Ireland v England. Saturday, February 2nd.

[backrower8]

Men talking about things getting on their "tits" gets on my nerves.

My reference to Slade being offside, poorly explained on my part in fairness, was in respect of his chase of the kick for his first try and we went 9 points down with 14 to go. He was ahead of the kicker:

a) when I saw it on screen in the stadium.
b) when Virgin's studio graphics demonstrated that to be the case when I watched the replay.

I was sitting in the Aviva. I am referring to the whole atmosphere, not what some people experienced in the few rows around them.

The atmosphere was back to its usual corporate sh*te which for an England match is a very sad state of affairs. Terraces guaranteed atmosphere in a stadium as people squashed together had fewer inhibitions, but there are fewer people who are directly involved in the amateur sport now going to the matches and so there is less passion about the place.

All well and good when you are winning but if that changes the more fickle who are there for the event, as opposed to the match, will ebb away pretty quickly as Ulster and Munster have seen in recent years. I don't thin much can be done in this regard as internationals are as much a consumer product/event as they are a sport.

[olaf the fat]

It was a really good tactical match up - England performed really well. Great level of intensity and line speed, excellent kicking and smart blocking up of space for us attacking the high ball. We did manage to get some level of control until their 2nd try, but too many players did had a poor day, but that was also do to pressure from England. It shows you something we have to learn to cope with if we are to maintain our current standard, teams like England are really "up" for us now - the way we would raise our game against England, play out of our skins and regularly cause an upset.

DC's post about the quality of our passing really is on the mark. More accuracy across the board would have asked more questions of England, remember it was only a 4 point game at 60 mins and ended only 12 points when at least a couple of their try's depended somewhat on a bit of luck. On that point it goes to show if you bring your A game you really do make your own "luck".

In fairness, a good win for England which they really needed. A bit of reality for us, which was also needed.

[LeinsterLeader]

Men talking about things getting on their "tits" gets on my nerves.

My reference to Slade being offside, poorly explained on my part in fairness, was in respect of his chase of the kick for his first try and we went 9 points down with 14 to go. He was ahead of the kicker:

a) when I saw it on screen in the stadium.
b) when Virgin's studio graphics demonstrated that to be the case when I watched the replay.

I was sitting in the Aviva. I am referring to the whole atmosphere, not what some people experienced in the few rows around them.

The atmosphere was back to its usual corporate sh*te which for an England match is a very sad state of affairs. Terraces guaranteed atmosphere in a stadium as people squashed together had fewer inhibitions, but there are fewer people who are directly involved in the amateur sport now going to the matches and so there is less passion about the place.

All well and good when you are winning but if that changes the more fickle who are there for the event, as opposed to the match, will ebb away pretty quickly as Ulster and Munster have seen in recent years. I don't thin much can be done in this regard as internationals are as much a consumer product/event as they are a sport.

I think the thing about the crowd is that you can sit and moan about how things are now and how you miss the good ole days or you can get on with it and do whatever you can with the bodies around you to try and get things going. It wasn't great but well at least it's proactive. Crowd behavior is always going to be driven by whats happening on the pitch.Theres was just as many day trippers and corporate bodies at the NZ game yet the atmosphere was great. Why do you think that was?

Oh and did your mother never tell you it's bad manner to roll your eyes?

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Yeah well... don't I look like a d!%khead

Always

[backrower8]

I think the thing about the crowd is that you can sit and moan about how things are now and how you miss the good ole days or you can get on with it and do whatever you can with the bodies around you to try and get things going. It wasn't great but well at least it's proactive. Crowd behavior is always going to be driven by whats happening on the pitch.Theres was just as many day trippers and corporate bodies at the NZ game yet the atmosphere was great. Why do you think that was?

Oh and did your mother never tell you it's bad manner to roll your eyes?

What do I think the difference between the ABs and England game was? Had you thought about it for a few seconds instead of trying to be a 'clever fella', the very obvious differences should come to you.

What do you mean by a 'proactive' crowd?

Crowd behaviour is largely driven by whats on the pitch as well as who is in the stands. Match context, kick-off time and weather are other factors that shape the occasion.

As for just accepting that life is what happens to you and you can't do anything about it, well there wouldn't be a Connacht team in existence if that was the case. Consumers can give feed back and shape changes to the organisations they buy stuff from.

No, my mother never told me not to roll my eyes. You would be well advised not to bring other posters' family members into your commentary. No harm done on this occasion but you never know what you could be getting into if you go down that route. Best avoided and leaves you plenty of scope to be just as witty in other ways.

