Scotland v Ireland. 2:30 pm. Saturday 21st March.

[suisse]

Gerry is predicting "minimal" adjustments to both playing staff and tactics this week.

He sounded out Ian Henderson, Sean Cronin, Luke Fitzgerald and Keith Earls as potential reinforcements.

I'd say we're looking at the same team but I would be surprised if Jones was there. I trust Schmidt but his reasoning for including Jones simply doesn't stack up.

[RoboProp]

Jones helped Joe track down the thieves who broke into his house, so Joe feels he owes Felix. Honestly, that is the only sense I can make of it

[Peg Leg]

Jones helped Joe track down the thieves who broke into his house, so Joe feels he owes Felix. Honestly, that is the only sense I can make of it

A better guess would be some type of obscure moneyball metric, "likely-hood of the media shoe horning a GAA reference into a mention of said player"

[RoboProp]

Jones helped Joe track down the thieves who broke into his house, so Joe feels he owes Felix. Honestly, that is the only sense I can make of it

A better guess would be some type of obscure moneyball metric, "likely-hood of the media shoe horning a GAA reference into a mention of said player"

I am worried about the conservatism of play and selection. I had been before the Welsh game. I don't see Joe changing things this late in the day.

Notland don't want to go out on a duck so they will be plenty motivated. Just hope Vern doesn't have a copy of Joe's playbook from Clermont days

[JB1973]

Scotland like a free flowing open game, Ireland should take them on because you have better players who will our perform them when the game opens up.

Cronin to start, Henderson to start and Earls to the bench.

If you wanted to be really bold , payne to 15 and earls to 13 with luke onto the bench.

[suisse]

Felix Jones remained unused, but Schmidt offered a robust defence of this selection. “Felix has been incredibly good for us and has offered a really good change-up for us. We haven’t seen a lot of him attacking; he has been coming into games where he has mostly been defending because we haven’t had an attacking last quarter so far.”

I like Schmidt but that is bullshit. If he offers a good change up then why was he not brought in on Saturday? If we haven't seen a lot of him attacking, then surely 20-9 down with 15 mins to go is the perfect time. No? Then don't put him on the bench. Waste of a selection.

[suisse]

Must be very difficult to be a rugby journalist in Ireland. You'd imagine every single journo knows this selection was a mistake, pure and simple. But they can't say it. Thorney doing a lot of pandering in general. Apparently Sexton was "slightly" off colour when many reckon he had his worst game ever for Ireland. I'm not sure about that but Sexton had a very poor gamre. "Slightly" meehole. And something about Conor Murray not quite being as assured as ususal. No, he also had a poor game. I guess the press can't call it as we see it. John O'Sullivan's player ratings were farcical.

[The Anathemata]

I think Joe needs to make some big calls. Rob's inability to pass and lack of real pace is killing us. We really need to look at other options at 15 - other than Jones. I'd like to see Payne at fb with either Earls or Luke at 13.

Mads at 12 with Henshaw at 13 is certainly worth trying, if Earls or Luke come in for Zebo.

I'd definitely start Hendo ahead of Toner, and put POM/SOB on warning, as neither played well on Sat. TOD offers a great attacking threat off the bench against lowly opposition - as he demonstrated against Italy - so i'd have him at 20 ahead of Jordi.

Cronin ahead of Boss is a no brainer. The guy's a basket-case at darts in clutch games.

[rooster]

Payne would be better at 15 with Henshaw 13 and Madigan 12

[simonokeeffe]

Payne and Henshaw are the world cup combo, cant see that changing

at least going after Wales will give us some idea

[Xanthippe]

Payne would be better at 15 with Henshaw 13 and Madigan 12

I fully agree with you on Payne at 15 - not sure it's good for Ireland or for Kearney himself to have him as an undroppable player. It's almost sacrilegious to say but I don't think he's been playing all that well, mind you I don't think we've seen the best of Tommy Bowe this season either.

[Raydollard]

I cannot see any reason why Payne should be on the team at all. He is so limited. And Dave would be better than Rob at FB but that won't happen.

[Logorrhea]

So after a game in which we were very unlucky to lose, you lot proposing what 5 personnel changes and 3 positional?

[nelly the elephant]

I cannot see any reason why Payne should be on the team at all. He is so limited. And Dave would be better than Rob at FB but that won't happen.

I think that's really harsh on Payne tbh....I thought he was sound enough against Wales... showed a bit of spark.

