Ireland v France

[TRF_Olyy]

France mullered Ireland on the last scrum too, France didn't drop it at all

 

[Teh Mite]

YOu should see some of the tripe kicked up at the Twitter feed 0 So many one eyed fans actually believing Ireland had a scrum today and accusations of bias because of that! :lol:

 

[King_D'Arcy]

Positives:

• Fitzgerald performed at fullback again and looked dangerous in attack
• Despite what people on here are saying the Irish scrum was generally alright. Got away with poor scrummaging a few times but I don't think we were dominated at all.
• O'Gara is a great impact sub
• I thought the backrow played well, particualarly Wallace and O'Brien

Negatives:

• Calamity O'Leary and his calamitous brain
• poor hands all over the shop again
• poor communication, particualrly among the backs
• Over complicating what should have been a simple formula; all those loop plays are affective but when going through the phases is all that is required to score tries then just do that
• Gordon D'Arcy

Ireland's main problem is in the backs. Like I said doing the loop move they love is great but it isn't working. O'Leary's slow passing puts them under too much pressure. The players don't seem to be able to keep up with the tempo Sexton likes to play at. Which is weird cause the majority of the backline are Leinster lads...

 

[King_D'Arcy]

Oh another negative:

Declan Kidney

Starting O'Leary against Italy was wrong, starting him against France was a joke. He's 2nd choice for Munster. He should be 4th choice for Ireland.
Also, terrible use of the bench. Bringing Leo Cullen on for 6 seconds. Was he just trying to give us a bit of a laugh to get over the loss? Serious questions need to be asked of Kidney now.

 

[shtove]

Oh another negative:

Declan Kidney

Starting O'Leary against Italy was wrong, starting him against France was a joke. He's 2nd choice for Munster. He should be 4th choice for Ireland.
Also, terrible use of the bench. Bringing Leo Cullen on for 6 seconds. Was he just trying to give us a bit of a laugh to get over the loss? Serious questions need to be asked of Kidney now.

The impression I got was that he wanted Cullen for that final scrum. POC is the lineout specialist, but I guess he doesn't have Cullen's ooomph when you need one against the head. Didn't work!

The match result was a cock up for Ireland - most of the blame on O'Leary, because he limits a backline that is well capable of wrapping up a match early. Also Darcy, Best, Sexton, Cronin wasted brilliant opportunities. Overall, though, Ireland's scrum and lineout will prevent us going far.

Darcy was generally ok, but he has to be dropped for that missed tackle. Very unlike him, but **** happens.

Not convinced by Fitzgerald. Actually, I think the entire back three can be replaced with better players once they're fit.

It was entertaining, but strange to watch. Ireland were the more interesting team, France were in SA mode. Mind you, they can shift it to the wing - but I think that suits Ireland's defence, so will be interesting to see if Ashton & Cueto can cut through the drift.

Brian Moore had a very good comment - everything that happened in the match was caused by Ireland.

 

[Mr.cyclopede]

Ireland gave France that victory. What is going on with their hands? They drop the ball at every given opportunity!

Just think that's the opposite

Already said that center is the less worst place for Traille, but even here he was so crap today. The association with Rougerie is not working at all, and for heaven sake, don't let him play the engagements...

 

[no-1-rugby-fan]

Fantastic game of rugby, shame Ireland had to cock up at the end when Chabal made that error. They can only blame themeselves, all the points France had were given to them from stupid, needless errors from the Irish.

It wasn't the France that we saw against Scotland today and Ireland have just missed out on a great opportunity against a team that were there for the taking.

 

[gingergenius]

Oh another negative:

Declan Kidney

Starting O'Leary against Italy was wrong, starting him against France was a joke. He's 2nd choice for Munster. He should be 4th choice for Ireland.
Also, terrible use of the bench. Bringing Leo Cullen on for 6 seconds. Was he just trying to give us a bit of a laugh to get over the loss? Serious questions need to be asked of Kidney now.

he brought cullen on so the clock would stop to give ireland more time.

