Russ having been largely unimpressed by much of your shyte recently I have to say that barring a factual inaccuracy I agree almost entirely.Russ wrote:You seem to be the only one hankering for him to be firedDublin4 wrote:What good did Joe do Irish rugby?
None.
OK, he won two Six Nations back to back. OK, he almost beat NZ at the Aviva for the first time only to be foiled at the finish. OK, his team beat the Springboks in SA, a first for Irish rugby. OK we have more players challenging for selection than normal. OK, all his players say they love his coaching and he kept Luke Marshall in the squad as 24th man right through the last 6N to have him tuned in.
But apart from these not insubstantial facts, just what has he done to deserve to keep his job?
Joe won 2 6Nations titles when both england and france were the opposite kf Sunni
However he did win them
Joe then had the worst 6Nations since the Kiddinya era as he was unable to evolve his team
He then selected the same out of form players to tour South Africa
They then heard the public outcry and may have faked sick
Following that Joe picked on the provinces strengths
1. A Leinster pack
2. An Ulster backline
3. Supplemented by some fresh Connacht blood (Cronin and Dillane particularly)
4. He has the Lions scrumhalf
Needless to say Joe did not put himself in this position but fell into this position purely by accident
Then let's go back to the NZ game where we "nearly" won (nearly is not winning and we should never celebraye failure)
He selected Bobbo who kicked the ball away. Wee Mads who missed the final tackle. Daverage who helped Wee Mads miss the final tackle
Now consider Australia in the same series. Whereby those same players cost us the game with their mindless play
Now consider Argentina this year. Where Joe selected players who could not cope with the pace out wide and out the entire blame on injury to one player, when actually the same mentioned players above lost us that game too
Like wales Ireland usually have a strong 1st XV and people said our SID was weak.
This weekend proved that infact our SID is strong but were just never trusted because they couldn't play the kicking system that Daverage Look ma Bobbo and Wee Mads could
Here's to a proper rugby future for Ireland. Whether with Joe or without we now know that some players are good enough and some are bench standard at best
It was the sainted Janny Sexton who missed the straightforward late penalty that would have won the game.
As a related point the game was the last acceptable game Bob played in green.