Ireland v. Italy Live

[pythagoras]

I'm not going to descend to your level fartpants.
Suffice to say that you're clearly suffering from amnesia and can't remember when Rory couldn't hit the proverbial barn door with his throw ins

[BaggyTrousers]

I'm not going to descend to your level fartpants.
Suffice to say that you're clearly suffering from amnesia and can't remember when Rory couldn't hit the proverbial barn door with his throw ins

You are becoming more & more of an irritating muppet PiArse. You have gone from a tolerably OK poster to a mindless WUM very very quickly.

One question: which is the best lineout in the 6Ns this season?

Since you are cerebrally challenged I'll give you the answer for nothing, it's the one Rory Best throws into.

Now lets clear this up, if you ever got anywhere near my level, you would have improved beyond all recognition. Good luck with that.

[TMHG]

Baggy, I think 6'10'' Devin Toner has something to do with how good the lineout is this year as well as Paul O'Connell calling it has been a great boost. Flannery threw bullets. I haven't seen anyone remotely as good as his, ever.

[TMHG]

It is being insinuated.

Yes you are correct. Thanks Jackie. Only thing I would say is that in the village of idiots Sewa is vying for first place. If it was insinuated by anybody with even a modicum of credibility it would be an awful lot worse. Morons can't help being morons and ultra WUMs don't seem to be able to stop being that also. That said I am not shrugging this off just because the author is a well known clown.

While I wouldn't agree Schmidt is racist, Zebo's laid back attitude, etc which probably comes from his caribbean heritage comes in for a fair bit of criticism.

For someone who apparently can look disinterested, he sure gets to be in the right place at the right time. You claim that he looked disinterested in the Scarlets game, his stats were up there. i.e., 2 clean breaks, 3 defenders beaten, 2 offloads and 4 tackles. I recall some of the media commenting about his try against Wales in the Millenium stadium (BOD wonder pass), they said he was chatting to the linesman at the time and just went bang, try scored. His reflexes are obviously very good.

[pythagoras]

Baggy, I think 6'10'' Devin Toner has something to do with how good the lineout is this year as well as Paul O'Connell calling it has been a great boost. Flannery threw bullets. I haven't seen anyone remotely as good as his, ever.

an example of Jerry's accuracy

[Snipe Watson]

Toner has been a big factor this season and with hindsight, Joe was right to pick him. POC goes without saying.
Rory’s throwing can be pressured when the whole lineout as a unit is misfiring and he is asked to throw into a very narrow channel that pushes the boundaries of being squint. Jim Hamilton did a number on him in the 6N last year, but not this season when he unit was firing on all cylinders.
Is Rory’s throwing as good as Flannery’s was? No.
Is the rest of Rory’s game better than Flannery’s was? Yes.
In final analysis there was never a lot in it, you pays your money and takes your choice.
Today Rory is by a long way the best hooker in Ireland. Cronin is faster, but that’s it.

[TMHG]

I would agree there Snipe. Toner's presence guarantees secure ball and POC really knows how to mix up the calls as well. Delighted for Rory it is going so well - he was thrown to the Lions on the Lions by Gatland, so its great to see him in such great form now. If Duncan Casey continues his really impressive form, he should surpass Cronin fairly soon.

[BaggyTrousers]

Baggy, I think 6'10'' Devin Toner has something to do with how good the lineout is this year as well as Paul O'Connell calling it has been a great boost. Flannery threw bullets. I haven't seen anyone remotely as good as his, ever.

TMHG, there is absolutely no doubt that having a giant helps, however lets be honest, when a lineout fails, who takes the flak whether it's his faulty or not? Yip the hooker, so when it's going well can you really try to justify not giving him the praise?

Furthermore nobody wanted to give Rory any excuses when he hasn't had POC running the lineout for much of the last 3 years so fairs fair, if he takes the flak, he gets the kudos. Surely I'm not alone in seeing that as reasonable?

More importantly, only an idiot like PiArse judges a hooker purely on throwing to lineouts to the exclusion of all else. That has been your sole focus too, but I'm giving you a clean bill of health unless you wish to go for chube status.

I had great time for Fla as a very good all round hooker & was never enraged to see him selected & yes probably a better chucker than Rory but as Snipe says, every other part of the game I'd take Rory every time.

I never worry where players are from, if they are doing the job & I do, unlike many of my Ulster brethern, see that regular combinations whether from Munster in the past or Leinster now, do make sense if there isn't too much between the players so it wasn't unreasonable that Fla got the gig often when Marcus & Bull were the props. Now there is no such question, Rory is a country mile better than the rest.

Not pertinent to this issue but whilst its in my head, Gordon D'Arcy, not a favourite on this board, has had a superb 6Ns. He has had the tactical nous, the experience & the strength that when Ireland have run up blind alleys as they have, he has been good enough to buy time for the pack to get to the breakdown & win the ball. Overlooked generally, but very valuable.

