IRELAND: Why O'Leary should not go to the world cup. Pros + Cons

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I am firmly of the belief that O'Leary should not go to the world cup this September. I am very willing to admit that he was an excellent player for Ireland in 2009 as the laws at the time benefited defence minded players.

O'Leary's main strength was just that, his strength and his ability to make cover tackles sometimes as far as on the far wing. He became an extra backrow player around the ruck and an extra fullback when the ball was sent wide. This defensive system was very effective considering that ruck ball was much slower in 2009 than it is now.

I see him in a similar light to kearney who also thrived in this area due to his assurdness under the high ball and his long kicking game. theya re both very defence minded players.

O'Leary's main fault was his service was slow. Not necessarily his pass, but how long it took him to execute a pass. He spent quite a long time digging in rucks and then he would take a number of steps before he passed the ball. These steps kept the fringe defence honest but also cut down on the space in midfield greatly. O'driscoll and Darcy often got the ball with a defender in their faces.

His passing is also an issue in terms of the pace of the pass (by far the slowest of all ireland's scrumhalves) and also his accuracy which is nowhere near what it should be. One could visibly see O'Gara having to adjust to the injection of pace as soon as Stringer came on in many games. O'Leary has been known to throw loopy passes, passes behind the reciever and passes that bounce before they reach the reciever, frequently enough for an international scrumhalf.

His decision making also became poor in early 2010 when he returned from injury. There are many instances where O'Leary didn't survey the options correctly or did and then made a bad choice in terms of directing play, be it popping to a forward when he should have gone wide, or trying to break himself when it wasn't on.

O'Leary was good off set piece moves where he would attack the line off a scrum with runners coming in from all sorts of angles and also at the tail of the lineout where blindside wingers and inside centres would look to get pops off him.

Unfortunatly these phase one moves are well documented and thus defences are more aware of them.

O'Leary should not go to the world cup for 5 reasons

1) Quick ball is golden now a days and this is something O'Leary can not provide. He is by far the worst scrumhalf in ireland regarding this aspect of play. In my opinion of course.

2) His defensive qualities are less relevant as due to quicker ball he will have less time to get across to make covering tackles and will make less and less of them.

3) His kicking game while not being bad all the time is not what it needs to be and he relies on it too heavily.

4) He is not in form due to his injuries. He has had very little game time this season and since his return from injury he has not made the 23 in the big games when Murray and Stringer were available.

5) Unlike with Kearney where we are limited by the number of true fullbacks we possess (3) there are many scrumhalves who are playing well this season or who offer something more or something different.
-Reddan has been on form since November
-Stringer offers something other scrumhalves do not in his speed of service
-Murray is in much better form than O'Leary
-Boss is similar to both Murray and O'Leary but again has been in better form.

His one saving grace is his experience, and his versatility to play centre and wing IMO, and possibly his relationship with Kidney.

What do people think?

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:I thought his try against France was more a case of great offloading by Paul O'Connell rather than anything O'leary did. He doesn't make life easy for teh players outside him and that is his primary duty

Agree on primary duty but the break he made from the lineout in the build up to his try was superb.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:I thought his try against France was more a case of great offloading by Paul O'Connell rather than anything O'leary did. He doesn't make life easy for teh players outside him and that is his primary duty

A try and a couple of tackles doesn't make up for 80 minutes of slow ball and wasting attacking opportunities by taking teh wrong option. The main reason Sexton was so poor against France was becasue he had to stand 10 metres deeper to take O'leary's pass and all his loops were all well behind the gainline.

roddersm wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:I thought his try against France was more a case of great offloading by Paul O'Connell rather than anything O'leary did. He doesn't make life easy for teh players outside him and that is his primary duty

A try and a couple of tackles doesn't make up for 80 minutes of slow ball and wasting attacking opportunities by taking teh wrong option. The main reason Sexton was so poor against France was becasue he had to stand 10 metres deeper to take O'leary's pass and all his loops were all well behind the gainline.

+1

We need a scrumhalf who doesn't allow the opposition to clog our midfield.

If I was an opposition coach facing Ireland and saw TOL's name on the team sheet I'd make sure to keep my fringe defence honest and to close up fast on the Irish 10 and midfield.

he is so easy to defend against in anything other than set piece first phase moves (which he is actually quite good at.)

I can see Pete that you seem to have a problem with everything O'leary does.

With regard to his kicking away possession, he kicked once against Italy.

Now Reddan, kicked the ball 5 times against Scotland and 3 times against England.

It would seem from those stats that O'leary isn't the kicking fanatic you would like to think

Now Reddan is another story ... lol.

