Ireland v France

Jackie Brown · Post by **Jackie Brown** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:16 am

Horgan certainly showed he'd had a lack of game time. This all boils down to Eddie being far too conservative again. Why when we play the French does he go for damage limitation. Neil Best, Flannery, Boss, to start Murphy to fullback and Trimble on the bench for the England game.

aarons · Post by **aarons** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:39 am

murphy should be dropped altogether. he was a disaster today.

kermit · Post by **kermit** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:29 am

You said it aarons! He's been 'off-form' for a couple of seasons now

Rooster · Post by **Rooster** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:41 am

jamesie wrote:
barney wrote:...only thanks to Skrela's dodgy boot.
...and a not insubstantial racket from the crowd as he kicked

Most of the noise was actually French supporters jamesie, there were a pile of them around where I was shouting.

AndyB · Post by **AndyB** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:49 am

aarons wrote:murphy should be dropped altogether. he was a disaster today.

Agree totally - can't remember the last time he had a good game for Ireland. Thanks but no thanks Murph.

goodaine · Post by **goodaine** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:51 am

Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan said it was "the bounce of the ball" which saw his side lose 20-17 to France.

According to the Beeb today............... what the hell is this man on

the original kimble · Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:34 am

AAAaaaggghhh!!!!

the original kimble · Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:36 am

AAAaaaggghhh!!!!

bogboy · Post by **bogboy** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 10:36 am

Compared to the other games this weekend it was a rugby feast between two well matched sides and the result hung by a thread till the last minute

Rory didn't miss his jumpers the French were jumping behind and knock the ball forward or back out of the jumpers hands in the first half and it went unpenalised

But Walsh is NZ ref and the All Blacks do it all the time and thus a shrewd move by the French and the Irish inability to control this area of play in the first half gave rise to a lot of French pressure

The French also played a rush defence (on side ?) on D'Arcy and RoG at any and every set piece which forced Boss to take on the their backrow on an number of occassions and created a hesitancy in the Irish backline

The French did it to the Italians the week before and exploited every dropped ball/ knock on and loose pass

Murphy was through for the try except for Walsh's early whistle

and then there was the shirt tug on the kick ahead which went unpunished

all in all I think Eos was right just not our day ( bounce of the ball)

But neither England or Italy are going to easy since both will tend to slow the game down with short yards forward plays to accommodate their oversized forwards

mikerob · Post by **mikerob** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 11:33 am

Jackie Brown wrote:Horgan certainly showed he'd had a lack of game time. This all boils down to Eddie being far too conservative again. Why when we play the French does he go for damage limitation. Neil Best, Flannery, Boss, to start Murphy to fullback and Trimble on the bench for the England game.

It does seem to be that way doesn't it? Horgan can off-load but he isn't a distributor and D'Arcy was well lined-up by the time the ball ever got to him.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but I reckon this is where EOS got it all wrong. Even against the French rush defence, I'd still think D'Arcy would have made breaks at his familiar i/c position and would have been a far better distributor of the ball to give Trimble at o/c a chance of outside breaks or beating the oncoming defense. Horgan should have reverted to his familiar spot on the wing instead of Murphy.

R Best/Flannery and N Best/Easterby are more marginal calls.

jamesie · Post by **jamesie** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 12:15 pm

can't take the guttedness... amazing how my otherwise apathetic work colleagues have found so much time to talk about rugby today

...will bite the next fecker that does it

bog, fair comment about the french being well up in defence but it was hairs breadth whether it was offside or not much of the time... to their credit they played it well

...and walsh was never going to ping them for it... we were out thought yesterday if not out muscled.

as tok says:

AAAaaaggghhh!!!!

AndyB · Post by **AndyB** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:43 pm

Thought Easterby was anonymous in the first half. I forgot he was playing until he gave a penalty away.

sciggles · Post by **sciggles** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 1:53 pm

I'm hearing a lot of ppl commenting on Boss's style, and how stringer would have had 3 more penaltys taken, I find myself having to point out that when Issac saw there was nothing on he had the confidence to take the ball himself and allow the back to re-organise (well, as much as they ever were), Stringer wouldn't have managed that. Also saying we could've had another 9 points is a moot point when we remember that france missed what, 2 penatlys and a drop?

Our downfall was switching off 2 mins too early, plain and simple, we could spend a lifetime with what could've been if Murphy had've been allowed to run that try etc, etc.

A hard lesson, I only hope thats its well learnt.

As for the Best/Flannery discussion, who was the player closest to stopping Ibanez? (ok he shoulda gone for legs rather than shirt, but no-one else was close)

And as was said it was nice to see N Best make an immediate impact on the field, i think he should be given a chance to soften up sicknote in 2 weeks.

Cap'n Grumpy · Post by **Cap'n Grumpy** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:00 pm

As I'm wont to demonstrate at Ulsterrrrrrr matches, one can never have too many r's to express one's self.

AAAaaarrrggghhh!!!!

the lone hydrangea · Post by **the lone hydrangea** » Mon Feb 12, 2007 2:15 pm

Unreal result. WTF happened?