Scotland vs Ireland, Sat 9th Feb 14.15

[Hippo]

There was no blocking of chasers by Scotland yesterday, there just wasn't much chasing. We looked strangely disorganised in attack at times.

I agree with the suggestion of Ross Byrne at 10 - and I'd have never thought a year ago I'd be saying that. Joey's still excellent in broken play as he showed for the Earls try, but he still looks much more suited to 15.

[suisse]

I don't live in Ireland so this the first real chance I've had to see Virgin and, especially, ROG. O'Gara is a very good analyst. It's funny seeing him scribbling down notes as the show goes on. He's obviously a big thinker and is always looking to get better as a pundit and a coach. I hope he continues to develop in ChCh and then come back to Ireland if he's capable. He definitely looks like a rugby coach.

Then we transfer to Twickenham and have to listen to Alan Quinlan droning on. He doesn't have the voice for commentary. Incredibly boring.

[Ruckedtobits]

I don't live in Ireland so this the first real chance I've had to see Virgin and, especially, ROG. O'Gara is a very good analyst. It's funny seeing him scribbling down notes as the show goes on. He's obviously a big thinker and is always looking to get better as a pundit and a coach. I hope he continues to develop in ChCh and then come back to Ireland if he's capable. He definitely looks like a rugby coach.

Then we transfer to Twickenham and have to listen to Alan Quinlan droning on. He doesn't have the voice for commentary. Incredibly boring.

Agree and Jenno is a quality analyst who picks out the pertinent facts. Quinlan still totally besotted with Munster players e.g. no criticism of Murray's poor passing but slags off Bundee for not being in the right position. Murray is playing on automatic pilot not with last year's commitment and focus.

[suisse]

The quality of TV and radio punditry bas improved dramatically in recent years. To think a few years ago we had Tom McGurk, Brent Pope and George Hook. There are always one or two - like Quinlan - who slip through the net but generally it is pretty good

ROG, Horgan, Jennings, Jackman, Lenihan, O'Callaghan, Andy Dunne, Reddan. Probably a few more I've left out.

Print form is still a shitshow. Gavin Cummiskey, Billy Keane, Neil Francis and Eamon Sweeney. I haven't read or clicked on an Indo article in years. I just read people ranting about it on-line. Hilarious stuff.

[Logorrhea]

On the subject of TV production. Had to turn off Dave McIntyre and switch to BBC the other day. Usually he does a decent job but 5-10 minutes and he was so busy telling us how bad the play was (rather than just commentate on whats happening) and how it reminded him of the disaster the week before, that I simply switched to BBC.

Stick to commentating.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I watched the game again last night and have to say Murray was way better than I remembered. I've seen him get a lot of criticism and agreed with it but honestly thought he was pretty good for the most part. There were some ropy passes alright but some of those issues were down to poor hands by the receiver or people outside him doing the wrong thing by the looks of it e.g. the pass that went to deck when Bundee wasn't in the right place (not sure if that was Bundee's fault of course).

One thing I hadn't noticed on Saturday was that he stopped a maul on his own after it had broken off towards the line after the first few minutes, honestly one of the best bits of defending I've ever seen but seems to have been missed! He obviously got his try, covered the backfield really well, and his passing was mostly good. For one of his poor kicks that went too long it was still dropped by Kinghorn under no pressure so I'm going to guess that the wind was a bigger factor than it seemed on tv. He's not at his best and certainly isn't running the game like he usually does, but I'm no longer worried after watching it back.

Furlong was even better than I thought and would have been my MOTM by a distance. He's having to truck up some tough ball right now because of the players we're missing and our lack of momentum but he's doing a great job in the circumstances and his engine is incredible. Healy was very good too.

Oh and that incident that Laidlaw was moaning about happened in the 50th minute when Scotland weren't really threatening at all You'd have sworn that they were on our line in the last few minutes by the way he went on about it, and not only that but the Scottish lineout before that was crooked and the pass from Russell was forward just before we got the scrum It may not have been a knock on (SOB did claw it back but hard to see if Strauss lost it or not after that) but to complain like he did was just ridiculous and made him sound like a biased fan on a forum. I would honestly strip him of the captaincy, his attitude absolutely stinks.

[Twist]

I cant abide Dave McIntyre. The Weimarisation of language with him is unbearable, and he’s actually worse with GAA than with rugby. A team
losing by 5 points has been TOTALLY HUMILIATED, a missed tackle is a PATHETIC ATTEMPT and someone who executes a good tackle has UTTERLY DOMINATED HIS OPPONENT

What makes it worse is that he’s in thrall to famous jerseys; NZ, Kerry, Man Utd - everything they do is BREATHTAKING, and theyre always RAMPANT rather than winning narrowly. It’s insulting to players, imo


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[LeRouxIsPHat]

"It's spinning" must be one of the worst bits of commentary to ever accompany a great sporting moment, he's awful.

[Logorrhea]

Well in fairness to him .............. the ball was spinning quite a lot.

[suisse]

He annoys me as well but I find him worse interviewing players or being a guest. When he puts a mic in front of someone else, his questions are unbearably long. I'm not listening to this interview to hear what McIntrye thinks. And then he's on OTB TV wearing a white t-shirt continually flexing. Evrything he does is about Dave McIntyre. Dave McIntyre is the show. Everyone else? Extras. But he's seen as the golden boy of Irish commentary. He's on football, rugby and GAA. It's ridiculous.

[backrower8]

Kearney - v good game but CAN he pass? Ball tucked under one arm at times when he had supporting runners available. One try missed as a result of no pass to Stockdale.

Earls - talented player, makes the most of what he has got but have never rated him as an international level player.

Farrell - not bad expected more of him. The backline shape looked poor throughout.

