Where now for Ireland?

First topic message reminder :

Is the question posed by the year we've had. I'm trying to take a long view of our entire season rather than focusing on the tragicomedy of that last disgraceful game. 2011-2012 has been an unusually long and exceptionally disappointing season of test rugby for Ireland. It started with a lot of pessimism around the Ireland team (losing all 4 RWC warm-up tests consecutively) and ended in a similarly distressing fashion (Ireland's worst ever result and performance in the Southern Hemisphere). The statistics tell a similar story; in the seventeen matches we've played we have won just six, having drawn one and suffered ten defeats.

Wins over Australia, Italy (x2), Scotland, the USA and Russia are all we have to show for this year. For many the win we had over Australia was a triumphant validation of Kidney, who had come under heavy criticism following a string of incoherent and error-strewn performances in the lead up to that game. But it's worth noting it was Irelands only win against a side in the Top 8 of the world rankings in the last 12 months.

On the other hand we've had defeats to Scotland, England (x2), Wales (x2), France (x2) and New Zealand (x3). And one draw against France. It's distressing reading for any Irish fan. Putting the All Blacks series aside, since around 2005 we have always aimed to compete at the top end of the Six Nations table. But now the stats show that not only are we losing out to France, England and Wales- they've been fairly consistent and well practiced at beating us as well. We look comfortably a bottom three side in the NH rather than a top 3 team based on these results.

So my question is; how do we get back to the standard that is now demanded and expected of Ireland on the international stage i.e. being one of the top European sides? Can we even do that? Are we in for feast and famine over the next five years? What new ideas need to come into the set-up- could a clear out of senior players such as the one that led to Hayes, Horgan, Stringer, BOD and ROG getting capped in 2000 benefit us come the autumn? Do we need to make a break with the current coaching regime? Or is it just a case of fine tuning- a few new faces working under Kidney in the coaching set-up, a few new players coming in... gradual evolution of the sort Kidney has been trying so hard to make work.

What do you think 606v2? I am at a loss.

Laurie, we could still be talking about this come Christmas. You truely underestimate the irish ability to talk about shoite for a long period of time. It's like the Kiwis and their sheep

We dont talk to sheep, we dont know their language.

Laurie, with the greatest respect, you don't actually have to come in and read this thread.

We happen to strongly feel our team and supporters deserve a better coach. So yea we are talking about it.

I would never underestimate your lack of feeling about the issue , no fear of that ever occuring.

clivemcl wrote:

Sin é wrote:

rodders wrote:
The frustration with Sin is that he point blank refuses to lay any blame on Declan Kidney whatsoever, therefore all blame must lie with the players, in particular those from Leinster and Ulster.

I find it frustrating that most of the posters here think that the defeat last Saturday is down entirely to Kidney (and incidentally, the good performance the week before is down to the players).

And that is rubbish that I think the poor performance is down to the Leinster & Ulster players. Maybe you are a tad oversensitive to the criticism as there are more Leinster & Ulster players on the team. Not that many Munster players to criticise (which probably why you all concentrate on Kidney).

1. Healy - Excellent overall. Great tour. Just very heavily targetted on last test.
2. Best - Excellent overall.
3. Ross - okish.
4. D Ryan - excellent performance
5. D Touhy - okish to poor.
6. Kev McLaughlin - great 2nd test. tried in 3rd. Wouldn't fault him on effort.
7. SOB - Outstanding.
8. POM - okish - has a lot to learn.
9. Murray - mixed.
10. Sexton. Good defence. Didn't step up though at 10. Looked better in 2nd test when at 12.
11. Earls - okish.
12. Paddy Wallace (out of his depth). Targetted.
13. Brian O'Driscoll. Very poor in 3rd test.
14. McFadden. Just not a winger or international class.
15. Kearney - decent enough.

Others: D'Arcy & Heislip really missed in 3rd test.

Hahahahahaha

Paddy Wallace's performance was because he was out of his depth, and no other reason. You dont make any mention to the month off away from training, or the long haul flights, or the stay over by himself in a city for over a day. Ha, Sin, you are an absolute gag!



In your attempt to prove your impartiality, you couldnt even control your own inner bias for the sake of winning your own arguement!