[LeinsterLeader]

I think the thing about the crowd is that you can sit and moan about how things are now and how you miss the good ole days or you can get on with it and do whatever you can with the bodies around you to try and get things going. It wasn't great but well at least it's proactive. Crowd behavior is always going to be driven by whats happening on the pitch.Theres was just as many day trippers and corporate bodies at the NZ game yet the atmosphere was great. Why do you think that was?

Oh and did your mother never tell you it's bad manner to roll your eyes?

What do I think the difference between the ABs and England game was? Had you thought about it for a few seconds instead of trying to be a 'clever fella', the very obvious differences should come to you.

What do you mean by a 'proactive' crowd?

Crowd behaviour is largely driven by whats on the pitch as well as who is in the stands. Match context, kick-off time and weather are other factors that shape the occasion.

As for just accepting that life is what happens to you and you can't do anything about it, well there wouldn't be a Connacht team in existence if that was the case. Consumers can give feed back and shape changes to the organisations they buy stuff from.

No, my mother never told me not to roll my eyes. You would be well advised not to bring other posters' family members into your commentary. No harm done on this occasion but you never know what you could be getting into if you go down that route. Best avoided and leaves you plenty of scope to be just as witty in other ways.

I didn't say "Proactive Crowd" I said just be proactive instead of moaning about the old days.

I don't know what your talking about here. I never mentioned any of this - "As for just accepting that life is what happens to you and you can't do anything about it,"

I'd be pretty sure you could of a had marching bands up and down the stands on Saturday and it wasn't going to give you the atmosphere you were looking for. That was very much dictated by what was happening on the pitch.

And as for bring family members into it........ would ye give over

[Flash Gordon]

The crowd discussion in the media is bizarre. The Time ran a story and a line of questionning that suggested that Ireland fans let Ireland down when they needed them most 5 minutes before the end. The game was lost, nothing the crowd could have done then. Similarly, it's a bit much to get peeved about the atmosphere when tickets are over 100 quid a pop and a very significant proportion of the tickets are sold to corporates, alickadoos and companies organising travel packages for England fans. If the IRFU or the Irish Times wants noise, sell the tickets to people who watch and are involved in club and provincial rugby every week.

PS I went to Lansdowne Road in the 80's and 90's and the cauldron of noise people talk about is a bit of a myth if I'm honest and fans arrived very late.....

[LeinsterLeader]

The crowd discussion in the media is bizarre. The Time ran a story and a line of questionning that suggested that Ireland fans let Ireland down when they needed them most 5 minutes before the end. The game was lost, nothing the crowd could have done then. Similarly, it's a bit much to get peeved about the atmosphere when tickets are over 100 quid a pop and a very significant proportion of the tickets are sold to corporates, alickadoos and companies organising travel packages for England fans. If the IRFU or the Irish Times wants noise, sell the tickets to people who watch and are involved in club and provincial rugby every week.

PS I went to Lansdowne Road in the 80's and 90's and the cauldron of noise people talk about is a bit of a myth if I'm honest and fans arrived very late.....

Agree with you on this FG (I was there in the 80's and 90's too). Personally I would have liked the stadium not to be half full when the teams came out, when most of the supporters were already there anyway, t(hey were just outside) but they bought their tickets, the IRFU were happy to take their money, they're entitled to stay out drinking if that's what they want.

[Flash Gordon]

The crowd discussion in the media is bizarre. The Time ran a story and a line of questionning that suggested that Ireland fans let Ireland down when they needed them most 5 minutes before the end. The game was lost, nothing the crowd could have done then. Similarly, it's a bit much to get peeved about the atmosphere when tickets are over 100 quid a pop and a very significant proportion of the tickets are sold to corporates, alickadoos and companies organising travel packages for England fans. If the IRFU or the Irish Times wants noise, sell the tickets to people who watch and are involved in club and provincial rugby every week.

PS I went to Lansdowne Road in the 80's and 90's and the cauldron of noise people talk about is a bit of a myth if I'm honest and fans arrived very late.....

Agree with you on this FG (I was there in the 80's and 90's too). Personally I would have liked the stadium not to be half full when the teams came out, when most of the supporters were already there anyway, t(hey were just outside) but they bought their tickets, the IRFU were happy to take their money, they're entitled to stay out drinking if that's what they want.

Indeed. Many of us here are hardcore but at the end of the day watching rugby is a leisure activity and if you pitch your tickets to people who are out for a corporate junket or a day out you'll get a corporate junket/day out atmosphere! I spent the entire game watching my team get dicked while some tw@t behind kept shouting Brexit slogans and some girl from Mayo incessantly blabbing on about her parents in Australia, the glories of Mayo etc etc. Fun times!

