The UAFC

My God, France were awful and were outplayed just about everywhere. International centres? I’d sooner have Stu and Hume? 2nd row? Sooner have had Ulster’s. Totally embarrassing defence.

Irish lineout performed brilliantly, neutralising fr kicking game. Had it gone badly with a scrum under pressure we could’ve been pulled into a slow set piece fr arm wrestle. We simply kept the ball or kicked in field, lowes boot was superb tonight.
We simply ran them around and kept the fr crowd out of it, and put miles into a big fr pack.
First scrum after 20mins shows how Crisp ire handling is.
The d was huge. Aki had danty in his pocket, and him and McCarthy absolutely bossed the gainline. Crowley despite the occasional mistake was excellent as was his kicks when it Really mattered. Keenan made a couple of huge vital hits from 15.

Fr strategy is conservative and off v ire. They need a more mobile pack and keep the ball more.
We simply starved them of momentum.
Fr will get better they missed flamet and jelonch badly in the pack.

Porters never been a great scrummager, but that fr pack was huge….we did just enough.
I’d consider a sabbatical for furlong with sa and lions over next 18mths pencilled in, heavy mileage is catching up with him. Good sign both went off after 65.

Watching that game, you just want to head up to Ravenhill and sack all the coaches.

Willemse red a nonsense under current laws. We're just
Killing the game- nothing malicious, purely offensive tackling. 20 years ago with these laws, each team would finish with 5 outside backs only.

Without their scrum half France lacked any flair and when the second row went off their morale hit zero only some friendly refereeing gave France the opportunity to score a couple of trys.

Thus the match is not a basis for assessing the Irish performance or future performances .

CI the major problem for modern rugby is the manner in which it is played .Firstly Players run at tacklers with out the necessity of trying to hand off but instead using their forearms shoulders and bodies to break a tackle. Secondly the style of play favours bigger and heavier players thus and contact above shoulder height can have serious consequences to both parties .

Like wise the laws of the game punish the tackler rather than the ball carrier who has many more options than to enforce a tackle
he can pass or kick or try to run round or even attempt a hand off . A tackler has only the one option the idea he can always tackle low is a figment of somebodies imagination.

Basically the problem lies in the Idea that one decision fits every situation ie its the tacklers fault --9 times out of 10 contact is the decision of ball carrier the 10th is the great man and ball hit by a tackler where the would be carrier is dead meat in waiting .

Lowes kicking actually was not superb he was lucky that the French return of non touch kicks was extremely poor . If you are kicking for touch make touch but kicking long without close followup can frequently be extremely dangerous since it gives away possession and if the return is fast you can be defending inside your own 22 very quickly.

CIMANFOREVER wrote:Willemse red a nonsense under current laws. We're just
Killing the game- nothing malicious, purely offensive tackling. 20 years ago with these laws, each team would finish with 5 outside backs only.

It was two yellows anyway before the red was agreed. The game has no future without trying to reduce head injuries. Many of those guys from 20 years might experience early onset neurological issues. Even with the players being not as massive as now. I think some of these guys are too big they naturally want to remain upright. Willemse was an assisting tackler as well. It was so needless. He like the rest of the french side was undisciplined and careless.

They didn't show it so many times, but I thought his 2nd offence should only have been a yellow.
But he really needs to modernise his game.

Cap'n Grumpy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 11:10 pm

jean valjean wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 10:24 pm Whitehouse joke decision.

agreed.

I had wondered what the first two letters of **itehouse's name were.

What was your problem with him in this case?

BR wrote:

Cap'n Grumpy wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 11:10 pm

jean valjean wrote: ↑Fri Feb 02, 2024 10:24 pm Whitehouse joke decision.

agreed.

I had wondered what the first two letters of **itehouse's name were.

What was your problem with him in this case?

The try that the french were awarded was a classic case of minor errors in communication being compounded by a flustered TMO. The bulk of the blame lay with the AR who believed he saw a grounding, yet Whitehouse failed to take the time to overrule. The player reached out with the ball in one hand which was lost forward short of the line. The call to penalise crowley was also a case of falling for the French TV director and crowd pressure.

CIMANFOREVER wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 11:47 am Willemse red a nonsense under current laws. We're just
Killing the game- nothing malicious, purely offensive tackling. 20 years ago with these laws, each team would finish with 5 outside backs only.

Change is needed, way too many yellows and reds in the game, it is ruining it as a contest.

I've two suggestions, and they might be mutually exclusive. The first is that we need to reduce the size of players, the obvious solution to that is making players have to run more i.e. have less substitutes.

2nd suggestion, and I haven't thought it through, if a player is getting a yellow for head contact or dangerous play, rather than 10 minutes in the sin bin dictate that the player must be substituted. It keeps it 15 v 15 so still a proper contest.

I do agree we need to take head contact out of the game as much as possible, it is typically the tackler at fault there are a lot of instances now where players run with their upper body horizontal to the ground, leading with their head. That is just as dangerous as anything a defensive player might do, never mind often leading with arms or elbows.

BR wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 2:04 pm They didn't show it so many times, but I thought his 2nd offence should only have been a yellow.
But he really needs to modernise his game.

Good chance that it may be downgraded on appeal. Didn't affect the game as he was gone anyway and you get the feeling that he was being additionally penalised for serial offending on the night.

big mervyn wrote:

BR wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 2:04 pm They didn't show it so many times, but I thought his 2nd offence should only have been a yellow.
But he really needs to modernise his game.

Good chance that it may be downgraded on appeal. Didn't affect the game as he was gone anyway and you get the feeling that he was being additionally penalised for serial offending on the night.

Can a yellow be appealed or downgraded?

Sir Ivor wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 9:07 am My God, France were awful and were outplayed just about everywhere. International centres? I’d sooner have Stu and Hume? 2nd row? Sooner have had Ulster’s. Totally embarrassing defence.

Might be a “top class” d fence coach becoming available!!

jean valjean wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 4:04 pm

big mervyn wrote:

BR wrote: ↑Sat Feb 03, 2024 2:04 pm They didn't show it so many times, but I thought his 2nd offence should only have been a yellow.
But he really needs to modernise his game.

Good chance that it may be downgraded on appeal. Didn't affect the game as he was gone anyway and you get the feeling that he was being additionally penalised for serial offending on the night.

Can a yellow be appealed or downgraded?

Not that I am aware, the offence needs to be considered a sending off level offence (open to correction of course).