LOVE THIS

Clive, I don't do the blame game. Don't care how much training Paddy Wallace does, sleep he has, nights not spent on his own in Auckland, it was a much of a muchness between himself and Fergus McFadden who would have been targetted relentlessly anyway by Sonny Bill. The fact that BOD had a very poor game was more of an issue really than Paddy Wallace.

I'm not trying to derail your conversation , but do any of you ever think that Ireland might consider getting involved in sevens as being something that could be easily implemented?? especially in terms of thr development ofyour future outside backs? Hosea Gear finished off a good try last weekend, he also has a Commonwealth gold medal??

clivemcl wrote:Laurie, with the greatest respect, you don't actually have to come in and read this thread.

We happen to strongly feel our team and supporters deserve a better coach. So yea we are talking about it.

Good point, the supporters need better coaching on how to support.

The Kiwis just talk about sheep, my Aunt lives in Auckland. I know these things. Sure you lot only got the telephone recently didn't you?

Spoiler:

My Contribution :

I see so much negativity in this thread. New Zealand hosed you guys and you are scattering the blame like leaves in the wind.

NZ sometimes go to town on opponents and crucify them. It's just what they do. You had a reasonable 6N coming very close to beating Wales, seeing off Italy and Scotland comfortably.

2 weeks ago you were 5 minutes of giving the Kiwi's a right fright in their own back yard. Not many teams can come so close in New Zealand.

As for the 60-0 score as I said NZ do that to teams from time to time. France have been mullered like that before and so have Austalia and the Boks.

Kidney has won you guys a grand slam and also steered you to a very good RWC quarter final. Wales were superb in that game and it was no disgrace to lose it.

Remember this is the Ireland team that dominated the Ozzies in the world cup, and that was a much stronger team than has just beaten Wales 3-0 in the test series.

IMO Ferris would have made a massive differance to Ireland in the series in NZ.

Truth of the matter is that Kidney IMO has done the best with the player at his disposal. Leinster are a totally differant animal in the HC and tbh throwing the argument out about how well they do in the HC can't really translate well to international test rugby.

I don't know what the answer is but I'm sure that Kidney will be under fire. I'm not convinced he is to blame though.

clivemcl wrote:Laurie, with the greatest respect, you don't actually have to come in and read this thread.

We happen to strongly feel our team and supporters deserve a better coach. So yea we are talking about it.

Clive is there any need for that?

Besides Laurie is right, we look like complete eejits arguing over the same issues every time we lose....... the fact that these issues never get resolved is neither here no there......

Thomond
Wadda you mean recently weve had telephones for over 20 years now, it keeps the girls in the exchange employed.

The answer is no rodders. That was uncalled for from clive.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:My Contribution :

I see so much negativity in this thread. New Zealand hosed you guys and you are scattering the blame like leaves in the wind.

NZ sometimes go to town on opponents and crucify them. It's just what they do. You had a reasonable 6N coming very close to beating Wales, seeing off Italy and Scotland comfortably.

2 weeks ago you were 5 minutes of giving the Kiwi's a right fright in their own back yard. Not many teams can come so close in New Zealand.

As for the 60-0 score as I said NZ do that to teams from time to time. France have been mullered like that before and so have Austalia and the Boks.

Kidney has won you guys a grand slam and also steered you to a very good RWC quarter final. Wales were superb in that game and it was no disgrace to lose it.

Remember this is the Ireland team that dominated the Ozzies in the world cup, and that was a much stronger team than has just beaten Wales 3-0 in the test series.

IMO Ferris would have made a massive differance to Ireland in the series in NZ.

Truth of the matter is that Kidney IMO has done the best with the player at his disposal. Leinster are a totally differant animal in the HC and tbh throwing the argument out about how well they do in the HC can't really translate well to international test rugby.I don't know what the answer is but I'm sure that Kidney will be under fire. I'm not convinced he is to blame though.

This is the crux of our argument Radge. Why can't it translate? Why can't players who play smart and effective winning rugby for their club play with the same percision, pace and intensity for their nation?

Mick, I have the bulk of Irish posters on here in the past talk about province before country.