Sexton and O'Leary will never work as a halfback combination. It is totally WRONG and the most worrying thing from Kidney is that he insists on putting them together.

Sexton stands very flat and plays instinctively so he needs a Scrum half who can make quick desicions and read what he is going to do. O'leary is the worst 9 in the planet to pair sexton with and I really can't understand why Kidney keeps persisting with such a terrible combination.

I don't hate everything O'Leary does Sin so please stop right there on taking my words out of context. I agree he is a very good defender however I don't think that part of his game is going to be as utilized as before due to the quickness of ball making it harder for him to cover the ground needed.

Maybe he did kick less in that match and maybe others, however reddan doesn't kneecap our outside backs! I DESPISE watching O'Leary play when he passes as badly as he can do quite often. His decision making is appalling. His service is the slowest of all international scrumhalves in the 6N.

Playing O'Leary means you effectively rule our backs out of using multiple phase attacks and Sin, you can dress it up anyway you want but that's that. O'Leary shackles his own backline.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote: His decision making is appalling. His service is the slowest of all international scrumhalves in the 6N.

Playing O'Leary means you effectively rule our backs out of using multiple phase attacks and Sin, you can dress it up anyway you want but that's that. O'Leary shackles his own backline.

Well said Pete, I'm glad it wasn't just me that noticed then.....

Pete, you are the one who used the word 'hate', so don't be putting words into my mouth (though you admit to despising him). You obviously see things that you want to see (i.e., why are you criticising O'Leary for kicking away possession, when its plainly not true).

What happened to Reddan/Leinster backs then in the Magners final? The way you are talking the Leinster backs should have scored 10 tries what with Munster having a rookie SH/midfield starting!

I don't want to have a go at Reddan, but I'm just wondering is Reddan any better than O'Leary?

Ok if you want to be fussy... I don't have a problem with everything O'Leary does. I then went on to mention that he defends well but that it will be harder for him to cover the ground with the new rules.

Reddan is better than O'Leary at being a modern scrumhalf. I wish there was something that let you see every pass O'Leary has made in an Irish jersey some of large number of them are truely awful. He is not an intelligent scrumhalf. He is not an attacking scrumhalf. He is not a scrumhalf who gives his outside backs space. He is not the a scrumhalf who can 'make things happen', the set plays do for him because Ireland relied on them so much.

I don't understand how you can't see how poor a passer he is, how slow he is at getting the ball away, how much space he starves his backs of, how poor his decision making record is. To me and others it is glaringly obvious I don't understand why you and others don't see it.

Pete, I don't see how you think Reddan is any better! O'Leary was apparently not fully fit for the 6Ns (back spasms) which may have affected his game.

Reddan does some really brain dead stuff as well - the problem with him is that he doesn't have the physicality to deal with the problems he creates. Reddan suffers as much, if not even more if his forwards are not on top of things (i.e., First half Northampton, Magners Final).

You haven't explained why Leinster didn't score a couple of tries in the Magners Final? What happened to all the quick ball that you keep claiming Reddan provides? And, even with a very dominant Leinster over the last while, most the games were down to penalties - certainly not try extravaganzas.

Reddan is poor behind a retreating pack. TOL is marginally better but neither impose any sort of footballing control. Murray looks to have time to make decisions which is good but he has no chance of being ready for the highest level. I agree with SinE that Boss is off DK's radar and is probably his fifth choice. Stringer isn't first choice but I could see Kidney wanting him as a bench option to partner ROG to close out a game.

IMO Kidney has included five SHs in case TOL isn't going to be fit. Three will go - Redders, Strings, TOL/(Murray if not fit), and Boss will stay in Dublin but will be on injury standby so has to get some practice.


BTW RS - I suspect it was Paul Marshall you saw, as Porter hardly played due to injury, and in those few early season games he did play in he was ropey enough. Neither have a great pass but Small Parcel did improve under Pienaar.

[quote="Sin é"]

WillyGilly wrote: Mind you, Murray isn't bad either if going on the Magners final. Kearney's defence isn't great - and if he (or Geordan Murphy) are fullback, you'd need O'Leary.

Equally, I find myself screaming at Reddan when he throws an incerpt pass, or decides to run from our own 22 when he knows he should just boot it out of there. Reddan can be slow at rucktime. Think Munster got to him a few times during the Magners Final and stole the ball (though, to be fair to Reddan, he had a 'mare of a game that day).

Kearney's defence isn't great.
Update there Sin, Kearneys defence is brutal but it somehow keeps getting overlooked.

Pete,
I don't think that there is much between any of the Irish scrum halves at the moment.
The warm up games will tell their own story and I will judge on that basis.

