[2018 November Tests] Ireland vs New Zealand (17/11/18)

[Umaga's Witness]

Bit late for that, I'm actually very angry at Hansen right now. I think he's been too liberal with his selections and we are all over the shop now and have no clear idea of what is the best combination for anywhere.

Pick a combo Steve, and ******* stick to it mate.

yep, agree that it's a bit late. this game mattered. It is odd, given how consistent selections have been in the past. Maybe they got overconfident in their selecting ability, picking too many unproven players, and got found out too often.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

No but it's like you don't seem to know best team. Like I don't rate BB as highly at 10 in tight games

he has controlled games very well in the past, particularly for the Hurricanes, along with TJ, when they won the ***le. And when he used to be a reserve he was quite brilliant in many situations that were tight when he came on. but, yeah, at the moment he doesn't look so good.

He's an open space runner. Not a Sexton or Farrell who can thread it around the pitch and play territory

he has been known to.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Agree with that on BB. Would rather have Mo'unga. We looked a lot more dangerous when he came on, and it retains the 2ahmaker option Hansen seems to favour. DMac has to be impact from the bench, I don't see him as an effective starter at 15.

And who the heck knows what our best mid-combo is.

i prefer Dmac at 10, beauden at 15, mounga from the bench. i think mounga is absolutely the best bench player you can have, because he is effective at taking advantage of tiring defences if coming on when behind, but his advantage compared to other bench players is that he has calm and control to close out a game when coming on when we're in front. crotty would be on my bench too.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

great result tonight.. without our first choice scrum half, first choice centre and first choice openside. We will take it

sounds like a reasonably low number of injuries, to be fair. you have to expect to have some injuries for any given game. yes, NZ were better off but we are the exception as far as injuries go.

 

[Carlito]

So I'm sure this has all been said, but...


I told you Kieran Read is overrated, so hopefully people will stop calling him world class. He is world class on his best days, but he is terribly inconsistent so, on average, he is far off it. He doesn't compare to someone like vermeulen, for instance.

I told you Ardie was good.

.

Mate Vermulean is a shadow of his old self and Reads statistics tower over every other No 8 from any other country. How many points has Vermulean scored for his country ? 15 points to Reads 120 It's laughable to compare the two.

Sure he will never be the captain McCaw was and had a bad game against Ireland as did many but NZ backrow stocks are virtually non existent. We are actually using locks as backrowers. That must be concerning and to add insult to injury i read in the Herald that Sam Cane might be forced into retirement after breaking his neck...

The backrowers Australia , Ireland and England are superiors to what we have and i'm not sure what the solution is to that ...but is replacing Read with another lock what people are actually suggesting ?

 

[Umaga's Witness]

But England stopped playing rugby when the NZ'ers got on the front foot. They kicked the ball away numerous times and just looked to make tackles to win the game. Only when they went behind did they start to string phases together again and they still looked threatening. Thats what i'm talking about. If they were steadfast in their resolve to take the game to NZ they would have won imo. Hoping to win and expecting to win were the mindsets of the respective teams and NZ generally have that advantage in games. Its why they win so often at the death. Teams hand them the initiative.

and i reckons they would have been steadfast in their resolve (nice phrase) if they played us when they were on their winning streak. they just oozed composed confidence at that time.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Decent performance by Ireland...

it was Ok i suppose.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Mate Vermulean is a shadow of his old self and Reads statistics tower over every other No 8 from any other country. How many points has Vermulean scored for his country ? 15 points to Reads 120 It's laughable to compare the two.

Sure he will never be the captain McCaw was and had a bad game against Ireland as did many but NZ backrow stocks are virtually non existent. We are actually using locks as backrowers. That must be concerning and to add insult to injury i read in the Herald that Sam Cane might be forced into retirement after breaking his neck...

The backrowers Australia , Ireland and England are superiors to what we have and i'm not sure what the solution is to that ...but is replacing Read with another lock what people are actually suggesting ?

Their job isn't to score tries. I haven't been watching european club rugby so i don't know how Vermeulen has been recently but I have seen him playing at 8 against England in June and prior to him going overseas, and on those occasions he was the best in the world. I'm not saying Read in't good, just that he is overrated. And stats don't really tell the story. He does bad things at bad times.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Ireland won all the big battles - Tadhg v Big Karl, Ryan v Rettalick, Sexton v Beauden. POM was absolutely immense. Massive psychological win yesterday and yes i think ABs have a lot to think about come 2019 and defending their crown - Read not the same player he was pre back surgery and his mind appears to be drifting towards post RWC with talk about him playing overseas. Their midfield (consistent selection) and back 3 also need to be sorted out. Still it makes it more interesting next year - Chris Rattue's comments earlier this year that they should just hand the ABs the RWC trophy now just looks more and more rediculous by the day.

i was going to give you a like until you said the thing about chris rattue. stop giving journalists the credit they don't deserve. do you not know it is their job to antagonise? They are not real opinions. Ignore them.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Just watching a replay back. The lineout problems weren't down to Toner and POM going off. It was only when Best went off and Cronin came on that it went it to ****. Actually on Cronins first throw (69 minutes) RTE put up the lineout stats..... Ireland 10/0, NZ 6/1 W/L. We'd pinched the one off them and secured one on our own ball (Murphy) while Toner was on the bench and Best was still throwing.

Cronin performs brilliantly at Leinster but he might come under pressure from Scannell for his place on the bench soon.

yeah, i remember noticing that because i'd heard so much form people on here saying best couldn't throw, and then his replacement came on and was terrible. not that best threw well either, but his poor throws were inconsequential.

 

[Carlito]

Their job isn't to score tries.

