Well done Ireland

Most people have been criticising Ireland's performance yesterday and during the tournament as a whole, however to come within seven points of beating Italy despite having three yellow cards and missing O'Connell, Ferris, Reddan, Sexton, D'Arcy, Zebo and Bowe who would arguably all make their starting XV, as well as many, many more before the game and then losing several players get injured during the game and playing more than half the game with a blindside flanker on the wing, is pretty impressive.

Most Irish people have a lot of faith in the attitude and abilities of our players as individuals...the heroic suff of holding out or holding in there against all the odds (for as long as possible!).

But the weakness is that seems to be all this Irish side is relying on right now - personal instincts of survival kicking in during the absence of any real functional coaching anymore.

Irish players can be impressive (even the fill-ins of the fill-ins!!!) but it's going nowhere without a modern 21st century tactical gameplan to utilise the potential. Ireland are now only potential. A new coaching squad will decide if that potential has any true worth as the next WC approaches. We have players, now we need a plan to help take the instinct weight off their shoulders.

Happy St Pats Fly,

123456789 wrote:Most people have been criticising Ireland's performance yesterday and during the tournament as a whole, however to come within seven points of beating Italy despite having three yellow cards and missing O'Connell, Ferris, Reddan, Sexton, D'Arcy, Zebo and Bowe who would arguably all make their starting XV, as well as many, many more before the game and then losing several players get injured during the game and playing more than half the game with a blindside flanker on the wing, is pretty impressive.

You can hardly list yellow cards as an extra obstacle for a team to overcome. Of course its hard to play a game with a player less, thats the point, and you are meant to try and avoid all penalties including sin-binnings because the rules of the game are supposed to be followed.

I'm afraid the reality of the three yellow cards is three players who were silly enough to make our mission EVEN HARDER.

Its a little like being in a gunfight outnumbered three to one, and removing three bullets from your gun for no reason.

I can't really give them much credit. My reason is this, we battered Italy for about five minutes late in the second half with hard running, good carries, quick hands. During this five minutes we proved we were capable. But for 75 minutes we didnt do what we are capable of (even with the injury crisis).

clivemcl wrote:we battered Italy for about five minutes late in the second half with hard running, good carries, quick hands. During this five minutes we proved we were capable. But for 75 minutes we didnt do what we are capable of (even with the injury crisis).

+1.

That's what makes Ireland so infuriating to watch. They always or mostly goad you with enough 'what-ifs' to make you tear your hair out in frustration. 'Oh yeah, we played for 40 minutes...what if we had done that for 80?' - ''Yeah, we had a good attacking patch there for five minutes where all skills were on show at the highest level....what if we'd done that for 70 or 80 minutes.?'

Better not to show us anything promising at all if the remainder of the game is going to be fluffed lines all the way. To offer glimses of what might have been is just torture, and that's considered an International crime against humanity.

Fly - an old welsh trick I learned from watching Wales struggle from 1990-2004 when all our players went North was to stand back for a while and put things in perspective. As an example now from your angle I would be thinking, ok 1 draw and 1 win, but we are the only team in the tournament that beat the 6 Nations champions AWAY! - Therefore, we must be psychologically joint champions. Used to work for me and that was before we started on the injuries etc etc

RubyGuby wrote:Fly - an old welsh trick I learned from watching Wales struggle from 1990-2004 when all our players went North was to stand back for a while and put things in perspective. As an example now from your angle I would be thinking, ok 1 draw and 1 win, but we are the only team in the tournament that beat the 6 Nations champions AWAY! - Therefore, we must be psychologically joint champions. Used to work for me and that was before we started on the injuries etc etc

Well, Ruby...I've been secretly trying a little of that to be honest.... but I could never admit to it in publ........................... Oops!

Ah, I was furious yesterday...angriest I've been in years. Didn't like myself too much either but it just totally got to me. But luckily I don't drink and don't fistfight (mostly )...so it was a safe place to be around me but an angry place

Today I'm coming down. I realise now that things now have to change in the IRFU and at coaching level...Italy have finally forced admin people to act. Public opinion now will force them to act. So from adversity there is now at least hope on the horizon..

Sometimes you have to bottom out a little before the right changes occur. The worse thing to happen to us in 2007 was after losing the first 4 6 nations games we played England at home with Gareth Jenkins in charge, a defat and he would have been gone - you guessed it, we won and he took us to the RWC where we were humiliated, he was then sent packing and Warren came in - the rest is history

I honestly don't think Ireland's six nations has been too bad putting things into perspective, the only game that your team was close to being full strength was Wales which you'd won by half time, then you lost to England in atrocious conditions but you easily could have won, the defeat to Scotland occurred despite dominating the game, Kidney can't make the final pass, the players have to do it, drawing to France is a decent result at the best of times and yesterday the injuries were ridiculous.
On the other hand the Irish need to look at the conditioning side of the game, look at what is making the team so susceptible to injuries. It could be bad luck but it could be something deeper.

123456789 wrote:I honestly don't think Ireland's six nations has been too bad putting things into perspective, the only game that your team was close to being full strength was Wales which you'd won by half time, then you lost to England in atrocious conditions but you easily could have won, the defeat to Scotland occurred despite dominating the game, Kidney can't make the final pass, the players have to do it, drawing to France is a decent result at the best of times and yesterday the injuries were ridiculous.
On the other hand the Irish need to look at the conditioning side of the game, look at what is making the team so susceptible to injuries. It could be bad luck but it could be something deeper.

That's the way to do it