If the players have a similar mindset I guess you have answered your own question.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Mick, I have the bulk of Irish posters on here in the past talk about province before country.

If the players have a similar mindset I guess you have answered your own question.

Why would players prefer playing for their province over their country?

If that’s the case then there’s a team mentality issue that need to be addressed, and surely the head coach is the one to address it.

I don’t actually think that the players would feel more passionately about province over country, but lately I could understand if some of them would prefer it.

Notch wrote:The answer is no rodders. That was uncalled for from clive.

What? Are you guys for serious? I'm pretty sure I respectfully reminded him that we are allowed to talk about what we want.

He decided to come into a conversation about a country other than his own and tell us our conversation is getting old.

Yous are winding me up arnt yous?

clive
Dont worry mate, of course you can talk about anything you like.

I did however ask a question about what I thought might hold some chances of improvement for Irelands rugby future, but that didnt seem to warrant a reply.

Yea Auckland, I appreciated you contribution about the sevens. I dont know enough about it to know if it would be beneficial. I was hoping somebody else would respond to your suggestion. It surely can't do any harm for fringe players I would have thought!

Some people on here like to think they've got their opinion of people down to a T and so when they see something written, they read it in the most negative way. People seem to think I'm aggressive, and assume everything I right has an aggressive tone. They should read more carefully. I'm glad at least you are aware I was not being rude in my response.

Mickado wrote:
Why would players prefer playing for their province over their country?
If that’s the case then there’s a team mentality issue that need to be addressed, and surely the head coach is the one to address it.

I don’t actually think that the players would feel more passionately about province over country, but lately I could understand if some of them would prefer it.

I'm not sure, ask Red Stag who always said he prefered Munster winning Heineken cups over the Irish 6N grandslam.

Ireland are not in a bad place at the moment and have a strong team. This was evidenced by the 2nd test where NZ were IMO lucky to escape with the win. Equally you guys had a really solid RWC and were simply beaten by the better team in the quarters.

Healy, Best, POC, Ferris, SOB, Heaslip, Sexton, BOD, Earles, Bowe and Kearney are almost all certainly going to tour with the lions next year and for the bulk of them this will be their 2nd tour. Your players have undeniable quality. Is it not just possible that this 60-0 drubbing was a one off. As I have said before NZ do that from time to time and it's nothing to get to beaten up about.

It's all about small margins, Wales in the 6N was a close game that could have gone either way and so was the 2nd test against NZ. Small Margins.

(Jeez I'm starting to sound like Andy Robinson)

Red Stag plays for Munster and Ireland? I didn't know that..

Our players are quality, their talent isn't being harnessed is the problem.

Small margins - always sounds like an excuse to me really. Kidney uses it all the time. Whether it could have gone the other way or not doesn't matter, it was a loss in our statistics. No matter how close of a game it was. We have too many games that "could have gone either way". The best teams will make sure to be on the right side of the scoreboard.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Red Stag plays for Munster and Ireland? I didn't know that..

Evidently you misunderstand. It's not just him either. A lot of Irish posters seem to prefer their province to do well over their country. If some players have that mindset......

I posted an article up about Leinster in the HC in the club section where players like Heaslip, SOB etc always seem to play better in the HC than in the Pro12, I guess you guys don't think that there might eb a similar case in the step up (or step down in their eyes) to international rugby?

As for the small margins part, It is an excuse but a certain ammount of heart can be taken from coming so close. I do think a lot of posters here are being unfair to Kidney. He always seemed to pick the best players, unlike some other international coaches I can think of who do use the small margins as an excuse.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

Mickado wrote:
Why would players prefer playing for their province over their country?
If that’s the case then there’s a team mentality issue that need to be addressed, and surely the head coach is the one to address it.

I don’t actually think that the players would feel more passionately about province over country, but lately I could understand if some of them would prefer it.

I'm not sure, ask Red Stag who always said he prefered Munster winning Heineken cups over the Irish 6N grandslam.

Ireland are not in a bad place at the moment and have a strong team. This was evidenced by the 2nd test where NZ were IMO lucky to escape with the win. Equally you guys had a really solid RWC and were simply beaten by the better team in the quarters.

