Ireland v France, 10th March 2018 15:00

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Ireland v France

Lansdowne Road
15:00 10th March 2019
Referee: Ben O’Keeffe (New Zealand)
Assistant 1: Angus Gardner (Australia)
Assistant 2: Karl Dickson (England)
TMO: Ben Skeen (New Zealand)

France Side, unchanged:
15. Thomas Ramos
14. Damien Penaud
13. Mathieu Bastareaud
12. Gael Fickou
11. Yoann Huget
10. Romain Ntamack
9. Antoine Dupont

1. Jefferson Poirot
2. Guilhem Guirado (captain)
3. Demba Bamba
4. Felix Lambey
5. Sebastien Vahaamahina
6. Wenceslas Lauret
7. Arthur Iturria
8. Louis Picamoles

Replacements:

16. Camille Chat
17. Etienne Falgoux
18. Dorian Aldegheri
19. Paul Willemse
20. Gregory Alldritt
21. Baptiste Serin
22. Anthony Belleau
23. Maxime Medard

Ireland side announced on Thursday at lunch time.

Can Ireland hurry up and pick their team? Some of us got fantasy leagues to win.

mikey_dragon wrote:Can Ireland hurry up and pick their team? Some of us got fantasy leagues to win.

Ill tell you the team:

Healy
Best
Furlong
Ryan
Henderson
Pom
Stander
VDF
Murray
Sexton
Earls
Aki
Ringrose
Stockdale
Kearney

Almost guarenteed. Only thing Im unsure about is if Schmidt would pick henderson and Ryan together as he may not trust them to call lineout in which case id say Roux would start instead of henderson.

Re Wales. You make your own luck. Much like Ireland did. Wales England wasn’t luck

Re the Irish lineout select whoever in the second row to call whatever. No Toner means POM will get everything. It’s a bit of a joke

Hopefully Ringrose brings a bit of much needed quality (and intelligence) to the back line. Am expecting the usual thunderous catches and running up blind alleys by everyone else lead by Bobert. At least he will give his usual video highlights on how not to tackle

Dont think anyone was saying the win over England had anything to do with luck. Also Pom gets about 3 lineouts per game Dod.

He is currently joint top with 15.

Fifteen across three games? I think most of the ball went to hom in the Italy game in the lineout but generally its only a few per game. No?

I dont think Henderson and Ryan are trusted yet.

To be fair though if you pick Pom and Henderson its fair enough that Pom does the lineout jumping as Henderson is better at carrying and clearing out rucks. Fair trade off.

Problem is the reliance not the other stuff ( of which he is exceptional at as well). Despite you making things up.

Geen sport voor watjes wrote:Problem is the reliance not the other stuff ( of which he is exceptional at as well). Despite you making things up.

He really isn't. Look at his carrying/meter per carry stats.

V Italy 6 runs for 5 metres. 0 defenders beaten.
V Scotland 13 runs 6 metres. 0 defenders beaten.
V England 9 runs 8 metres. 0 defenders beaten.

Given the game plan we employ that's a poor return for a 6.

What is it with Ireland... Why do they wait so late to announce the teams. Dont they realise that we have to complete our Fantasy Selection before we get too paralytic on Rose Street ....

It's out now.
O'Brien out of the match day 23.
Rest as expected

Exactly as predicted yesterday:

15. Rob Kearney
14. Keith Earls
13. Garry Ringrose
12. Bundee Aki
11. Jacob Stockdale
10. Johnny Sexton
9. Conor Murray

1. Cian Healy
2. Rory Best (captain)
3. Tadhg Furlong
4. Iain Henderson
5. James Ryan
6. Peter O’Mahony
7. Josh van der Flier
8. CJ Stander

Replacements:

16. Niall Scannell
17. Dave Kilcoyne
18. John Ryan
19. Ultan Dillane
20. Jack Conan
21. John Cooney
22. Jack Carty
23. Jordan Larmour

No Tadgh Beirne but Id say he will force his way in at some point.

Keeping some fresh legs for Wales I'd say.

Good job Joe!

I'd been ignoring team predictions from those in the know because I fully expected Tadgh Beirne to be included. Those in the know win again. Damn them!!!

Good to see Cooney and Carty being continued. Shame about Henshaw and his dead leg - would like to have seen him partnering Ringrose. And Dillane gets rewarded for his performance in last round.

I mean it's a great team but why did Joe bring Beirne home only not to select him. He could be on double wages at Scarlets.
I think he's been the best club player in Europe over the past 2 seasons.

Question - is there a better player in world rugby who isn't selected for their national side? Or at least those who are eligible for selection?

theslosty wrote:I mean it's a great team but why did Joe bring Beirne home only not to select him. He could be on double wages at Scarlets.
I think he's been the best club player in Europe over the past 2 seasons.

Question - is there a better player in world rugby who isn't selected for their national side? Or at least those who are eligible for selection?

Gavin Henson?

theslosty wrote:I mean it's a great team but why did Joe bring Beirne home only not to select him. He could be on double wages at Scarlets.
I think he's been the best club player in Europe over the past 2 seasons.

Question - is there a better player in world rugby who isn't selected for their national side? Or at least those who are eligible for selection?

Joe didn't bring him home, Beirne is on record as saying he had no contact with Joe when he was at Scarlets, it was Munster who approached him.

I have sympathy with Beirne, I think he's a super player but he plays in the most competitive positions we have, and has been unlucky with injury, so he may not get a real shot in the green jersey until after the RWC.

Id love to see him play too as I think he would give us the physicality we have been missing but I also think we have a pretty spot on succession process in place so Im sure he will get his chance with time.