So only backs are allowed to score tries.?

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

I think the Irish are in a great place. Well rested, organised, great set of forwards - including bench options, defensively ferocious. That can take you a very long way. I like the backs a lot too - would take Kearney in a heartbeat - but the pack's the real heartbeat of the side.

As for the ABs. They're still a very very good team, but a bit of their aura has undoubtedly gone. Get in amongst them, get physical, disrupt and you're in with a chance. This is partly cyclical. No team has a divine right to win forever and I'm not really seeing players of the calibre of McCaw, Kaino, Carter (Barrett's good, but he's not that class), Conrad Smith etc in the current set up. Add in that Read, Franks and Whitelock have a lot of international rugby in their legs and there are reasons for other teams to be a lot more optimistic than they were even a few months back. But they'll be there or thereabouts.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Ireland have been consistent with it all season, winning the grand slam while also winning a test series in Australia for the first time in their history. Ireland don't need to play the perfect game to beat the All Blacks or indeed any team, they just need to stick to the game plan that Joe and the other coaches put forward!

Would I be right in saying Ireland have only lost 1 game all year?
While NZ have lost 2?

If that's not consistency I don't know what is.

and the one they lost thy deliberately didn't pick their best team. not that that's an excuse, it was their own doing.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

So only backs are allowed to score tries.?

come on, be serious, quoting tries that a forward scores isn't proof of how good they are, because that' not their main job. Different players play different roles of course, and Reads has been a more open running role (I actually think the coaches need to direct him back toward that sort of role to be honest), but Vermeulen's impact in the tight is extraordinary. To make the point about stats a bit further, what do the stats say on contributions to securing rucks? They don't, that's what. So even in the realm they reside (objectively measurable things) they are lacking.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

I think the Irish are in a great place. Well rested, organised, great set of forwards - including bench options, defensively ferocious. That can take you a very long way. I like the backs a lot too - would take Kearney in a heartbeat - but the pack's the real heartbeat of the side.

As for the ABs. They're still a very very good team, but a bit of their aura has undoubtedly gone. Get in amongst them, get physical, disrupt and you're in with a chance. This is partly cyclical. No team has a divine right to win forever and I'm not really seeing players of the calibre of McCaw, Kaino, Carter (Barrett's good, but he's not that class), Conrad Smith etc in the current set up. Add in that Read, Franks and Whitelock have a lot of international rugby in their legs and there are reasons for other teams to be a lot more optimistic than they were even a few months back. But they'll be there or thereabouts.

It's an interesting one, because in Read, Franks, Whitelock we had players with a huge amount of experience at a relatively young age, so all was looking promising to continue without having to go through a cycle. But as many have pointed out, the 2015 team was an exception to most rules, with a combination of a huge amount of experience as well as talent, so anything will look less than that, but it's unlikely any cycle will go back to such a point.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Jabby said: ↑
This i'm surprised hasn't been mentioned more, i thought Whitelock looked shattered, for a fair chunk of the game i was watching him and he was just flopping onto rucks or just dragging people to the ground in tackles rather than a hit and drive. i'm a believer that a game can be won and lost in the tight and not having that pressure was a big loss

i feel for the French, they play a lot of rugby (or so I hear). our players are managed better than any others, so we're the last ones to have such an excuse.

 

[Carlito]

come on, be serious, quoting tries that a forward scores isn't proof of how good they are, because that' not their main job. Different players play different roles of course, and Reads has been a more open running role (I actually think the coaches need to direct him back toward that sort of role to be honest), but Vermeulen's impact in the tight is extraordinary. To make the point about stats a bit further, what do the stats say on contributions to securing rucks? They don't, that's what. So even in the realm they reside (objectively measurable things) they are lacking.

RE Vermulean performance ;SA's decline in world rankings over the period might suggest otherwise...but i see there is alot of hysterics about Read from Mark Reason in the media and many jumping on the band wagon attempting to crucify Read and make him a skapegoat.... But i think NZ just needs to chill..

 

[Umaga's Witness]

Aki gas really come into his own in green but if Ireland ever manage to stop breaking Leinster's centres there's no doubt that Henshaw/Ringrose is the best option. Can't think of another pair I'd take over them anywhere in the world right now tbh.

The current Irish team's main weakness is the fact that our back three is probably behind almost every other Tier 1 country from a pure gamebreaking counterattacking POV but defensively they're as good as anyone. Kearney and Earls are two of the smartest defenders around and Ringrose reads the game as well as anyone from 13 since the guy we don't compare young players to. (Ringrose is a brilliant attacker though as well)

except stockdale. and in a tight game like that, a line break is equal to a knock on or a bad decision. in that respect the irish were better, because ABs looked more dangerous but made more mistakes.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

not Hansen but i think we do need to prepare for Reads replacement, maybe he needs to get sub'ed, i dont want to assume he's got 80min in him only to find out he doesnt anymore when we get a big game, he looks tired and we're now in a situation where he rests quite a bit next years and we risk him not being match sharp...or he plays most of the super season and we risk him being shattered again this time next year

i think he had a stinger on the shoulder that affected his handling too.

 

[Umaga's Witness]

RE Vermulean performance ;SA's decline in world rankings over the period might suggest otherwise...but i see there is alot of hysterics about Read from Mark Reason in the media and many jumping on the band wagon attempting to crucify Read and make him a skapegoat.... But i think NZ just needs to chill..

vermeulen wasn't involved when SAs rankings declined.

 

[Carlito]

vermeulen wasn't involved when SAs rankings declined.

..before he went to Europe in 2015...well thats years ago now so the comparison between then and now is hardly relevent..