Healy, Best, POC, Ferris, SOB, Heaslip, Sexton, BOD, Earles, Bowe and Kearney are almost all certainly going to tour with the lions next year and for the bulk of them this will be their 2nd tour. Your players have undeniable quality. Is it not just possible that this 60-0 drubbing was a one off. As I have said before NZ do that from time to time and it's nothing to get to beaten up about.

It's all about small margins, Wales in the 6N was a close game that could have gone either way and so was the 2nd test against NZ. Small Margins.

(Jeez I'm starting to sound like Andy Robinson)

You're point about how good are players are really just supports the argument that Kidney isn't getting the most out of them. If our players were all just gash, then we couldn't have any complaints, you can't polish a turd, but as you say, there are many Lions in that team so there's no excuse for how poorly we've been playing.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Red Stag plays for Munster and Ireland? I didn't know that..

Evidently you misunderstand. It's not just him either. A lot of Irish posters seem to prefer their province to do well over their country. If some players have that mindset......

I posted an article up about Leinster in the HC in the club section where players like Heaslip, SOB etc always seem to play better in the HC than in the Pro12, I guess you guys don't think that there might eb a similar case in the step up (or step down in their eyes) to international rugby?

As for the small margins part, It is an excuse but a certain ammount of heart can be taken from coming so close. I do think a lot of posters here are being unfair to Kidney. He always seemed to pick the best players, unlike some other international coaches I can think of who do use the small margins as an excuse.

I would agree with a fair bit of what you're saying but the last comment is incorrect Radge. For too long, he persisted with O'Callaghan, Hayes and even ROG before bringing in newer and younger guys. D'Arcy too you could say but Wallace hasn't always been at his best for Ireland for one reason or another.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Red Stag plays for Munster and Ireland? I didn't know that..

Evidently you misunderstand. It's not just him either. A lot of Irish posters seem to prefer their province to do well over their country. If some players have that mindset......

I posted an article up about Leinster in the HC in the club section where players like Heaslip, SOB etc always seem to play better in the HC than in the Pro12, I guess you guys don't think that there might eb a similar case in the step up (or step down in their eyes) to international rugby?

As for the small margins part, It is an excuse but a certain ammount of heart can be taken from coming so close. I do think a lot of posters here are being unfair to Kidney. He always seemed to pick the best players, unlike some other international coaches I can think of who do use the small margins as an excuse.

The fans can think what they want, but that doesn't mean the players have the same mindset. I honestly think the highlight for any player's career is representing their country. However, I think the coaching is much better at the provinces right now, so the players are probably going to be less enthusiastic about playing for Ireland right now.

15 FB Rob Kearney
14 W Fergus McFadden
13 C Brian O'Driscoll (c)
12 C Paddy Wallace
11 W Keith Earls
10 FH Jonathan Sexton
9 SH Conor Murray
1 P Cian Healy
2 H Rory Best
3 P Mike Ross
4 L Dan Tuohy
5 L Donnacha Ryan
6 F Kevin McLaughlin
7 F Sean O'Brien
8 N8 Peter O'Mahony

I count 4 of your best players missing in that team : Bowe, POC, Ferris & Heaslip. I'm not really sure what Kidney was supposed to do under these circumstances.

Furthermore Ireland missed more than 30 tackles. Kidney is not responsible for that either.

You cant just go around calling for the coach's head when his star players were either Injured, had an off day or sulking in the sin bin!

Can a certain amount of heart be taken from coming so close so many times? You have to follow it up with results or it means nothing. I think Wales will be even more annoyed with themselves for losing by one point twice in a row at the closing stages of the game. Gatland certainly won't be talking about small margins, he will come down on his players hard for not closing out the win. That is the difference between a good coach and a bad one.

He can be blamed for disorganisation in defence though, and taking a player out of holiday to play against SBW..

I have said this before too, NZ won the world cup with many of their best players missing for large portions of the competition. They won the thing with Donald as their 10 for flip sake. Do you think they made excuses? No, they just won the cup.

All the coaching team must shoulder a certain amount of responsibility and I feel they should not continue in their roles.