[suisse]

So after a game in which we were very unlucky to lose, you lot proposing what 5 personnel changes and 3 positional?

it is not just because we lost the game, even when we were winning many people had identitied problems, even if others here took great offense at that. We not scoring enough tries (2 v a woeful Italian side down to 14 men, 0 v a poor France side, 1 v Eng on a peno advantage and a peno try v Wales). We don't offload either. Maybe it is the system or maybe it is the players , but clearly something needs to change.

Despite winning games, to me, we have not looked like a team good enough to reach the semis of the RWC. I trust Schmidt to get it right but we need a better alternative at 23 and we probably need a better alternative on the left wing. I wouldn't change the centres yet, fwiw. 5 games they've played together. I'd give them time. But I would make changes in some other positions.

I also think TOD should be brought in to the bench. Really impressed with him this championship.

[hugonaut]

So after a game in which we were very unlucky to lose, you lot proposing what 5 personnel changes and 3 positional?

Most of the changes don't make much sense. If you look at tests when we have scored a lot of points [under Schmidt], you find that the majority of tries have been scored in the last 25 minutes, i.e. after the 55th minute, which is generally when the coach has started making tactical substitutions.

Ireland 49 [9] - 7 [0] Georgia
6 Irish tries, 4 in the last 25 minutes [source: http://www.espn.co.uk/scrum/rugby/match/208367.html ]

Ireland 46 [17] - 7 [7] Italy
7 tries, 4 in the last 25 minutes [source: http://www.espn.co.uk/six-nations-2014/ ... 80673.html ]

Ireland 40 [14] - 9 [6] Samoa
5 tries, 3 in the last 25 minutes [source: http://www.espn.co.uk/scrum/rugby/match/180660.html ]

None of these games have been runaways at halftime: 7-0 vs Georgia, 17-7 vs Italy [admittedly a biggish margin] and 14-6 vs Samoa. They've all ended by 30+ margins of victory though, and are our top three margins of victory under Schmidt. Even the biggest Six Nations mismatch this season [England 47- 17 Italy] was a 10-point game at halftime [15-5].

On the other hand, these games have been against poorer teams than Scotland and have all been home matches. I think it's staggeringly unrealistic to think that if we pick a completely different team than we have in recent weeks and f*ck the ball around that we'll run out healthy winners. In fact, I think that's a recipe for a loss.

I see Henderson, Healy and Cronin as far more valuable on the bench as second half shock troops [especially Henderson and Cronin, who have very limited experience starting Six Nations matches]. I think selecting Cronin ahead of Best greatly weakens our scrum and Henderson ahead of Toner weakens our lineout – just personal opinions, but I think many would agree. Neither Toner nor Best would add a huge amount of impact coming off the bench, because neither of them have pace or explosive power. Henderson and Cronin can cause all sorts of problems when they're running against tired defenders, but are far more likely to look a lot more ordinary running at fresh guys in the first half; ditto Eoin Reddan.

As I've said before, I'd drop Zebo for his totally lacklustre game against the Welsh, and replace him with Earls/Fitzgerald, with the other one of those players promoted to the bench ahead of Felix Jones. Tommy O'Donnell ahead of Jordi for the backrow bench spot and that's it.

[All Blacks nil]

I know it is a little sacreligious to criticise Joe but surely he deserves a little negative comment.

As everyone has noted Wales's defence was stupendous on Saturday. Totally committed throughout with exemplary line speed. They soon copped Ireland's only attacking ploy I.e. The inside pass and snuffed out the Irish threat. Whereas lesser sides would have succumbed to blunt force trauma the Welsh side stuck to their guns.

My main criticism of Joe is his refusal to condone or permit an offloading game. He is supposedly looking for accuracy at the breakdown and wants guys to be sure of their role. Some commentators have gushed lyrically about this tactic. I think that while the Irish player knows his role unfortunately the opposition are finding Ireland a tad predictable.
While the Welsh tackling stats have being much quoted aless quoted stat has been the number of Irish rucks. Ireland rucked the ball 175 times with only 5 offloads.

Offloads open defences. The Welsh U20 try featured 3 and not trying any of them would have prevented the try. Ireland have only offloaded 17 times ( England 18 v Scotland) this season. They have rucked I.e gone to ground with the ball, a staggering 496 times.

