Irish Post mortem

First topic message reminder :

This thread is going to be painful and its time the gloves came off so if you dont like it just ignore it. But Im absolutely sick to the back teeth about what I heard tonight all of which blamed the defeat on ROG and Murray. Heres my take on it



1. Lets get one thing straight -Wales have a better team 1 to 15. I only found this out today but its clear. Their strenght and physicality was superior. They owned the break down which is where they won game. Our half backs were under severe pressure and were forced to change there plans at the last second every time. Warburten murdered us here.

2. Roberts absolutely killed us. And it wasnt in the 10 channel. BOD and Darcy are now the most ineffective centres in top tier Interantional rugby. For the second try Darcy shouted at players that he had the blindside covered - by f**k did he.

3. Front row - Irelands front row has been a revelation in the last 6 months and I am loathed to even think about criticising any player here. Cian Healy and Mike Ross have brought Ireland to this top table and simply have been brilliant. Didnt go well today.

4. Back row - Irelands best weapon in the games where we have turned up. One player has been absent - Heaslip. P. O'Mahony now has to be looked at as a replacement. You cant live on reputation. Would SOB have done so well against Australia if they had a natural 7 Pocock playing??? Not a criticism of SOB as he is not a natural 7. I believe you can live without a natural 7 as long as you commit men to the breakdown.

5. ROG and Murray - ROG had a terrible game - two over cooked kicks in the first half lost us good field position. Some sympathy for Murray as the break down was a mess because we didnt commit numbers and failed to secure our own ball. Pack was going backwards at the rate of knots all day. Did Sexton and Reddan make any difference - imo no- reddans first contribution was 2 poor box kicks into mid field and sexton first kick was an aimless kick into mid field which led to the third try.



Why we lost - the game was lost in the pack. Wales totally dominated here slowing down our ball at best and turning it over at best. Everything Preistland touched turned to gold. Roberts was a human wrecking ball.



Reirements


2. BOD great season in 09 for GS but is just falling off tackles now and not making breaks. Possibly move to 12 but I think should now retire

3. ROG - will retire

4.DOC - times up -great servant

5.Darcy - time to step aside - one of Irelands best ever 12s if not the best

roddersm wrote:Interestingly Thornley is suggesting that building for 2015 will start in 2013 and we will continue with the current crop for the next few seasons.

What do others think about that?

I agree with him entirely.

red_stag wrote:

roddersm wrote:Interestingly Thornley is suggesting that building for 2015 will start in 2013 and we will continue with the current crop for the next few seasons.

What do others think about that?

I agree with him entirely.

You agree with Thornley being correct... or you agree that Ireland should stick with the current squad players for another season or two?

I agree that it will happen. I agree it should happen.

There are no wholescale changes needed. There is more to rugby than World Cups and I think that it takes no longer than 18-24 months to gel a squad.

I agree that it is stupid to place blame on individual players. Wales and Ireland are both good teams. Wales played great and we were bad in tactics and execution. Losing to Wales was not inevitable. I have great respect for them but we are capable of beating them. If we played like we did against England in the 6 Nations we could have beaten them.

We barely even contested the breakdown, which is the complete opposite of what I thought we'd do. We blew Australia away by flooding the breakdown ferociously. Australia are better than Wales. Surely not putting numbers into the breakdown was a tactical decision by the management. It was an inept tactic.

We started with ROG. Not his fault but the coaches. ROG has heaped misery on the Welsh more than any player over the years. But perhaps because of that they have tried to target him for a long time, and of all test teams, have mastered the art of nullifying him. They showed us in the 6 Nations. ROG had a poor game that day too. To be fair, Sexton had kicked his way out of the starting jersey earlier in the tournament and ROG had performed well. But in hindsight, it's obvious that going with ROG was a mistake.

The general error count across the team was too high. Especially when Wales were executing everything so well. We actually had the better of territory and possession. We could have won if we had taken more chances. In defence too, Phillips try was a soft one to concede, although it was well taken. The Davies try was a complete joke and it was that that finished us off.

Just a poor performance from selection and tactics to execution. Wales are not in a different class. They are around the same level and we could have beaten them.

bedfordwelsh wrote:

Nos na Gaoithe wrote:

Sin é wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:I must admit I was shocked (but pleased) when they kept truning down kickable penalties so early in the game after having just gone behind.

From the commentary, it would seem the wind was a problem (O'Gara was kicking into it at that stage) and I think Wales were not kicking them from the same spot in the 2nd half either. He had no problem kicking them from elsewhere.

Thanks for that Sin... I had presumed at the time it had to be the wind... but the conundrum was that both he and Priestland kicked two impossible kicks later on.

Nonetheless I think he should have given at least two of them a go. He's successfully kicked under difficult conditions a trillion times.

Thats fair enough as it was windy but after the first two attempts when the lineout didn't work surely a pot at goal would have been worth a pot, wasn't Halfpennys into the wind?

Halfpenny had the wind behind him and he was in the middle of the pitch. Wales missed 3 in the 2nd half (twice hitting the posts).

