How's everybody
Great to be back after my suspension was served!!!
Few cents from the 3 tests which I must say I thoroughly enjoyed and incredibly proud of the effort given by that whole 32 man squad
Positives
Jackson isn't too far away at international level from the great johnny
Payne is the new 15
Jordi thank god found himself again and had a great series
Jack MC will go on the lions along with Murray for sure
Andy Farrell will be an incredible asset going forward
Furlong can deliver at international level
Negatives
Ross is done I'm afraid
Centre partnerships didn't work
Scrum struggled in the last test
Joes lack of trust in the bench needs to be addressed e.g Cronin Ruddock and Dillane should have seen 25 minutes in the last test
Well struggle at LH is church doesn't get back because joe clearly doesn't rate the rest
2016 Summer Tour to South Africa.
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Re: 2016 Summer Tour to South Africa.
Just watched a half of rebels v stormers. Now the rebels ain't no world beaters, but the stormers scrum (and lineout defence) is completely terrorising them. That's not surprising or unusual I know, but I'm telling you - it's really bad. It's basically advantageous for the stormers to knock the ball on. The second rows - Du Toit and Eztebeth - are rampant. It is just making me think, when you add beast and Strauss to that engine room, jees our boys didn't do too badly. Furlong and Roux are big gains from the tour, Toner and Henderson rubber stamping their quality. No way would I be writing off Ross either. The way he was able to fight and wriggle against forward momentum, he did a great job of minimising their damage.
When you consider we didn't take Healy on tour (Schmidt talked about looking at the long term in a few cases), you'd hope it bodes well that Healy will be back in there and we will have a decent scrum and depth when he is, given that McGrath was consistently more than holding his own. Also, Dillane has shown he has all the ability, I guess Schmidt's concern for him is that he is just lacking a bit of heft. For now he should probavky have been trusted more as the impact sub, but he will be pushing first choice after a good injury free pre-season of eating and lifting.
I know the centre had its issues, but I really did think it was brilliant experience for olding and Marshall. Olding will get better and better in there and Marshall has proven he is able to play 12 or 13 well. I do get annoyed with the criticism he took about the earls pass. It's a chance he created completely by himself and he is just trying to put a killer pass in front of earls. Had he passed it as normal earls would've been tackled in my opinion. He was just guilty of forcing it. There are much worse crimes. A problem might be that Henshaw is showing signs that his best position is 13 though, but it's not a bad problem necessarily.
Maybe I'm overly positive, but letting the springboks wriggle off the hook is about my only negative. Was that a lack of ruthlessness? Confidence? Just bad luck?
When you consider we didn't take Healy on tour (Schmidt talked about looking at the long term in a few cases), you'd hope it bodes well that Healy will be back in there and we will have a decent scrum and depth when he is, given that McGrath was consistently more than holding his own. Also, Dillane has shown he has all the ability, I guess Schmidt's concern for him is that he is just lacking a bit of heft. For now he should probavky have been trusted more as the impact sub, but he will be pushing first choice after a good injury free pre-season of eating and lifting.
I know the centre had its issues, but I really did think it was brilliant experience for olding and Marshall. Olding will get better and better in there and Marshall has proven he is able to play 12 or 13 well. I do get annoyed with the criticism he took about the earls pass. It's a chance he created completely by himself and he is just trying to put a killer pass in front of earls. Had he passed it as normal earls would've been tackled in my opinion. He was just guilty of forcing it. There are much worse crimes. A problem might be that Henshaw is showing signs that his best position is 13 though, but it's not a bad problem necessarily.
Maybe I'm overly positive, but letting the springboks wriggle off the hook is about my only negative. Was that a lack of ruthlessness? Confidence? Just bad luck?
Re: 2016 Summer Tour to South Africa.
I said somewhere in this thread that I thought Ireland's scrum problems weren't the front row, but the SA back 5 outdoing our back 5. There's no real shame in that, the Saffer second and back rowns are great scrummagers.
We let them off the hook in the second test by going into our shells.
In the third test, Marshall and Jackson have to make those passes stick. It's harsh maybe, but you don't get 11 try scoring chances against the Boks and get to pick which ones you want to convert. That's test level sport. Small margins, few opportunities to win. Look at tennis, In the WImbledon mens final the margins between Murray and Raonic and Murray in the first two sets was paper-thin on the scoreboard, even though Murray was playing better tennis. It was only the 2nd set tiebreak where he really asserted his dominance and took his chance.