I still think he will feature against Wales. He has the inside track on a lot of those players and I'm convinced Joe will rotate a few players for freshness in these last 2 games.

Beirne buggered his knee ligaments against Exeter at Thomond Park playing in Europe. Think he is still unavailable or just making his way back to fitness. A real shame as a row of Beirne and Ryan would scare the beejesus out of just about any opposition you can think of.

He was MOTM for Munster two weeks ago sensiball. He's MOTM in virtually every match he plays.

Just to say re France as long as Murray and Sexton dont kick loosely to their back three (highly unlikely) or you miss loads of first up tackles (also highly unlikely) then France have few attacking plays. Du Pont will run the show as Ntamack is pretty green at this level, and even greener at 10. Put Du Pont under pressure and their attempted back plays will crumble.

Theslosty: Bugger me that was a quick recovery from what was said to be serious knee damage.
No excuses then for Joe. Its insane to not get him involved for this championship. His breakdown work could be invaluable in the sapping conditions in Japan. When allied to his mobility, carrying and lineout skills it beggars belief he isnt picked. If he was Scottish I would have as the first choice row in our struggling front five all day long.

What should also work in Beirne's favour is that he can play in the back-row. If Ireland wanted big guys at 2nd row, you could shift him to 6 and still get all that good work out of him. It would be tough playing against a pack of Healy, Best, Furlong, Henderson, Ryan, Beirne, VDF, Stander. Doesn't lack mobility if that's what you're worried about, but you also have the option of playing another 7 instead of Stander.

The only trouble is POM is arguably the best pure blindside in the game atm.

Hope we're winning by the time that bench starts filtering in. Light in the proven impact department if we need to try to chase a game down.

Collapse2005 wrote:

Geen sport voor watjes wrote:Problem is the reliance not the other stuff ( of which he is exceptional at as well). Despite you making things up.

He really isn't. Look at his carrying/meter per carry stats.

V Italy 6 runs for 5 metres. 0 defenders beaten.
V Scotland 13 runs 6 metres. 0 defenders beaten.
V England 9 runs 8 metres. 0 defenders beaten.

Given the game plan we employ that's a poor return for a 6.

Pulling stats from your hole again. Why don’t you compare that with all the other sixes in the 6n. What’s next defenders beaten? Clean breaks? Kick pass run? Maybe it’s missed tackles (we couldn’t do thT one as rob would win that on one half alone). Typical blue Magoo response

The problem with Beirne is that he does too much as a second row. Apparently that wrecks joes head and his systems. The computer blows up as does joe.

theslosty wrote:The only trouble is POM is arguably the best pure blindside in the game atm.

Wouldn't go that far... And from reading on here he blows hot and cold. I also rate Shingler over him POM, if he can return from injury and get to where he was prior to that.

Oh would yis all quit fretting about Beirne. He'll get the warm ups (and they're not going to be easy) and then he'll have his opportunity to roll the dice for a plane ticket.

mikey_dragon wrote:

theslosty wrote:The only trouble is POM is arguably the best pure blindside in the game atm.

Wouldn't go that far... And from reading on here he blows hot and cold. I also rate Shingler over him POM, if he can return from injury and get to where he was prior to that.

Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Right!

SecretFly wrote: Oh would yis all quit fretting about Beirne.  He'll get the warm ups (and they're not going to be easy) and then he'll have his opportunity to roll the dice for a plane ticket.

No he won’t. Guaranteed that’s not the joe show

Waiting for Sunday is a pain in th ass at this stage. Would much prefer regular Fridays rather than regular Sundays in Six Nations. It always feels quite removed from the excitement of the other 'real' Six Nations games on Saturday.

Would prefer that to secretFly

mikey_dragon wrote:

theslosty wrote:The only trouble is POM is arguably the best pure blindside in the game atm.

Wouldn't go that far... And from reading on here he blows hot and cold. I also rate Shingler over him POM, if he can return from injury and get to where he was prior to that.

... and don't forget about Lydiate...

Dear god

I am looking fore ward to this game. Ireland looking a bit of a mix bag this 6ns. Not playing with the fluidity that we are use too seeing.

France starting to get a bit of old flair  back in there game, running the ball and moving it around, throwing some great passes and scoring a couple of decent tries.

So it might be the game of the week end. If, If France turn up and play  like they did last time out.

Kearney out, Larmour starts at 15. Conway on bench at 23.

So far since this morning

Sun, wind, rain, rain and win, sun, no sun, wind, torrential rain and wind, sun, torrential rain and wind, and currently sun and swirling wind.

Should make for interesting match tactics.

Last competitive game for Schmidt.

A better start by Ireland this weekend

The Great Aukster wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

theslosty wrote:The only trouble is POM is arguably the best pure blindside in the game atm.

Wouldn't go that far... And from reading on here he blows hot and cold. I also rate Shingler over him POM, if he can return from injury and get to where he was prior to that.

... and don't forget about Lydiate...

He's unavailable. As shown in the AI series he can still come in and do a good job, but I rate Shingler and POM ahead of him. What I like about all three players is that they don't overcelebrate - plenty of that cringeworthy stuff from the world champions-elect against Italy yesterday.

Ireland may have gotten a cheeky one here, quick thinking by them

BigGee wrote:Ireland may have gotten a cheeky one here, quick thinking by them

Looks like a knock on

Knock on, scrum France

TMO 2 from 2 so far ...

France have lost both their starting props now!

The only thing that Healy achieved here is injuring a French player... typical. Going to be a very long game for France who could be losing by a huge margin today.