Ireland v Italy, 4/10/2015

[blockhead]

TV3 are talking about Heaslip and SOB being poor and I agree. I defended SOB in this thread but don't think he had much of an impact. He was unlucky with a couple of turnovers that should have resulted in penalties for us but he seemed a bit heavy legged or something. Still did some good things but just lacked impact.

The penalty Heaslip gave away was so unlike him and I really didn't notice him much at all in a positive way, did notice other mistakes though.

Bunch of Munster men talking through their holes, again. SOB had the most carries across the gainline (10), Jamie was 2nd (7)

[leinster10]

Some comments on here are clueless. If I hadn't watched the game I'd swear Pom and earls were the result of our poor performance.its like watching Fox News. Take off your Leinster jersey and analysis the game honestly. Our back row were cleaned out. Their number 8 had surgery few weeks ago and outplayed a lions 8 from start to finish. O'brien is making uncharacteristic errors and his ball carrying has been poor. It's not Pom who is under pressure for place (who was out and out man of the match, awesome performance) it's O'brien. One guy said that earls trying an offload which didn't come off was a turning point whilst sexton knocking on and O'brien knocking on goes without comment,just laughable stuff. We got the win and at least now have a base performance to work on, small changes to the way we approach the game will make the difference. Pushing up harder in defence and getting clean ball. Also need more aggression in cleaning out, classic example was heaslip being blown off a ruck by a back. I'd question playing zebo with the week he has had, seemed out of sorts and his positioning was exposed at times.

[leinster4life13]

That was poison, horrible game of rugby, its like both teams watched Australia last night and resolved to do the opposite.

[blockhead]

Some comments on here are clueless. If I hadn't watched the game I'd swear Pom and earls were the result of our poor performance.its like watching Fox News. Take off your Leinster jersey and analysis the game honestly. Our back row were cleaned out. Their number 8 had surgery few weeks ago and outplayed a lions 8 from start to finish. O'brien is making uncharacteristic errors and his ball carrying has been poor. It's not Pom who is under pressure for place (who was out and out man of the match, awesome performance) it's O'brien. One guy said that earls trying an offload which didn't come off was a turning point whilst sexton knocking on and O'brien knocking on goes without comment,just laughable stuff. We got the win and at least now have a base performance to work on, small changes to the way we approach the game will make the difference. Pushing up harder in defence and getting clean ball. Also need more aggression in cleaning out, classic example was heaslip being blown off a ruck by a back. I'd question playing zebo with the week he has had, seemed out of sorts and his positioning was exposed at times.

Yep, 3 tackles, 2 pens given away and a stupid yellow. Awesome is the word alright.

[Oldschoolsocks]

leinster10 wrote:
Some comments on here are clueless. If I hadn't watched the game I'd swear Pom and earls were the result of our poor performance.its like watching Fox News. Take off your Leinster jersey and analysis the game honestly. Our back row were cleaned out. Their number 8 had surgery few weeks ago and outplayed a lions 8 from start to finish. O'brien is making uncharacteristic errors and his ball carrying has been poor. It's not Pom who is under pressure for place (who was out and out man of the match, awesome performance) it's O'brien. One guy said that earls trying an offload which didn't come off was a turning point whilst sexton knocking on and O'brien knocking on goes without comment,just laughable stuff. We got the win and at least now have a base performance to work on, small changes to the way we approach the game will make the difference. Pushing up harder in defence and getting clean ball. Also need more aggression in cleaning out, classic example was heaslip being blown off a ruck by a back. I'd question playing zebo with the week he has had, seemed out of sorts and his positioning was exposed at times.

I do not necessarily disagree with some of the detail here -- however you may not have understood the gist of what I was saying. Any honest observer can see that Keith Earls does not have it to be an international Centre -- he knocked on more than he passed and that failed offload almost led to an Italian try in the corner, and Ireland were under pressure for the following 10 - 15 minutes -- that is a game changing moment by any definition. However talented Keith Earls is he is just not a centre, he lacks the necessary skills.

I actually think SOB has not been all that good for quite a while, if you ever watch a highlights reel from his first two seasons with Leinster he made most of his yards against weak shoulders, but I think the 2011 WC convinced him that he can just run over people. Shame really.