Tayto wrote:
Pete,
I don't think that there is much between any of the Irish scrum halves at the moment.
The warm up games will tell their own story and I will judge on that basis.

Sorry but I think there is a MASSIVE difference between them. Individually speaking O'Leary's all round ability compares favourably with Reddans; He's bigger, stronger and possibly quicker.

However as a lynch pin at 9 he is awful. His service is ponderous at best and his ability to turn quick ball into slow ball is second to none. When he play's all our backs have to stand deeper and like Pete says it is impossible to launch multiphase attacks due to his slow service and terrible descision making. TOL at 9 is the equivilant to making our backs play with a ball and chain round their ankles.

The amount of times we generate quick ball, in good attacking positions only for TOL to stand looking around before deciding to call O'Connell in to take the ball back into contact is unbelievable. He is hands down the worst scrum half I've ever seen in may life.

Reddan links far better with Heaslip and Sexton and all our attacks are much sharper when he plays. Our only half decent displays in the 6N came when Reddan played. If TOL plays then we've no chance against Italy let alone Australia.

Leinster were a much better attacking side this year than munster. Maybe the points won't demonstrate this but we all remember how often Munster went laterally. part of this is due to their midfield but part of it is due to slow service.

Reddan is by no means a great scrumhalf Sin and I am not making him out to be, he does make mistakes (brainfarts-weird expression). I can think of two major ones against England and SA.

But Reddan doesn't render his own backline insignificant in everything other than defence.

Can you honestly say that Reddan's service on average is slower than O'Leary's?

Can you honestly say that Reddan's pass on average is worse than O'Leary's?

Can you honestly say that Reddan is a worse attacking option (other than off set piece moves, but this system has become less used due to the new laws. Multi phase, quick ball, rolling attacks are what are being used now) than O'Leary?

O'Leary is a much better physically specimen but he is not quick enough (in his mind) and not good enough at surveying his options to play in such a commanding and influential role (scrumhalf).

IF O'LEARY PLAYS THE WHOLE IRISH GAME GETS AFFECTED.

If O'Leary plays we no longer can say we will go through the phases and find a gap through pressure. In 09 Ireland went through the least phases of all the 6n teams. They also passed the least (possibly 2nd least).

If O'Leary plays we have to sacrifice our midfield having space and being able to either attack the line on their own terms or bring our back3 into the game.

If O'Leary plays we won't be able to attempt to expose Cooper's defensive flaws to the same extent.

THE GAME IS NOW FAVOURING THE ATTACKER NOT THE DEFENDER A LA 2009. WITH O'LEARY WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ATTACK TO OUR POTENTIAL OR EVEN NEAR IT

Ausker-

Why is Boss of Kidney's radar though? He has played more rugby and better (debatable granted) rugby than O'Leary this year?

In my opinion the three that should go are Reddan, Stringer and Murray.

Can someone also tell me can Murray slot in at wing or centre???
Advice would be much appreciated.

Well Pete, it will probably shock you to find out that despite O'Leary's ponderous service, Munster managed to score 17 tries in the Heineken Cup Pool stages, just 4 less than Leinster in their pool, and 2 MORE than Toulouse in their pool. Ospreys, in the same pool as Munster, scored 7 tries. (For the record, Ruan Pienaar's Ulster scored 15 tries in their pool). What killed Munster was the scrum and associated difficulties, not O'leary's service. Looks like, depite a poor scrum, Munster's attack wasn't so bad in comparsion to the rest of the teams.

And Rodders, Munster scored 3 tries after O'Leary came on against Ulster last January (2 of the tries came from Munster's midfield of Mafi & Barry Murphy, so they must be getting some kind of service). Munster only scored 1 try when Stringer was on the pitch.

And you still haven't explained why Leinster didn't score any tries in Thomond. What happened to the Leinster attack? Munster had a cobbled together midfield and a rookie SH, it should have been a doddle.

Well sin thats all well and good but we're playing Australia in the group stages not Ulster or Leinster.

Sin- no need to try a wind up

The reason we didn't score any tries was two fold, Munster's cover defence was exceptional (your 'rookie' scrumhalf is just as good as O'Leary at covering the ground and physical enough to tackle anyone.) He played exceptionally well in the final.

The second reason was because Leinster weren't mentally prepared after winning the HCup. Their frame of mind was not right.

I'd be interested to know how those Munster tries were scored. i have a fair idea already. Many scored through the forwards and the ones scored in the backs were built from forward power and then using overlaps. Also your back3 were fantastic counterattackers from January on.

What about all of this Sin,

"Can you honestly say that Reddan's service on average is slower than O'Leary's?

Can you honestly say that Reddan's pass on average is worse than O'Leary's?