What Kidney must achieve between now and his contract expiring is to develop a mental toughness. It seems these days we need to be underdogs, we need to have nothing to lose, we need the opposition coach to come out and say mean things about us to motivate ourselves, the favourites tag is an elephant in the room.

Kidney is a man manager; thats his job. If hasn't convinced me that he has instilled that attitude in the squad by 2013 we should look at a new coach. He did wonders in creating internal competition and losing the untouchables system we had under Eddie.

newbie wrote:
3. We did have to take them on at the fringe but we didnt. The halfbacks had no inside runners and we were completely static. I refer to how the NZ/Aus 3ns game awhile back. NZ were getting hammered out wide and Aus cut them to shreads, they attacked close in for the second half and controlled the game for a large part of the second half, nearly winning but got suckered by a great Aus try...we didnt do this or are not capable of doing this we are so static...as was mentioned except for Keith Woods its hard to think of an Irish forward who ever did this.RE the rolling maul...you saw what happened in the first half with that!

At the end of the day if you dont win the physicality stakes and the breakdown it becomes a much harder task to win. Of the four QFs this weekend three of them were won by the team that won the physical battle (except for Australia who did show how important the breakdown is). We just got beat up. We had our chances and took the wrong the decisions. We also made some uncharacteristic mistakes.

Thanks Newb.

I think we definitely do have a healthy fundamental disagreement there But we also agree on more than you think.

You see you have somewhat misunderstood my post (which is my fault for being unclear by the way). Just to clarify... I was not at all saying we should have done those first two tactical options. (And I've never been in favour of some "gung ho" tactic of throwing the ball around.) I was saying that those 3 are the natural options to respond to what the Welsh were doing. And that because the first two options were completely negated by the way the Welsh structured their game, that it was very strange that we saw very little of the third option (in any form).

We just kept lobbing the ball 5 feet away from the ruck in the obvious open direction to the obvious ball-carriers and watching them get cut down and slowly beaten up. There was no effort to up the off-loading from those carriers as they drew the tackle allowing us to keep on the front foot. Instead it was just slow backward pass, tackle, collapse on the ball, slow set up of ruck, repeat tactic. There was almost NO pick-and-go close in to the breakdown either. This is precisely where I'm trying to answer the static problem that you quite correctly are bringing up.

I am in complete agreement about inside runners and physicality (the latter is precisely the reason to start with Sexton - but let's not go down that road... the rest of this discussion is so much more interesting!)

We started with ROG. Not his fault but the coaches. ROG has heaped misery on the Welsh more than any player over the years. But perhaps because of that they have tried to target him for a long time, and of all test teams, have mastered the art of nullifying him. They showed us in the 6 Nations. ROG had a poor game that day too. To be fair, Sexton had kicked his way out of the starting jersey earlier in the tournament and ROG had performed well. But in hindsight, it's obvious that going with ROG was a mistake.


Hi Feckless...see again as per a lot of the posts there is a picking out of individuals which I dont see any point to. Having Sexton or O'Gara starting on Saturday would not have made a difference. You dont seem to be looking at the big picture in terms of how the game went. We could have had Dan Carter playing outhalf last Saturday and it wouldnt have made a difference.

Interesting also that you blame coaching for the defeat (both in terms of selecting O'Gara and also I presume tactics etc)..in effect we played our gameplan as Wales did theirs. Theirs was executed better. Its a bit too simplistic to point to one individual or to coaching failure when we played two excellent games previously. In effect the team as a whole failed. The mistakes, the decision making, the poor tackling and the lack of any platform.

Also why would you bring up the Welsh game in the 6ns its got nothing to do with this one. But to be fair I believe again the team as a whole were very poor that day as well.

ROG was picked because he was the form player in his position.

Yes of course we could have beaten them. We had our chances. But we didnt take them and on the day werent good enough.

Sin é wrote:
Wales missed 3 in the 2nd half (twice hitting the posts).

A very good point Sin... and one that comes close to carrying the argument for me. (Except for that ROG is an exceptional kicker).

I am in complete agreement about inside runners and physicality (the latter is precisely the reason to start with Sexton -

Yep while Sexton is more physical he is not a marauding flank forward so not sure why he would have made a difference. The issue isnt whether we have an outhalf who can beat up a forward or break a tackle (although it would be nice if we had one) its whether they have the platform to impose their game. We didnt have a platform.

newbie wrote: Yep while Sexton is more physical he is not a marauding flank forward so not sure why he would have made a difference. The issue isnt whether we have an outhalf who can beat up a forward or break a tackle (although it would be nice if we had one) its whether they have the platform to impose their game. We didnt have a platform.

I don't want to get too drawn into the whole ROG/Sexton thing again as we have been doing that for the last two days ad nauseum. I think some of us do feel its reasonable to say that if your No 10 is a completely different style of player then that does often lead to a completely different style of game.

As to point above... if we had not had so much of the ball and had not been in the Welsh 22 for so much of the first half of the game, then I might have agreed with you. But when we were in that 22 pressing for the line, IMO we had almost no options. We lobbed the ball to the usual carriers (which the Welsh were to a man focussed on chop-tackling) OR we spun the ball out wide far too quickly and the Welsh had it covered.