[CiaranIrl]

TV3 are talking about Heaslip and SOB being poor and I agree. I defended SOB in this thread but don't think he had much of an impact. He was unlucky with a couple of turnovers that should have resulted in penalties for us but he seemed a bit heavy legged or something. Still did some good things but just lacked impact.

The penalty Heaslip gave away was so unlike him and I really didn't notice him much at all in a positive way, did notice other mistakes though.

Heaslip had a poor first half, but was good in the second. Watch the last20 mins again - he was everywhere.

[leinster10]

Some comments on here are clueless. If I hadn't watched the game I'd swear Pom and earls were the result of our poor performance.its like watching Fox News. Take off your Leinster jersey and analysis the game honestly. Our back row were cleaned out. Their number 8 had surgery few weeks ago and outplayed a lions 8 from start to finish. O'brien is making uncharacteristic errors and his ball carrying has been poor. It's not Pom who is under pressure for place (who was out and out man of the match, awesome performance) it's O'brien. One guy said that earls trying an offload which didn't come off was a turning point whilst sexton knocking on and O'brien knocking on goes without comment,just laughable stuff. We got the win and at least now have a base performance to work on, small changes to the way we approach the game will make the difference. Pushing up harder in defence and getting clean ball. Also need more aggression in cleaning out, classic example was heaslip being blown off a ruck by a back. I'd question playing zebo with the week he has had, seemed out of sorts and his positioning was exposed at times.

Yep, 3 tackles, 2 pens given away and a stupid yellow. Awesome is the word alright.

I'm aware a few of ye have an agenda and throw out meaningless stats to back your view, but it's not helping less informed readers of this site gain an understanding of Ireland's performance. Jamie and sob could have made 30 carries over the gain line but it doesn't give an indication of a back rows performance. Pom was pro active in every ruck he it, and made destructive carries every time he carried sucking in defenders and creating space for close in secondary carries, his line out work is exceptional and is the best front defensive jumper we have, and that's not mentioning his try saving tackle which characterised the amount of ground he is covering. If Pom is the only stick we have to beat ireland with then we are in bad shape here boys.

[All Blacks nil]

Would Ireland have won that game without O'Mahony's contribution?

As good as his try saving tackle, which prevented Italy from leading into the last quarter, was, it is better when you see the ground he covers.

His lineout steal not only won the ball but accurately tapped it straight to Murray who launched the tryscoring attack.

Two huge plays which facilitated a fourteen point turn around

[blockhead]

Some comments on here are clueless. If I hadn't watched the game I'd swear Pom and earls were the result of our poor performance.its like watching Fox News. Take off your Leinster jersey and analysis the game honestly. Our back row were cleaned out. Their number 8 had surgery few weeks ago and outplayed a lions 8 from start to finish. O'brien is making uncharacteristic errors and his ball carrying has been poor. It's not Pom who is under pressure for place (who was out and out man of the match, awesome performance) it's O'brien. One guy said that earls trying an offload which didn't come off was a turning point whilst sexton knocking on and O'brien knocking on goes without comment,just laughable stuff. We got the win and at least now have a base performance to work on, small changes to the way we approach the game will make the difference. Pushing up harder in defence and getting clean ball. Also need more aggression in cleaning out, classic example was heaslip being blown off a ruck by a back. I'd question playing zebo with the week he has had, seemed out of sorts and his positioning was exposed at times.

Yep, 3 tackles, 2 pens given away and a stupid yellow. Awesome is the word alright.

I'm aware a few of ye have an agenda and throw out meaningless stats to back your view, but it's not helping less informed readers of this site gain an understanding of Ireland's performance. Jamie and sob could have made 30 carries over the gain line but it doesn't give an indication of a back rows performance. Pom was pro active in every ruck he it, and made destructive carries every time he carried sucking in defenders and creating space for close in secondary carries, his line out work is exceptional and is the best front defensive jumper we have, and that's not mentioning his try saving tackle which characterised the amount of ground he is covering. If Pom is the only stick we have to beat ireland with then we are in bad shape here boys.