 

[snoopy snoopy dog dog]

I have no idea how RTE believe Ronan O'Gara had a good game. When you're 5 metres from the try line with a ton of space and two attackers outside you, don't kick the f*cking ball! O'Gara got lucky that his inept kneeing of the ball ended up in David Wallace's hands after a ricochet. He was also very lucky that Harinordoquy picked the ball up from an offside position after a dire attempted touchline penalty kick.

There were some positives for Ireland. Finally we're seeing some sort of attacking gameplan. Three tries to one is a decent achievement. The scrum was competent (rather than good) which is a damn sight better than it has been.

On the debit side, O'Leary is awful- no further explanation necessary. D'arcy is finished as a top player- poor hands and his tackling has gone to ****. O'Callaghan went back to doing a lot of "unseen work" ie nothing at all. Best was picked for his leadership yet couldn't throw into a key lineout in properly with Ireland on the French 22 with 10 minutes left and gave away at least one boneheaded penalty. All four should be out of the team. That's not reacting to this defeat but has been plainly obvious for a while.

 

[elgringoborracho]

Neither team deserved to win, as this was a very bad game.

EDIT. Oh and yes, we will get destroyed at Twickenham

EDIT EDIT. Slow ball = annoying

 

[lucky number 7]

5.50 for a ******* bottle of Carlsberg ??!!! Thats more than our banks are worth.

Also Irish **** decision making lost us the game..points should have been taken on 70 mins. and phases played instead of trying to force it with the final attack.

 

[coonor]

Ireland were quite good today and their main problems were errors. I think we were much better than last week and we didn't allow France to get quick ball and pose to much threat. Ireland need to work on their discipline and decision making. To some up Irelands performance. We had a good platform form the frowards and the back played some nice rugby. We scored 3 tries to Frances 1 and I think thats a great acheivement. Lets remember we have over 10 players injured and if Ferris and Bowe were available we may have won. If the errors and ill discipline was we would have won that game quite comfortably. At the end of the day a loss is a loss but we have something to build on and I think bar O'leary we are playing some good rugby but we just need to keep our heads and try and keep momentum building in games.

France were clinical but they showed that they can't score tries by stringing phases together. Their pack was not completely dominant and I think Ireland disrupted them well. France need to be more consistent because they really should have been able to play better against a team that has alot of injuries and is struggling for form.

 

[elgringoborracho]

Former Ireland captain Keith Wood on BBC One: "I'm wholly disappointed, Ireland tried an awful lot and were positive but there were too many unforced errors, too many knock-ons. Ireland played pretty well but there were no stand-out players, and that's a problem. France were arrogant today."

? Well that's coming from nowhere! France were badly organized, are going to get plummered against England etc but arrogant? Spreading an old reputation with no proof! I could be a "pundit" myself then!

There I go: the English play boring rugby.

 

[Curls]

Oh dear! Unfortunately it was clear to everyone else that Pearson was indeed appalling, but it was France who was on the end of it not Ireland!

When DOC turned Parra, France got the penalty because DOC did nopt release the tackler. O'Brien did everything right, but DOC made no attempt to release the player or move from an offside position. Right call by the ref. Ireland were dropping almost every scrum imo. France should have been awarded almost every penalty scrum time, but Pearson for some reason thought Ireland can actually scrummage! Odd.

Are you serious? Mas dropped almost ever scrum that Ireland got a shove on. France clearly were no willing to have their defence subjected to an atack off a scrum against the head! Even at the last they seemed content to drop it and give Ireland a kick to the corner rather than risk losing the ball. Ireland got a fair few shoves on and fronted up well at scrum time. They chose not to contest a few and just locked them out in dangerous positions.
If you thoink France were hard done by Pearson you clearly didnt watch the game.
On the DOC incident DOC wasnt interfering with the ball so he was fine...it was Parra who was holding on when O'Brien tried to rip it!

