Re: Six Nations 18/19
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2019 10:16 am
Tbh even though the selections of individual players were a problem in this match / tournament, and few players showed up, it wasn’t the main problem - the main problem was Schmidt and his coaches. He came off the back of an amazing year, and just seems to have been incredibly complacent - key half-backs unfit and out of form? Stick them out there, sure we just beat the all blacks.. England reading our gameplan like a book and monstering us? Let’s stick with it - sure we’ve only lost 3 of our last 25...
It’s really weird reading about his post-match interviews recently - he’s either in full-on bunker mentality, in denial about what’s happening - or else he has basically given up, knowing he is packing it in soon, and he doesn’t have the hunger any more. No signs of introspection or acknowledgment that he’s done nothing wrong - apparently after the Wales game the list of culprits contained the weather, a mysterious ‘bug’, the ref, the Irish press for leaking / guessing the team a day early, but not him... and following it on Twitter, he said ‘Ireland will definitely be competitive at the WC’. oh well, if it’s ‘definite’ I guess that’s fine then...
Ireland are now a bit like France - things have gone horribly pear shaped, but it’s too late to do anything but cross fingers and hope.. it’s a weird one - he was always supposed be be a brilliant technical coach, ruthless on the details, ruthless on small errors - I just fear that the fight has gone out of him, and you have to wonder if that’s going to turn around..
The fight certainly went out of the team after about 5 mins. I think the only players to put a half-decent performance in were Ryan and Conan when he came in. That has to be SOB’s last international. Stander was strong against France, but he was nowhere on Sat, and POM was AWOL - I’m surprised that Ruddock hasn’t got starts given his form for Leinster. Half-backs less said the better, and Aki is one of my favourite players, but he’s been really off-colour, and again it’s not like there aren’t options (McCloskey, C Farrell, T Farrell as well as Scannell all playing well)
It’s really weird reading about his post-match interviews recently - he’s either in full-on bunker mentality, in denial about what’s happening - or else he has basically given up, knowing he is packing it in soon, and he doesn’t have the hunger any more. No signs of introspection or acknowledgment that he’s done nothing wrong - apparently after the Wales game the list of culprits contained the weather, a mysterious ‘bug’, the ref, the Irish press for leaking / guessing the team a day early, but not him... and following it on Twitter, he said ‘Ireland will definitely be competitive at the WC’. oh well, if it’s ‘definite’ I guess that’s fine then...
Ireland are now a bit like France - things have gone horribly pear shaped, but it’s too late to do anything but cross fingers and hope.. it’s a weird one - he was always supposed be be a brilliant technical coach, ruthless on the details, ruthless on small errors - I just fear that the fight has gone out of him, and you have to wonder if that’s going to turn around..
The fight certainly went out of the team after about 5 mins. I think the only players to put a half-decent performance in were Ryan and Conan when he came in. That has to be SOB’s last international. Stander was strong against France, but he was nowhere on Sat, and POM was AWOL - I’m surprised that Ruddock hasn’t got starts given his form for Leinster. Half-backs less said the better, and Aki is one of my favourite players, but he’s been really off-colour, and again it’s not like there aren’t options (McCloskey, C Farrell, T Farrell as well as Scannell all playing well)