Ireland vs France, 20th August, AVIVA Stadium

First topic message reminder :

Marc Lievremont has named his side to face Ireland on Saturday, making 13 changes from the team that won in Bordeaux. Meanwhile, Declan Kidney has brought back several experienced players including O'Connell, David Wallace, Heaslip, O'Driscoll and D'Arcy as Ireland's preparations step up a gear. Special mention for Felix Jones, making his first start for Ireland, who looks well positioned to be our World Cup bolter should he grasp this massive opportunity.

The game will be held in the AVIVA Stadium on Saturday the 20th August, Kick-off is at 5pm.

IRELAND Team and Replacements

15 - Felix Jones (Shannon/ Munster)
14 - Andrew Trimble (Ballymena/Ulster)
13 - Brian O'Driscoll (UCD/Leinster) Captain
12 - Gordon D'Arcy (Lansdowne/Leinster)
11 - Keith Earls (Thomond/Munster)
10 - Jonathan Sexton (St.Mary's College/Leinster)
9 - Tomas O'Leary (Dolphin/Munster)

1 - Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster)
2 - Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster)
3 - Mike Ross (Clontarf/Leinster)
4 - Donncha O'Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster)
5 - Paul O'Connell (Young Munster/Munster)
6 - Sean O'Brien (Clontarf/Leinster)
7 - David Wallace (Garryowen/Munster)
8 - Jamie Heaslip (Naas/Leinster)

Replacements:
16 - Jerry Flannery (Shannon/ Munster)
17 - Tom Court (Malone/Ulster)
18 - Mike McCarthy (Buccaneers/Connacht)
19 - Stephen Ferris (Dungannon/Ulster)
20 - Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster)
21 - Ronan O'Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster)
22 - Luke Fitzgerald (Blackrock College/ Leinster)

FRANCE Team & Replacements:

15 - Cédric Heymans (Toulouse)
14 - Maxime Médard (Toulouse)
13 - Aurélien Rougerie (Clermont Auvergne)
12 - Fabrice Estebanez (Brive)
11 - Alexis Palisson (Toulon)
10 - David Skrela (Toulouse)
9 - Morgan Parra (Clermont Auvergne)

1 - Jean-Baptiste Poux (Toulouse)
2 - Dimitri Szarzewski (Stade Francais)
3 - Nicolas Mas (Perpignan)
4 - Pascal Papé (Stade Francais)
5 - Lionel Nallet (Racing Metro 92) (capt)
6 - Fulgence Ouedraogo (Montpellier)
7 - Louis Picamoles (Toulouse)
8 - Julien Bonnaire (Clermont Auvergne)

Replacements:

16 - Guilhem Guirado (Perpignan)
17 - Fabien Barcella (Biarritz Olympique)
18 - Julien Pierre (Clermont Auvergne)
19 - Raphaël Lakafia (Biarritz Olympique)
20 - Dimitri Yachvili (Biarritz Olympique)
21 - Francois Trinh-Duc (Montpellier)
22 - Vincent Clerc (Toulouse)

O'Leary should consider a change of position or sport. He played in the back three,centres and at out half for Munster before I think he could easily be a decent centre option as despite what people think he has good passing off both sides. Otherwise the Cork Hurlers could probably do with someone physical.

Of course they are used to playing 80 minutes Sin, what on earth..?

The fitness and conditioning is geared towards them playing 80 minutes. One of them will most likely play the full 80 this weekend. And there was rugby played before the Magners League introduced these rule changes last season.

Cannot believe people are argueing for Buckley over Court on the basis that Buckley is as bad at loosehead as Court is at tighthead.

Actually its not true, Court does at least have experience of playing TH for Ulster, Buckley is just a catastrophe whether hes at TH, LH or on the bench.

Court is in my view significantly better than Buckley on either side of the scrum.

Court may have been great for Ulster at loosehead, but hasn't been great for Ireland.

