Scotland v. Ireland

[Fan with smartphone]

For me, we are experiencing a bit of a comedown from the November exploits and I wouldn't be too hard on our players about it. The key thing from this 6 nations is how we finish it. On Saturday we defended like a team who felt that whatever Scotland would score we would score more. But we then attacked in a way that when we missed our own chances (changing lanes, Murray not passing to Zebo, Heaslip forcing a pass) ah sure it doesn't matter there'll be plenty more. They played like a team that didn't feel they had to prove anything. That's the emotional side. Tactically it's worrying that some of the themes from Argentina haven't been figured out defensively, although the errors were slightly different. Fair play to Cotter for exploiting that, but the biggest thing off was the focus. Ruck decisions, slow to react, all that stuff. A good video review should change a lot of that.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Surprised to see people wanting VDF to start, he was ineffective when he came on and SOB played well.

I don't think SOB had a particularly poor game, but that ruck was missing someone to secure clean quick possession, VDF is good at that.

With CJ, SOB, JH, IH and TF apparently being excused from rucking duty we never seemed to drive that extra half yard beyond the tackle to make Poite deal with the Scots interfering with our ruck ball.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ruckedtobits]

In previous seasons, when we didn't have the same level of expectation, we "ambushed" better teams and hailed our coaches - EO'S, DK or JS - for their astute coaching. When an opposition pays us the compliment of focussing their efforts on stopping us, and succeeding, we immediately seek scapegoats among our players.

Scotland, in the person of Vern Cotter, "ambushed" Joe and won the first half hands down tactically. The Scots played Poite like a fiddle in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter, we focussed more efforts and bodies on the breakdown and took one-out ball at pace and different angles and got ahead of the Scots after 65+ mins. Our critical weakness was not closing out the game, having got ahead.

Certainly, many we will want to focus on who made mistakes, but not on who caused those players to make mistakes. We had enough possession and created enough opportunities to win, but execution let us down, sometimes due to fatigue, sometimes due to extraordinary Scots defence and sometimes due to unforced errors.

Six Nations rugby is tough and there will be many more twists before this finishes. Away bonus points may come into play, but the ability to win is still the great talent.

[dropkick]

In previous seasons, when we didn't have the same level of expectation, we "ambushed" better teams and hailed our coaches - EO'S, DK or JS - for their astute coaching. When an opposition pays us the compliment of focussing their efforts on stopping us, and succeeding, we immediately seek scapegoats among our players.

Scotland, in the person of Vern Cotter, "ambushed" Joe and won the first half hands down tactically. The Scots played Poite like a fiddle in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter, we focussed more efforts and bodies on the breakdown and took one-out ball at pace and different angles and got ahead of the Scots after 65+ mins. Our critical weakness was not closing out the game, having got ahead.

Certainly, many we will want to focus on who made mistakes, but not on who caused those players to make mistakes. We had enough possession and created enough opportunities to win, but execution let us down, sometimes due to fatigue, sometimes due to extraordinary Scots defence and sometimes due to unforced errors.

Six Nations rugby is tough and there will be many more twists before this finishes. Away bonus points may come into play, but the ability to win is still the great talent.

I don't think it was an ambush. I think everyone knows how Ireland play and every team know how to stop Ireland. Joe Schmidt is not evolving the play at all. Its the same old reliance on forward carrying power and box kicks.

[neiliog93]

In previous seasons, when we didn't have the same level of expectation, we "ambushed" better teams and hailed our coaches - EO'S, DK or JS - for their astute coaching. When an opposition pays us the compliment of focussing their efforts on stopping us, and succeeding, we immediately seek scapegoats among our players.

Scotland, in the person of Vern Cotter, "ambushed" Joe and won the first half hands down tactically. The Scots played Poite like a fiddle in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter, we focussed more efforts and bodies on the breakdown and took one-out ball at pace and different angles and got ahead of the Scots after 65+ mins. Our critical weakness was not closing out the game, having got ahead.

Certainly, many we will want to focus on who made mistakes, but not on who caused those players to make mistakes. We had enough possession and created enough opportunities to win, but execution let us down, sometimes due to fatigue, sometimes due to extraordinary Scots defence and sometimes due to unforced errors.