Sexton's physical presence at 10 keeps the backline worried about him changing direction or punching through midfield... and that creates space outside.

Sexton's physical presence at 10 keeps the backline worried about him changing direction or punching through midfield... and that creates space outside.


So this is my point. Sexton can possibly do that but he hasnt been effective doing that either. What he can do better is not lose the ball in contact and protect the ball..

In terms of fixing the defence the problem last Saturday was that Wales flooded the midfield anyway there was no space and we had used plenty of runners . They did not commit to the breakdown and in terms of knocking our runners used the American football technique for chopping the runners down at knee level and only needed two to contest the breakdown. Because we couldnt get the multi phase aspect of the game going with momentum we could not create the space as Wales were not getting sucked in.

LOL - I can see from the previous posts why this might not be an arguement that you want to resurrect. My take on this is purely that it wouldnt have made a difference who was outhalf because of the lack of any platform plus excellent tactics by Wales.

newbie wrote:LOL - I can see from the previous posts why this might not be an arguement that you want to resurrect.

newbie wrote: So this is my point. Sexton can possibly do that but he hasnt been effective doing that either. What he can do better is not lose the ball in contact and protect the ball..

Well I agree with that... but its not only about that. Sexton can also give some sublime offloads from the tackle that give Ireland the breakthrough line they need. ROG is more often taken "man and ball" and in any case he was generally by-passed (by-passing himself) in the big moments of Ireland's attack.

Anyway's lets try and go a different direction. The problem for me with what you are saying is that it all sounds too fatalistic. That we simply couldnt have done anything. And it makes it sound like the Welsh have somehow invented the perfect game and that there is nothing anyone can do to counter-act it.

What would you have tried to do strategically/tactically to counteract the Welsh game with all the talent that we had on the field in green?

Of course we could have beaten Wales but I also think that maybe just maybe we arent good enough. This again is why I am not interested in pointing at individuals...

As stated earlier in my first post...
1. We made too many mistakes. At least 2 of the tries were from errors in defence. In fact the first one came from missed tackles as well.
2. Decision making was poor all round. Specifically not going for the posts in the first half.
3. Tactically we should have tried the following (as you suggested)
pick and go around the fringes.
cross field kicks to the wings (like the penalty shots given O'Gara is such a proponent of this not sure why we didnt try it)
More runners (wings or loose forwards) coming from depth on the inside of O'Gara or Murray.
4. Personnel wise at half time I would have done the following.
Brought on Ryan for POC or DOC (didnt matter which one)
Brought on LEamy for Heaslip
Brought on Trimble for Kearney (put Earls in FB)
Would have considered Cronin at some stage but Rory Best was playing well)
Brought on sexton for ROG...

All these were due to the lack of platform and all with a little bit more aggression (specifically the forwards) and physicality. We started to look tred and clueless and BOD and POC seemed to be too tired and emotional....

newbie wrote:Of course we could have beaten Wales but I also think that maybe just maybe we arent good enough. This again is why I am not interested in pointing at individuals...

As stated earlier in my first post...
1. We made too many mistakes. At least 2 of the tries were from errors in defence. In fact the first one came from missed tackles as well.
2. Decision making was poor all round. Specifically not going for the posts in the first half.
3. Tactically we should have tried the following (as you suggested)
pick and go around the fringes.
cross field kicks to the wings (like the penalty shots given O'Gara is such a proponent of this not sure why we didnt try it)
More runners (wings or loose forwards) coming from depth on the inside of O'Gara or Murray.
4. Personnel wise at half time I would have done the following.
Brought on Ryan for POC or DOC (didnt matter which one)
Brought on LEamy for Heaslip
Brought on Trimble for Kearney (put Earls in FB)
Would have considered Cronin at some stage but Rory Best was playing well)
Brought on sexton for ROG...

All these were due to the lack of platform and all with a little bit more aggression (specifically the forwards) and physicality. We started to look tred and clueless and BOD and POC seemed to be too tired and emotional....

Funnily enough I strongly agree with nearly every single one of your numbered points.

But as regards the not good enough I just don't think it matches up with the game. Sure the Welsh gameplan paid off in spades and they were much more ferocious in defense than we were. But the game was 10-10 on 50 mins and we had dominated most of it up to that point. I put much more emphasis on your other points about the use of our options, our all-round decision-making, and the fact that the Welsh had planned for ROG and succeeded in knocking him off his favourite game very early on.

Gotta go... "work" is done for the day. Nice talking with a fellow supporter.

agreed Nos. Some loser talk coming out. We will be giving the Welsh a guard of honour in the Aviva at this rate, even if France wallop them on Saturday

Yes they are a very good young side but that's it. We have a reasonable record against them look at the stats. It was a 50/50 game despite and they won it due to better execution and tactics. There seem to be some with the attitude yerrah we were never going to win anyway against the mighty welsh. absolute horsesh1t. lets hold our hands up and look at why we didn't beat them and set about rectifying this for the 6 nations when they visit Dublin.