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Parra was holding on because DOC was still pinning his arms to his sides by not releasing him


It's funny how it's only Ireland fans saying the ref was against them

 

[Teh Mite]

How can anyone be so delusional to believe that Ireland ever got "a shove on", even once, throughout that whole game?

 

[dullonien]

Are you serious? Mas dropped almost ever scrum that Ireland got a shove on. France clearly were no willing to have their defence subjected to an atack off a scrum against the head! Even at the last they seemed content to drop it and give Ireland a kick to the corner rather than risk losing the ball. Ireland got a fair few shoves on and fronted up well at scrum time. They chose not to contest a few and just locked them out in dangerous positions.
If you thoink France were hard done by Pearson you clearly didnt watch the game.
On the DOC incident DOC wasnt interfering with the ball so he was fine...it was Parra who was holding on when O'Brien tried to rip it!

Can't agree atall with you. Whilst the Ireland scrum was better than I expected and they did pretty well, they were still under pressure most of the time, just a pity the ref couldn't see it. The Irish props started most scrums on their knees ffs, which is clearly not allowed. The form book (which means alot at scrum time) also points to French dominance considering they have one of the best scrums in international rugby, and Ireland aren't great, though Ross helps a little. I admit that Ireland won the hit on one or two occasions and France collapsed due to that, but otherwise it was the opposite way round imo.

Almost every other non-biased person in this thread thinks that the ref was very favourable to Ireland, so I think it may be you who 'didn't watch the game', or at least can't take the truth.

On the DOC incident. He must release the tackled player straight away, he didn't = penalty. Doesn't matter what came afterwards in the form of Parra holding on and O'Brien ripping the ball. The first infringement was DOC not releasing and not rolling away. Players get pinged for this all the time, and this was one of the more blatant occasions of it happening.

Ireland are missing alot of players. But at the moment, it's their experienced players playing poorly or making mistakes! O'Leary, D'Arcy and DOC were poor today, and there's no-one injured to come in for them. Another mainstay in the Irish team of recent years, Earls isn't playing all that well, and O'Driscoll is struggling to really put his stamp down. There are no props to come in to steady a creaking scrum either. Missing players will make a difference, I have no doubt about that, but Irish fans should be worried about a few key areas.

 

[gingergenius]

scrummaging.

We all thought France were going to pulverise Ireland here. Mike Ross has been brought in, so while Ross was never going to have an easy afternoon we thought that Cian Healy (as usual) would be the one to suffer.

As it is, the scrums weren't a big asset for France. Why? Here's my view:

1) To his credit, Healy had one of his best ever games for Ireland. He was by no means strong in the scrum, but he held his end up much better than I thought.

2) The refereeing of the scrum was poor. Ireland collapsed numerous scrums on the French put in, and Pearson just let play go on with French ball. Fair enough for a more open game, but he needed to be consistent, and wasn't. Ireland got a number of penalties/ free kicks from the scrum - they deserved only one, plus the free kick for the feed (which again wasn't reffed consistently). Every other time Ross in particular was going down, or the whole Irish pack was going backwards.

 

[Feicarsinn]

I hate Tomas O'Leary. That aside, we were grand.


ROG is muck too actually, bloody lucky he didn't butcher that try chance.

 

[smartcooky]

On the Parra holding on incident....

Here, simple terms, is the tackle management protocol that most referees should be using. I would expect ALL elite referees to be using this. You won't find this in the Law book.

These things are managed in order.

► FIRST, the tackler(s) must release the tackled player and get up or move/roll away
.... tackler(s) cannot release the tackled player and then remain on the ground in the tackle zone.
.....tackler(s) who don't release and or don't get up or move away from the tackle zone, are deemed to be preventing the tackled player from releasing...PING!

► SECOND, the tackled player must play the ball.
.....if no one on their feet has their hands on the ball then options... Place, Pass, Push or Release.
.....if a player on their feet has their hands on the ball then the options are gone... the tackled player MUST let go of the ball.