Six Nations rugby is tough and there will be many more twists before this finishes. Away bonus points may come into play, but the ability to win is still the great talent.

I don't think it was an ambush. I think everyone knows how Ireland play and every team know how to stop Ireland. Joe Schmidt is not evolving the play at all. Its the same old reliance on forward carrying power and box kicks.

Yeah, and other teams seem much more able to deal with the box kick game than in 2014 or 2015.

[ronk]

We were able to put our best 4 ball carrying backrows on the pitch and we had a plan to run a lot. We did, but their defence was up to it and they broke our pattern of play.

Individual effort and performance was generally good but collectively it was a failure of cohesion and tactics.

Lesson learnt: we can't take static ball like that, regardless of how good our carriers are. If we forget how to play around teams we won't progress.

[enby]

Let us hope that Bowe is nowhere near the 23 next week. His cameo in Edinburgh consisted of a knock on and a blatant in at the side peno. Very sad to see the contrast between Bowe 2017 and Bowe 2009-14. One of my favourite players over the years but no longer at international standard

[jezzer]

In previous seasons, when we didn't have the same level of expectation, we "ambushed" better teams and hailed our coaches - EO'S, DK or JS - for their astute coaching. When an opposition pays us the compliment of focussing their efforts on stopping us, and succeeding, we immediately seek scapegoats among our players.

Scotland, in the person of Vern Cotter, "ambushed" Joe and won the first half hands down tactically. The Scots played Poite like a fiddle in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter, we focussed more efforts and bodies on the breakdown and took one-out ball at pace and different angles and got ahead of the Scots after 65+ mins. Our critical weakness was not closing out the game, having got ahead.

Certainly, many we will want to focus on who made mistakes, but not on who caused those players to make mistakes. We had enough possession and created enough opportunities to win, but execution let us down, sometimes due to fatigue, sometimes due to extraordinary Scots defence and sometimes due to unforced errors.

Six Nations rugby is tough and there will be many more twists before this finishes. Away bonus points may come into play, but the ability to win is still the great talent.

I fully agree with this. I'll add one wrinkle though. The (forced) selection of Jackson and the lack of a breaking threat in Murray's game lately meant Scotland could point their whole arsenal at our centres and backrow. We handed them that one. But I still agree fully with your post.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Yeah I thought Murray not breaking was a massive issue on Saturday. There were gaps around the ruck but we just didn't attack them at all in the first half aside from SOB early on. I almost wonder if he was injured because it just wasn't anywhere near his usual standard. Thought he made an error in not fixing the man and passing to Zebo after he blocked a kick through as well, although it nearly worked out for him. Then again, Zebo should have been screaming for it and I'm not sure that he was. He was nowhere near as lively as he usually is either, again I'd wonder if he was actually fit, turning down the chance to try and run back the intercept is another reason why I'm wondering about that.

[scentofgunpowder]

In previous seasons, when we didn't have the same level of expectation, we "ambushed" better teams and hailed our coaches - EO'S, DK or JS - for their astute coaching. When an opposition pays us the compliment of focussing their efforts on stopping us, and succeeding, we immediately seek scapegoats among our players.

Scotland, in the person of Vern Cotter, "ambushed" Joe and won the first half hands down tactically. The Scots played Poite like a fiddle in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter, we focussed more efforts and bodies on the breakdown and took one-out ball at pace and different angles and got ahead of the Scots after 65+ mins. Our critical weakness was not closing out the game, having got ahead.

Certainly, many we will want to focus on who made mistakes, but not on who caused those players to make mistakes. We had enough possession and created enough opportunities to win, but execution let us down, sometimes due to fatigue, sometimes due to extraordinary Scots defence and sometimes due to unforced errors.

Six Nations rugby is tough and there will be many more twists before this finishes. Away bonus points may come into play, but the ability to win is still the great talent.

I don't think it was an ambush. I think everyone knows how Ireland play and every team know how to stop Ireland. Joe Schmidt is not evolving the play at all. Its the same old reliance on forward carrying power and box kicks.

Yeah, and other teams seem much more able to deal with the box kick game than in 2014 or 2015.