[rumncoke]

Schmidt like most Coaches wants to achieve 100% ball retention on their own set piece thus when it comes to scrum time a prop who can scrum will always be picked before a better loose forward the same goes for the line out which is why Toner will be one of the first names on the sheet and to some extent why Hartley got the nod before Best because he is a destructive scrummager rather than a hooker


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[bazzaj]

and to some extent why Hartley got the nod before Best because he is a destructive scrummager rather than a hooker


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I always was slightly mistified as to why Best got the nod over Flan back in the day but was reliabley informed that Rory was/is a scrumagging hooker and Munsters therefore Irelands scrum at the time was their achillies.
For all Flans destructive ability and lineout work it was deemed more vital to the cause that we could hold our own scrum ball.

Just to pick up on other points, to me POM and Toner have been our real finds of the season and really stepped up to the plate which has been massive to us.
I dont think POMs comparison with Ferris or SOB is particularly fair as they are different type of players with differing strengths and weaknesses.
I personally would love to see a back row with all 3 of them as I think it would be a great balance of Munster doggedness with the power and explosiveness that the other two provide.

[OneMore]

Just to pick up on other points, to me POM and Toner have been our real finds of the season and really stepped up to the plate which has been massive to us.

Seriously, POM one of the finds of the season? If you've only found POM this season you've clearly not been doing much looking.

Imagine Ulster's captain had been branded a 'find of the season' by someone on MF. Jeez, you'd think he was some sort of bit-part player on the Munster academy.

Welcome to three years ago.

[Neil F]

OM; whilst I can see the point you make, O'Mahony's performance level this season is thoroughly different to those he put in during the last 6 Nations. The reaction to his performances from some posters on this forum was, entirely, over-the-top but I think even the most generous would have struggled to say that O'Mahony's performances last season were much above average. His performances this season are significantly better and, in my opinion at least, he's gone from looking like a place-holder to a serious international option. In a certain regard, I think that justifies the suggestion that, this season, he as been a "find".

It shouldn't surprise anyone who has watched Munster frequently, mind; the difference O'Mahony makes to their backrow tends to be most noticeable when he is absent. He has managed to lift those provincial performances into the international arena this 6 Nations. I'm not convinced he'd managed that at any stage before this tournament; that said, he is a young guy, so it's probably not surprising that it took him some time to really segue into the international game.

Frankly, it's kind of terrifying, in the best way possible, to imagine a situation in which two of Ferris, Heaslip, Henderson, Henry, O'Brien, O'Mahony are left out of an Ireland 23!

[bazzaj]

Just to pick up on other points, to me POM and Toner have been our real finds of the season and really stepped up to the plate which has been massive to us.

Seriously, POM one of the finds of the season? If you've only found POM this season you've clearly not been doing much looking.

Imagine Ulster's captain had been branded a 'find of the season' by someone on MF. Jeez, you'd think he was some sort of bit-part player on the Munster academy.

Welcome to three years ago.

To add to what Neil said, I descibed Toner and POM as finds of the season in terms of their establishing themselves on the international scene and some.
To illustate my point if you have the time trawl through some of the stuff written on here about them before this season when it was the general consensus that they were not fit for international purpose.
In particular after last years England game POM had a stat of one tackle made in the game and was subsequently and perhaps justifiably pilliored on here for that.
There is little argument he is a different looking animal now.
Sorry for the confusion.

[OneMore]

I think the difference is somewhere between 'He didn't have a good 6 Nations last year' and 'He was a terrible player last year who should never have been selected for the international side'.

He's not a 'find' this year by any stretch.

If you limit the perspective to purely international rugby, then of course it's unsurprising that some people just assume someone who's had a bad game to be crap and not worthy of selection in the first instance, but that's not how it works.

Toner's a different kettle of fish. At the risk of seeming stubborn, I'm still not convinced by him. I think he has been better in this year's 6 Nations than he has previously been internationally, but I also think he's improved over what he usually brings provincially. I don't believe he's any better than Dan Tuohy would be if Tuohy had the same level of international exposure. Or Henderson for that matter.

I think there's a difference between someone being 'found' this season, and someone playing better this season. O'Mahony is in the latter bracket for me.

[Neil F]

I fear we may get into a semantic argument here but I don't buy the argument that O'Mahony simply had a poor tournament in last year's 6 Nations.He barely featured the year before but was also relatively anonymous. At no stage have I ever felt O'Mahony was a poor player but until this 6 Nations, I also felt he may be destined to be one of those players, like Geordan Murphy or Bob Casey, who looks like a world-beater in a club jersey but who might never make the step to being a major international player. This season, he has proved that notion wrong and I hope he continues to do so. In this regard, his performances this year, in my opinion, would suggest he is a "find", at least for Ireland. As per my first post, I would never doubt what he's offered Munster in the last few seasons.