree with your post. I said months ago that if we can re-arrange our lineout to be without Easterby then I'd be happy for him to be dropped. I just think that messing with your tactics/gameplan and changing your primary source of possession at the same time is not a good idea. Play this way first with the ability to revert to type, then once everyone is comfortable with it move on to a Leamy, Gleeson/Jennings, Heaslip backrow.

1. Italy - there was very little evidence to suggest during the game that we would cross the line, we went sideways, backwards and when we broke the
gain line we didn't go far over.

And Italy only looked like scoring once. When they scored. Fact is that all our penalties scored were when we were on a good attack and the Italians killed the ball. We didn't get to go through the phases because the Italians were being allowed fall all over the ball without being properly penalised.

2. France - its not stretching anything in the extreme, France put 43 fockin points on us!!! Not much of a stretch there.

I said you were stretching it to say we were murdered by the French blitz when only 1 of their tries came from that and when we were making ground with ball in hand with ease in the first half. Not counting our three massive breaks of 50 or more metres we constantly made ground through the middle only to lose the ball by our own poor execution either through a poor pass or a mis-timed run.

You can't seriously suggest that we were playing the same game plan in that bizarre half hour.

We were playing the exact same gameplan. The only difference was that the French were standing off more. They went from aggressive to passive defence which meant that the backline was able to line up better and because the French weren't knocking us back as much we were on the front foot a lot more. Trimble's try was exactly what we were trying to do all through the first half and what we've tried to do all season. Read D'Arcy's column after the Italian game, he explains the exact same tactic that resulted in Trimble's try.

CM, there wasn't a commentator that I read that actually believed that the 30 minutes were anything more than France easing off and Ireland throwing caution to the wind and ripping up the game plan.

And those same commentators kept on going on about how Ireland did better after we stopped all those silly long passes in the first half. Despite the fact that we attempted 3 in the whole match and the other 200 or so passes were all short. Much has been said about the French 'easing off'. We'll never know for sure but most commentators also agree that when a team has to make 140 tackles they lose their shape and strength as the game goes on.

I also saw their maul working very well. I saw our scrum under pressure against the French and the Italians (they troubled us in the line us too) and our maul hasn't really got going.

Not sure what games you're watching if you think our maul hasn't had success.

My view on the backrow is that they are actually quite a bit better

Well that's your view to have!

On ROG, all I said was that there wasn't much in it. Yes he missed kicks he should have made but has he missed an important kick yet? I'd say the two are even. Certainly neither has much of an edge on the other.

[Flash Gordon]

On the France game there was a lot of articles in france on how knackered the french players were. I've watched the match twice now and it definitely looks to me like their forwards were wrecked. We looked much fitter and that IMHO is why we were able to punch so many holes and get back in the game. It was the same when Scotland played them, the scottish players looked a lot fitter than most of the French. Actually throughout the 6 nations the 2 fittest looking teams are ourselves and scotland. I suppose it helps when you take a 20 minute nap at the start of every match though

Yep, and in fairness to the coaching staff this was identified as a development area 2 years and obviously addressed. So credit there. The provinces have been working harder too - the Leinster boys are talking about all time high fitness regimes - which we need to play the Chieka/Knox brand of rugby.

Surprised the French were knackered though given that half the team had been replaced!!

[harryp]

On the France game there was a lot of articles in france on how knackered the french players were. I've watched the match twice now and it definitely looks to me like their forwards were wrecked. We looked much fitter and that IMHO is why we were able to punch so many holes and get back in the game. It was the same when Scotland played them, the scottish players looked a lot fitter than most of the French. Actually throughout the 6 nations the 2 fittest looking teams are ourselves and scotland. I suppose it helps when you take a 20 minute nap at the start of every match though

Yep, and in fairness to the coaching staff this was identified as a development area 2 years and obviously addressed. So credit there. The provinces have been working harder too - the Leinster boys are talking about all time high fitness regimes - which we need to play the Chieka/Knox brand of rugby.

Surprised the French were knackered though given that half the team had been replaced!!

French domestic season is a Killer, no rest whatsoever. Could work out well for us later this month!!

[upfront_1979]

On the France game there was a lot of articles in france on how knackered the french players were. I've watched the match twice now and it definitely looks to me like their forwards were wrecked. We looked much fitter and that IMHO is why we were able to punch so many holes and get back in the game. It was the same when Scotland played them, the scottish players looked a lot fitter than most of the French. Actually throughout the 6 nations the 2 fittest looking teams are ourselves and scotland. I suppose it helps when you take a 20 minute nap at the start of every match though

Yep, and in fairness to the coaching staff this was identified as a development area 2 years and obviously addressed. So credit there. The provinces have been working harder too - the Leinster boys are talking about all time high fitness regimes - which we need to play the Chieka/Knox brand of rugby.

Surprised the French were knackered though given that half the team had been replaced!!

French domestic season is a Killer, no rest whatsoever. Could work out well for us later this month!!

Hopefully. Watched the SF v BOP highlights last night. Never seen so many bad attempts at drop goals in my life. It looked to me like anyone who could kick was out to show Laporte that he should be flyhalf. 79,500 is amazing attendance for a club game though. Can you imagine packing out Croker for a Leinster v Munster game?