Ireland V Canada, 19/9/15

[neilinboston]

I knew what you meant neil. I was just taking the pi55

Feck it Healy 12, Henderson 13. Nobody could complain we weren't physical

[Hippo]

What's the issue with Payne?

He's a top notch defender (which is likely why he's nailed on) and bar a silly error played well. Nice support line for his try too.

Was wondering that myself, thought he had a good game apart from the chip. Picked a few sensational lines and was very hungry for work on both sides of the ball. You can't underestimate how important it was to the rest of the team that he set targets so well for us.

Very sloppy kick in the first half as well in a promising position. In a game where so many of the team looked very switched on, he looked a little casual at times, especially in attack.

[Oldschool]

Payne's critics really need to look at the video.
In the first half RB and Earls were just shovelling the ball on instead of drawing the tackle first or just not passing.
In similar situations Payne always does the right thing.
Apart from his blocked kick he had an excellent game.
As an aside Earls' time with coach Joe is starting to show. Delighted for both of them.
Luke's reintroduction to the 12 jersey worked out well against a not too difficult opposition.
Overall Canada gave us enough of a challenge to remind us not to get over confident.

[Hippo]

Payne's critics really need to look at the video.
In the first half RB and Earls were just shovelling the ball on instead of drawing the tackle first or just not passing.
In similar situations Payne always does the right thing.
Apart from his blocked kick he had an excellent game.
As an aside Earls' time with coach Joe is starting to show. Delighted for both of them.
Luke's reintroduction to the 12 jersey worked out well against a not too difficult opposition.
Overall Canada gave us enough of a challenge to remind us not to get over confident.

Commas are allowed.

[simonokeeffe]

Payne is the Simon Easterby of our backs

[johng]

He was coming from an offside position. He ran past the Canadians from their side and played the ball. Madness from a player of his stature

It wasn't that he ran past the Canadians, as long as you start from an onside position you can run the length of the field and dance around the 22 if you like, but then when there's a ruck you're offside and have to get back. Problem was just that the ref thought he was strayed offside initially before the ball was kicked out of the ruck, hard to see from the replay but it looked okay to me.

I'd have to look back at it to see what point there was a ruck and what point there wasn't. POC went for an intercept and missed. He then ran back through and tackled from the Canadian side.

I'll take both your word for it.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Yeah it was the intercept where the ref said he was offside and that looked wrong to me. If for arguments sake he WAS onside then he's allowed carry on behind the Canadians and then to run back from their side to make the tackle because its just open play.

Looked a really harsh card regardless although we were blessed not to be carded at the end of the first half so could understand if that was part of it.

[Peg Leg]

What's the issue with Payne?

He's a top notch defender (which is likely why he's nailed on) and bar a silly error played well. Nice support line for his try too.

Do you believe that you can win this world cup with payne playing the way he is playing?

He is solid in defense, but against such a limited team he really should have displayed more creativity that he did today.

So, move Luke to 13 and Henshaw back to IC. I agree

I'd go t'other way. Keep Luke at IC and put henshaw back out.

[nc6000]

Lucky we have 2 warm up games in the pool

Italy are so hopeless you could almost say we have 3 warm ups.

[hugonaut]

Lucky we have 2 warm up games in the pool

Italy are so hopeless you could almost say we have 3 warm ups.

I agree. Italy are bloody poor. We can victimise the sh*t out of that lad Bacchin who came on for Masi, he's got absolutely no pace whatsoever.
The Italian scrum was very weak, weaker than I have seen in a long time, perhaps ever. It will be interesting to see how they go against Canada, because they're vulnerable if Parisse misses that one.

Huget is a really big loss for France, he has been a massive weapon for them. Picamoles is a massive carrying threat, that's no news. Chouly is a complete passenger, long may he be selected!

Appallingly refereed game – 36 penalties in 80 minutes and no cards. I'd imagine that Joubert will get brutalised in his ref's report.

[johng]

Italy naive. France scrum is weponous though. Picamoles looks lean and mean. Nacker tacki looks dodgey. What other wingers do they have? Did Antonio make the squad? He is another big hitter to come off the bench for them.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I don't, he gets away with it game after game. I know Italy were blessed not t give away a yellow but he always favours the bigger team/home team. Used to be a big fan but he's dreadful these days.

[nc6000]

Will PSA call in Medard I wonder or maybe Teddy Thomas?

[johng]

Had a look at their squad. Light on wingers. Bound to call up tomah.

[jimbobjoe]

I knew what you meant neil. I was just taking the pi55

Feck it Healy 12, Henderson 13. Nobody could complain we weren't physical

No way.. we've only got two looseheads.. Cronin to 12.

[simonokeeffe]

am still of the mind this French team dont like it up em

[nc6000]

Had a look at their squad. Light on wingers. Bound to call up tomah.

So they've gone for Rémy Grosso from Castres and haven't bothered with one of the other wingers who were in the initial training squad but didn't make the final 31.

[simonokeeffe]

Had a look at their squad. Light on wingers. Bound to call up tomah.

So they've gone for Rémy Grosso from Castres and haven't bothered with one of the other wingers who were in the initial training squad but didn't make the final 31.

Their initial training squad was only 36 players, all they could negotiate with the T14 clubs

IS it true a load of people missed flights hope because of a 2 hour queue to get into Cardiff station?

[jezzer]

Obviously Canada aren't great but thought we looked far slicker than the last couple of weeks. Lovely variety and much better alignment.

The guys who looked particularly rusty in the last couple of games (Best, POC, POM, Sexton) all looked much better.

Thought Luke played really well. Madigan and Cronin really good off the bench.

All in all there's not much to criticise. A bit too much kicking but to me it almost felt like we were just trying to just find ways of not running around them because it was too easy, Payne's intercepted kick being a prime example. Discipline might not have been great but I thought we were harshly done by. Seemingly no injuries which is another big plus.

Surprised Healy only got 20 mins, disagree with Toland about him looking off the pace but I guess the fact that he only got 20 mins shows that he's still quite a way to go in terms of fitness.

I'd go along with that LRIP. The repeated chip-kicking was obviously a tactic for this defence, but it's a very tough thing to pull off running at full belt and we screwed up a fair bit of good possession trying it. Didn't really matter in the end. A lot more fluency than we've seen in a while. Sexton is still a wee bit deep and static at first receiver (and in general we still pass to too many static players off phase play), but the backline had a lot more sync to it. Some decent offloading - maybe a few that should have been offloaded but we took the safe option. Fiji could have learned a lesson or two about picking your moment for the Hollywood ball.....

[All Blacks nil]

http://www.the42.ie/ireland-canada-ruck ... 5-Sep2015/

Another tour de force from Murray.