Rugby 2015

[OwlsFan]

Could have played all day there without creating a try.

[OwlsFan]

Now THAT was sport at its most dramatic. Even though it was nail biting stuff, I had to laugh when the RTE commentators celebrated prematurely when the clock was in red and France were awarded a penalty on their own line. They assumed that France would put it out but they tap and go instead. "What are France doing" says Lenihan as England almost turn it over. Now if Chris Kamara was watching, that was unbelievable stuff. Amazing really amazing and it just shows in sport that when you need to win by a certain amount, how a game changes.

[BonnieShels]

I celebrated prematurely too as I'm sure the whole nation did. Sheer disbelief that they ran it.

What a day though. 7 hours of sheer madness and breathtaking rugby.

That England France game was astonishing. Delighted is not the word.

[Real ale Madrid]

Ireland have won 10 matches winning our first back-to-back championships since 1949.
Ireland won 7 five nations games in total through the entire the 1990's.

Great days for Irish rugby with the women's team doing well, and the U-20s off the back of a World Cup semi final last year. Let's hope we can win the big one now on 11-10-15 - what a sporting day that promises to be.

Sunday 11th of October 2015
RWC Group D - Ireland v France 4.45pm
Euro Qualifier Group B - Poland v Republic of Ireland 7.45pm

[BonnieShels]

The best part about that day is I'll be in Cardiff. :)

Gonna be whopper. Possible QF v Argentina for the victor, NZ for the vanquished.

[Stuttgart88]

I'm genuinely gutted for Leigh Halfpenny. Big loss to Wales and the RWC in general.

[tetsujin1979]

Yeah, shades of Geordan Murphy before world cup 2003

[Charlie Darwin]

Or David Wallace pre-2011. Hopefully he comes back all the stronger, terrific player.

[OwlsFan]

"It was a very physical game" - the latest which all the players trot out after each match. The Canadians, Romanians and Italians have all played a physical game so far. Surely it goes without saying that a rugby international will be a physical game. We'll hear it about the French as well because their forwards are massive but these days, so are the forwards (and backs) of just about every national team.

Is the French game really that important? New Zealand or Argentina in the quarters. If Ireland wants to win this competition, we'll have to face the All Blacks at some stage ? Should we not rest our top players for the French game and take on the All Blacks with a fresh team fired up rather than a bruised one after a physical game against the French which more than likely we may lose anyway ? Or are we just targeting the semis

If, for the sake of argument, we beat the French and beat Argentina, I assume it will be either Australia or South Africa in the semi-final or do the All Blacks stay in our half of the draw?

[swinfordfc]

[QUOTE=OwlsFan;1841918

If, for the sake of argument, we beat the French and beat Argentina, I assume it will be either Australia or South Africa in the semi-final or do the All Blacks stay in our half of the draw?[/QUOTE]


If we were to beat France and then Argentina, then it's either Australia or Wales (depends who wins on Saturday) or Scotland or Tonga! Now you see why the France game is so important!

[Charlie Darwin]

"It was a very physical game" - the latest which all the players trot out after each match. The Canadians, Romanians and Italians have all played a physical game so far. Surely it goes without saying that a rugby international will be a physical game. We'll hear it about the French as well because their forwards are massive but these days, so are the forwards (and backs) of just about every national team.

Is the French game really that important? New Zealand or Argentina in the quarters. If Ireland wants to win this competition, we'll have to face the All Blacks at some stage ? Should we not rest our top players for the French game and take on the All Blacks with a fresh team fired up rather than a bruised one after a physical game against the French which more than likely we may lose anyway ? Or are we just targeting the semis

If, for the sake of argument, we beat the French and beat Argentina, I assume it will be either Australia or South Africa in the semi-final or do the All Blacks stay in our half of the draw?
You try and win all your games and get the easiest draw you can. Which is beating France and getting Argentina.

[Real ale Madrid]

Is the French game really that important? New Zealand or Argentina in the quarters. If Ireland wants to win this competition, we'll have to face the All Blacks at some stage ? Should we not rest our top players for the French game and take on the All Blacks with a fresh team fired up rather than a bruised one after a physical game against the French which more than likely we may lose anyway ? Or are we just targeting the semis


I'd take a semi final at this stage - we've never got that far before. Argentina may be brilliant though so it will be a tough ask either way - I would say we have a 50/50 chance of beating Argentina - our chances of beating the AB's are less than that for sure.



If, for the sake of argument, we beat the French and beat Argentina, I assume it will be either Australia or South Africa in the semi-final or do the All Blacks stay in our half of the draw?

The Semi Final Draw is looking like this:

(S. Africa v Loser Wal/Aus) v (NZ v Loser Ire/Fra)
(Winner Wal/Aus v Scotland/Japan) v (Winner Ire/Fra v Argentina)

[OwlsFan]

You try and win all your games and get the easiest draw you can. Which is beating France and getting Argentina.