Ireland have only scored 4 tries this Six Nations, only one score coming from a pass. A pen try, a Murray pick and dive, a Murray chip ahead . TOD's try being the only try through the hands. IN Autumn v OZ a Zebo kick chase and a tommy Bowe intercept. V SA a Ruddock burst from a maul and a Tommy Bowe kick chase. In six games only Ian Madigan has provided a scoring pass.

We will not win a RWC 1/4 final, 1/2 final and final playing this rugby. We might beat teams in Dublin we might even beat Italy away but we will not make any impression on he latter stages of a RWC.

Time to loosen the shackles. Be less predictable in the tackle and less predictable to defend.

[munster#1]

The biggest thing that Ireland need to develope is unpredictability, Ireland were very very predictable against Wales, and never looked like that would change.
We constantly seen a reluctance to move the ball at speed, and to move it away from the breakdown area.
It was easy for Wales to defend against us as they knew the ball would only travel a few meters from the breakdown at any one time. So obvious that they regularly brought numbers in, completely ignoring the outside.

Scotland will watch that match over and over, and will likely use the blitz defence to force our errors. They will without doubt target our lineout as theirs is a massive strenght.

I don't for a minute believe that this Scotland team are capable of beating Ireland, but I do think that they will not sit back and allow Ireland to run in tries for fun.

I really want to see our backline run the lines that they are capable of, it is a backline full of lions players, who have proven over the years just how good they are at playing attacking rugby, I miss hearing Tommy boooowweeee being shouted every game.

My team would be:
Healy, best, Moore, Poc, Henderson, pom, Sob, Heaslip, Murray, sexton, zebo, henshaw, earls, bowe, Payne.

I know like everyone else that we are unlikely to see any changes, as it is harder to get off this team than on it.

[All Blacks nil]

Take a look at Ireland's near legendary 33 phases of possession as they battered the Welsh 22.

In 23 phases the pass recipient took contact and went to ground, in six phases the pass recipient passed one out, in three phases the ball was passed twice and on one occasion a maul was set up.

Ireland kicked a subsequent penalty to touch and quickly followed that up with a mere sixteen phases of possession in the 22 where in 5 phases the ball was picked and driven, in seven phases the recipient took contact and went to ground, in three phases the pass recipient passed one out and once Ireland attempted more than one pass. before JS was penalised for going off his feet as Ireland ran out of numbers and puff at the breakdown

So in consecutive passages of play ireland had 49 phases of possession (all bar one rucked), Ireland including the scrumhalf passed the ball 53 times.

incidentally this all happened before the passage of play where Healy knocked on.

Many say the Welsh showed great fitness in defence and obviously deserved great credit for their physical and mental endurance.
I think ireland suffered as much if not more in having to constantly recycle the ball.
Soon after these two particular passages Alun-Wynn jones counter rucked a decidely weary Irish ruck and turned the ball over on halfway giving Wales the territory from which they scored the winning try.

Looking at Ireland's general use of the ball indicates how blunt and unambitious they were.

When Ireland passed the ball on
7 occasions the recipient kicked
92 occasions the recipient took contact and went to ground
43 the recipient passed and the one out receiver went to ground
15 occasions the ball was passed more than once.
and of course one maul.

When Ireland received the long kicks the answer was to run into contact or kick. Rarely did any of backfield defence pass long to at least attempt to stretch the Welsh and who knows even CREATE mismatches and perhaps a little space.

Ireland made 254 passes in the match. 157 of those were made by Murray (108) and Reddan (49). Quick ruck ball is worthless if all you are going to do is set up another ruck. While Ireland were killing themselves rucking, the Welsh, less committed to the breakdown always had numbers on their feet in defence as indicated by Ireland's total of 5 line breaks.

like a kid painting by numbers we are playing rugby by numbers and like that kids painting,everyone knows what we are going to do and how the painting turns out.
another childlike analogy is that we were on a bear hunt.

We couldn't go round them, We couldn't go under them, we couldn't go over them but unfortunately we couldn't go through them either.

[simonokeeffe]

ignoring duplicate posts from Wales Ireland thread the Scots are carrying/monitoring a few injuries

Matt Scott, with Dunbar already out that would leave a huge hole at 12, probably Horne
Jim Hamilton, already missing R Gray so very light/maul prone second row of J Gray and Swinson
Tommy Seymour, think Visser injured but Maitland fit
Blair Cowan, Harley to 7 and Beattie or Ashe into backrtow, not huge loss
Alasdair Dickinson, starting losehead, would weaken scrum which has been in trouble especially late in games