If we somehow rediscover the basic concept of backplay and freshen up personnel we will be in a better place

Dont agree Stag. I think we need to start building now. Not wholescale by any means but we need to start changing. we have been blessed in the last 10 years that any Irish backline had the great man at its centre. In 2015 we wont have that. We need someone to run the defensive line, captain the team and said person also needs to develop a relationship with other players.

I think we are well served at 15 between Kearney, Jones and at a push Earls/Gilroy/Conway.

Wing is another area where we have 3 great options backed up by decent prospects coming through. I would like to see at least one of these guys blooded in a 6N. Maybe a home game against Italy is a good bet.

Centre we need to develop at least one in the 6N. BOD obviously remains for the time being (to my mind we should get a new Captain while both he and POC are around aid him). Do we use Spence, McFadden, Fitzgerald to 12, Wallace or Bowe in? Im not sure. A lot will depend on gametime but i would prefer Bowe or Spence at 13.

Backrow- here is an area where we have 3 top class players and wally injured. I think the days of Leamy or Jennings covering should be dispensed with and one of O'Mahoney (if he is playing as well as suggested), Ruddock or Ryan (is he injured).

I also think we need to change up our locks. I have nothing against DOC but we need to develop someone in this area. Tuohy or Ryan seem likely and Andrew Browne was good at Connacht from report.

Front row is trickier but there are some guys out there coming through who could probably do as good a job as Court in backing up. Hooker aswell could be up for grabs after Best. Sherry is coming through.
These are the changes i would like to see for the 6N and i feel that would give us an extra year or two for some younger talent toget exposed to top rugby.

We seem to agree on lots of things but unfortunately along with some of the posters on here, there seems to be some form of fixation with O'Gara versus Sexton in terms of winning or losing the game, whereas it seems fairly obvious that was not the case. It is of course an opinion but would you not admit it seems to be based on provincial bias..even just a little. I would have been quite happy to have started Sexton on sat but i dont think the result would have been different . Then we would just get the Munster crowd going on about him.

I am not sure where you get the loser talk from Dublindave lol as i think just by cutting out the mistakes in our game would have meant we would have beaten Wales. But some changes in personnel would have helped as well in a number of positions including Sexton at half time if you like

Anyway apologies if I have offended anyone, there seems to be lots of passionate folk on here . It would be good to direct it in a more positive manner in terms of the nature of the postmortem. It does seem a little simplistic to suggest one player or position was the cause of the defeat when the overall game suggests otherwise .

got the right hump today. there is a small smattering of loser talk in the thread. we gave it a good lash but we will never beat wales they are stronger all over the field etc etc. they certainly were on Saturday but if you think they are at a different level to us the stats would indicate otherwise. It was a 50/50 game to meet an inconsistent french team in a semi final. We played quite poorly and lost. Sickening.

Easy to say with hindsight Sexton should have started. Rog however earned his start on form and superior goal kicking. He did not walk the walk on Saturday. He had a poor game in probably his last international game. A real pity

Both in the backs and in the pack we seem to struggle to get people coming onto the ball at pace. SOB and Ferris can do it as we know however Wales negated them brilliantly on Saturday. Healy had a tough day in scrum and this sapped his ball carrying.

We knew Wales were going to take some stopping with Roberts,North,Davies on the charge but we never really got to grips with them. Ironically i think Ball in hand our back row are better than theirs but its a question of finding a system that gets us playing at a higher temp and being less predictable with ball in hand. We dont have massive backs like Wales so we need something else, dummy runners, loops, use of blindside wingers you name it. Wales ironically were not very intricate out wide like traditional Welsh backlines. They were big fast talented bludgeons. not sure Roberts can cut open a defense with a piece of skill or sleight of hand but he will get you go forward all day long

Even if we introduce the likes of Spence, Mc Fadden to our backline we will still be giving away a serious amount of bulk. we need creativity to allow for this shortfall in size when we play top teams. We need to get our 2nd rows smashing people out of rucks not standing static in the ten channel

Final Rant of the day: can we dump Irelands call. Its absolutely cringeworthy diddleyidy nonsense. Worst anthem in world rugby. I would rather we played the Sash for the Northern lads to be honest if they want a singalong proper folk/traditional song

ferris,best et al put their bodies on the line week in week out for Irish rugby i dont think they would have a massive issue with just Amrhran na bhfiann as our national anthem. what would your thoughts be on this Ulster fans? do you like Ireland's call?? i get a horrible uncomfortable feelign when i hear our 2nd national anthem live. Its naff

I think most rugby fans wouldnt have a problem with the Irish National anthem but i dont think thats an issue really. I dont mind Irelands Call either.