I never criticised POM. I said he wasn't "awesome". 1 try saving tackle, 1 line out steal, cancelled out by pen at lineout and yellow card. Thats not awesome in my book. Nobody was awesome, it was a terrible team performance 1-15. We are not looking in good shape and it will have to be a massive improvement if we are not to be badly beaten by France.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

TV3 are talking about Heaslip and SOB being poor and I agree. I defended SOB in this thread but don't think he had much of an impact. He was unlucky with a couple of turnovers that should have resulted in penalties for us but he seemed a bit heavy legged or something. Still did some good things but just lacked impact.

The penalty Heaslip gave away was so unlike him and I really didn't notice him much at all in a positive way, did notice other mistakes though.

Heaslip had a poor first half, but was good in the second. Watch the last20 mins again - he was everywhere.

No...because then I might be wrong.

Just thought of another negative...Sexton missing another important kick at the end.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Oh and another positive...Bowe looked pretty good again. Kearney was fine but if Payne is fit then I'd probably go with Earls and Bowe on the wings next week.

Rob to start at fullback and Zebo and Luke to fight it out for the bench. Zebo probably makes more sense but I'm just thinking of the possible attrition in midfield, could go in Luke's favour.

[munster#1]

POM's lineout steal and try saving tackle are the 2 biggest game defining moments.
Had he not done that then we may well have lost.

Leinster fans dislike pom, which definitely taints their views.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Would Ireland have won that game without O'Mahony's contribution?

As good as his try saving tackle, which prevented Italy from leading, was, it is better when you see the ground he covers.

His lineout steal not only won the ball but accurately tapped it straight to Murray who launched the tryscoring attack.

Two huge plays which facilitated a fourteen point turn around

He did a job alright, but it's a strange hypothetical, can you attribute Keith Earls' try to POM ? bit of a stretch there all of our BRs are good lineout operators and who's to say they wouldn't have won that ball.
It was a fine try saving tackle, so no argument there, but I don't think Tommasi (sic) Allan would have kicked that conversion from the touchline. So I reckon it's not really fair to call it a 14 point turnaround -- more like 5 or 7 point turnaround.

Here's where it gets a little muddy but interesting, who's to say if POM had not given a needless penalty away in the oppo 22 and got carded that Italy would have cleared to about the 10 yard line and Ireland having an attacking lineout on 70+ minutes, strong possibility of a score of some kind here, I would say maybe a 3 pointer, that turns the 14 point turnaround into a 2 or 4 point turnaround.

I wont add in dropping Keith Earls from the centre (remember it was his mistake that led to POM try saving tackle), as this may be perceived as an overly Leinster bias, though if you do it could arguably turn out that POM would not have had to make that try saving tackle and there is now a strong argument that we were 3 points worse off having him on the team in the first place.

Edit: cleaned up some punctuation and cleaned up the last paragraph, reads better now

[munster#1]

Great to see earls coming back from 2 years out of international rugby, to become irelands top try scorer in a world cup. Congratulations mr earls.

[leinster10]

Some comments on here are clueless. If I hadn't watched the game I'd swear Pom and earls were the result of our poor performance.its like watching Fox News. Take off your Leinster jersey and analysis the game honestly. Our back row were cleaned out. Their number 8 had surgery few weeks ago and outplayed a lions 8 from start to finish. O'brien is making uncharacteristic errors and his ball carrying has been poor. It's not Pom who is under pressure for place (who was out and out man of the match, awesome performance) it's O'brien. One guy said that earls trying an offload which didn't come off was a turning point whilst sexton knocking on and O'brien knocking on goes without comment,just laughable stuff. We got the win and at least now have a base performance to work on, small changes to the way we approach the game will make the difference. Pushing up harder in defence and getting clean ball. Also need more aggression in cleaning out, classic example was heaslip being blown off a ruck by a back. I'd question playing zebo with the week he has had, seemed out of sorts and his positioning was exposed at times.

Yep, 3 tackles, 2 pens given away and a stupid yellow. Awesome is the word alright.