[Blue not red blood]

Actually thought the athmosphere was ok on Sat. However even at 13-17 most of the crowd had a bad feeling the way the match was going.
Its hard to get the crowd excited when your stuck in your own half and making no line breaks.
That was as flat a performance as I can remember from a Joe team.
I would expect a fully charged performance on Saturday and I bet you he has made plans that we are not going to arrive late this time.

[Oldschool]

Well if you’re going to tell someone that they are WRONG on almost everything they posted, you could at least answer my reply.

I'm not really into tic tac posting.
The main trust of your post was that people were over-reacting.
I disagreed and gave you the reasons why.
If you read between the lines I'm saying we lost that game far more than England won it and that's why there was the reaction there was.
That implies I didn't think England were all that, you disagree, that's just your opinion differing from mine,

[hugonaut]

It was a really good tactical match up - England performed really well. Great level of intensity and line speed, excellent kicking and smart blocking up of space for us attacking the high ball. We did manage to get some level of control until their 2nd try, but too many players did had a poor day, but that was also do to pressure from England. It shows you something we have to learn to cope with if we are to maintain our current standard, teams like England are really "up" for us now - the way we would raise our game against England, play out of our skins and regularly cause an upset.

DC's post about the quality of our passing really is on the mark. More accuracy across the board would have asked more questions of England, remember it was only a 4 point game at 60 mins and ended only 12 points when at least a couple of their try's depended somewhat on a bit of luck. On that point it goes to show if you bring your A game you really do make your own "luck".

In fairness, a good win for England which they really needed. A bit of reality for us, which was also needed.

Very rational, balanced post ... there's no place for it here!

England were outstanding in practically every aspect - motivation was high, physicality was exceptional, tactics were well-judged and execution was largely very, very sharp. Kudos to them. They have raised their game, and to quite a large degree they raised it because we set a new standard for NH rugby last year in winning the Grand Slam, a SANZAR-nation test series and beating the All Blacks.

There's not another team in the competition who have the player and coaching personnel to do the same job on us. Wales have the coaches but not the same standard of physicality through their pack, France potentially have the physicality but nothing like the coaching acumen.

The reality is not that we're a bad team or an average team, or even that we shouldn't be second ranked in the world; it's that if you don't play very well at test level, a strong opposition will expose you and beat you. We're not the first team to experience that. We put 40 points on the All Blacks in November 2016.

[Oldschool]

It was a really good tactical match up - England performed really well. Great level of intensity and line speed, excellent kicking and smart blocking up of space for us attacking the high ball. We did manage to get some level of control until their 2nd try, but too many players did had a poor day, but that was also do to pressure from England. It shows you something we have to learn to cope with if we are to maintain our current standard, teams like England are really "up" for us now - the way we would raise our game against England, play out of our skins and regularly cause an upset.

DC's post about the quality of our passing really is on the mark. More accuracy across the board would have asked more questions of England, remember it was only a 4 point game at 60 mins and ended only 12 points when at least a couple of their try's depended somewhat on a bit of luck. On that point it goes to show if you bring your A game you really do make your own "luck".

In fairness, a good win for England which they really needed. A bit of reality for us, which was also needed.

Very rational, balanced post ... there's no place for it here!

England were outstanding in practically every aspect - motivation was high, physicality was exceptional, tactics were well-judged and execution was largely very, very sharp. Kudos to them. They have raised their game, and to quite a large degree they raised it because we set a new standard for NH rugby last year in winning the Grand Slam, a SANZAR-nation test series and beating the All Blacks.

There's not another team in the competition who have the player and coaching personnel to do the same job on us. Wales have the coaches but not the same standard of physicality through their pack, France potentially have the physicality but nothing like the coaching acumen.

The reality is not that we're a bad team or an average team, or even that we shouldn't be second ranked in the world; it's that if you don't play very well at test level, a strong opposition will expose you and beat you. We're not the first team to experience that. We put 40 points on the All Blacks in November 2016.

All very calm, rational and good stuff lads.
You hit the nail on the head but didn't come up with any ideas.
Why was our passing so undercooked, particularly at HB.
Implying that it was all down to England would suggest denial.

[hugonaut]

All very calm, rational and good stuff lads.
You hit the nail on the head but didn't come up with any ideas.
Why was our passing so undercooked, particularly at HB.
Implying that it was all down to England would suggest denial.