The one criticism I would never label at Spence is his physicality. He may not be Roberts size but i would have no issue putting him up against him. He is a monster in the tackle. I think it was Robshaw he absolutely mangled in pre-season. He isnt the biggest guy but he is ridiculously strong. I think he could do a job for us. has plenty to work on though

The usual suspects spouting the usual...not sure what you will be able to drone on about with rog gone..anyhow here is a postmortem/ratings

Healy 3 work in progress still found out he isnt all that
Best 6 worked his socks off
Ross 4 worked hard
Poc 3 poor leadership
Doc 5 worked his socks off
Sob 4 like his first cap against samoa was found wanting once matched physically
Ferris 5 another one who tried their best
Heaslip 3 talks the talk..needs to find form soon..pity he didnt find any for this wc
Murray 5 ok and did well enough no platform to work on
Rog 3 same ad poc
Bod 3 same as poc
Darcy 2 nuff said
Bowe 4
Earls 4
Kearney 3

In effect none of the senipr players turned up. No one played heads up rugby and that is ultimately why we lost an eminently winnable game

newbie wrote:We seem to agree on lots of things but unfortunately along with some of the posters on here, there seems to be some form of fixation with O'Gara versus Sexton in terms of winning or losing the game, whereas it seems fairly obvious that was not the case. It is of course an opinion but would you not admit it seems to be based on provincial bias..even just a little. I would have been quite happy to have started Sexton on sat but i dont think the result would have been different . Then we would just get the Munster crowd going on about him.

It doesn't help this fly half debate when someone just attrubute peoples view point to provincial bias. I'm an Ulster supporter and if Sexton played for Munster and ROG Leinster I'd be saying the exact same thing.

Would we have won if Sexton had of started? No one could say that but it would have helped shore up that midfield defence which Wales got so much joy out of and it would have given us a bit more options in attack. As you've said your self Sexton has the ability to retain posession and make a break which helps hold the opposition defence.

There were other weaknesses exposed against Wales but as your tactics are primarily dictated by your number 10, thats obviously the first place to look at.

D'arcy played his best rugby in a few years over the past month but that doesn't disguise the fact that our midfield is badly lacking pace and power and has done for a few seasons. BOD's body doesn't seem to be able to match his phenomenal will to win any more and he's having less and less influence on the pitch.

Neither Wales or Ireland had great 6N but I think where Wales have stole a March on us is that they have identified and rectified their weaknesses through changes to personnel and tactics were we have simply masked ours through improved forward performance. Once we came across a pack we couldn't dominate our lack of invention, creativity, pace, power and strike threat in our 3/4's was ruthlessly exposed.

It made extremely painful viewing and I hope not to witness an Irish being so physically and tactically outmatched again.

I've just watched the match in full again and would recommend any prospective posters on here to do so. What is clear is that Ireland played well. I question their tactics in not going for the posts in the first half, but if Shane Williams had failed to keep SOB out (that sounds ridiculous doesn't it?) it would have been a very different game. As soon as Ireland started to try to run from everywhere it was game over. Having gone for ROG and Murray I was bewildered with the change at 55 minutes, just when they were starting to click.

Anyway, my ratings:
Kearney 7
Bowe 5
BOD 6
D'Arcy 3
Earles 7
ROG 5
Murray 8
Healy 3
Best 6
Ross 4
POC 6
DOC 4
Ferris 8
SOB 4
Heaslip 3

Hi there rodderssm..

Like some of the other posters you make really good points, especially around the second part. However like the others you still are attributing overall problems in the team to O'Gara .
For example the midfield defence..this seemed to be a team failing, i cant say that any of the scores by wales were because of O'Gara . And with regards to the ten running the game you are correct, but again you contradict yourself as others have done by admitting we lacked a platform. I dont think the problem w was as one dimensional as some on here do


Also i said sexton is less likely to lose the ball in the tackle he rarely does make a break

dublin_dave wrote:
Even if we introduce the likes of Spence, Mc Fadden to our backline we will still be giving away a serious amount of bulk. we need creativity to allow for this shortfall in size when we play top teams. We need to get our 2nd rows smashing people out of rucks not standing static in the ten channel

Final Rant of the day: can we dump Irelands call. Its absolutely cringeworthy diddleyidy nonsense. Worst anthem in world rugby. I would rather we played the Sash for the Northern lads to be honest if they want a singalong proper folk/traditional song

ferris,best et al put their bodies on the line week in week out for Irish rugby i dont think they would have a massive issue with just Amrhran na bhfiann as our national anthem. what would your thoughts be on this Ulster fans? do you like Ireland's call?? i get a horrible uncomfortable feelign when i hear our 2nd national anthem live. Its naff

Spence is 6 foot and over 15 stone. He's certainly as physical as any option we have and at 21 is likely to get even stronger.

I'd have no problem with Amrhran na bhfiann but I can understand why some would feel it's not inclusive if it was our sole anthem. It's a debate I'd rather not get into and I don't think our anthem was the reason we lost to Wales.

Feck is anyone else finding this loss really hard to take??

Hi Newbie. No I'm not blaming the loss on O'Gara.

I just think it was a tactical error to select him against a Wales side who have been so effective at using Roberts and North down the 10-12 channel. Halfpenny also read his kicks very easily.

You're right in terms of defence it was a team thing. However we left ourselves with very little option in the centre. We should have been looking at different centre option 18 months ago and left ourselves with D'arcy as the best option from a not great bunch.

If we had been able to stop Roberts on the gainline we would have gone a long way to nullifying Wales attacking threat but with ROG and D'arcy defending that channel we had very little chance of that.

No point of going into the Amhran na bhFiann debate. All I will say is half the Ulster fellas never sing Irelsnd's Call anyway. Wouldn't mind a better song.

Irelands call is a wonderful song, it stirs the heart strings, thats all I'm saying ....

Ireland's Call was commissioned by the IRFU because they wanted inclusivity. Once they opened that particular pandora's box they can never go back again to solely having Amhran na bhFiann. Perhaps the Dáil Éireann will now adopt Ireland's Call?

Gatland's tactics forced ROG to make mistakes - by launching his midfield to regularly cut out ROG's passing option to Darce and having 1/2p to field and return any kicks to space, ROG's strengths were nullified. He was forced to run more than he ever has and that is something he is not good at. The difficulty with ROG's game is that to be effective he has to be pulling the strings, but Wales forced him to play the way they wanted. It's not that he cost Ireland the game but rather that he couldn't dictate the positions from which Ireland normally prosper.

Would Sexton have been any better? Hard to say as Gatland would have needed a different approach and it could have been just as effective.

Yes you are spot on Aukster.

If we'd have had better linespeed in defence and a bit more physicality and enthusiasm, to not just tackle Roberts but stop him in his tracks and knock him backwards then it would have been a totally different game.

Just like stopping O'Brien and Ferris left us lacking a cutting edge, if we'd have stopped Roberts, Davies and North from waltzing over the gainline then we could well be in the SF right now. Easier said than done but did we pick the players best suited to performing this task?

roddersm wrote:Yes you are spot on Aukster.

If we'd have had better linespeed in defence and a bit more physicality and enthusiasm, to not just tackle Roberts but stop him in his tracks and knock him backwards then it would have been a totally different game.

Just like stopping O'Brien and Ferris left us lacking a cutting edge, if we'd have stopped Roberts, Davies and North from waltzing over the gainline then we could well be in the SF right now. Easier said than done but did we pick the players best suited to performing this task?

Having watched the match again, I can't help but feel that wallace was a huge loss. We were grand without him in the more open games but the way wales defended yesterday was crying out for wallace carrying the ball from a standing start and setting up quick ball for ferris and sob. Instead we had the two of them taking slow ball from a standing start and neither of them are able to make yards as consistently as wally does/did from a standing start. It would have also meant we would have had a viable backrow sub on the bench instead of having to rely on leamy.

Also Wales tackled low and hard. Forgotten art really, Joe Worsley is a master of it - chop the legs away and the guy is going down, also makes stealing the ball much easier. I think it was as simple as that - Irelands game is based on power driving into mauls and staying on feet. Gatland and Edwards sure won the tactical battles on the weekend.

Interesting analysis glas and more positive than some of us Irish posters . The game was won and lost due to small but significant mistakes, decisions etc. We had our chances and didnt take them which wales did.

I agree that Wallace was a huge loss to us in terms of getting over the gainline.

Oxford Welsh wrote:Also Wales tackled low and hard. Forgotten art really, Joe Worsley is a master of it - chop the legs away and the guy is going down, also makes stealing the ball much easier. I think it was as simple as that - Irelands game is based on power driving into mauls and staying on feet. Gatland and Edwards sure won the tactical battles on the weekend.

Absolutely spot on.

Oxford Welsh wrote: Gatland and Edwards sure won the tactical battles on the weekend.

Absolutely. Edwards used the leg tackle to stop O'Brien and Ferris from getting any go forward. I really don't think Wallace would have made any difference from that respect.

Gatland also switched North and Williams around, which was a brilliant piece of tactical play and totally nullified a big advantage we had in the air.

The frustrating thing is that Wales and Gatland were totally prepared for everything we were going to throw at them. We seemed to have one plan, to kick for territory and rely on Ferris, O'Brien and POC to charge up the middle. When that didn't work we had no plan B and just hit the panic button and throw the ball around, which put us under even more pressure.

By contrast we seemed completely unprepared for what Wales threw at us and we looked shell shocked after the 1st 3 minutes. Roberts flattened D'arcy, then ran over the top of DOC and Williams scored in the corner. I don't think we ever fully recovered from that.

To be honest I think we underestimated Wales. D'arcy shrugged off the threat of the Welsh backs before the game, saying he'd seen it all before. I think our players and management just thought we could go out and play our normal game and it would be enough, whereas Gatland sent his team out with the perfect gameplan to stop all our key men and attack all our weaknesses.

DOD wrote:The usual suspects spouting the usual...not sure what you will be able to drone on about with rog gone..anyhow here is a postmortem/ratings

We've been through this ... at least try and stick to the topic for one post without attacking other posters who happen to hold a different view to you. I don't know you from adam and have only posted here a short while and yet you have already made 2 insulting generalised posts in my direction.

DOD wrote:In effect none of the senipr players turned up. No one played heads up rugby and that is ultimately why we lost an eminently winnable game

Funnily enough when you actually talk about rugby... this statement above... when combined with the statement from Great Aukster above (which I know you are completely opposed to) are the two posts so far that I think put together offer the best analysis of the two areas which lost us the game:

Nos the only difference is that Auckster explains one aspect of the game correctly, I do not disagree with him. What I do disagree with is that it was the only reason we lost which is what you and others on here are spouting which show a complete lack of knowledge of the game of rugby as a whole and is only self serving drivel.

