Ireland Pool 2019 RWC

[FLIP]

We were pretty atrocious again.

Russia offered nothing and never really looked like doing much but we made so, so many errors.

Ruddock is a man who to me could have a big impact for us. Kilcoyne again showed his excellent form too.
Sexton looked energised when he was on too and thought Luke had a good game.

Killer whale was shite at his core job. The all Munster front row with scrummage lock Kleyn got marched around by a scrum Jersey and Connacht minced.

[jimbobjoe]

There's a real bang of '07 about this tournament

Was expecting this comment! While far from great it's not exactly scraping a 14-10 win against a second string Georgia or shipping 17 points vs Namibia. It's nowhere near 2007.

[Dave Cahill]

There's a real bang of '07 about this tournament

Was expecting this comment! While far from great it's not exactly scraping a 14-10 win against a second string Georgia or shipping 17 points vs Namibia. It's nowhere near 2007.

True, we beat all the tier two teams in our group in 2007

[tingman]

Methinks they need to get on the blower to Elvery's and place an order for a full set of grip gloves

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Methinks they need to get on the blower to Elvery's and place an order for a full set of grip gloves

I suspect they'll be having a firesale in a couple of weeks.

[jimbobjoe]

Beat Russia by more than our pool rivals. Job done and still on course for a QF. Not worth getting your y-fronts in a bunch.

[olaf the fat]

There's a real bang of '07 about this tournament

Was expecting this comment! While far from great it's not exactly scraping a 14-10 win against a second string Georgia or shipping 17 points vs Namibia. It's nowhere near 2007.

Nah, real whiff of the '07s alright.

We look out of ideas, options and time. Set piece struggles against Japan and Russia at this stage, they will be crushed by NZ / SA.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

The difference with 07 is that we looked good against Wales in the warm ups and against Scotland in the first game. I don't care how bad Scotland were, we still looked confident and fit. Eoin Reddan was on Second Captains after the Japan game and said that we're an inconsistent side now and I think that's fair, but no idea how we fix it over the next two weeks.

I thought we looked shattered late on against Japan and that's why we were so poor at getting into our shape, but it was nearly as bad today even though we actually had numbers to play off. So on Saturday we had no numbers to attack with, but today we had the players but were on our heels and often you could tell that the guys at first or second receiver just wanted the ball to bypass them. How many times did the receiver look surprised to get the ball and then have no choice but to carry off a standing start and then we'd be isolated/turned over/have very slow ball?

Carty takes a lot of the blame for that for me. It didn't really happen with Johnny on the pitch and think Carty needs to be much better at organising those around him. Aside from a couple of really nice kicks I thought Carty was poor tbh.

Ruddock the one real shining light in the pack. POM started brilliantly but then faded really badly. Doesn't that happen him every game now? Seems like he's not fit enough for more than 30 mins. I'd definitely start Rhys in the QF and hopefully POM would be a man possessed off the bench. Absolutely gutted for Jordi, fingers crossed it's not as bad it looked. Kleyn did do some good work tbf to him but by and large it seems like a big mistake to have brought him. I still think it was fair enough for Joe to leave Dev out if he just didn't think that he was fit enough, but this is the one game that Joe must have wanted Kleyn to get through a decent 80 minutes for us and he couldn't even manage that. Dillane (not sure about Roux's injury situation) was an option too.

The back play was often shocking. Bundee was very quiet apart from one or two runs, his handling was appalling. Kearney looked really unsure of himself at times and Earls was very mixed. There's no flow to our back play at all. Thought Luke went well and would hope that we won't be afraid to bring him on if Murray is playing poorly in the next couple of games.

Our restart work is very poor and I mentioned that even after the Scotland game. For me that's one big reason to bring Dev into the squad if Jordi has to go.

I'm not holding my breath but we can still turn this around if Robbie makes an impact, Johnny hits his straps, and we pick the guys who are the fittest and most confident. If Robbie shoots the lights out next week and Japan don't top the group then we might be feeling a lot better about ourselves and hopefully that translates into a big QF performance.

[Ruckedtobits]

Japan beat Ireland 19-12. Japan beat Russia 30-10 ( 4 tries to one), at home and in front of supportive crowd. Ireland beat Russia 35-0 (five tries to nil) in high humidity and against 14 men for 20 minutes.

Ireland had only one player who regularly caught the high Russian kicks. Ireland knocked on more than 10 balls in attack in opposition 22 mtr area. Irish breakdown ball was consistently slow to our mid-field carriers. Irish players in space looked dangerous but Irish support play had little continuity. Irish chip kicks to mid-field were our most successful attacking play.

Great result, very patchy performance.

Work-ons:
> train more on support play;
> don't throw line-outs beyond No 6;
> get lower in our mauls;
> move ball immediately from back of our scrums;
> move ball away quickly from point of line-breaks.

Above all, if teams push up hard on us, as everyone now does, keep using that little chip kick or grubber. Get Josh in mid-field as well to be a chaser -he's quick. We play narrow because teams try to cut off the wide passes. I don't care if we need four /five chips to get opponents to cover their backfield. Keep doing it, so long as we sweep it wide when they do eventually drop a winger back to cover the chips.