I'm aware a few of ye have an agenda and throw out meaningless stats to back your view, but it's not helping less informed readers of this site gain an understanding of Ireland's performance. Jamie and sob could have made 30 carries over the gain line but it doesn't give an indication of a back rows performance. Pom was pro active in every ruck he it, and made destructive carries every time he carried sucking in defenders and creating space for close in secondary carries, his line out work is exceptional and is the best front defensive jumper we have, and that's not mentioning his try saving tackle which characterised the amount of ground he is covering. If Pom is the only stick we have to beat ireland with then we are in bad shape here boys.

I never criticised POM. I said he wasn't "awesome". 1 try saving tackle, 1 line out steal, cancelled out by pen at lineout and yellow card. Thats not awesome in my book. Nobody was awesome, it was a terrible team performance 1-15. We are not looking in good shape and it will have to be a massive improvement if we are not to be badly beaten by France.[/quote]

No they didn't all play terribly 1-15, that's such a lazy analysis of the entire game. If we all played terribly 1-15 we would have lost that game, a few key players stepped up and closed the game out. Henderson was magnificent throughout and made some vital impacts and turnovers, sexton (the missed kick aside) made some pivotal kicks to pin them back along with Murray who kicked intelligently, poc's work in the tight and winning possession when it mattered was an important factor. Replying to your comments on Pom it surprises me that you think that over the entire 72 minutes he was on the park his impact on the game was a yellow, a line out win (which you conveniently chose to forget led to a try) and a try saving tackle, what about the entire rest of the game??, every ruck, every carry, every support carry, every decoy line run, every block... The game isn't as simple and as straight forward as you are presenting.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Great to see earls coming back from 2 years out of international rugby, to become irelands top try scorer in a world cup. Congratulations mr earls.

Hear hear, let's just hope next time he's picked in a position that best suits his abilities. No telling just how good he can be on the wing - where he belongs.

[Oldschool]

Look that was Ireland playing there today.
The positive is we won playing probably our worst game under Joe.
THE stand out team problem was our lack of respect for the ball. 50/50 balls were far too common.
The second problem was the decision not to take points - POC and Joe need to get out that hymm sheet and read it very carefully.
The third point - We missed two kicks - We won't get away with that from here on in.
Finally the coach is responsible for the mental state of the team. Ireland are the Scorpion in the ant and Scorpion joke.
Joe it is in your teams nature to totally lose the plot and they did today. You must never forget that fact. EVER.

[FLIP]

POM killed 2 try scoring opportunities with his idiocy, so one try saved for 2 opportunities wasted. So minus 7 points.

If he wasn't a meeja favourite he'd be getting savaged, turnips and turncoats love to say stats are meaningless when they disprove all the notions they have about a player.

POM will potentially cost us success in this world cup, and Joe will be at fault for not pulling the Shepard's crook, just like Kidney was when he put ROG in ahead of Sexton

[jezzer]

Very poor performance. But not as bad as the ref's, we were gifted a victory out there by a horribly biased ref. If I was Italian I'd be livid.

We took so many wrong options its almost pointless singling out anyone. But I thought Murray made too many given his position of influence.

Best was our top player by far. Henderson and POC did well, Pom definitely the standout of the back row despite the poor yellow. Heaslip was very solid and SOB was average for the SOB we have come to know and poor for the Tullow Tank he used to be.

Without Earls, this team has no cutting edge. I dont care if hes a better winger (which he is), hes the first bame on my teamsheet. Bowe was better but the whole backline made more bad choices than Peter André. Murray really choked our offense, it was like he didnt believe we were good enough to break them down. Sexton was guilty of this at times too, but Murray had the poorer game. Id have brought in Reddan after 50. By contrast, Some of the outside backs seemed to think we were so good that every Hollywood trickshot would come off.

But for the ref it might have been very nasty. Id say we would have had enough in the tank but Italy will never know as they were robbed of a straight shot at us.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I think a lot of the bad calls you're referring to with Murray were inside balls that were read really easily. A good few people were guilty of it in fairness but it was a feature of the 6N too. Compare that with Foley's second try yesterday when Beale broke through, we've got to get better at reading it.

What was so bad about Garces? Thought he was good for the most part.