I don't disagree with that but the media built this up to a bigger game than the Italian one. "Now on to the big one" and such comments. Ireland rarely put on huge performances back to back. I would say if we beat the French, it will be a draining effort leaving us exhausted for the next game. Hence I hinted that perhaps we rest key players for that game and if we win, well and good, but if not, the key players are fresh for the game against the All Blacks. Probably talking rubbish as I am not a rugby aficionado :)

[Real ale Madrid]

I would say if we beat the French, it will be a draining effort leaving us exhausted for the next game.

We have played 7 matches as a squad over the last 9 weeks, have a fully fit squad - no injuries ( unheard of in modern day international rugby ) - we should be more than capable of putting in 2 or 3 huge performances in a row over the next few weeks, without getting exhausted as you say.

Lets face it - our world cup starts on Sunday, fully fit squad, 2 winnable games - we've never had a better chance. Time to $h1t or get off the pot!

[Charlie Darwin]

I don't disagree with that but the media built this up to a bigger game than the Italian one. "Now on to the big one" and such comments. Ireland rarely put on huge performances back to back. I would say if we beat the French, it will be a draining effort leaving us exhausted for the next game. Hence I hinted that perhaps we rest key players for that game and if we win, well and good, but if not, the key players are fresh for the game against the All Blacks. Probably talking rubbish as I am not a rugby aficionado :)
But it is a bigger game because Italy are rubbish at rugby.

[OwlsFan]

But it is a bigger game because Italy are rubbish at rugby.

I thought it was about qualification not the opposition. For instance, as regards football, if the last game against Georgia secured us qualification, surely it would have been a bigger game than the next one against Germany or does "bigger" relate to the opposition rather than what's at stake?

[Charlie Darwin]

I thought it was about qualification not the opposition.
What do you mean? It's about giving yourself the best chance to get as far as you can, which means raising your game above the opposition whoever they are.

[tetsujin1979]

But it is a bigger game because Italy are rubbish at rugby.

They're far from rubbish, they came within one impeccably timed tackle of getting a result against us. It's a bigger game because France are a step up from Italy, and if we play the same way against the French, we can't expect to get a win, and the repercussions of losing on Sunday, i.e. playing New Zealand in the quarter finals

[Charlie Darwin]

They're far from rubbish, they came within one impeccably timed tackle of getting a result against us. It's a bigger game because France are a step up from Italy, and if we play the same way against the French, we can't expect to get a win, and the repercussions of losing on Sunday, i.e. playing New Zealand in the quarter finals
Rubbish compared to us then. Nine times from ten we'd have flattened them, and I think we'd have won even if they'd gotten that try.

[OwlsFan]

Well I still think that getting out of a group is what group stages are about and thus the Italian game was bigger for the prize involved. The French game is about who we play and I was under the impression that Ireland thought we could win the tournament so isn't this not wanting to play NZ a negative thing? Now off to the airport for more important stuff in Warsaw. Good luck to both teams though.

[Real ale Madrid]

Always great to beat the $h1te out of France, no matter what the sport. Thought we did it well but obviously at a huge cost. Best case scenario Sexton, O’Mahony are ok and O’Brien is not cited. O’Connell looks like he will be out for a lengthy period of time, looked like an awful injury.

Edit - O'Mahony just ruled out of the tournament.

Quarter Finals are as follows:

Sat 17 Oct
QF1: South Africa v Wales (4pm, Twickenham)
QF2: New Zealand v France (8pm, Millennium Stadium)

Sun 18 Oct
QF3: Ireland v Argentina (1pm, Millennium Stadium)
QF4: Australia v Scotland (4pm, Twickenham)

[swinfordfc]

We have an awful hard game now - Argentina will be no walk over - they being very good so far and give NZ a serious run for 60 mins!

[shakermaker1982]

Have to say atmosphere was unreal yesterday. I had never been to the Millenium before and it truly is a world class venue.

So many bodies on the floor during the game. Brutal. I could hear the hits from the top tier.

Fair play to the lads, they fronted up to a very physical French side. Sad to see the French morph into England and just look for the crash, bang and wallop.

Only heard about the SO'B incident on the way back to the hotel. We got very lucky that incident wasn't picked up by the TMO. Get the impression Pape made a deal out of it. Unless Sean hits like Tommy Hearns I'm not sure how he'd be in floor for that long!

[swinfordfc]

He did hit with a fist and got lucky that he only got a week! .... and the IRFU would be mad to appeal it!