It's not rocket science.
i] Murray and Sexton hadn't played a competitive minute together since 23 June 2018, approx. 31 weeks;
ii] Sexton hadn't played a minute of competitive rugby in 5 weeks;
iii] Murray is coming back from an [unknown] long-term injury and isn't in good form;
iv] English line-speed put both players under pressure you don't experience in training.

[Ruckedtobits]

That's an impossible conundrum to solve from a spectating standpoint and difficult even to solve from within the Camp.

"Were we poor because England pressurised us before we even had initial possession, or were we poor anyway because key players weren't match-fit / emotionally engaged / out of form?"

Anybody who suggests they have a definitive view on that, must work as a psychologist. Studying the player GPS returns and comparing the impact register on individual tackles compared to Twickenham is the only factual measurement of comparison. Even then, there a multitude of variables including the opponents' weight, speed and angle of approach.

We can while away our lives speculating on what went wrong. IMO, fascinating but useless. We won't face a challenge of that sort again in the 6N. Hope Ireland Squad are totally focussed on how do we beat Scotland? That's this week speculation.

[Oldschool]

All very calm, rational and good stuff lads.
You hit the nail on the head but didn't come up with any ideas.
Why was our passing so undercooked, particularly at HB.
Implying that it was all down to England would suggest denial.

It's not rocket science.
i] Murray and Sexton hadn't played a competitive minute together since 23 June 2018, approx. 31 weeks;
ii] Sexton hadn't played a minute of competitive rugby in 5 weeks;
iii] Murray is coming back from an [unknown] long-term injury and isn't in good form;
iv] English line-speed put both players under pressure you don't experience in training.

Can't argue with any of that expect maybe iv in the sense that they shouldn't have been surprised by the English line speed.
However it still doesn't explain why players (21,22) on the bench weren't used a lot sooner given items 1-3 that you mention.
Joe didn't react until it was too late even though the signs were there that action was required.
Murray's form was poor coming into the tournament so Joe should have been at least primed for the possible need for action.
Anyone complaining about our performance on Saturday is right to do so because anything else is the slippery slow back to where we were before Joe.

[blockhead]

Good analysis on Against the Head tonight.
England just wanted it more, they got a couple of early breaks and never let us back in the game. It's downhill from here for them.
Rob was missed.
Could still win the 6nations, wouldn't that be funny.

[ronk]

I was in Twickenham in 2004 for the first game there after England won the RWC. Everyone expected them to win, it doesn't work that way. We wanted it more.

We've done this often enough, especially to England, that we should recognize immediately what happened. They had a big game in them and we were undercooked.

We got them fired up and angry while too many Irish eyes were on the slam.

[thecomedian]

Well if you’re going to tell someone that they are WRONG on almost everything they posted, you could at least answer my reply.

I'm not really into tic tac posting.
The main trust of your post was that people were over-reacting.
I disagreed and gave you the reasons why.
If you read between the lines I'm saying we lost that game far more than England won it and that's why there was the reaction there was.
That implies I didn't think England were all that, you disagree, that's just your opinion differing from mine,

Fair enough.

I do think we lost because we couldn’t handle the pressure put on us.
But as you say everyone differs.

[Laighin Break]

The crowd discussion in the media is bizarre. The Time ran a story and a line of questionning that suggested that Ireland fans let Ireland down when they needed them most 5 minutes before the end. The game was lost, nothing the crowd could have done then. Similarly, it's a bit much to get peeved about the atmosphere when tickets are over 100 quid a pop and a very significant proportion of the tickets are sold to corporates, alickadoos and companies organising travel packages for England fans. If the IRFU or the Irish Times wants noise, sell the tickets to people who watch and are involved in club and provincial rugby every week.

PS I went to Lansdowne Road in the 80's and 90's and the cauldron of noise people talk about is a bit of a myth if I'm honest and fans arrived very late.....

Agree with you on this FG (I was there in the 80's and 90's too). Personally I would have liked the stadium not to be half full when the teams came out, when most of the supporters were already there anyway, t(hey were just outside) but they bought their tickets, the IRFU were happy to take their money, they're entitled to stay out drinking if that's what they want.

Indeed. Many of us here are hardcore but at the end of the day watching rugby is a leisure activity and if you pitch your tickets to people who are out for a corporate junket or a day out you'll get a corporate junket/day out atmosphere! I spent the entire game watching my team get dicked while some tw@t behind kept shouting Brexit slogans and some girl from Mayo incessantly blabbing on about her parents in Australia, the glories of Mayo etc etc. Fun times!

Couldn't have had much to blab about on that!