Ireland vs Wales - This weekends BIG GAME...!

First topic message reminder :

Venue: Aviva Stadium Date: Sunday, 5 February Kick-off: 1500 GMT

Coverage: Watch live on BBC One, BBC One HD & online from 1400 GMT; full commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra; text commentary on BBC Sport website & mobiles.

Referee : Wayne Barnes (England)

Touch judges : Dave Pearson & Stuart Terheege (both England)

TV : Geoff Warren (England)

IRELAND : 15 - R Kearney; 14 - T Bowe, 13 - F McFadden, 12 - G D'Arcy, 11 - A Trimble (Ulster); 10 - J Sexton, 9 - C Murray; 1- C Healy, 2 - R Best, 3 - M Ross, 4 - D O'Callaghan, 5 - P O'Connell (C), 6 - S Ferris, 7 - S O'Brien, 8 - J Heaslip.

Replacements: 16 - S Cronin, 17 - T Court, 18 - D Ryan, 19 - P O'Mahony, 20 - E Reddan, 21 - R O'Gara, 22 - D Kearney.

WALES : 15 - L Halfpenny; 14 - A Cuthbert, 13 - J Davies, 12 - J Roberts, 11 - G North; 10 - R Priestland, 9 - M Phillips; 1 - R Gill, 2 - H Bennett, 3 - A Jones, 4 - B Davies, 5 - I Evans, 6 - R Jones, 7- S Warburton (C), 8 - T Faletau.

Replacements:16 - K Owens, 17 - P James, 18 - A Powell, 19 - J Tipuric, 20 - Lloyd Williams, 21 - J Hook, 22 - Scott Williams.

Full credit to Wales, they were the better team in the first half and for parts othe second, shocking from Ireland you can't invite teams to run at you. We deserved to lose, too much aimless kicking (stand up Johnny Sexton) and poor decision making, if there is space behind the defence, kick it over the top, not rocket science. Well done Wales, let's move on to Paris. The booing was disappointing.

They fully deserved it,. They were brave. Unlike us.

Dont really want to say it, Kidney MUST go. He has learned NOTHING. And, he is killing this team at source.

Ive had enough of his negativity.

Well played Wales. Fortune honours the Brave.

Gibson wrote:Well played Wales Better team won.

Very gracious of you Gibson, but I think you were the better team in all honesty.

Great game.

KiaRose wrote:I hope no Welsh supporters have the gall to complain about refereeing decisions after this game.

Barnes owes us about 5-10 favours never mind 1, after the amount of man sausage ups he has had in our games.

Notch wrote:We got what we deserved from that game. Absolutely nothing.

A poor performance from Ireland and if we lose next weekend, thats it for the Kidney era.

Seriously think that Kidney made a mistake in not bringing POM on at half time...

AlynDavies wrote:

biltongbek wrote:Well done Wales. Never gave up. Unlike mr Davies on V2

ameh well yeah
I thought Ireland were going to win it...

My advice to you good Sir. Go hit your head against the wall repeatedly and remind yourself to have more faith in your team.

Well done Ireland always hard game but well done Wales, good to see the worldcup form and scoring tries.

There is hope for Northern Hemisphere rugby after all.

Well, that game had it all, big for both teams.....

Off to watch the big game now. 'Mon Barf!!!

Fair play Wales you played some lovely rugby.

That was the best match of the tounaments first week. We seriously need to sort out the lineout and kicking. Ireland really had us under the cosh at times but the midifeld ended up being key.

I hope the Irish can do a number next week on the French for us as this championship is going to be tight between us three.

Should've been a red for Davies, and stupid from ferris!

Griff wrote:

Gibson wrote:Well played Wales Better team won.

Very gracious of you Gibson, but I think you were the better team in all honesty.

Great game.

I dont, i think that Wales were the better team and deservedly won.

Wales have won the last 3 games between the countries, but lets be honest there is nothing between Wales and Ireland on the field, were both good teams.

Wales clearly have a cracking team spirit to come back from that yellow card.

I'm just grateful O'Gara didnt manage to steal a win off us, because he has won games like for Ireland against Wales in that kind of fashion for the last 10 years.

Wales are dirty buggers. Davies should be banned for the rest of the season for that. How Ferris gets the same punishment as Davies is beyond me. Pathetic. Agree with Gibson though, in attack we were clueless, our centres were pathetic especially McFadden. Kidney must go.

Let's have Ferris, O'Mahony and Heaslip for next week.

Alyn those childhood nightmares going away now?