Murray kicked 8 times in the entire game, Jackson 3. We don't play a box kick game, we now play a run straight into the opposition and hope they get tired or something game, and yes teams seem able to deal with it

[OTT]

Murray kicked 8 times in the entire game, Jackson 3. We don't play a box kick game, we now play a run straight into the opposition and hope they get tired or something game, and yes teams seem able to deal with it

Jesus weep. This is now the new narrative never mind the facts. We scored 22 points, left another 10-15 behind and this despite having a malfunctioning lineout and being poor in the first half.

England scored 1 try, Wales 3 (against a diabolical Italy), France 1 and Scotland 3 is every team in the 6 nations now easy to deal with?

We lost because we let in cheap soft trys in the first half. We also beat the All Blacks and Australia (playing the second half with half a back line) a few months ago. When did teams start learning how to deal with us?

[Golf Man]

In previous seasons, when we didn't have the same level of expectation, we "ambushed" better teams and hailed our coaches - EO'S, DK or JS - for their astute coaching. When an opposition pays us the compliment of focussing their efforts on stopping us, and succeeding, we immediately seek scapegoats among our players.

Scotland, in the person of Vern Cotter, "ambushed" Joe and won the first half hands down tactically. The Scots played Poite like a fiddle in the first half.

In the 3rd quarter, we focussed more efforts and bodies on the breakdown and took one-out ball at pace and different angles and got ahead of the Scots after 65+ mins. Our critical weakness was not closing out the game, having got ahead.

Certainly, many we will want to focus on who made mistakes, but not on who caused those players to make mistakes. We had enough possession and created enough opportunities to win, but execution let us down, sometimes due to fatigue, sometimes due to extraordinary Scots defence and sometimes due to unforced errors.

Six Nations rugby is tough and there will be many more twists before this finishes. Away bonus points may come into play, but the ability to win is still the great talent.

While there is a lot of sense in that its a bit simplistic imo. Yes the Scots defended incredibly well. yes the played Poite better and yes they identified weaknesses and exploited them. That said these weaknesses have reared their heads before, notably the narrow defence - you can give credit to Scotland for exploiting it, but you have to criticize the management and players for allowing to happen again. Likewise the failure to take our chances has occured on a good few occassions - so yes the Scots did well to relatively speaking stem the flow, but we could have scored more - and again thats on us

[OTT]

While there is a lot of sense in that its a bit simplistic imo. Yes the Scots defended incredibly well. yes the played Poite better and yes they identified weaknesses and exploited them. That said these weaknesses have reared their heads before, notably the narrow defence - you can give credit to Scotland for exploiting it, but you have to criticize the management and players for allowing to happen again. Likewise the failure to take our chances has occured on a good few occassions - so yes the Scots did well to relatively speaking stem the flow, but we could have scored more - and again thats on us

Agree with this.

[Golf Man]

Murray kicked 8 times in the entire game, Jackson 3. We don't play a box kick game, we now play a run straight into the opposition and hope they get tired or something game, and yes teams seem able to deal with it

Jesus weep. This is now the new narrative never mind the facts. We scored 22 points, left another 10-15 behind and this despite having a malfunctioning lineout and being poor in the first half.

England scored 1 try, Wales 3 (against a diabolical Italy), France 1 and Scotland 3 is every team in the 6 nations now easy to deal with?

We lost because we let in cheap soft trys in the first half. We also beat the All Blacks and Australia (playing the second half with half a back line) a few months ago. When did teams start learning how to deal with us?

Its not all doom and gloom but you are glossing over some fairly big issues

1. Repeated instances of failing to convert possesion into points
2. Repeated instances of being caught with a narrow defensive alignment
3. Malfunctioning line out - its clear how important it is to us - we can't afford for it to malfunction if we are playing the gameplan as it stands
4. We have lost as much as we have won in the last year - since the WC we have lost 6 games out of 13 , been beaten by Scotland, England, France, SA, NZ, and failed to beat Wales at home - teams have learned how to deal with us. New Zealand, SA and Australia were outstanding results, but the last year overall has not been as good as made out

We won a championship in 2014 with a hugely pragmatic approach, we expanded the approach in 2015, without really compromising the benefits of the pragmatic approach - we haven't kicked on since then despite a couple of very good performances

[OTT]

Murray kicked 8 times in the entire game, Jackson 3. We don't play a box kick game, we now play a run straight into the opposition and hope they get tired or something game, and yes teams seem able to deal with it

Jesus weep. This is now the new narrative never mind the facts. We scored 22 points, left another 10-15 behind and this despite having a malfunctioning lineout and being poor in the first half.

