Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

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againstthehead
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Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by againstthehead »

Positives
- Lineout absolutely outstanding
- Scrum very good indeed
- Backrow were pretty decent but the french backrow were another level today
- kicking game was very good in the first half - some great chasing and put the french catcher under all sorts of pressure.
- good intensity for the first 40 mins - matched france well but the yellow card was pivotal
- Ferris didn't pick up any further injuries (I think).

Negatives
- Flannery was an absolute disgrace. Clear red card. Cynical at best, but more like blatant thuggery to me.
- Earls: lightweight: was getting thrown about like a rag doll.
- Blown off the park in the second half. Yes, France were awsome but Ireland just couldn't match the intensity. Smashed back in the tackle and hammered at the breakdown in the second half.
- No plan B. Once the territorial game is no longer an option, Ireland have no plan B.

No surprise that we got beat but the manner of the defeat surprised me. Totally blown apart in the second half. France were awsome in all areas (apart from the lineout) and on this performance will walk the grand slam. Ireland will struggle against Scotland and Wales but should win and will probably lose in england.

Hard to know where to go from here - certainly Sexton deserves a chance in the upcoming home games. I wouldn't say ROG was particuarly bad today but he doesn't exactly get the backline firing. Sexton should certainly have been brought on earlier today.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by Ulster throw in »

ROG - Crap. Needs dropped.
Flannery - Poor. Needs dropped.
Kearney - Off form we need a possible replacement.
Earls - Totally out of his depth!
Court - Not up to this level.
Hayes - Has had his day needs to consider retiring from international rugby.
O'Leary - Poor performance should have been subbed earlier.

Trimble - Should have played.
Sexton - Should have started.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by Jackie Brown »

Thought Court showed up well myself, certainly for a guy playing out of position.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by bogboy »

Tol was the weak link to-day and the service to RoG was bad -- slow and all over the place

Earls was aok until he got a touch of the rushes ie his inexperience got the better of him

The Irish back-line suffered defensively because D Wallace is not quite as fast as he was a couple of years ago and to be honest he never was a tackling 7 more a ball winner/carrier than tackler and Ireland played a rush defence instead of the normal drift defence due to the nature of the French back-line

While Cullen is a fine line out jumper he is a lightweight in the loose who plays rucks by going over he doesn't put any weight into the ruck.

Court didn't look happy when he replaced Healy but looked more at home when he replaced Hayes .

Healy was a mite unfortunate to receive a yellow for what was really only a fractional premature tackle whereas Flannery was fortunate Healy was already binned but it should have been a Red but the ref had already blown the whistle for a prior infringement

ireland started the game well but once France got a clear ( two score lead ) lead then playing the chasing game the errors mounted quickly


depending on Kearney's injury Earls will be at full back Trimble on the wing
Redden to start and Boss on the bench please
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by againstthehead »

In fairness ireland's pack didn;t supply TOL with much ball and any ball he did get was slow or backwards. Earls was very lightweight, getting smashed in almost every tackle (both with and without the ball...)

Healy was a blatant yellow. French had just stormed from their own half and were within striking distance with quick ball. But yes, I'd agree with a red for flan.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by Jackie Brown »

Kearney, knocked on from the kick off but improved as the game progressed until he had to leave the field. Think he's injured as he was sitting with crutches.
Bowe put himself about but again got little ball. Came in field off his wing for the Poitrenaud try.
BOD, went missing, completely, all this talk of waltzing around BIg bastereud, he was taught a lesson by the youngster today.
D'Arcy, best back today looked dangerous on the ball but suffered with the Kearney injury as he ended up getting moved around the backline.
Earls, I hope for Kidney's sake that Trimble was injured. How did this guy tour with the Lions? Needs a few more years.
ROG, O dear, Trinh-Duc made him look like a 12yr old. I've seen better defensive displays from Humph Jnr this year.
TOL, after a performance like this you wonder why Kidney is constantly over looking Boss.

Healy, apart from the yellow card it's hard to remember anything he did!
Flannery, Good darts and good carries in the first 20mins, then came the kick... won't see him again this six nations.
Hayes, What you see is what you get
Cullen, Good in the lineout but he doesn't seem to have th bulk or graft in the loose.
POC, Excellant in the lineout, solid in the loose but he has to be an Irish talisman, which he wasn't today.
Ferris, don't think he was match fit, Gusher said on Radio Ulster he hadn't even taken part in the Captain's run.
Wallace, Alot of noticeable handling errors from the big man. He took his try well tho.
Heaslip, went missing against Hairydonkey.


Court, thought he held up v well at tight head. Maybe an option against a young english front row at Twickenham
Best, should start in 2 weeks due to Fla's suspension
Ryan, we miss O'Callaghan, I'd mentally switched up in the last 20mins in all honesty.
Reddan, shouldn't be in the 22 ahead of Bossy, but didn't seem to add anything when he came on
Sexton, to little to late
Wallace, he didn't seem to know where he was meant to be playing! Sometimes on the wing, sometimes in the center, got no ball and no space.

I would consider for England dropping ROG completely with Sexton starting and Wallace covering 10 and 12 from the Bench. Am I crazy?
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by Snipe Watson »

France were superb. Ireland were not allowed to play.
All the rest, except Healy and Flannery, is just finger pointing.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by ArticDonkey »

+
I thought Kearney played much better, caught his own Garry Owen and kicked much better.
Lineout was pretty much flawless
Court did really well in the scrum, except the last one
Ferris put in some good hits, did well for the try.
Darcy had good breaks, unlucky not to score

-
TOL was tripe his passing was consistly too high causing rog to reach up to gather allowing France's rush defence to consume everything.
Rog was pish too and had no answer to France's defence, Sexton needs ago.
Flannery...fool
Didn't take points when we got to their line...
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by bkok »

earls had a shocker. he seems a real confidence performer so hopefully this hasnt set him back too much. still, seems a strange decision to start him in paris, especially with trimble playing so well at the mo.

kearney appears to be believing his own press a bit at the mo but hopefully injury not too bad as id rather have him back there than dempsey, earls or whoever.

pack did ok.they certainly held up better than scotland did last week. lineout excellent though france adjusted well as game went on.

