Less than two months to go in the year and frankly no better time to start the thread!
GERRIN' TA FOOK!
The bubble is burst. Magnificent performance.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
The caption should say 23 times in a row.
Nobody beats Ireland 23 times in a row
Is it any wonder NZ win so often when they're playing different rules to the rest of us. Absolutely gutted with some of the reffing in that.
That throw forward at the end summed it up really.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
This blaming the ref craic is boring. The ref was poor but not the reason we lost. I cannot understand for the life of me the hoopla surrounding the Sam Cane tackle. It was a split second where Henshaw literally bounced off one tackle and twisted awkwardly into another. Ludicrous.
We look in great shape for the six nations mind - roll on the 4th of February.
I think we could be still playing and not score a try. The difference was the backs. Ireland's backs found it really difficult to make ground while their seems to make ground at will. Ireland's forwards more than matched them. Good game.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
I'm still not over the NZ defeat and the refereeing. It'll take a while for that to happen. The visions of Korean Read pulling off the scrum early under the nose of Proper and us not getting either a penalty try and Read sinbinned haunt me. People were going on about us being sore losers are the same old apologists for this same scummy NZ team we have to put up with for decades. Tired of it.
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This November series showed Rugby and refereeing to be a in a bind.i thought when England got the red against Argentina we had seen some sort of sense return. Only for 5 (6?) resets on the English line and no penalty try. They ended up with a yellow card too but Argentina still had to secure the try conventionally.
It was clear to me that he was trying to go easy on England after the early red card.
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Our discipline stats are off the charts though our vaunted Defence is taken a knock. We're conceeding too many tries despite possession domination.
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Anyway, thoughts on Bonus Points being brought in?
http://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/2016/1...o-six-nations/
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Once Irish fans start talking up their team, in this case a Grand Slam, you by and large (wonder where that phrase comes from) know what is going to happen. Such a shame that having fought back and almost score another try, they give away a soft penalty to allow the Scots go ahead again. To be fair whenever the Scots went out wide they always looked more dangerous than us. The great thing about the rugby though is that the 6 Nations is every year. The hurt, unlike the football, only lasts 12 months.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
It was a sickener for sure but who knows what will happen. Hopefully Wales and England will draw at the weekend and it's game on again (although not for the Grand Slam obviously!).
I enjoyed the win over the French. I couldn't believe Daire O'Brien (maybe it's just me and RTE sports pundits) bad mouthing the performance at the end. At least Ronan O'Gara put him in his place. Ireland beat one of the major rugby playing nations of the world. Apparently now, they have to do it with style as well. To hell with that. On a wet and blustery day at Lansdowne they outplayed France. Doesn't happen that often. They should rejoice. Not moan.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Rejoice? The French are hopeless for Christ sake lads. Apart from us gifting them them a win in Paris last year they have beaten no one of note for 6 or 7 years at this stage. It was crying out for a few more tries in the last few mins to really stuff it to them. I felt we got close to getting another try at 16-6 and we could have really rubbed thier noses in it then.Can you imagine if the situation was reversed. They would have put 60 points on us. God I hate the French!!
Not sure they are that bad. They ran England to 3 points. They beat Scotland who beat us. We have won only a third of the games we have ever played against them. I'll take any win over them.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Yeah, I was a little frustrated that we didn't get over for a second try just before half time when we were in the ascendancy. We would have been well on course for a bonus point if we had. Overall though I was just relieved to get the win, especially when they brought it back to a seven point margin with only a few minutes remaining. The French are the French though and any win against them is a good win, especially with our record like you said.
Italy's refusal to take a spanking off England has pretty much compensated for the lack of a bonus point too (not that we should have been expecting one anyway).
Any kind of win over Wales and it's all to play for on the final day, but if Scotland could deny England a bonus point it would be even more ideal.
1 win against Ireland and 1 win against Engalnd in 2014 - that has been the sum total of their wins against top level teams in the last 5 years.
The ran England close so did Italy, we were shocking against Scotland. I don't see how that furthers the argument
I don't know why that is relevant except that it shows that the mindset of our fans is in the wrong place. We should be making the most of what we have - we played well Saturday for 30 / 40 mins and didn't exactly cut them open - we should be a lot better.
Fair enough but lets not dress it up as a good performance worthy of rejoice! We should be stuffing these while we have the chance - they will get their sh!t together eventually.
We have rte showing documentaries about 4 basically friendly matches in October on the TV it was good to see O'Brian have a bit of a go on Saturday - the rugby management get a very easy ride compared to their compatriots in other sports .
These are France's most recent results - http://www.skysports.com/rugby-union...france/results
Narrow defeats against Australia and NZ, a 27-0 win against Argentina and a three point defeat against England. Remind me why we should be "stuffing" them again? Nobody else seems to be able to.
2 teams we beat in the Autumn.
The other match of that test series was lost - Argentina are in very poor form - their only other wins in 2016 were H v SA & Ita and A v Japan. They lost 2 x NZ , 2 x Aus, 1 x SA 1 x Wales 1 x Scot. A decent win for France but that's it. Doesn't further the argument at all.
We were 16-06 up and dominating possession, WE should have stuck it to them Saturday. God knows they would have done it to us.
The argument is that nobody has 'stuffed' them recently, including teams that are ranked above us and in really good form, but you seem to think that we should be expecting to, why? It's you that's not furthering your argument, or even justifying it.
Okay, we were dominating possession at 16-6, but they were dominating during the first quarter and would have been full value for the 10-0 lead they very nearly got. Swings and roundabouts.
The argument, which you seem to have completely missed is that we should somehow be rejoicing beating this bang average team at home. It was put forward that France are in good form based on recent results - this is an argument I would strongly refute based on the form lines of the teams they have beaten, and teams that they have lost to recently.
Match stats here:
http://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/matchsta...&league=180659
Almost 2/3rds possession - 70% territory - you can call that swings and roundabouts if you like - but after the first 15 mins we had the total run of the game, and should have pressed home our advantage against a side massively low in confidence. A ten point win was a really meagre return for our domination and we are not making our forward dominance tell in these games. We will need to be a lot more clinical to beat England. It was an OK performance, but rejoice? Give me a break.
I do think we have improved as the games have gone on and I'm hopeful for 2 good performances in the last 2 matches - we are still well in it.
Nope... I understand the argument perfectly fine.
We should be rejoicing (or at least entirely satisfied) at getting the win we so badly needed. Anything less and it was curtains. That was the priority beforehand so mission accomplished. A bonus point would have been even better but I don't think many would have been expecting or demanding that.
I saw the game so I don't really need the stats, but thanks. We were the better team for sure and that was reflected on the scoreboard with a win by more than double scores. We won by a winning margin that the three best teams in the world right now could only equal between them in recent matches against France. They're not the most dangerous French team in memory but they're no whipping boys either.
If they had got that 10-0 lead their early dominance deserved it could have been a different story completely, who knows? Hopefully we'll get to unconditionally rejoice on the 18th March but at least that win has given us a chance of doing that.
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