TBH, I think they are all poorish - but if they are only going to bring 4 props (which I doubt, I think France are bringing 5), it might be a good plan to sus out how to do this.

It could be Court instead of Horan, along with Hayes, but the way Horan & Hayes seem to always come on together suggests to me that if they go that route, it will be Hayes & Horan.

When has Ross played LH?

Under 22 man squad rules, is it not allowable to tactically sub a prop at any point in the game and then bring him back on again later on? In this way no prop has to play the full 80.

The Great Aukster wrote:When has Ross played LH?

Under 22 man squad rules, is it not allowable to tactically sub a prop at any point in the game and then bring him back on again later on? In this way no prop has to play the full 80.

I've never seen Ross (or Hayes) play LH.

I have seen Court play both though.
I have also seen Buckley play both.

I would not be impressed with any of their efforts when playing their non-usual side - Court gave away a penalty as soon as he came on for Ross against England (Ross was taken off at 58 mins because he was knackered having put in a great shift).

There is no way Horan will be on the plane and Court wont - baring injury of course

Sin é wrote:[
I've never seen Ross (or Hayes) play LH.

Me neither. But I would sooner see Ross at trying to close out a game at LH with Hayes at TH. Than I would have Buckley on either side, with either of them.

Ross is enough of a scrum guru to close out a game at LH. With Buckley you would see opposition kicking into our 22 and knocking on just to convert the peno.

geoff998rugby wrote:There is no way Horan will be on the plane and Court wont - baring injury of course

Anyone who thinks court isnt going is tapped

On a slightly different note, how awesome is it to see so many of our injured players back in action?

This is warming up nicely (touching all wood around me)

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:On a slightly different note, how awesome is it to see so many of our injured players back in action?

This is warming up nicely (touching all wood around me)

That's it we're now heading out at the group stages. Cheers Pete!

haha! Angry mob with torches and pitchforks at my house in the next hour!

I honestly feel we can challenge for a semi final spot I have to say, maybe I am just in a good mood today!

D24tress wrote:

geoff998rugby wrote:There is no way Horan will be on the plane and Court wont - baring injury of course

Anyone who thinks court isnt going is tapped

I think you both agree on that. What Geoff seems (to me) to be saying is that there is no way Horan will be on the plane AHEAD of Court.

Even if he takes 5 props, he will probably take Hayes AND Buckley. Only if Buckley is totally written off (or someone is hurt) will he take Horan. If he takes 4 Props it will be Hayes OR Buckley

Ross, Healy and Court are on the plane for sure (barring injury)

For anyone on twitter did you see murphys tweet last night
he wont be going to the world cup if i interpreted it right

What did it say?

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:haha! Angry mob with torches and pitchforks at my house in the next hour!

I honestly feel we can challenge for a semi final spot I have to say, maybe I am just in a good mood today!

Feel better with no Matt Gitteau OK. AND the fact that Aus have only 1 player who can play 7. They are not unbeatable. They are however still favourites by some distance.

If we can beat them there is a remote possibility of reaching a final. (Via Wales and France/England) If not, even if we can beat the Boks, (who would also be favourites in a WC) we will meet the ABs in a Semi and it's goodnight Vienna

D24tress wrote:For anyone on twitter did you see murphys tweet last night
he wont be going to the world cup if i interpreted it right

As soon as Jones was named to start v France, Murphy's chances took a nosedive.

"@geordanmurphy
The obese lady has opened her vocal chords!!"

My interpretation the fat lady has sung on his world cup chances

It's hard to believe that we're only a few days away from the big announcement.

Can you imagine the pandemonium on here when Kidney names a squad full over veterans with no exciting young players? Meltdown...

I don't think that'll happen though, I hope.

Very slow morning on here today.
To get things going, how about people provide 4 brief answers to the following:

What aspect of France's game will Ireland attack?
What aspect of Ireland's game will France attack?
What aspect of their own game do Ireland need to get right in order to win?
What aspect of their own game do France need to get right in order to win?

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What aspect of France's game will Ireland attack?
The best way to win a test match usually is to attack the opposition set piece. I don't see us getting any change out of France's set piece though, so instead I think we should go on an all-out attack of their halfback pairing through our backrow. If we can unsettle Skrela at the beginning his game could go to pieces. Then, just when he thinks it can't get any worse we can bring on Ferris.

What aspect of Ireland's game will France attack?
With Mas and Poux selected in the front row, the French all going to go all out at scrum time. Perhaps even more telling though is the backrow selection. With dynamic players like Bonnaire and Picamoles the French will attempt to keep the ball alive and moving it away quickly from the ruck in an attempt to stretch the Irish defence.

What aspect of their own game do Ireland need to get right in order to win?
It's obvious that we have to hold our own in the scrum particularly, but also at lineout time. This has become an area of weakness for Ireland in recent times. Perhaps the most important thing for Ireland to do though is to generate some go-forward momentum through the pack. Last week, only Cian Healy seemed to do this effectively. With Wallace, POC and Heaslip all selected for Saturday's game I expect us to generate not only momentum but much quicker ball with will give our backs the much-needed space which has been lacking up until this point.

What aspect of their own game do France need to get right in order to win?
In theory, France don't need much possession to beat teams due to their incredible backline. However, as we all know France are a confidence team. They love to play rugby. They love to run with the ball, they love to scrummage hard and really drive at the opposition. They don't love it when the opposition really get in their faces though, and they hate not having the ball. We saw evidence of this last week when France seemed almost disinterested during the short period in which Ireland were in the ascendancy. France will be eager to keep the ball for long periods, but they need to work equally hard and with the same enthusiasm as when they're attacking when Ireland have the ball.

So, how do others see it? Feel free to agree or disagree, I can take it.

Frankly its difficult to know what think of ALL these warmup games,France and England.Virtually rotating there whole sides week by week,England and Wales winning one each.
After the match Toby Flood went on Planet Rugby saying,we were trying
back moves discussed in training.When they did`nt work we keept on trying instead of kicking goals?!!.
Another massive change of squad for France,I don`t pretend to know the best teams for each side.
BUT,I really think IRELAND need to win this one to be treated seriously as contenders in RWC.

I agree, Ireland could really do with a win. We have to take the lead early with a try or a couple of penalties. We have to start scoring more heavily when we have the ball. That's how Leinster beat Toulouse this year. You can't beat French teams just by defending well. Whenever we get a rare win against France it's when we've scored at least 3 tries. We have to retain possession and stop the constant kicking the ball away. The French love having the ball. We have to keep our hands on it and keep the score board ticking over constantly.

We also have to get parity at the set piece. After watching last week, I don't see how we are going to manage this. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that everything in the lineout clicks, and we get a sympathetic ref at scrum time.

emack2 wrote:Frankly its difficult to know what think of ALL these warmup games,France and England.Virtually rotating there whole sides week by week,England and Wales winning one each.
After the match Toby Flood went on Planet Rugby saying,we were trying
back moves discussed in training.When they did`nt work we keept on trying instead of kicking goals?!!.
Another massive change of squad for France,I don`t pretend to know the best teams for each side.
BUT,I really think IRELAND need to win this one to be treated seriously as contenders in RWC.

As Brian O'Driscoll said when asked if this was make or break, we're going out there to win but it's not the World Cup yet. The World Cup starts in September. So by definition its not make or break.

But I agree, a win would do wonders for us. However its more important is that we get our set-pieces right and hopefully score a few tries. I wouldn't mind if we turned down a few three point opportunities to try a set piece move should it come to that

It's not make or break for Ireland as it was for Wales last week against England, however, a 15 + points defeat would really damage Irelands preparations and lay some seeds of doubt. And if anyone thinks the french are not capable of that then they need to think again. I actually see this one being very tight and possibly a draw