However I don't think (as many poster seem to do) that a new coach and all our problems magically disappear.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:15 FB Rob Kearney
14 W Fergus McFadden
13 C Brian O'Driscoll (c)
12 C Paddy Wallace
11 W Keith Earls
10 FH Jonathan Sexton
9 SH Conor Murray
1 P Cian Healy
2 H Rory Best
3 P Mike Ross
4 L Dan Tuohy
5 L Donnacha Ryan
6 F Kevin McLaughlin
7 F Sean O'Brien
8 N8 Peter O'Mahony

I count 4 of your best players missing in that team : Bowe, POC, Ferris & Heaslip. I'm not really sure what Kidney was supposed to do under these circumstances.

Furthermore Ireland missed more than 30 tackles. Kidney is not responsible for that either.

You cant just go around calling for the coach's head when his star players were either Injured, had an off day or sulking in the sin bin!

You haven't seen Heaslip play for Ireland that often if you think he is one of our best players. You're right Deccie doesn't deserve all the blame. He deserves a large portion of it though, mainly because we have been playing so poor for so long.

Thomond wrote:

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:Red Stag plays for Munster and Ireland? I didn't know that..

Evidently you misunderstand. It's not just him either. A lot of Irish posters seem to prefer their province to do well over their country. If some players have that mindset......

I posted an article up about Leinster in the HC in the club section where players like Heaslip, SOB etc always seem to play better in the HC than in the Pro12, I guess you guys don't think that there might eb a similar case in the step up (or step down in their eyes) to international rugby?

As for the small margins part, It is an excuse but a certain ammount of heart can be taken from coming so close. I do think a lot of posters here are being unfair to Kidney. He always seemed to pick the best players, unlike some other international coaches I can think of who do use the small margins as an excuse.

I would agree with a fair bit of what you're saying but the last comment is incorrect Radge. For too long, he persisted with O'Callaghan, Hayes and even ROG before bringing in newer and younger guys. D'Arcy too you could say but Wallace hasn't always been at his best for Ireland for one reason or another.

Very selective memory here. Only 2 players started last Saturday that were on the GS winning team.

Sexton was playing AIL when he was selected for the Wolfhounds. Sexton only got the chance at Leinster when Contepomi got injured (Spring 2009). He went to the Churchill Cup (Kidney coached) and he got his first international caps at the next international games.

Hayes - the alternative was Buckley as Ross wasn't even making the bench for Leinster.

O'Callaghan - Far too much criticism bearing in mind POC injuries over the last while. Ryan was capped in 2008 then had a couple of badly timed injuries that coinincided with POC being injured when he could have got his chance. Tuohy has also been injured when opportunities have arisen (and I wouldn't rate him anyway as an international lock).

From the Irish Times today:

The net effect has been that Ireland have used 46 players in their 17 Tests in this unrelenting ’11/’12 season. As this tour underlined in abundance, Ireland don’t have 46 Test players.

I don't think anyone thinks that to be honest Stag. For the most part anyway. I made a post about that a few pages back.

Missing more than 30 tackles is unforgivable though. Like I said Kidney is not responsible for that.

As for NZ winning the world cup with a lot of 1st choice players missing fair enough, but we can't get into the Argument about player numbers because Ireland can't be compared to NZ in terms of the player pool. Again not Kidney's fault.

In truth the IRFU have one of the best policies for foreign based players, so again thats not really something that Kidney can be blamed for.

I feel he is doing ok and some of your best players had an "off" day against NZ who were utterly rampant. It's a no brainer to know how the match would have ended up.

Your right Rory, New Zealand still do the business with young debutants, and when they have injury woes. To say that their 3/4th choices are simply better than our players is a cop out. You have to credit the All Blacks management, and equally you have to criticise ours.

As for the the 2nd test. Ireland did quite well, yes. But Rodders among others say we were sublime.

Truth is, that was New Zealand in their version of melt-down. That was a New Zealand performance akin to those times they crashed out of the world cups. That New Zealand performance would have IMO lost to Oz, SA, England, France, Wales.

We didnt manage it. And our error count was still awful.

So I don't take much heart from coming that close in retrospect. And truth is, people thought the secong test would be encouraging to the players.

