Fibber Joe Must go

[Snipe Watson]

If that is the case how was it conceivably thought appropriate that he should train for several days before being pulled out of the tournament? and who thought it?

[mikerob]

I find it difficult to believe a medic would have sanctioned training if a scan revealed a fracture.

I can believe that the IRFU press people were playing silly buggers and not telling the full story about players to keep the opposition guessing about who might be lining up for Ireland as they did their preparation during the week. The whole thing about Sexton's fitness demonstrates that. I can also believe chinese whispers where something gets misinterpreted as it gets passed along.

[Russ]

I find it difficult to believe a medic would have sanctioned training if a scan revealed a fracture.

I can believe that the IRFU press people were playing silly buggers and not telling the full story about players to keep the opposition guessing about who might be lining up for Ireland as they did their preparation during the week. The whole thing about Sexton's fitness demonstrates that. I can also believe chinese whispers where something gets misinterpreted as it gets passed along.

Hi Mike

Doctors don't work weekends

Regards the overpaid doctors

[Rooster]

I find it difficult to believe a medic would have sanctioned training if a scan revealed a fracture.

I can believe that the IRFU press people were playing silly buggers and not telling the full story about players to keep the opposition guessing about who might be lining up for Ireland as they did their preparation during the week. The whole thing about Sexton's fitness demonstrates that. I can also believe chinese whispers where something gets misinterpreted as it gets passed along.

Well perhaps he was not actually training but that was said to try and confuse the opposition ?

[againstthehead]

Funny how to not too many were bemoaning Fibber's selections when Ireland smoked France... The writing was on the cards. Big game V france the week before, load of injuries and up against a side who basically had a couple of weeks off and are bloody talented. Ireland did very well to get back in the game and with a bit more talent off the bench could well have kicked on. If anyone thinks the likes of Cave or Jackson would have improved things significantly, they need their heads read or to change their white-tinted specs. SOB was a Ashton, and Ireland were a bit unlucky losing such key players to injury. Takes a 5,6,7,10 and 13 out of any team in the world they will struggle - even the ABs would be diminished with their resources.

[BaggyTrousers]

Funny how to not too many were bemoaning Fibber's selections when Ireland smoked France... The writing was on the cards. Big game V france the week before, load of injuries and up against a side who basically had a couple of weeks off and are bloody talented. Ireland did very well to get back in the game and with a bit more talent off the bench could well have kicked on. If anyone thinks the likes of Cave or Jackson would have improved things significantly, they need their heads read or to change their white-tinted specs. SOB was a Ashton, and Ireland were a bit unlucky losing such key players to injury. Takes a 5,6,7,10 and 13 out of any team in the world they will struggle - even the ABs would be diminished with their resources.

An overly long paragraph of drivel, once more mouthing off after the event. All more or less a worthless bag of opinion and half truths.

Goodbye

[Rooster]

The writing was on the wall from the start, lack of defence out wide was a problem even the Canadians exploited

[OneMore]

Funny how to not too many were bemoaning Fibber's selections when Ireland smoked France... The writing was on the cards. Big game V france the week before, load of injuries and up against a side who basically had a couple of weeks off and are bloody talented. Ireland did very well to get back in the game and with a bit more talent off the bench could well have kicked on. If anyone thinks the likes of Cave or Jackson would have improved things significantly, they need their heads read or to change their white-tinted specs. SOB was a Ashton, and Ireland were a bit unlucky losing such key players to injury. Takes a 5,6,7,10 and 13 out of any team in the world they will struggle - even the ABs would be diminished with their resources.

An overly long paragraph of drivel, once more mouthing off after the event. All more or less a worthless bag of opinion and half truths.

Goodbye

I'm with Baggy on this. And frankly "The writing was on the cards... " was enough to demolish anything good that might have been said.

I have been happy to join the critical voices regarding Joe. When others evangelised ad nauseum about his genius, I was disappointed to see one mediocre Leinster player after another involved in his sides.