I just dont get o'leary. his passing as average, box kicking clueless at times, he was infuriatingly slow getting to the rucks today and i rarely see him offer any consistent running threat. We are biased with issac but when hes on form as he is at the moment hes much more dimensional. I prefer reddan anyday to o'leary as well.

agree with some of the other posts that there doesnt seem to be a plan b. kidneys style brought us our grand slam and we love him for that. but when the game plan doesnt work there is even less evidence that we can change than with EOS. And it was strange that we couldnt cope with the blitz defence at all. we knew it was coming and its not as if all these players arent used to that type of defense being thrown at them. Though credit to france as there tackling was fantastic and they were a lot less porous than last week
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by Snipe Watson »

Other than Flannery being a total moron. We were beaten by a totally class act who played superbly in every aspect except for the the first few lineouts. Ireland were not allowed to play by a team who approached the game as a championship decider.
we were beaten in the scrum and at the breakdown. The rush defence gave us no time and they came up straight; no single players rushing up and leaving gaps like they did last week. It was as good a performance as I have seen from a team in a long time, they would have beaten anybody.
Sometimes you just have to give credit where it is due rather that pointing fingers at players who were outplayed away from home by the pre-tournament favourites.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by againstthehead »

I too thought France were brilliant but our defence was unusally suspect today. Time and time again the french carved us up. I think the management need to take some blame for yesturday's performance as well.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by scrum5 »

Negatives.. No Grand Slam this year......

Positives.. Still in with a chance of the Triple Crown...Seen nothing in Wales and England to fear and with the injuries the Scotland squad are picking up we should beat them....All the best to Thom Evans after his serious neck injury :salut:

As has already been said France were awesome yesterday and any team would have struggled against them, need to find a replacement for John Hayes and David Wallace ASAP and start to play them can't understand for the life of me how Leinster can sign Mike Ross and then make him 3rd choice TH behind 2 NIQ's...Ireland's best player by far was Darcy until moved to the wing, POC had another good game but the rest for whatever reason weren't at it. As for Fla lucky to stay on the pitch, linesman give the call that Flannery didn't use his arms in the tackle...bit of an understatement in that, like Fla as a player but would expect a hefty ban for that one...

Stevie Ferris lasted the 80 minutes and considering that Wally and Heaslip spent most of the time out on the wings instead of hit rucks, did rather well :red:
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by RedKC »

Snipe Watson wrote:Other than Flannery being a total moron. We were beaten by a totally class act who played superbly in every aspect except for the the first few lineouts. Ireland were not allowed to play by a team who approached the game as a championship decider.
we were beaten in the scrum and at the breakdown. The rush defence gave us no time and they came up straight; no single players rushing up and leaving gaps like they did last week. It was as good a performance as I have seen from a team in a long time, they would have beaten anybody.
Sometimes you just have to give credit where it is due rather that pointing fingers at players who were outplayed away from home by the pre-tournament favourites.
I agree with this to an extent. Even ireland at their very best would have struggled to compete with that french team. What has me annoyed (and probably the players too) is that they were nowhere near their best. So many basic errors it was unreal. Ireland's handling was terrible, and it wasn't due to the french blitz it was just poor passing and catching. They knocked on 2 restarts out of the 3 that came their way. Thats disgraceful in international rugby.

Flannery, hayes, o'leary, o'gara and earls(if kearney is fit which looks very unlikely) should be dropped for best, court, reddan, sexton and trimble.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by mikerob »

bogboy wrote:
Ireland played a rush defence instead of the normal drift defence due to the nature of the French back-line
Err... no they didn't. You should listen to what the defence coach Les Kiss says about Ireland's defence. When the line moves up, there are 3 different line speeds - fast, medium and slow, the defence may come up straight, drift or a shooter may come up to cut-off the outside attack. Generally the 3rd or 4th player out in the defensive line calls the pattern depending on the situation (usually BOD if the backs have lined up conventionally, but this can obviously change from play to play) "Rush vs drift" is a far too simplistic way of looking at it as it implies that Ireland only has 2 different ways to defend, and like a lot of teams, there are a set of different tactics depending on the situation with success depending on picking the right method for the situation, communication between players and doing things properly.
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Re: Positives & Negatives: Ireland V France

Post by Snipe Watson »

mikerob wrote: You should listen to what the defence coach Les Kiss says about Ireland's defence. When the line moves up, there are 3 different line speeds - fast, medium and slow, the defence may come up straight, drift or a shooter may come up to cut-off the outside attack. Generally the 3rd or 4th player out in the defensive line calls the pattern depending on the situation (usually BOD if the backs have lined up conventionally, but this can obviously change from play to play) "Rush vs drift" is a far too simplistic way of looking at it as it implies that Ireland only has 2 different ways to defend, and like a lot of teams, there are a set of different tactics depending on the situation with success depending on picking the right method for the situation, communication between players and doing things properly.
but Mike, they are all variations on one of two basic themes. either come up or drift across with a multitude of variations in terms of speed, dogleg, etc. All dependant on what is happening.
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