QuoteTerrible display, Darcy looks like he will be out for the rest of the season. Where do we go from here?
Ireland 16-11 Italy
shocking performance again
Terrible display, Darcy looks like he will be out for the rest of the season. Where do we go from here?
Bad performance, and they weren't able to compete in the maul. Discrase.
Decent first 20 mins and then lost the heads completely. Disaster. O'Sullivan has to go at this stage, his team has passed it's peak and he's either not willing or capable to move on.
Last edited by passinginterest; 02/02/2008 at 5:21 PM.
Tallaght Stadium Regular
Great comeback by Wales
How come the Welsh are not affected by the curse of George Hamilton?
Jesus, I've never seen England fall apart like that. I don't think Wales were anything special, just competent enough to take advantage of some truly clueless English play.
I watched it with the BBC feed, and Brian Moore was just disgusted.
If Rory Best and Easterby start next week then I give up. We were absolutely shocking at the breakdown area - this needs to be sorted out asap. Also, why the **** do we not try and steal ball when the opposition is throwing in? I watch Mal O'Kelly and O'Callaghan do it on a weekly basis for their provinces so I'm guessing it's an order from management/O'Sullivan to give the forwards time to counter the drive but do we need to do that every time?!
Bowe was absolutely outstanding last night against the saxons and if EOS doesn't put him in his 22 against France he's as clueless as Stan Staunton.
"If God had meant football to be played in the air, he'd have put grass in the sky." Brian Clough.
You'll NEVER beat the Irish.......you'll just draw with us instead!!!
god help us against france
We control by attitudes positive mental attitudes not by rules.
Its really weird how much we have disimproved. We have gone from one of the best in the world to a team which has no direction. The only players who played ok today were reddan and o'gara.
Ireland were hopeless. It is O'Sullivans fault as the players are performing worse than for their teams. Italy are not as good as Wasps or other top European sides. Reddan did very well but not sure if team expecting his breaks.
Seen some of Bowe on Friday & should definitely be in team next week.
O'Driscoll is a good international player but over rated. Can't remember last time I saw him play well. He is a poor captain too. Give it to O'Gara in O'Connells absence.
England imploded & Wales were nothing special.
Couldn't believe how spectacularly England flopped in the second half. That was not so much us snatching victory from the jaws of defeat as England snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But who cares, it's a win against England and that's never a bad thing!
"Life is like a hair on a toilet seat. Sooner or later you are bound to get pi$$ed off."
"In this league, a draw is sometimes as good as a win" - Steve Morison
Had to laugh at George Hooke (the Rugby panel's version of Dunphy). Way ott top comments about Wales at half time and then like Dunphy after the game, blamed the losing side for not supporting his theory. Teams come back from the dead in sport on a regular basis and yet we hear all the cliches from commentators when they do: "Who would have believed it?" "Amazing", "incredible" etc etc. That is sport. That's why we love it. If it was as predictable as buffoons like Hooke would like us to believe, I'd give up watching it. The only thingspredictable in sport are Wednesday conceding 90th minute goals and losing at home to teams who haven't won away from home in 9 months.
I agree with the comment above about George Hamilton. When Wales took the lead, it was "It's 20 years since Wales last won at Twickenham" and such like comments and I waited for England to immediately score. But no, the Hamilton hoodo is just for us
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Owls fan it is not as simple as that. I will give you a scenario that happened. Mila
n are 3 goals up in the Champions League Final and ITV have Gabby Yorath as their presenter and she offers the line that all mothers say to their sons, when their team is loing. Well if Milan can score 3 goals in the first half then Liverpool can score 3 goals in the second.
On RTE they are showing the class of Milan and saying what a shambles Liverpool are and saying that they cant see Liverpool coming back into the game.
Now we all know what happened, but that does not make Gabby Yorath a genius and John Giles and Brady fools, in fact the opposite is the case.
Sport makes fools out of clever people and clever people out of fools and it is why we love as you say but to analyse and predict you should go with the reality in front of your eyes and the most likely outcome.
In Trap we trust
Admittedly, it was a bad performance but i think some of the reaction in this thread is over the top. They didn't play well against a weaker side and some of you are suprised. The Irish rugby side for as long as i've been watching them have always been like this. I guarantee they give a much better account of themselves against a French team, who are better than them, next week. I'm not saying it'll be good enough to win the game but it'll be a better display.
I was a defender of Eddie during and after the world cup but his selection yesterday was woeful. I don't know why Easterby was playing yesterday to be honest. Also we'll miss D'Arcy particularly against France and England.