Now though, when it comes to us getting beaten by an inferior team (yep, I'm going there), for me that group of players have no excuse for putting in that performance. Argentina were effective, but there was no brilliance. Ireland were limp and made far too many mistakes. No excuses. The players need to have a good look at themselves.

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk

[bazzaj]

Take Pocock and Hooper out of Australia you have a mediocre side.
We lost 4 key players and on field leaders not including Payne and yet we are startled when we play under par.

The general consensus before a ball was kicked that if we lost Sexton alone we were stuffed.
Its one thing to bemoan tactics as others have done or selections as I have done with Earls in the centre but I find it disappointing that even with the benefit of hindsight people don't realise we were on a hiding to nothing with those players out for that game.

PS whisper it but the mediocre Leinster winger was our best attacking threat and kept us in the game.

[BaggyTrousers]

Take Pocock and Hooper out of Australia you have a mediocre side.
We lost 4 key players and on field leaders not including Payne and yet we are startled when we play under par.

The general consensus before a ball was kicked that if we lost Sexton alone we were stuffed.
Its one thing to bemoan tactics as others have done or selections as I have done with Earls in the centre but I find it disappointing that even with the benefit of hindsight people don't realise we were on a hiding to nothing with those players out for that game.

PS whisper it but the mediocre Leinster winger was our best attacking threat and kept us in the game.

Jizzer, I'm normally happy to read your posts but after that first line I shrugged and considered the pernicious influence Rumn can wield without opening his bake. Any sense you talked after line one was lost to me.

[thecrouch]

The injuries hurt us but they are no excuse for the pi$h poor tom kite that we served up in the first 20 minutes.

[Neil F]

The injuries hurt us but they are no excuse for the pi$h poor tom kite that we served up in the first 20 minutes.

I disagree - in fact, even focusing only on the quality of player Ireland lost I find this harsh. Ireland were missing at least a third of a preferred starting XV; and, sadly, also probably 3 or 4 of the team's best five players. As it happened that at least three of the five preferred starters Ireland were missing also made up more than half of the senior on-pitch leadership. With all due respect, Heaslip looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights when he's made captain and many on this board aren't even convinced about Rory's capacity as a captain at provincial level. This was the major deficit Ireland had in that game. To me, Ireland were startled by how quickly Argentina came out of the blocks. With more level heads and better on-pitch leadership, that slump could have been stopped after the first try, not after Ireland were left running up a mountain.

I'm not going to say for certain the result would have been different had Ireland been selecting from a full deck but the scoreline certainly would have been. I'd say that at least 21 of Argentina's points could be chalked down to a general lack of leadership and poor decision-making from Ireland. This shouldn't mask how awful Ireland were in the first 20 minutes (or the last 7 minutes) but I think we need to be more sober about what happened. Put another way - at 23 - 20 to Argentina with about ten minutes to go, who'd have predicted the final scoreline would have been 43 - 20?

[mikerob]

The writing was on the wall from the start, lack of defence out wide was a problem even the Canadians exploited

Canada's only try was when Payne kicked the ball into DTH VDM's hands, other than that they didn't bother Ireland at all.

[BuckRogers]

Indeed Neil. I made the point elsewhere how any team would cope without a fifth of their side.

How would NZ fare without Retallick, McCaw, Kaino, Carter and Smith

How would Australia fare without whichever tom kite lock, Hooper, Pocock, Foley and Kudrani.

How would South Africa fare minus Estebeth, Schalk, Louw, Pollard and Kriel?

How would the Argies have fared minus Lavanini, Lobbe, Matera, Sanchez, Bosch (to be fair they actually were without Bosch).


It's not the sole reason we lost the game but anyone suggesting the massive injury toll sustained did not play a major role in the defeat is deluded IMHO.

[Russ]

Australia have 2 sides. Players slot in whenever

NZ have promoted the replacements for those key players to the leadership panel and have lost them all before

South Africa are without a 13 1 billion times the player Jihad is. They lost their supposed best lock. They lost Vermeulen before and have a credible back up 10

Argentina have ridiculous depth as demonstrated by their demolition of sides and their second string constantly running the 6 Nations sides close