I think we found it was the opposite. I think the players were seriously demoralised that they couldnt even win when New Zealand had an off day.

Radge, I'll give you an example of Kidney not picking his best team. DOC started every 6nations game this year, but he couldn't get ahead of Donnacha Ryan at Munster.

When POC was injured, Kidney brought in Mike McCarthy from Connacht ahead of Dan Tuohy who was in much better form.

ROG has been playing like a drain all year, Madigan was arguably the best OH in the league, ROG goes on tour, Madigan stays at home twiddling his thumbs.

Kidney talks about developing a sqaud on the tour to NZ, we get a sniff of a win and ignore the 2 centers we have on tour to call up Paddy Wallace.

These are just the recent examples. We won't even mention his persistance with John Hayes while Mike Ross was clearly the best TH in the country.

Sin I'm talking about 2010 onwards. Kidney messed aroudn with ROG/Sexton, and still picked Hayes. DOC I suppose was alright pre-WC but he was going downhill and we didn't look at other options.

Radge the thing is Irish rugby has been in a steady decline since Kidney took control although I do lay a large part of the blame on the IRFU as well for this. Player management programmes and forcing the hand of the provinces for the good of the national team may make sense in theory but in some cases doesn't work for the greater good. The players do have to shoulder some of the blame but the ultimate responsibility lies with the coaching team and not without reason. They are employed to get the very best out of this squad of players and they simply don't. Match day squad selections are the coach's responsibility and not playing Sexton and Reddan together, refusing to play Trimble on his favoured right wing whilst persisting with the badly exposed McFadden and throwing Paddy Wallace to the wolves are some of the examples where everyone except DK were left head scratching.

He has failed, he's been given his chances and simply has not delivered on what he's being paid to do. Rugby has changed dramatically over recent years, Kidney hasn't. Time for change now if we stand a chance of building towards the next RWC.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:Missing more than 30 tackles is unforgivable though. Like I said Kidney is not responsible for that.

As for NZ winning the world cup with a lot of 1st choice players missing fair enough, but we can't get into the Argument about player numbers because Ireland can't be compared to NZ in terms of the player pool. Again not Kidney's fault.

In truth the IRFU have one of the best policies for foreign based players, so again thats not really something that Kidney can be blamed for.

I feel he is doing ok and some of your best players had an "off" day against NZ who were utterly rampant. It's a no brainer to know how the match would have ended up.

Again, he has to take some responsibility. Our midfield was the main reason we leaked so many tries. Kidney selected a 12 who hasn't played since the HEC final and was on holiday, without picking him in his original squad. He chose him over the other options he brought on the tour (Cave, Earls, McFadden). We were completely disorganised in defence, something we usually are at least good at. Who is in charge of making sure the team is organised in those areas of the game?

If you think he is doing okay, I seriously don't know if you have been watching Ireland this past year. Go back a few pages where somebody posted the results of our games for the past 2 seasons or so. The only teams we have beaten above us in the rankings are England and Australia. One draw against France. That is it.

LOL Rory seems with SBW possibly going back to league you could claim he was on holiday too...

Stephen Donald is a legend now in NZ circles as well as Australian...

I like the 7s point Laurie brought up. Look at how ruthlessly NZ finish things off from turnovers and broken play-and we didn't even have Cory Jane on Sat who is just a master at exploiting opportunities given extra space.

You can't help thinking that the heartbreak in Christchurch caused them to drop their bundle a bit.

The scoreline isn't indicative of NZ's standing either. We're not miles ahead of the pack as you well and truly proved in the second test. Every team has good and bad days. It just so happens that when the All Blacks have a good day they annihilate their opposition. No matter who it is-just like Radge said.

Hopefully Kidney can be bold and introduce more youth. He can't do worse than a 60-0 "bad cuddle" so he should think stuff it. Hansen reaped some surprising rewards. We didn't know they'd do that well in a black jersey.

Radge, what do you think a coach is responsible for out of interest? What is a coach's role?

Mickado wrote:Radge, I'll give you an example of Kidney not picking his best team. DOC started every 6nations game this year, but he couldn't get ahead of Donnacha Ryan at Munster.

