Ireland vs Japan KO: 13:00 06/11/2021 Aviva Stadium

[big ginger 8]

Ireland's offloads, Furlong the playmaker, and 1-3-2-2 attack shape https://the42.ie/5594453

Something I'm taking from this is that despite being the guy nobody wants JGP is pretty key to the way Farrell wants us to play at the moment. Casey is probably the next closest which is why he's there but isn't quite up to speed on the reads yet and the prospect of himself and Carbery together is defensively terrifying. Sexton and Keenan are also obviously key but we already knew that.

Lowe and Aki were also heavily involved yesterday and especially with Lowe you can see how their skillsets are important to realising our gameplan however they have more obvious replacements.

Henshaw can come in for Aki and probably isn't as powerful or as good an offloader but he's a better player and brings a better passing and kicking game. While to a certain extent Stockdale and um Zebo can replicate Lowe. Neither perfectly but they do some things better than him some things worse but essentially they all have massive left boots and some playmaking ability.

 

[munstermuffin]

Ireland's offloads, Furlong the playmaker, and 1-3-2-2 attack shape https://the42.ie/5594453

Something I'm taking from this is that despite being the guy nobody wants JGP is pretty key to the way Farrell wants us to play at the moment. Casey is probably the next closest which is why he's there but isn't quite up to speed on the reads yet and the prospect of himself and Carbery together is defensively terrifying. Sexton and Keenan are also obviously key but we already knew that.

Lowe and Aki were also heavily involved yesterday and especially with Lowe you can see how their skillsets are important to realising our gameplan however they have more obvious replacements.

Henshaw can come in for Aki and probably isn't as powerful or as good an offloader but he's a better player and brings a better passing and kicking game. While to a certain extent Stockdale and um Zebo can replicate Lowe. Neither perfectly but they do some things better than him some things worse but essentially they all have massive left boots and some playmaking ability.

While all this is true. The fact is it was done against a Japan team that was 1 of the worst teams to ever come to Aviva in recent years. Real tests will be NZ and 6 Nations as Argentina will be terrible too. Thats not a hit against Ireland either as Andy Farrell or anyone can only beat what is in front of them and the signs are encouraging but if we can't do it on the bigger scale then it isn't good.

 

[big ginger 8]

While all this is true. The fact is it was done against a Japan team that was 1 of the worst teams to ever come to Aviva in recent years. Real tests will be NZ and 6 Nations as Argentina will be terrible too. Thats not a hit against Ireland either as Andy Farrell or anyone can only beat what is in front of them and the signs are encouraging but if we can't do it on the bigger scale then it isn't good.

What does this really have to do with my post? I was talking about the players and what we want from their skillsets in our overall gameplan.

Nobody has said that Japan are of the same quality or even close to the same quality as NZ so I don't see why people always feel a need to say this stuff other than to try and takeaway from the performance. People said the same thing after the England win, that they weren't at there best. Japan aren't world beaters but they're not as bad as we made them look yesterday. Two weeks ago they lost by 9 points to a pretty full strength Australia side just of the RC while Japan hadn't played since their match against us in July. The 'fact' is we absolutely blitzed them in the first 20 minutes and made it impossible for them to put up a fight. Are we going to do that against NZ or SA? Very unlikely. What you can take from it is if we play with the same intent and variety is that our attack will be very difficult to stop.

 

[munstermuffin]

While all this is true. The fact is it was done against a Japan team that was 1 of the worst teams to ever come to Aviva in recent years. Real tests will be NZ and 6 Nations as Argentina will be terrible too. Thats not a hit against Ireland either as Andy Farrell or anyone can only beat what is in front of them and the signs are encouraging but if we can't do it on the bigger scale then it isn't good.

Well on comments re JGP. If he is very poor against top tier teams then maybe he isn't answer and shouldn't be key. Also Lowe and I will include Conway. You say their skillsets are key. But it can be argued we still don't know is Lowe defensively up to it to even be in squad as based on URC the answer is No as teams have targeted him there and got some success. And that is not saying Murray or Zebo or Stockdale is answer.
The fact is no skillset was really put to test yesterday. And on our style or intent. We have seen Schmidt teams, Kidney teams and O'Sullivan teams do similar jobs against similar opposition in similar style in the past. So we can only truly take progress if we do genuinely try it in some shape or style against top teams.
If we do try mix it next week and loose in a competitive game that to me would be encouraging. If we revert to old personnel and style and loose heavy then it seems it is another era that hasn't learned from previous eras.

 

[Groundhog]