Wow, great game of rugby. Big well done to the welsh, really stepped up and in the end deserved it.

TycroesOsprey wrote:That was the best match of the tounaments first week. We seriously need to sort out the lineout and kicking. Ireland really had us under the cosh at times but the midifeld ended up being key.

I hope the Irish can do a number next week on the French for us as this championship is going to be tight between us three.

Spot on, your goal kicking, attacking kicking and your line outs.

Wales showed great patience in attack, they continue to impress me at the breakdowns, and their back line has both, power and plenty of speed.

B. Davies should never be allowed to play rugby again, that "tackle" was a disgrace to the game

No way were we better than Wales. Pathetic effort in defence in the last 10 minutes.

All we had to do was see it out, we coughed up 8 soft points. Disgusted by that.

Hurts me to say it, but Dave Pearson could have cost Ireland the game with a poor decision.

Lets be honest, its only a close game in scores because Priestland missed alot of his kicks in the first half.

Wales looked much better in attack definitely. Their backs are just so dangerous and our centres especially couldn't deal with it. Ireland clearly are trying to play the ROG game, kicking for territory rather than actually showing some flipping creativity. Why are we still playing this primitive style of rugby, when you could clearly see everytime we injected a bit of pace and playing flowing rugby, instead of kicking the ball every 2nd or 3rd phase, we actually got points. Clueless.

AlynDavies wrote:Wales have won the last 3 games between the countries, but lets be honest there is nothing between Wales and Ireland on the field, were both good teams.

Wales clearly have a cracking team spirit to come back from that yellow card.

I'm just grateful O'Gara didnt manage to steal a win off us, because he has won games like for Ireland against Wales in that kind of fashion for the last 10 years.

Wales showed desire and intensity, both whcih in retrospect I think Ireland lacked a little.

Yep, as my fellow Irish fans have said the better team won. Ferris was a silly, silly boy. That was a cast-iron penalty and I hope my fellow qualified referees will agree with me. Very poor performances from the centres and the backrow, though Heaslip worked very, very hard. Very few pluses in that match bar perhaps Paul O'Connell and Murray was decent. Wales play a simple one-dimensional game (and I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion)- bash it up the middle with good ball carriers like Roberts and then exploit the gaps. Simple and very effective. We allowed the Welsh to run at us and handed them a victory we should have claimed.

Thomond wrote:Let's have Ferris, O'Mahony and Heaslip for next week.

I don't agree, I thought SOB played really well. Wales got a way with quite a lot at the breakdown, but you do play the ref so in no way do I blame them. Tipuric made a difference when he came on. If O'Mahony comes on for anyone it should be Heaslip.

Fuming here.

Best logoff.

I'll say this, I never rated Gatland. But, he's made Kidney look like Elmer Fudge. 3 times in-a-row. IRFU must be alerted here. DO something! He's tactically clueless.

Hookisms and Hyperbole wrote:Yep, as my fellow Irish fans have said the better team won. Ferris was a silly, silly boy. That was a cast-iron penalty and I hope my fellow qualified referees will agree with me. Very poor performances from the centres and the backrow, though Heaslip worked very, very hard. Very few pluses in that match bar perhaps Paul O'Connell and Murray was decent. Wales play a simple one-dimensional game (and I don't mean that in a derogatory fashion)- bash it up the middle with good ball carriers like Roberts and then exploit the gaps. Simple and very effective. We allowed the Welsh to run at us and handed them a victory we should have claimed.

I thought Kearney had a great game.

TycroesOsprey wrote:Alyn those childhood nightmares going away now?

It's one of the best Wales V Ireland games I have seen, but I will always view Ireland with trepidition for the rest of my life, that 1993 game is stuck in my head...

I agree with you totally Hookisms, why did we stand 10 metres off the Welsh? It made no fecking sense. SOB was anonymous, Heaslip was the best of the 3 today. Ferris could be dropped just for being such an idiot.

Wales missed kicks, lost line-outs, lost their captain and best player and were a player down for 10 minutes and still won. Of course they were the better team. Fully deserve the win and like them to get the championship.

Simply not good enough by Ireland hopefully well have a new coach when we go down under

Great game to watch:

North is a beast
Tipuric looked good when he replaced Sam
Davies should have been red carded
WE need to sort our place kickers out

Glad that we have the belief to score tries again, our confidence is massive

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

Thomond wrote:Let's have Ferris, O'Mahony and Heaslip for next week.