When POC was injured, Kidney brought in Mike McCarthy from Connacht ahead of Dan Tuohy who was in much better form.

ROG has been playing like a drain all year, Madigan was arguably the best OH in the league, ROG goes on tour, Madigan stays at home twiddling his thumbs.

Kidney talks about developing a sqaud on the tour to NZ, we get a sniff of a win and ignore the 2 centers we have on tour to call up Paddy Wallace.

These are just the recent examples. We won't even mention his persistance with John Hayes while Mike Ross was clearly the best TH in the country.

Stop this nonesence about Madigan. He doesn't take place kicks. When Schmidt moves Sexton to 12 and starts Madigan in meaningful game when he has other options, he should get a chance to play for Ireland.

If Madigan could be considered anything remotely close to international class, he would have put him on as an impact sub at least in the Rabo Final against the Ospreys.

As for persisting with John Hayes for the autumn series (when Mike Ross had started his first two HCup games for Leinster) might have had something to do with Cian Healy's lack of experience among other things.

Ian Madigan has played in 2 HC finals. He set up two tries in his last game for Leinster. The only time ROG comes onto the field is when Sexton moves to IC so why not do the same with Madigan?

Micko, the whole Madigan played in 2 HC finals is a bit of a stretch, the game was won by the time he got on. I agree Madgian should have been brught, I'm hoping Munster are willign to give other outhalves game tiem next year, because unless we get ROG attacking the gainline we could be in for a tough ride.

Mickado wrote:Ian Madigan has played in 2 HC finals. He set up two tries in his last game for Leinster. The only time ROG comes onto the field is when Sexton moves to IC so why not do the same with Madigan?

Youve got a point there to be fair.

Rory_Gallagher wrote: Our midfield was the main reason we leaked so many tries. Kidney selected a 12 who hasn't played since the HEC final and was on holiday, without picking him in his original squad.

Paddy Wallace started against the Barbarians. He had just gone on holiday by the way. Said he had been training all along at home.

He chose him over the other options he brought on the tour (Cave, Earls, McFadden). We were completely disorganised in defence, something we usually are at least good at. Who is in charge of making sure the team is organised in those areas of the game?

Cave has never played inside centre in his life before and you want to start him against the ABs? (and he didn't have a great time in his 10 minute cameo in the 1st Test).
Earls - started at 12 for the 1st Test and Ireland still lost.
McFadden - He has been tried at 12 before and has been found wanting.

Thomond wrote:Micko, the whole Madigan played in 2 HC finals is a bit of a stretch, the game was won by the time he got on. I agree Madgian should have been brught, I'm hoping Munster are willign to give other outhalves game tiem next year, because unless we get ROG attacking the gainline we could be in for a tough ride.

Best outhalf play on the tour came from ROG in the 2nd Test.

Looking ahead, I know people usually want to see their countrymen on the Lions team but next season I hope very few Irish players make it.

I want a new coach to come in next season and have a few squad for the season after.

Sin é wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote: Our midfield was the main reason we leaked so many tries. Kidney selected a 12 who hasn't played since the HEC final and was on holiday, without picking him in his original squad.

Paddy Wallace started against the Barbarians. He had just gone on holiday by the way. Said he had been training all along at home.

He chose him over the other options he brought on the tour (Cave, Earls, McFadden). We were completely disorganised in defence, something we usually are at least good at. Who is in charge of making sure the team is organised in those areas of the game?

Cave has never played inside centre in his life before and you want to start him against the ABs? (and he didn't have a great time in his 10 minute cameo in the 1st Test).
Earls - started at 12 for the 1st Test and Ireland still lost. By a margin 30points less than when we lost with Wallace
McFadden - He has been tried at 12 before and has been found wanting.

[b]

Mickado wrote:Ian Madigan has played in 2 HC finals. He set up two tries in his last game for Leinster. The only time ROG comes onto the field is when Sexton moves to IC so why not do the same with Madigan?

I said meaningful. Why didn't he come on against the Ospreys in the Rabo Final?

Facts are he is only brought on when the game is won (and there are at least 2 other placekickers on the pitch).