England scored 1 try, Wales 3 (against a diabolical Italy), France 1 and Scotland 3 is every team in the 6 nations now easy to deal with?

We lost because we let in cheap soft trys in the first half. We also beat the All Blacks and Australia (playing the second half with half a back line) a few months ago. When did teams start learning how to deal with us?

Its not all doom and gloom but you are glossing over some fairly big issues

1. Repeated instances of failing to convert possesion into points
2. Repeated instances of being caught with a narrow defensive alignment
3. Malfunctioning line out - its clear how important it is to us - we can't afford for it to malfunction if we are playing the gameplan as it stands
4. We have lost as much as we have won in the last year - since the WC we have lost 6 games out of 13 , been beaten by Scotland, England, France, SA, NZ, and failed to beat Wales at home - teams have learned how to deal with us. New Zealand, SA and Australia were outstanding results, but the last year overall has not been as good as made out

We won a championship in 2014 with a hugely pragmatic approach, we expanded the approach in 2015, without really compromising the benefits of the pragmatic approach - we haven't kicked on since then despite a couple of very good performances

I am not glossing over anything I was responding to a comment that we are easy to deal with. The facts don't back that up. The fact the Scots acted like they won the championship after scraping home against us when we underperformed says it all.

All your issues are valid but none of them makes us into a team that is easy to deal with.

Also take a look at the score in every match we lost since the world cup....easy to deal with?? Come off it.

[Laighin Break]

Agree with OTT. I don't think it's fair to say that Scotland were able to deal with us. They were lucky we weren't clinical.
To add to OTT's stats, we made 12 clean breaks, beat 32 defenders and made 534 metres (to Scotland's 6;9;311). Unfortunately the only stat they seemed to beat us on was the only one that matters.

[Golf Man]

I am not glossing over anything I was responding to a comment that we are easy to deal with. The facts don't back that up. The fact the Scots acted like they won the championship after scraping home against us when we underperformed says it all.

All your issues are valid but none of them makes us into a team that is easy to deal with.

Also take a look at the score in every match we lost since the world cup....easy to deal with?? Come off it.

Just to note - I never said we were easy to deal with - I said that teams have learned how to deal with us
On the scorelines - I'm not sure what point you are trying to make - we lost those 6 games. Looking at the games in a bit more detail actually what jumps out is that we were 13-0 up on Wales and drew. We were 9-3 ahead of France with 10 minutes left and lost. We were 26-10 up after 60 minutes in the second test v SA. We were ahead of Scotland with 8 minutes left/I don't think these facts mean that much, but they mean every bit as much as the fact that we lost most of thos games by relatively close margins - simple fact is that we lost them

[Golf Man]

Agree with OTT. I don't think it's fair to say that Scotland were able to deal with us. They were lucky we weren't clinical.
To add to OTT's stats, we made 12 clean breaks, beat 32 defenders and made 534 metres (to Scotland's 6;9;311). Unfortunately the only stat they seemed to beat us on was the only one that matters.

Ahhhm - they beat us - they were clearly able to deal with us. Quoting the stats only reinforces the fact that again we failed to take advantage of possession - that wasn't Scotland being lucky - that was us doing what we have done fairly frequently

[Laighin Break]

Agree with OTT. I don't think it's fair to say that Scotland were able to deal with us. They were lucky we weren't clinical.
To add to OTT's stats, we made 12 clean breaks, beat 32 defenders and made 534 metres (to Scotland's 6;9;311). Unfortunately the only stat they seemed to beat us on was the only one that matters.

Ahhhm - they beat us - they were clearly able to deal with us. Quoting the stats only reinforces the fact that again we failed to take advantage of possession - that wasn't Scotland being lucky - that was us doing what we have done fairly frequently

Yes we definitely failed to take advantage of possession, but the "run straight into the opposition and hope they get tired or something game" that we play was pretty effective at making breaks and metres. Just need to work on following up on these breaks.

[Oldschool]

How did we let Scotland beat us.
They've been awful against Italy.
Italy have had loads of possession and done nothing with it.
They've no penalty kicker either.