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[2021 Six Nations] Ireland v England (20/03/2021)

big ginger 8 said:
'I think Mike Catt and Andy Farrell have misjudged the way the game is going' https://the42.ie/5385555

Whatever about Farrell, Catt's time certainly has to be up. I briefly thought they were building to something more but we have seemed bereft of ideas at times and some of the phases against Scotland would look poor at a J3 match.
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Yeah, definitely a need for some fresh blood in the coaching staff. O'Connell despite seeming a bit underqualified has done a brilliant job, I don't think we're going to turn into the All Blacks in the next 2 years but we've got to find a way to score tries beyond trying to kick penalties to the corner and then either kick wide on advantage or bash it over from 1 yard out (which we're not even that good at). Otherwise teams will just happily give us the ball and watch let us run out of steam.

Still got hope Farrell can get things going but he's got to trust youth this summer, the 2017 summer tour was actually a pretty huge step forward for us with Schmidt, it let us turn a declining team into a serious outfit for the next 18 months (although ideally this time we'd still be good by the time the world cup rolled around). We've definitely got the players available to do something similar this summer, but if Farrell doesn't take the chance to call up Coombes, Baloucoune, Hume, Eric O'Sullivan etc and properly back Casey, Baird and so on he'll have lost most people.
 
Whoever brought Catt in needs sacking. He was awful in both England and Italy and has continued to be here.
 
Trying to think who the candidates would be if they were looking to replace Catt.

From the provinces/IRFU you'd be looking at:
Larkham: obviously the biggest name, Munster have improved this year but not so much I'd be banging his door down.
Contepomi: is backs coach but that's basically the same thing these days. Leinster's attack is very potent but hard to tell how much of that is one him.
Soper: Peel is currently the attack coach in Ulster but is leaving and Soper is taking over the 'assistant coach' role so presumably as attack coach as well. Is highly rated as a skills coach, could be a darkhorse.
Carolan: was u20 coach the year they got the the JWRC final but I seem to remember an up and down tenure, Connacht do play some nice stuff at times.
Richie Murphy: longterm Ireland skills coach, has been interim backs coach before I think but pretty unlikely
Anthony Eddy: would be a very outside bet but not the most unusual changes for a 7s coach

Names that will come up from outside Ireland:
Prendergast: has been pretty successful with Racing, but that seems to present very different coaching challenges.
Felix Jones: was an attack coach with Munster, where they played very Munster rugby. Considered to have a great rugby brain and there's not too many Irishmen who have won a WC.
Brown: Been very successful with the Highlanders and Japan, his name will be up for all these types of openings but given he could have had a HC role by now he's presumably very happy where he is.
Conor McPhillips: again an outside bet but is Irish and I believe attack/backs coach with Bristol which is obviously a style many want us to emulate.
 
Whilst Daly's tackling will get targeted and be a concern, it's probably also true that he has the pace to burn both centres, they may equally struggle, I am not saying he will or has been in form (we all know that's not true) but as a Wasps fan I remember him tearing it up and making some pretty good players look a bit silly.
 
big ginger 8 said:
Trying to think who the candidates would be if they were looking to replace Catt.

From the provinces/IRFU you'd be looking at:
Larkham: obviously the biggest name, Munster have improved this year but not so much I'd be banging his door down.
Contepomi: is backs coach but that's basically the same thing these days. Leinster's attack is very potent but hard to tell how much of that is one him.
Soper: Peel is currently the attack coach in Ulster but is leaving and Soper is taking over the 'assistant coach' role so presumably as attack coach as well. Is highly rated as a skills coach, could be a darkhorse.
Carolan: was u20 coach the year they got the the JWRC final but I seem to remember an up and down tenure, Connacht do play some nice stuff at times.
Richie Murphy: longterm Ireland skills coach, has been interim backs coach before I think but pretty unlikely
Anthony Eddy: would be a very outside bet but not the most unusual changes for a 7s coach

Names that will come up from outside Ireland:
Prendergast: has been pretty successful with Racing, but that seems to present very different coaching challenges.
Felix Jones: was an attack coach with Munster, where they played very Munster rugby. Considered to have a great rugby brain and there's not too many Irishmen who have won a WC.
Brown: Been very successful with the Highlanders and Japan, his name will be up for all these types of openings but given he could have had a HC role by now he's presumably very happy where he is.
Conor McPhillips: again an outside bet but is Irish and I believe attack/backs coach with Bristol which is obviously a style many want us to emulate.
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Nice post.

Wouldn't be too inspired by either Larkham or Contempomi, Munster's attack has imporved since the Rory Scannel crash ball days but it's still far from impressive. Equally Leinster score a lot of tries and play a lot of nice rugby but we did that before Felipe too.

Don't know much about Soper but Ulster are generally good to watch. No idea if it would happen though. None of the other internal options seem great.

Of the others, Felix Jones never seemed great with Munster but Rassie seemed to rate him and again realistically basically no one else from this island has come close to a world cup medal (Stephen Moore if we want to get clever, probably someone else I'm forgetting).