Can you honestly say that Reddan is a worse attacking option (other than off set piece moves, but this system has become less used due to the new laws. Multi phase, quick ball, rolling attacks are what are being used now) than O'Leary?

O'Leary is a much better physically specimen but he is not quick enough (in his mind) and not good enough at surveying his options to play in such a commanding and influential role (scrumhalf).

IF O'LEARY PLAYS THE WHOLE IRISH GAME GETS AFFECTED.

If O'Leary plays we no longer can say we will go through the phases and find a gap through pressure. In 09 Ireland went through the least phases of all the 6n teams. They also passed the least (possibly 2nd least). O'Leary started all the games bar the Scottish one.

If O'Leary plays we have to sacrifice our midfield having space and being able to either attack the line on their own terms or bring our back3 into the game.

If O'Leary plays we won't be able to attempt to expose Cooper's defensive flaws to the same extent.

THE GAME IS NOW FAVOURING THE ATTACKER NOT THE DEFENDER A LA 2009. WITH O'LEARY WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO ATTACK TO OUR POTENTIAL OR EVEN NEAR IT"

Tell us why O'Leary is a good scrumhalf so Sin

rodders, i was responding to Pete's claim that Leinster were a better attacking side than Munster and just threw in Ulster's (& Ospreys) results in the same competition.

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Tell us why O'Leary is a good scrumhalf so Sin

He has got great pace & great defence - much is much better than any of our other scrumhalfs when the pack is going backwards. He won't get thrown around like Reddan those. And his indecision doesn't cost us as much as Reddan's brainfarts.

I think Boss's delivery is about the same as O'Learys. I think Boss is a bit of a selfish player/takes too much on/goes for glory a bit too much (and that is probably why he is off Kidney's radar).

Edit: My general point is that it is far too early to dismiss O'Leary. He deserves a chance to see how he does in the warmup games, presuming that he will be fully fit.

Sin é wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Tell us why O'Leary is a good scrumhalf so Sin

He has got great pace & great defence - much is much better than any of our other scrumhalfs when the pack is going backwards. He won't get thrown around like Reddan those. And his indecision doesn't cost us as much as Reddan's brainfarts.

I think Boss's delivery is about the same as O'Learys. I think Boss is a bit of a selfish player/takes too much on/goes for glory a bit too much (and that is probably why he is off Kidney's radar).

Edit: My general point is that it is far too early to dismiss O'Leary. He deserves a chance to see how he does in the warmup games, presuming that he will be fully fit.

Sin I actually agree with much of what you've said, except the highlighted line. O'Leary's slow service and poor decisions have cost Ireland numerous good attacking opportunities. O'Leary's pace and tackling are a tad overrated aswell. He makes very few breaks and I've seen him miss plenty of tackles too.

O'Leary has his uses due to his physicality but his weaknesses far outway his strengths in my book.

Sin é wrote:

pete (buachaill on eirne) wrote:Tell us why O'Leary is a good scrumhalf so Sin

He has got great pace & great defence - much is much better than any of our other scrumhalfs when the pack is going backwards. He won't get thrown around like Reddan those. And his indecision doesn't cost us as much as Reddan's brainfarts.

I think Boss's delivery is about the same as O'Learys. I think Boss is a bit of a selfish player/takes too much on/goes for glory a bit too much (and that is probably why he is off Kidney's radar).

Edit: My general point is that it is far too early to dismiss O'Leary. He deserves a chance to see how he does in the warmup games, presuming that he will be fully fit.

1) His indecision has cost us jsut as much as Reddan's "brainfarts". That term makes it sound like Reddan is stupid and can't read the game and while he has made some high profile mistakes (the two off the lineout being the most prominent) he is still a much smarter scrumhalf than O'Leary in terms of identifying space and choosing the right option. O'Leary's indecision (the delay he takes in passing the ball while he makes up his mind) and also his trait of making the wrong decision have cost ireland many points in the past.

2) His pace and his defence should be bonus attributes not ones that get him into the team. Defence is important for all players but the same way a props main job is to scrummage a scrumhalves main job is to pass the ball well.

3) Reddan doesn't get thrown about as often as people think. Reddan's lack of physicallity also means he rarely takes runs into cul de sacs and brick walls.

4) Debatable whether he is the best SH behind a retreating pack.

5) Boss does go for glory too often, 100% agreed however he is a good offloader our of the tackle.


You haven't mentioned anything about O'Leary's level of passing. Speed? Accuracy? How long he takes gettting the ball out of rucks?

I'd actually prefer Murray to get time in the warm up games (to see if he can slot in with the heaslip, Sexton partnership) rather than give the game time to O'Leary to see if he is fit, has form and has learned to play differently