Is Irish rugby at a tipping point?

First topic message reminder :

Disappointing RWC (save the Oz game) and 6Ns.

And will the Provincial be able to recover the pride?

At least they have a guaranteed semi-final spot. http://www.oddschecker.com/rugby-union/club-rugby/heineken-cup.

But many Irish posters seem to have gone AWOL on this site.

Ireland are fine, just needing coverage in 2 or 3 positions and a decent coach who is willing to experiment and Ireland will be back

eirebilly wrote:Ireland are fine, just needing coverage in 2 or 3 positions and a decent coach who is willing to experiment and Ireland will be back

+1

The difference between England 2004 and Ireland 2012 is playing pool size.

England had lost a core group of players and it took massive experimentation to find that again. In Ireland we are much much smaller - like it or lump it our group of players is only so big.

Ireland are really not in that bad a shape and it should not be that difficult to turn it around.

I was just going to say that teams seem to always play better with a new coach - see Ireland with Kidney, England with Lancaster, Wales with Gatland and even Scotland with Robinson. However France have stumbled backwards under Saint Andre's first campaign - the exception that proves the rule.

Maybe Ireland should constantly rotate coaches then

If it works, it works

eirebilly wrote:Maybe Ireland should constantly rotate coaches then

If it works, it works

You don't know how unfunny that funny comment is, billy. In that it has, as you say, and Stag pointed out, real quantifiable merit on the results table.

But just to point out that Gatland kind of goes against the 'unwritten rule' too in that he started big, wilted but has now bounced back.

If Kidney could effect the same change in fortune then I'd be a very happy man. It's not actually a new coach I crave as much as I crave a new direction in players used and gameplan adopted. If Kidney can do that then he won't find a critic in me anymore.

If deccie is given another chance and gets himself a decent set of coaches (one thing he is very good at) then i will back him again but he does have to seriously start looking at current form that past form in a few positions.

I remember the days not so long ago when Gatland had Wales kicking the leather or the synthetic plastic off the ball for no material game. Now he seems to have a team playing multi-dimensional rugby, albeit it with still a lot of room for improvement.

Sometimes I think we ask for change for the sake of change. Continuity doesn´t mean settling for the same style of play. A coach can rework his thinking or innovate a new approach. Kidney has come up with the strangle tackle for example (I dislike the word choker!) but when he gets a more settled centre partnership and cuts ties with D'Arcy, maybe we will also see a more evolved style of backline paper. Henry was given a chance after 2007 and that paid off. Looking at England and their revolver door policy of picking coaches, it doesn´t seem to have done them too many favours. This year they look strangely more settled but maybe at the end of the year opinion will be rock bottom and calls for changes will occur again. Sometimes giving some leeway is preferable to calling for the axe each time results don´t go your way.

I think that the continual selection of D'Arcy and DOC by Deccie led to alot of people losing confidence in him. I am one of those people but will support him if he shows a bit more faith in the younger chaps and starts to pick on form.

Royce Simmons the Aussie rugby league player has just been sacked. He is a decent coach and i would not object to him coming to Ireland to coach the defensive lines

its at a crossroads. people are fed up with 2 years of poor performances and poor results playing negative rugby and are questioning the methods of kidney and coaching staff. its only natural. Loads of non Irish posters seem to think we are going a bit ott but i put it to you they have not seen all of our games during this period. It is even more irritating given the performances of provinces in the HC and Rabo.

Agreed on rugby being a younger mans game. Their is still a belief in some quarters in Ireland that a player "owns" the jersey. as in no matter how badly he plays he is still undroppable. In some areas Kidney has selected on form during his tenure no issues but he has had some damaging blind spots. No cutting edge in midfield Darcy starts 15 games in a row playing poorly in 12. DOC is in the same boat and now Heaslip. Its just a pity Ryan and POC didnt start a 6 nations game. On form they were our best pairing by a mile. Ryans impact made that even clearer. POC for all of his qualities is not a super mobile fast 2nd row, Ryan is.

Some of our commentators during Wales and England game were sniping that you would have to fancy a far more experienced Irish side due to their huge caps advantage over the Welsh and English. I would see that as almost being a hindrance.

I have seen no evidence to suggest that giving some gametime to Cave,Henry,OMalley,DKearney,Zebo,Tuohy, etc could not make a positive impact in a green jersey if given a run of games. Maybe not all together. If we eventually drop Darcy and Donners we still have buckets of experience in the team.

We need another team selection like Gatland made v Scotland when Rog,Stringer,Darcy and Easterby made their debuts. Shoe ins like Heaslop,Doc,Darcy to name 3 need to be dropped to make a point that more than 3/4 poor games in a row is simply not good enough.

Be interesting to see the team for first test in NZ. No real point in trying to predict it now as their is a lot of seriously intense rugby coming up in HC and Rabo

dublin_dave wrote:
Some of our commentators during Wales and England game were sniping that you would have to fancy a far more experienced Irish side due to their huge caps advantage over the Welsh and English. I would see that as almost being a hindrance.

Yeah I agree dave - your experience (caps) can help in keeping your head above the waterline but when 'cap' time is up - it's up. You could argue that rather than Ireland doing badly, they did reasonably ok for a side going downhill - and only because the experience (caps) could rest on experience to get them through games and periods in games from memory alone. But when the serious competition hit us with youth, ambition, hunger and a proper gameplan, the experience was shown up for what it now is - a safety valve that has finally run its course, ie, it isn't providing any safety security from good sides topped up with fresh talent.

Changing things - gradually, but quicker than is happening now, might and propably will throw up even worse results than we're getting now - but there is no longer an option - going back up the quality graph will now only take place with renewal. There simply is no choice now - new players entering in greater numbers and mixing it up during tours is a must.