After that, pray for some luck and less knock-ons.

[Edna Kenny]

When Sexton has been on the pitch, we have scored a try every 13.86 minutes.
When he hasn't we have scored a try every 35.75 minutes

[Oldschool]

or Toner comes in and Beirne covers 6 and 8

Won't happen but the guys to bring in is D. Ryan or Deegan.
Whoever Joe brings in is a punt.
JOD come on lads, Deegan is in another league and a real ball playing No 8. We need an out and out 8.
TOD is injury prone and I personally have had enough of the number of unfit players we brought to Japan.
Sexton is injured again. Groin or something high up.
Carberry again, so it has to be Byrne but if Cooney was called up it wouldn't be the worst call because again every time Murray plays you don't know what to expect.

[wixfjord]

Possible team for Samoa?

Kilcoyne, Best, Porter, Hendo, Kleyn, Beirne, VDF, Rhys, Murray, Carbery, Stockdale, Henshaw, Farrell, Earls, Larmour

Healy, Cronin, Furlong, Ryan, Stander, McGrath, Sexton, RK

Dependent on injuries TOD might be an option or whoever they bring in for Jordi.

[johng]

Balls to the wall now. Resting no one for the plane home. Best team out.

[wixfjord]

Balls to the wall now. Resting no one for the plane home. Best team out.

You think?

6 days to a QF might mean we play it a bit more safe.

[dropkick]

Didn't get to see the game yet but it sounds bad from reading the comments.


I watch the first half of Samoa v Scotland the other day which took place in the same stadium and neither team could string 2 passes together. The ball was even squirting out of their hands when in possession. It looked like they were holding a big bar of soap. It looked worse than playing in rain.


Samoa like Russia got 0 points. You'd expect these teams to put some points on the board usually, especially Samoa.


That's not to say we would have been great in different conditions. The team is not looking great but the quarter final is all that matters now. We'll go into it as massive underdogs and all the pressure will be on the opposition which is something not to be underestimated. Get a good start in that game and it could be the spark the team needs.


Also the weather will start to cool a bit from now on and the players are acclimatising.

[blockhead]

Based on the evidence so far we will have our work cut out to beat Samoa. It has to be the best we've got or we're fupped. Even then it will be a very close run thing.
Ireland have no energy, no imagination, no plan apart from pass to the next guy and no confidence.
We played 17mins a man up against Russia and couldn't get over the line, we couldn't even get the ball off them. Russia, a team that finished behind the mighty Spain, Georgia and Romania in qualifying. Connacht beat this lot in their own backyard!

[johng]

When Sexton has been on the pitch, we have scored a try every 13.86 minutes.
When he hasn't we have scored a try every 35.75 minutes

Johnny sex needs to play until we get a bp. We need one to guarantee qualification. Unless Japan slip up v Samoa which looks severely unlikely

Balls to the wall now. Resting no one for the plane home. Best team out.

You think?

6 days to a QF might mean we play it a bit more safe.

[wixfjord]

Based on the evidence so far we will have our work cut out to beat Samoa. It has to be the best we've got or we're fupped. Even then it will be a very close run thing.
Ireland have no energy, no imagination, no plan apart from pass to the next guy and no confidence.
We played 17mins a man up against Russia and couldn't get over the line, we couldn't even get the ball off them. Russia, a team that finished behind the mighty Spain, Georgia and Romania in qualifying. Connacht beat this lot in their own backyard!

Ah now that's hamming things up a lot.

We won't need 'the best we've got' to beat Samoa.

They're coming off a 34-0 loss to Scotland who we beat comfortably and are down two of their starters with another game against Japan to come. They're unfit and with serious discipline problems.

[FLIP]

Didn't get to see the game yet but it sounds bad from reading the comments.


I watch the first half of Samoa v Scotland the other day which took place in the same stadium and neither team could string 2 passes together. The ball was even squirting out of their hands when in possession. It looked like they were holding a big bar of soap. It looked worse than playing in rain.


Samoa like Russia got 0 points. You'd expect these teams to put some points on the board usually, especially Samoa.


That's not to say we would have been great in different conditions. The team is not looking great but the quarter final is all that matters now. We'll go into it as massive underdogs and all the pressure will be on the opposition which is something not to be underestimated. Get a good start in that game and it could be the spark the team needs.


Also the weather will start to cool a bit from now on and the players are acclimatising.

It was significantly cooler in the stadium than the Scotland match, having been at both.

[ronk]

The difference with 07 is that we looked good against Wales in the warm ups and against Scotland in the first game. I don't care how bad Scotland were, we still looked confident and fit. Eoin Reddan was on Second Captains after the Japan game and said that we're an inconsistent side now and I think that's fair, but no idea how we fix it over the next two weeks.

In 07 we got our conditioning and preparation badly wrong. It feels like it here too.

Some things are going well but we are losing shape really easily. Some of the stuff is worrying.

This time around we have an easier group so we might muddle through and we might save a big performance for a QF.