Aki - another who is a bit short of the standard needed for internationals. Distribution and smarts lacking. Harshly penalised for pickign up a ball, thru the gate, that was out.

Stockdale - superb finish and decent contribution all round, looking for wor work. Defence a work-in-progress.

Johnny - good, not great, while he lasted. His kick-offs need to be consistently of Owen Farrell standard,always struggles to max hang-time. Overall, Farrell's two 2019 performances are as good if not better than Jonny's 2018 form. Farrell's movement is better than Johnny's.

Murray - the less said the better. Cooney should have been on by 60 mins.

Cian - great contribution, especially first half bar one spill. Would have expected him to put more presure on the Scottish scrum...is he too small to do that now?

Best - middle of the road. Made no headway with Poite, but who does?

Tadhg - a significant improvement,especially first half. Like Healy, I expected more pressure on Scottish scrum

Ryan - super line-out performance, high work-rate, but would like to see more feet and a pass/offload or two, I think he is a lot more athletic than he is showing.Becoming predicable for opposition.

Roux - sorry, just a blunt instrument. Competent, nothing more.

POM - always intelligent in what he does but just not doing enough. His greatest contribution is to glare at the match officials. I want us to move towards a backrows of Leavy/Ruddock/Conan or Leavy/VDF/Conan or Leavy/Ruddock/Deegan after the RWC. Leavy and Deegan are both good line-out options.

Seanie - good outing for a man with so little time on a rugby pitch since 2017 Lions. But not a 'special player' at that level of output. Others have caught up with his power.

Conan - a lot of tackles and a fair number of carries with respectable returns...but I wanted him to get on the ball more. He just isn't an Alpha type like SOB,POM, CJ & Leavy...lacks confidence, it may come with a run of games in this championship.

SUBS: Well done Joey. He is so far ahead of where Jonny was at the same age and has miles to go,as does Ross, that is just the nature of being a genuine international 10.

Too little game time for Cronin & Cooney. Well done in the line-outs Dillane. Porter is great around the field but I think his scrummaging is hit or miss. Needs a lot more gametime than he is given.

[Experimental]

Backrower, I agree with a lot of what youre saying here, we must improve in all of these things if we want to win a world cup

[MylesNaGapoleen]

I watched the game again last night and have to say Murray was way better than I remembered. I've seen him get a lot of criticism and agreed with it but honestly thought he was pretty good for the most part. There were some ropy passes alright but some of those issues were down to poor hands by the receiver or people outside him doing the wrong thing by the looks of it e.g. the pass that went to deck when Bundee wasn't in the right place (not sure if that was Bundee's fault of course).

even though murray isn't on his best form...he is still a great SH. agree with others that cooney should start against italy.

[MylesNaGapoleen]

@Backrower..I agree with your points. Kearney holding on and taking the tackle after a line break is frustrating. not sure if that is the strategy dictated by JS or it's him scared of making a mistake. Joey flipped a cracking pass to earls later in the game so it would suggest it is robs choice. I would like to see us adopt the Scott Wisemantel approach of kicking through when in that position if there is no obvious offload...as england did so well on sat and to us in dublin.

One thing you didn't mention about earls is his chasing back to make try saving tackles....the one on finn russell after the intercept was classic earls. He has done that a lot for ireland and it is not easy. his tap tackle on daley last year in twickenham, or his epic chase back to stop the italian breakaway springs to mind.

[backrower8]

One thing you didn't mention about earls is his chasing back to make try saving tackles....the one on finn russell after the intercept was classic earls. He has done that a lot for ireland and it is not easy. his tap tackle on daley last year in twickenham, or his epic chase back to stop the italian breakaway springs to mind.

Very fair point.

[backrower8]

As for Poite. He was poor for both teams. How can he not improve his English, the designated language of the sport, he has had long enough to do so. He is almost monosyllabic. He ignores crooked line-out feeds completely. His worst blind-eye was for players arriving in from the side to clear people out of rucks. There was a clip on social media showing about 10 such Scottish infringements. 8 were clear-cut against the rules but he only blew one and that was on 76 minutes.

They used to be so hot on that, now it has gone the way of the do-do, diving off feet, last foot in the ruck, crooked throws, forward passes and in front of kickers...all largely ignored in the name of entertainment/flowing rugby. The whole sport is based largely on getting away with obstruction - not healthy.

The sport is so boring and predictable now. If you have the ball it is nearly impossible to lose it, rucks are a contest for a few seconds and then if it comes free you aren't allowed step through the gate and pick it up whereas the attacking ruckers can ‘play trains’ and roll the ball back 5+ metres from the heart of the ruck with their hands to the scrum half (a protected species) who takes an age positioning it before picking the ball up and kicking it from behind a wall of guards.

As for Murrayfield and the manufactured atmosphere of blaring disco music at every break in play...that is more of the event marketing- money making cr@p to entertain whoever turns up for a ticket, cos there are fewer and fewer rugby fans that have a deep involvement in the sport. The newbies are the people booing inanely when they don't get what they want. The sport is so hollowed-out at amateur level (too few adults playing the game) and sold-out (too few supporters with an understanding of the game accessing international tickets) that the crowds who fill stadia nowadays have little to bring bar their money. They will not be seen if their team loses a few matches on the trot.

Scottish rugby had been so poor for so long that the new crowd they currently have in tow are people they have recently dredged up to participate in an event at Murrayfield. It isn't much different in the Aviva for Ireland matches but is marginally better at provincial level as there are emerging fan bases, but they aren't nearly committed enough to withstand poor win ratios as all 4 provinces get a glimpse of every now and then.

The sport needs supporters to be deeply embedded and knowledgeable, noisy and resilient, through good times and bad. That takes generations to develop. Soccer has generations-deep commitment and knowledge of their sport, we can learn from that aspect of soccer at least.