Lets be clear was it ROGs fault that SOB and to a lesser extent Ferris were not effective. Was it ROGs fault that Heaslip actually played worse than Leamy on a bad day. Was it ROG who decided not to take the penalty kicks at goal. Was it ROGs fault that the scrum was under pressure or that we found it hard to secure our ball. Was it ROGs fault that we did not take things up around the fringes more. Maybe it was ROGs fault that those pesky welshmen were fanning across the field in defense leaving no space. Was it ROGs fault that our centres were ineffective or that our FB was so obvious and pedestrian that my 8 year old would have returned the ball more effectively. ,Was it ROGs fault that Phillips exposed our blindside for the second try or that Earls, Healy, Kearney and Redden couldnt tackle Davies for the third. Oh yeah you might notice in the lead up to the third try you might notice in the lead up to the third try that Roberts takes about 15 - 20 metres out of Sexton...

As you will see from my ratings did I think that ROG had a good game...absolutely not but there are a myriad of other reasons for the loss of which ROG is a part but not the main element. Pity that some people will just put forward the same tired old rubbish.

DOD wrote:What I do disagree with is that it was the only reason we lost which is what you and others on here are spouting which show a complete lack of knowledge of the game of rugby as a whole and is only self serving drivel.

I haven't seen one poster put that argument across.

DOD wrote:Nos the only difference is that Auckster explains one aspect of the game correctly, I do not disagree with him. What I do disagree with is that it was the only reason we lost which is what you and others on here are spouting which show a complete lack of knowledge of the game of rugby as a whole and is only self serving drivel.

As you will see from my ratings did I think that ROG had a good game...absolutely not but there are a myriad of other reasons for the loss of which ROG is a part but not the main element. Pity that some people will just put forward the same tired old rubbish.

DOD you seem to completely confuse consistent aggressive ignorant abuse and personal invective with putting forward a good argument. You've said nothing in your post that has not been discussed much more eloquently and convincingly by almost every other poster for 4 pages.

You straight away based your whole post on your own personal delusion that everyone who thinks that the ROG decision was the wrong one thinks that that was the only thing that mattered at the weekend. That has been completely and utterly rejected on almost every post in this thread. Have a read maybe.

I for one find it a waste of time to continue conversing with you as you keep personally belittling anyone who simply disagrees with you and frankly I have better things to be doing than getting insulted by random anonymous posters. From now on you can post what you like... I'll just stay out of your way. (I'd be obliged, if you can, if you try and steer clear of my posts too)

roddersm wrote:

Oxford Welsh wrote: Gatland and Edwards sure won the tactical battles on the weekend.

Absolutely. Edwards used the leg tackle to stop O'Brien and Ferris from getting any go forward. I really don't think Wallace would have made any difference from that respect.

Rodders... to get back to more relevant issues.

I agree with both of ye on the tackling tactic and think it is what defined the entire game. But this is precisely why I thought Ireland were depressingly one-dimensional. There are weaknesses that come with every strong gameplan - even chop-tackling. It means your defense are focused on going low immediately and not concentrating on taking man and ball and slowing down off-loads. But Ireland just kept doing the same thing over and over: throwing the ball to individuals and going to ground individually where Wales were waiting with Warburton et al on disrupting Irish quick ball. We almost never looked to deceive the tacklers going to ground immediately in front of us by having men ready to take an offload on SOB/Ferris/Heaslip's shoulder. (Or by encouraging "pick and go" drives) It did not require a try scoring line break. It simply required an extra 2-3 metre gain on each phase beyond the Welsh flat line in order to force them to turn around and commit more men to rucks and to negate their front foot aggressive defense that ultimately turned the game their way. It's not that they didn't do exactly what I've said here... it's that they did nothing at all.

(I should say that even if Ireland had gone this route, their record over the last year shows that their handling may not have been up to scratch to pull it off!)

dont see where anyone laid all the blame at O Gara's feet maybe i am missing something. He played poorly as did many others. Thought we all agreed on that.

He was given the nod on form and for his general control goal kicking but he did not deliver the goods. Simple as that. He has not delivered the good consistently when starting games over the last few years much like Sexton. Our best performances in terms of attacking v decent opposition we have had Sexton at the helm. Him getting the yips was the reason he was correctly dropped by Kidney

The debate is a pain in the backside now and though the competition at times has been beneficial at other times it has been a major hinderence especially given the messing around at scrum half aswell. we have rotated the living daylights out of our halfbacks and left an impotent midfield partnership as shoe ins for 1year. Defies logic really.

We have been utterly one dimensional in attack for the guts of the last year. That is another hard cold fact. The difference v Aus and England being we played with serious intensity and pace.

Also against the Welsh we made 2 glaring defensive errors and conceded 2 tries that were so soft. Our defense is normally a strongpoint and it let us down big time. Individual errors, cannot really blame Les Kiss who to be fair has done a good job.

we need a rethink take stock of where we need to improve and push forward both in terms of tactics and personnel

dublin_dave wrote:
Also against the Welsh we made 2 glaring defensive errors and conceded 2 tries that were so soft. Our defense is normally a strongpoint and it let us down big time. Individual errors, cannot really blame Les Kiss who to be fair has done a good job.