[OwlsFan]

I still think that I was correct that we should have rested players for the French game instead of putting in that huge effort and losing key players in the process. You could see from the anthems how fired up the Argentinians were and we couldn't match their intensity. If there were black shirts in front of us with O'Connell and Sexton and O'Brien, it would have been a different story. Ok we may have lost (but we have run them close recently) but we were going to have to face them sooner or later and who knows. We obviously didn't believe our own hype about winning the tournament if we were trying to dodge the All Blacks. The All Blacks were fired up for the French. I am not sure they would have been so fired up for us while we would have been ready for them. We even may have beaten the French with key players having been rested.

Shame.

[Real ale Madrid]

We did the usual RWC trick - play well in the group stages and lay an egg when it matters.

Haven't been so gutted over a sporting event in a long time. In 28 years we have never won a knock out game in the RWC. Failure to adjust to Argentinian tactics early on was crucial. But we got ourselves back into the game and Madigan kicks out on the full, Murray knocks on from an under pressure scrum and a plethora of missed tackles in the final quarter sealed our fate.

Depressing.

[NeverFeltBetter]

How do the northern hemisphere teams catch up? Is it just a case, as with Argentina, that they have to arrange for more tests against the tri-nation teams on a regular basis? Or is there something that could be done closer to home?

Even as a fairly relaxed fan of rugby, I'm surprised with how easy the Rugby Championship teams have had it against northern opposition in this tournament.

[swinfordfc]

Its a completely different brand of rugby ... theirs is flat out expansive game while up here - its labourous - slow and arkward ......

[tetsujin1979]

I still think that I was correct that we should have rested players for the French game instead of putting in that huge effort and losing key players in the process. You could see from the anthems how fired up the Argentinians were and we couldn't match their intensity. If there were black shirts in front of us with O'Connell and Sexton and O'Brien, it would have been a different story. Ok we may have lost (but we have run them close recently) but we were going to have to face them sooner or later and who knows. We obviously didn't believe our own hype about winning the tournament if we were trying to dodge the All Blacks. The All Blacks were fired up for the French. I am not sure they would have been so fired up for us while we would have been ready for them. We even may have beaten the French with key players having been rested.

Shame.Can't agree with this, you play your best players in the hardest games, and you can't legislate for injuries, or something like O'Brien's citing. If you did, then you'd never play anyone.
We beat France in February 18-11, but didn't score a try, and the assumption was they would improve for the World Cup. Everyone overestimated the abilities of the French in the tournament, not just Schmidt. I know everyone's an expert after the event, but we probably would still have beaten them with the second choice players starting in key positions.

[Mr A]

When the footballers under-perform in a big game they get absolutely slated, the rugby guys get such an easy time by comparison. I know Ireland were missing players but that doesn't excuse how we started. Argentina were very good but so many Ireland just weren't at the races for chunks of the game. So disappointing.

[NeverFeltBetter]

http://www.rugbyworldcup.com/news/115761

Is this normal behavior from the governing body?

[OwlsFan]

Can't agree with this, you play your best players in the hardest games, and you can't legislate for injuries, or something like O'Brien's citing. If you did, then you'd never play anyone.
We beat France in February 18-11, but didn't score a try, and the assumption was they would improve for the World Cup. Everyone overestimated the abilities of the French in the tournament, not just Schmidt. I know everyone's an expert after the event, but we probably would still have beaten them with the second choice players starting in key positions.

I can't remember which Irish player was being interviewed after the French game but he was asked whether this was the greatest night of his life? Why? We had already qualified for the quarter finals and to put a huge effort in to the French game and risk our limited number of top players was foolish and it is not a matter of being wise after the event. I said it before the game. Numerous former players have since said that the French game took a huge amount out of the players.

I also think it is bizarre that the Rugby Authorities should come out and attack the referee's decision in the Scottish game. Talk about undermining officials in the few sports where the referees are respected. It was also interesting that after that game, all 3 TV3 Panelists thought that it was the correct decision. Who'd be a referee.

[OwlsFan]

Well, pretty much the final that most people predicted. No sure who I hope wins. The Aussie can be a very arrogant lot while it's the Kiwis national sport. Probably go for the All Blacks since it means so much to them as a nation although I do like the Australian style of play.

[Real ale Madrid]

3rd Australia v New Zealand World Final in Little over a year. Australia looking to make it 3-0 with wins in the RL Final 34-2 and the Cricket 186/3 v 186.

In other news I see Japan have announced start / finishing dates for the 2019 Rugby World Cup, must start saving!

Organizers have penciled Ireland in for a Quarter Final exit.

[BonnieShels]

Well, pretty much the final that most people predicted. No sure who I hope wins. The Aussie can be a very arrogant lot while it's the Kiwis national sport. Probably go for the All Blacks since it means so much to them as a nation although I do like the Australian style of play.

I despise the All Blacks. And I hope that Australia hop off them. Delighted Australia got to the final as they are the only team who can overcome the bias towards the ABs. There's no disputing their obvious talent and skill but to watch Richie McCaw end on a low like that will warm my heart greatly.