I don't agree, I thought SOB played really well. Wales got a way with quite a lot at the breakdown, but you do play the ref so in no way do I blame them. Tipuric made a difference when he came on. If O'Mahony comes on for anyone it should be Heaslip.

+1. Heaslip on the bench and POM starting.

Bradly Davis is in some serious trouble

Is nobody commenting on the fact the nothing was wrong with Ferris' tackle? He lifted one leg into the air and held on to the man. Barnes has ruined a classic match with his pathetic attempt at refereeing.

Gibson wrote:Fuming here.

Best logoff.

I'll say this, I never rated Gatland. But, he's made Kidney look like Elmer Fudge. 3 times in-row. IRFU must be alerted here. Do something!

+1

I thought our back row was a positive actually. Ferris, SOB and Heaslip all worked very hard, and had a much bigger impact on the game this time. They played some flowing rugby. We just constantly gave away possession. It isn't always the back row's job to secure breakdown ball, that lies with whoever is there at the time, be it a centre, winger or a flanker. France are brilliant at the breakdown without any "natural" 7.

That was very disappointing. Feel like Barnes felt he had to give the Ferris penalty to even it up maybe, but tbh I didn't really think it was a penalty.
Overall Ireland were alright but too many players weren't at the races. Bowe had a shocker for the most part, the two centres weren't great, Darcy much worse than McFadden, who was okay. Sexton could have played better, Murray mixed the bad with the good overall I though he was a positive. The Front row was decent, Ryan should have started, Ferris below par, Heaslip was one of our best players. Kearney was sublime.

Sob was atrocious, he gave away a load of stupid penalities and besides that had very little impact on the game. Hugely disappointing. I know people say that our lack of a natural 7 hurts us but he never used to when Wally played at 7, so does that mean Wally actually was a natural 7 or is it just that the players are complementing each other as well as previous backrows.

Next week is going to be tough to watch.

Maybe the Irish should give PDV a call.

Why all the Irish subs when they were winning?

My take on the cards, from a Welshman:

Bradley Davies: straight red
Ferris: nothing. Wasn't dangerous.

I thought Faletau and Warburton were anonymous. SOB I thought got through a lot of work, though he gave away one silly penalty. Apart from that I thought he played well but was unspectacular.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:I don't agree, I thought SOB played really well. Wales got a way with quite a lot at the breakdown, but you do play the ref so in no way do I blame them. Tipuric made a difference when he came on. If O'Mahony comes on for anyone it should be Heaslip.

I though O'Brien and Ferris, the best ball carriers in Europe, had very poor games. Their strengths are putting in big hits and strong ball carrying. Both of them did neither and were totally ineffective at the breakdown. My biggest frustration with Kidney is his abject failure to learn from his mistakes. It's fine to make them, but we must learn from them. The World Cup showed us when our opponents have passable ball winner at 7 we have no one to compete and struggle to match them at the breakdown. Once again it showed today. Three tremendous players as individuals. As a unit not good enough.

Our backrow was positive in a game where we lost copious amount of turnovers and didn't give clean ball to our scrum half?

Ferris wasn't even a penalty let alone a yellow card, on behalf of Barnes I apologise to the Irish nation.

WOW that is all.

The yellow cards didnt make any practical difference to the result really. There was only 4 mins of the game extra for BD and 1 minute less for SOB.

They were both probably right anyway

Man as a Welsh supporter im happy for the win. But that Ferris tackle shouldn't have even been a penalty. By the law it is but common sense says it isn't dangerous.
Im worried for rugby if that can be a yellow card.

What a great game by two skillful teams, I feel justice was done the better team won Wales were better in the backs and the forwards did well. I can't see R Jones being dropped after his performance, the ref ducked the try issue he should have been given.

I think Bradley took it out on the guy he dumped after hitting A Jones. The Ferris yellow was a joke but it shows the fine margins in the tackle area.

Great to see Wales finally pinching a win in the last minute for a change.

biltongbek wrote:Maybe the Irish should give PDV a call.

I dont want comical Ali anywhere near the 6 Nations teams... not even England deserve him

HERSH,

Wales are going to put 40 past England. Go find a rock and hide.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:I thought our back row was a positive actually. Ferris, SOB and Heaslip all worked very hard, and had a much bigger impact on the game this time. They played some flowing rugby. We just constantly gave away possession. It isn't always the back row's job to secure breakdown ball, that lies with whoever is there at the time, be it a centre, winger or a flanker. France are brilliant at the breakdown without any "natural" 7.

Rory. Son. STOP it. Stop it now!