Anyway, we get definitely to better than Catt.
 
Leinster Fan said:
Nice post.

Wouldn't be too inspired by either Larkham or Contempomi, Munster's attack has imporved since the Rory Scannel crash ball days but it's still far from impressive. Equally Leinster score a lot of tries and play a lot of nice rugby but we did that before Felipe too.

Don't know much about Soper but Ulster are generally good to watch. No idea if it would happen though. None of the other internal options seem great.

Of the others, Felix Jones never seemed great with Munster but Rassie seemed to rate him and again realistically basically no one else from this island has come close to a world cup medal (Stephen Moore if we want to get clever, probably someone else I'm forgetting).

Anyway, we get definitely to better than Catt.
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Soper coached instonians to 3 schools cups in a row before ulster gig, as well as Banbridge for a year or two I think? He developed Michael Lowry, James Hume and Callum reid in the Ulster set up

Jones on Odogwu - Some players need a period of adaption and he is a much better player now," Jones said. "If he keeps working hard on his game and keeps attending to areas of his game that he needs to do to be a Test player he is going to be a great prospect. But for this game given the context of the game against Ireland where it is going to be a huge aerial game we feel that Joe Marchant is better coming off the bench for us.

Basically not handing caps out for the sake of it, but he has a good chance of earning said cap if he works hard, and EJ saying he's seeing improvements in camp.
 
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I think it's the ariel game that was part of the concerns and reasons for moving infield at Pests. Jones basically saying he's a pretty fair way off what he wants at the moment, which is fine. But whether that's been 10 weeks well spent for Odogwu I very much doubt. And that is all I'm saying because I'll just get all wound up and go round the same old circles again.

So Jones is expecting an ariel bombardment from Ire - understandable. But that doesn't mean we need to return fire the same way.
 
Old Hooker said:
I think it's the ariel game that was part of the concerns and reasons for moving infield at Pests. Jones basically saying he's a pretty fair way off what he wants at the moment, which is fine. But whether that's been 10 weeks well spent for Odogwu I very much doubt. And that is all I'm saying because I'll just get all wound up and go round the same old circles again.
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Obviously no one can who is just looking in can actually know how valuable it is for a player to spend that amount of time in camp but I'd have thought it would be very beneficial. At the very least it will have given Odogwu an exact idea of the fitness/intensity that he's expected to maintain while at his club and get himself fully into the England reckoning. The value of training alongside the best of the best also can't be understated, I don't think.

I'm not saying that I definitely think that being in camp was better for Odogwu's development than staying at Wasps but I don't doubt that it was.

As for concerns of Odogwu potentially having lost his Wasps starting place then frankly, if he can't nail down a shirt at his club when he covers multiple positions then he really shouldn't be in an England camp anyway.
 
Looks like the conditions will be good tomorrow. Probably hurts us since I'm expecting a lot of box kicks. Just hope there will be a few strike moves as well.
 
big ginger 8 said:
Trying to think who the candidates would be if they were looking to replace Catt.

From the provinces/IRFU you'd be looking at:
Larkham: obviously the biggest name, Munster have improved this year but not so much I'd be banging his door down.
Contepomi: is backs coach but that's basically the same thing these days. Leinster's attack is very potent but hard to tell how much of that is one him.
Soper: Peel is currently the attack coach in Ulster but is leaving and Soper is taking over the 'assistant coach' role so presumably as attack coach as well. Is highly rated as a skills coach, could be a darkhorse.
Carolan: was u20 coach the year they got the the JWRC final but I seem to remember an up and down tenure, Connacht do play some nice stuff at times.
Richie Murphy: longterm Ireland skills coach, has been interim backs coach before I think but pretty unlikely
Anthony Eddy: would be a very outside bet but not the most unusual changes for a 7s coach

Names that will come up from outside Ireland:
Prendergast: has been pretty successful with Racing, but that seems to present very different coaching challenges.
Felix Jones: was an attack coach with Munster, where they played very Munster rugby. Considered to have a great rugby brain and there's not too many Irishmen who have won a WC.
Brown: Been very successful with the Highlanders and Japan, his name will be up for all these types of openings but given he could have had a HC role by now he's presumably very happy where he is.
Conor McPhillips: again an outside bet but is Irish and I believe attack/backs coach with Bristol which is obviously a style many want us to emulate.
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Andy Friend... I know highly unlikely but I really like like him as a coach and I've always found the connacht team inventive under him
 
Billy Burns out, Ross Byrne in.

Redman7 said:
Andy Friend... I know highly unlikely but I really like like him as a coach and I've always found the connacht team inventive under him
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I purposely wasn't counting current head coaches as I think it would be considered a demotion. Wouldn't mind him though.
 
big ginger 8 said:
Billy Burns out, Ross Byrne in.



I purposely wasn't counting current head coaches as I think it would be considered a demotion. Wouldn't mind him though.
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Andy Farrell is sad and washed up. Joey Carbery has a bag packed and he's waiting for the call.
 

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