The reason Marshall has to make that pass is because he knows when he makes the break that opportunities without execution means you lose the game. From a technical pov, it wasn't such a terrible pass. But it doesn't matter, he has to make it.
We let them off the hook in the second test by going into our shells.
In the third test, Marshall and Jackson have to make those passes stick. It's harsh maybe, but you don't get 11 try scoring chances against the Boks and get to pick which ones you want to convert. That's test level sport. Small margins, few opportunities to win. Look at tennis, In the WImbledon mens final the margins between Murray and Raonic and Murray in the first two sets was paper-thin on the scoreboard, even though Murray was playing better tennis. It was only the 2nd set tiebreak where he really asserted his dominance and took his chance.
The reason Marshall has to make that pass is because he knows when he makes the break that opportunities without execution means you lose the game. From a technical pov, it wasn't such a terrible pass. But it doesn't matter, he has to make it.
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Re: 2016 Summer Tour to South Africa.
Pretty much agree on the scrum and Jackson jezzer, not so much on Marshall. I would definitely be more critical (if that's even the right word really, because it is an exceptional play by de Klerk) on the Jackson one. Jackson is given a ball where he has options where he can make that play a (let's say) 90% scoring chance. He took an option which brought it down to 60-40 and de Klerk did his thing to stop it. Jackson just didn't see de Klerk making that play which is fair enough, but he shouldn't really have even had the chance to stop it.
On matshall's break I think he has tried to force a scoring pass, when in reality the score isn't truly on, or at least much harder to execute. In order to score, the pass is going to have to be absolutely perfect (or forward-as it was) and even then earls may well be scragged. I remember his debut in the infamous Scotland game and there were numerous good breaks between himself and earls that day too which ended up put down, so forcing it is perhaps is an issue for him at test level, but the hard work is definitely making the break! I think he will improve. I would have had doubts because he is neither particularly fast or particularly big and though he is a brave, physical guy his injury history would've had me thinking he wouldn't truly get to this level. He ran into injury trouble after that Scotland game and I'm not sure he ever got the chance to actually learn from it. He should learn this time. He is skilful and smart, no doubt about that. Reads a game well, good around the breakdown and a good tackler. I think he was a big positive from this tour, a great option to have someone who can slot into 12 or 13 fairly seemlessly. I suppose my annoyance is that he (and Jackson too I guess) have done very well, but people will remember that incident and judge negatively. I would have suspicions that olding or Marshall could put pressure on Jackson if they were played at 10 for a while mind you. Will be interested to see who ulster select to cover 10 this year - one of their kids on the bench or olding/Marshall to cover a few positions.
On matshall's break I think he has tried to force a scoring pass, when in reality the score isn't truly on, or at least much harder to execute. In order to score, the pass is going to have to be absolutely perfect (or forward-as it was) and even then earls may well be scragged. I remember his debut in the infamous Scotland game and there were numerous good breaks between himself and earls that day too which ended up put down, so forcing it is perhaps is an issue for him at test level, but the hard work is definitely making the break! I think he will improve. I would have had doubts because he is neither particularly fast or particularly big and though he is a brave, physical guy his injury history would've had me thinking he wouldn't truly get to this level. He ran into injury trouble after that Scotland game and I'm not sure he ever got the chance to actually learn from it. He should learn this time. He is skilful and smart, no doubt about that. Reads a game well, good around the breakdown and a good tackler. I think he was a big positive from this tour, a great option to have someone who can slot into 12 or 13 fairly seemlessly. I suppose my annoyance is that he (and Jackson too I guess) have done very well, but people will remember that incident and judge negatively. I would have suspicions that olding or Marshall could put pressure on Jackson if they were played at 10 for a while mind you. Will be interested to see who ulster select to cover 10 this year - one of their kids on the bench or olding/Marshall to cover a few positions.
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LeRouxIsPHat
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Re: 2016 Summer Tour to South Africa.
If I remember correctly Marshall took the wrong option for that Earls pass too, sort of went for the Hollywood play when a shorter pass or just going himself were better options. I like him a lot but it's not the first time that's happened, does it quite often for Ulster too.