I think thats a bit of red herring actually. The first try caught us cold. We underestimated Wales and got caught out. It was poor defending by Murray and Earls but it was good play by Wales to stretch us.

The phillips try was the killer. Sloppy stuff on the blindside and terrible by Bowe and D'arcy.

The Davies try came after a period of concerted pressure. We couldn't get the ball or get out of our own half and we were out on out feet physically. If Davies hadn't of scored it would have been someone else. We were gone by then.

The worrying thing is that we were absolutley shattered after 60 min and a major reason is that we were defending on the back foot for most of the game as Wales got over the gainline too easily.

I think the other big issue was our failure to take our own points.

Ah now lads...who is deluding themselves. In all cases the arguement has been that yes we played badly with platitudes to some of the issues but but the punch line has always been put forward that ROG was to blame for us losing the game or not winning the game. Its the usual mealy mouthed stuff from the usual suspects...

I decided the have a look at the game for the first time since Saturday and as an independent observer like Glas has noted O'Gara actually had a good game in all aspects. In fact for 55 mins we played well.

Anyway good luck in your in depth analysis of the problems for Ireland I dont think Kidney or the IRFU will be looking for help from this brains trust...

We'll forget some of the poor touch line kicks then.

roddersm wrote:

dublin_dave wrote:
Also against the Welsh we made 2 glaring defensive errors and conceded 2 tries that were so soft. Our defense is normally a strongpoint and it let us down big time. Individual errors, cannot really blame Les Kiss who to be fair has done a good job.

The worrying thing is that we were absolutley shattered after 60 min and a major reason is that we were defending on the back foot for most of the game as Wales got over the gainline too easily.

Yep. Agree with rodders there Dave. I think the way the Irish team (and forwards in particular) looked on 60 mins was particularly memorable in that we'd rarely seen them that shattered before. But it seemed more from the beating they took from the Welsh aggressive tackling than anything else. I mean Wales only really began to dominate posession-wise from that point onwards.

A couple Thomond for sure...but as was pointed out lots of players made mistakes..dont mention anyone noting the two bad throws by Rory Best in the lead up to tries 2 and 3 for Wales as well...I think Best had a good overall game but I havent seen him being hung out to dry...or Sextons aimless kick in the lead up to the 3rd try....

While O'Gara possibly could have played better, at the end of the day the facts dont add up in terms of how he played last Sat in relation to the team as a whole. As was noted the general theme of the posts buy the usual suspects has been....

"Well the team played badly......but its ROGs fault"... one eyed pointless drivel from most of them.

dublin_dave wrote: The debate is a pain in the backside now and though the competition at times has been beneficial at other times it has been a major hinderence especially given the messing around at scrum half aswell. we have rotated the living daylights out of our halfbacks and left an impotent midfield partnership as shoe ins for 1year. Defies logic really.

Think this is something that nearly every Irish supporter can agree upon in some way.

I for one think that BOD and Darcy played very well overall for what they were there for: blanket defense. I was not expecting them to be the attacking 12-13 of the mid-2000s. But it was shown up as a huge weakness the moment our back row and our kicking game were neutralised. (and then of course there was Darce's moment to forget! )

you are fabricating all sorts of nonsense. read the thread

Out half is a pivotal position on the pitch and will of course be debated in a post mortem thread. I do not see why you are getting such a bee in your bonnet about people saying that O Gara played poorly. Its a fact. He got the nod and did not deliver as he can. I have watched it back twice and he did not give the level of control needed to pin wales back and he kicked quite poorly from hand. Wales in a nutshell had him absolutely sussed as they did in the 6 nations last year.

heaslip was anonymous again as was Darcy, Healy had a poor game and sob and ferris were ruthlessly targeted as they are our single source of go forward. That is a testimony to the one dimensional nature of our attacking play that if you stop our back rows on the hoof we have no plan B.

We had a great chance to get to a semi and we were out-thought and out-fought by a decent Welsh side albeit they are not world beaters yet

Rog should no way be exempt from criticism and nor should Kidney for that matter. If Sexton kicked as poorly from hand you would have been up in arms. To young he is too naive cannot boss a game at this level etc etc ad nauseum

anyway im done with this. onward and upward and lets see if we can add more cutting edge and invention before the 6 nations. I will not hold my breath though if the bulk of the squad remains intact and there is no youthful blood added. interesting times ahead

Dave I wouldn't bother mate, logic will get you nowhere in this debate. When you have to explain why the fly-half is more crucial to your tactics and the way you play than the hooker or no 8 then you are on a hiding to nothing.

Lets just pretend ROG had a stormer and move on.

So who do we think actually showed up for Ireland:

Best (leads my list)
Kearney (thought he had an impressive WC overall and was solid from what I can remember against Wales)
Ferris (did his job well even if he was somewhat tamed overall)
Reddan played well when he came on


That's a poor return I'd say. The rest were either anonymous or poor. Healy and POC would be in there too for me in terms of intensity. But both had problems: Healy started to lose his scrummaging battle and POC failed to inspire any game-changing tactics around the breakdown.