2014 Autumn Internationals

[Russ]

McGrath

Large gulf in ability

Another gulf in ability

Bottom of the barrel
Cronin

Dig 100m

Kilcoyne

[BaggyTrousers]

With the Worthless Rugby Cup coming in a years time, I thought it's about time I looked for my last remaining Fu@k, then I had second thoughts.

I've decided the last thing to waste a fu@k on are the AIs, hence I officially don't give a flying fu@k about them.

If I did give a tinkers fart about them I would expect Josef to forget bits of his strongest team and do the last bit of experimentation before the 6Ns, Olding needs to be 12 asap.

[Neil F]

Shan; whilst I'm in agreement that Healy is a big loss, I suppose the silver lining is that it happened at a good time - he'd be a much bigger loss for the entirety of the 6 Nations or the World Cup, for example. And, frankly, I don't think anyone had a good idea about who'd be backing Healy up at those events, anyway, so maybe this will, at least, shed some light on the matter.

I'm not usually one to be concerned about few ballcarriers in the pack but the concern comes that without O'Brien and Healy, Ireland have no real go-forward momentum in the forwards. O'Connell, for all he tries to carry the ball is about effective at breaking through defences as a mallet is for breaking down a wall... Toner just isn't a ball carrier and Henry and O'Mahony are both much better without the ball than with it. Heaslip will really need to rediscover his ball-carrying of old this Autumn.

[Dave]

With no Hendo for Ireland either, there thus seem to be a lack of dynamic ball carriers. I think it's fair to assume that there might be the odd up n under tried.

[Shan]

Shan; whilst I'm in agreement that Healy is a big loss, I suppose the silver lining is that it happened at a good time - he'd be a much bigger loss for the entirety of the 6 Nations or the World Cup, for example. And, frankly, I don't think anyone had a good idea about who'd be backing Healy up at those events, anyway, so maybe this will, at least, shed some light on the matter.

It's a fair point Neil and hopefully Joe will use the opportunity wisely.

[Shan]

With the Worthless Rugby Cup coming in a years time, I thought it's about time I looked for my last remaining Fu@k, then I had second thoughts.

I've decided the last thing to waste a fu@k on are the AIs, hence I officially don't give a flying fu@k about them.

If I did give a tinkers fart about them I would expect Josef to forget bits of his strongest team and do the last bit of experimentation before the 6Ns, Olding needs to be 12 asap.

What happened to you dear old chap? You prefer watching a team being humbled by the might of Zebre rather than watch our team which went agonisingly close to beating those NZ langers.

And now you don't like the Rugby World Cup. Feck sake man. When England run onto that pitch in the final I will be cheering them on with my CrossofStGeorge flying behind me.

[Shan]

Looks like Andrew Trimble now ruled out and also Luke Marshall.

Trimble is a massive loss to the team. Hopefully the stories of him possibly being out for the 6N as well are not accurate.


At this rate we will struggle to get a team on the field.


Given the provinces performances thus far one has to be concerned for the Ireland Team. That said if we can avoid losing anybody else and select wisely we still have the bones of a team which can compete. Picking a loosehead who can't scrummage(Kilcoyne) and a 15 at 13(Payne) would of course not be wise but I wouldn't be surprised if we see that.

I didn't see tbe Ulster game at the weekend but in a general sense I agree with one of the comments during the in-match commentary.

21.26 – Olding is at 12, Cave is at 13 and Payne is at 15. Is this Ulster’s best backline? They have certainly produced some great first phase attacks in the last few minutes.

[mikerob]

Ireland squad for AIs named here:
http://www.irishrugby.ie/news/32731.php#.VEaITYf8iaA

From an Ulster perspective, Payne gets a call-up (but for what position...?) and omissions of note are PJ and Cave.

PJ has slipped down the pecking list behind Keatley and Madigan, not really surprising given his injury and he hasn't had any performances of note when he has played.

Cave continues his in/out relationship with Ireland squads but if he isn't starting at 13 for Ulster he will struggle to stake a claim for Ireland.

[MattMo]

How could you pick Cave or PJ? They have hardly played.
But thank goodness that stupid Kiwi is p*****ng off to the Ireland camp, hopefully Cave and McCloskey can put together some good games in a time we should dominate in the pro12, and Scholes and Allen can come through on the wing.

I feel as thought this selection has gifted us about 3-4 games now and severed any chance of Ireland winning against the boks. Dread to see De Villiers, Francois Louw, Vermeulan and Pollard running at Payne, Madigan and Zebo. This weekend showed how easily Payne can be bounced off, and he went flying twice in one game, one of which he was suspected of being concussed. The run was good, but the tackle technique was terrible.

[Rovi Snave]

I make that 7 Ulster players - fine with me - hopefully we can have a few back for Ospreys and Munster in November as well

[thecrouch]

PJ definitely hasn't slipped behind Keatley, who is never a test 10 in a million years, or Madigan who can't even get a game at 10 for Leinster, he just hasn't played enough and seems to be making slow progress getting over his injury.

[Spiffsson]

At least Olding is in the squad and should at least get a run against Georgia. But he's not getting enough game time at Ulster - we are wasting his talents.

[Nightsoil]

Jackson's played more minutes at 10 than Madigan at a guess, and is a flat out better 10 to boot. Fair enough if Schmidt wants to base things heavily on the form book - but gods knows how Strauss got ahead of Casey then - how anyone got ahead of McCloskey.

Suppose I should be happy we're sending off so few lads to get injured but it's just annoying. Makes contract renewals more difficult too.

edit: And if Jackson's not there due to not enough minutes, what in God's name is Olding doing there?

[mikerob]

Well Keatley and Madigan were selected for the Ireland squad and PJ wasn't. Now I'm sure Joe is smart enough to ensure PJ knows what he needs to do, but I think he'll need to improve from his last 2 outings to stake a serious claim to be Sexton's back-up for the 6N.

[Big-al]

Let's hope Jackson uses this latest disappointment to spur him on.