Wales did the rope a dope.Originally Posted by Cymro
The didn't just get a few lucky breakaways, their domination of the latter part of the game was total and it started with some brave confident rugby from their own try line under extreme pressure.
We certainly improved in the second half. Both our tries were very fortuitous though.
"Life is like a hair on a toilet seat. Sooner or later you are bound to get pi$$ed off."
"In this league, a draw is sometimes as good as a win" - Steve Morison
I even knew they were crap some of the time.
To be fair we were expecting a performance against France last September after two horrific displays against Namibia and Georgia and nothing happened. The team needs new blood and fresh ideas - not just a rejig. Munster are on fire at the moment but as soon as you let EOS near them they look off their games.
Fair play to Wales yesterday they took some risks and it paid off. I thought Henson had a decent game and Hook got into groove in the second half. Gatland and Edwards are going to make them a very difficult unit to beat.
"If God had meant football to be played in the air, he'd have put grass in the sky." Brian Clough.
You'll NEVER beat the Irish.......you'll just draw with us instead!!!
will we? He is playing useless at the moment, I can't even remember the last time he made a line break. Tbh I'd nearly rather have trimble in the centre and have two of bowe,kearney and fitzgerald on the wing. Murphy is crap! Time to start blooding a few young players. Look at france they have given loads of young players a chance. Eddie is only playing the tried and trusted cos he knows his job is on the line. Give the likes of heaslip and buckley a chance against scotland or wales otherwise when hayes is gone buckley will have no experience.
Another shapeless performance from Ireland, particularly when we got put under pressure in the second half.
FWIW, here are my players assessments:
Dempsey - my MOTM. As usual little wrong defensively, brave under the high ball and came into the line impressively on a number of occasions, including getting another crucial try.
Trimble - sublime off-load for the try and a couple of fantastic defensive turnovers, but he was fairly ineffective when moved inside. He isn't a winger, but neither is he a 12. I'm not sure whether Eddie or O'Driscoll put him at 12 when D'Arcy went off but it was the wrong decision. He's an outside shoulder runner, not a crash ball confined spaces runner. Fingers crossed he gets played at 13 against France.
O'Driscoll - standard performance. Fantastic defensively, a few cameos going forward, but he is nowhere near the attacking threat he was 2 or 3 years ago.
D'Arcy - as effective off the pitch as he was on it. Nobody likes to see a player injured but given his recent provincial and international form, he won't be missed.
Murphy - a few good high balls taken and a few runs but his pass to Dempsey was sloppy and unforgivable.
O'Gara - very good goal kicking (apart from the final one), reasonable out of hand (still missing a few touchkicks) and the Garryowens were reasonably productive. Not easy to play behind a pack like ours at the minute.
Reddan - a few Michael Bradley-esque passes which nearly bypassed O'Gara completely, but offset by a better all round game including a couple of fantastic breaks. Deserves a run.
Horan - He's only on the team for his loose play. Didn't notice him much about the pitch and he got munched as usual in the scrum.
Best - He's no Flannery/Jackman in the loose so he needs to do the simple stuff well. He missed a few throws which puts his place under severe pressure, except.....(see below on Jackman)
Hayes - Like Horan got munched in the scrum and is showing his age around the pitch. Our front row is our biggest weakness, bring on Healy and Buckley...
O'Callaghan - revelled in the absence of O'Connell. His best performance in quite a while. Great lineout steal (why oh why don't we contest more, particularly when we can't stop the maul?!) and a nuisance at the breakdown. Also carried well. Good to see him back.
O'Kelly - Started well, but faded badly. A rfesilient type but showed his age.
Easterby - Needed a big performance and didn't give one. A limited player at best and his usually excellent defence wasn't quite as prominent.
Wallace - Good performance. We don't have many ball carriers and Wally popped up all over the pitch. Still not a seven, whatever Eddie thinks...
Leamy - tried hard, defensively sound but comprehensively outplayed by Parisse. May work better at six.
Replacements
Kearney - huge left boot and strong defensively and a few good breaks. Either he or Bowe should start.
Jackman - the only reason his career hasn't really gone anywhere until recently has been his AWFUL lineout throwing. Whilst Best was bad, Jackman was very, very suspect. He had a few awful ones, then we cut numbers and threw to the front, which while increasing the chances of success, makes it much more difficult to move the ball. Not convincing me yet.
The rest weren't on long enough to assess but great to see Buckley getting a run.
I expect Jackman to start on Saturday and if Easterby doesn't get the boot (with Leamy going to 6 and Heislip coming in at 8) then EO'S is a bigger muppet than I thought.
Kearney to start and Bowe to come into the 22 also.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks