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[2017 RBS Six Nations] Round 3: Ireland vs France (25/02/2017)

You mean that run that ended with you losing the north of your country?
Good job.
Hey it's an 11 billion pound hole in your countries pocket every year, not mine. Who would have thought that drinking Buckfast and sectarianism weren't valuable economic activities eh?
I also don't understand people thinking we've ever dealt with France easily in this competition. No matter their form, we usually struggle against them. I mean we drew against them twice in a row in 2012 and 13, lost to them last year and historically they absolutely dominate us. We've had the better of them overall in the last few years, but if they're even remotely well coached they're at worst a huge banana skin for us.
 
I just watched it on record this morning, agree that Stander was pretty good. All of the back row played well, as did the halfbacks - basically that is what happens when Ireland win for me, half backs and back row stand out.

I was looking forward to watching a bit of Ringrose, but the style of game meant he didn't have a lot of involvement in attack - his main role seemed to be being first man into the ruck when Henshaw carried it up first phase, which he did pretty well. Also a nice pullback pass to put Sexton into space on the loop, obviously training ground but well executed. Maybe if he'd been thinking faster he could've put the dummy runner in (who might have been in a better position) but that's no serious criticism on a training ground move.

His defence didn't look great however, positioning and reading seemed good but fell off a couple of tackles. That one in the first half where he rushed up (I think on Fickou) and missed him summed it up for me - good read, bad tackle. Is that the norm for him, does he struggle with defence, or just a bad day?
 
Watching the game properly for the first time and I think we have our front five, half backs and centres right, Earls - Payne - Trimble with Zebo benching is our best back three. (apart from when Ireland are in complete control RK15 is a much better 15 than Zebo though) I honestly don't know where we improve our backrow though, we need to dropa guy who is the best in their position in the world when on top form (Jamie Heaslip is the best 8 in rugby by some distance right now) because they really don't compliment each other.

Murray's class becomes so obvious with Sexton around, best 9 in the world and best half back partnership in thevworld.
 
I'd have to disagree with this. CJ had 20+ carries which is consistent and crazy at this level. Heaslip was best forward on park and really I'd argue was 1 of his best games in green.

Fair enough, I haven't looked at the stats or watched replay yet, was also in a packed pub so couldn't 100% focus but at the time I felt no one bar the half backs really shone. I felt quite conflicted yesterday afterwards, felt more relieved as opposed to joyous.
 
Watching the game properly for the first time and I think we have our front five, half backs and centres right, Earls - Payne - Trimble with Zebo benching is our best back three. (apart from when Ireland are in complete control RK15 is a much better 15 than Zebo though) I honestly don't know where we improve our backrow though, we need to dropa guy who is the best in their position in the world when on top form (Jamie Heaslip is the best 8 in rugby by some distance right now) because they really don't compliment each other.

Murray's class becomes so obvious with Sexton around, best 9 in the world and best half back partnership in thevworld.

You think? In what way? I'd have them down as a really good unit, especially for your game plan
 
You think? In what way? I'd have them down as a really good unit, especially for your game plan

Both guys want to take on the same carries, neither offers the line out much. Crowbarring POM in there somewhere should improve the unit but difficult to tell who.
 
Breakdown. None are a ground dog.

SOB used to get over the ball quite a bit, not so much since the injury for some reason. I'm not sure it's part of Ireland's gameplan to get over the ball anyway, they like to counterruck aggressively an make you work for the ball that way

Both guys want to take on the same carries, neither offers the line out much. Crowbarring POM in there somewhere should improve the unit but difficult to tell who.

Two tight carriers (SOB and CJ) and one who likes the outside channel (Heaslip) seems fairly balanced to me carrying-wise. Good point on the lineout.

Don't think the balance is perfect, but suits the gameplan for me.
 
Two tight carriers (SOB and CJ) and one who likes the outside channel (Heaslip) seems fairly balanced to me carrying-wise. Good point on the lineout.

Don't think the balance is perfect, but suits the gameplan for me.

I'd rather have one tight carrier, one loose/link carrier, and one ruck monkey. There needs to be a ruck monkey both ball in hand and without it (POM was doing really good work two or three years ago when completely freed to go after the breakdown in defence). Its not that the guys in the Irish back row can't clear rucks, but I think sacrificing one of the carriers for a specialist like POM or JvdF would result in a smoother over all game. Its not like those two can't carry themselves and the Irish tight five isn't increasingly carrier heavy anyway.
 
I'd rather have one tight carrier, one loose/link carrier, and one ruck monkey. There needs to be a ruck monkey both ball in hand and without it (POM was doing really good work two or three years ago when completely freed to go after the breakdown in defence). Its not that the guys in the Irish back row can't clear rucks, but I think sacrificing one of the carriers for a specialist like POM or JvdF would result in a smoother over all game. Its not like those two can't carry themselves and the Irish tight five isn't increasingly carrier heavy anyway.

Agree in general terms but the gameplan suits two carry tight/blast rucks flankers, it's not a big loss IMO
 
I'm curious as to what French fans think of their team's performance? For the first 20 minutes I was bricking it. It was like Argentina + Scotland all over again. There was a real menace in that French side in the first 20 minutes. Disallowing that try was huge. If for that knock on this game would've been very different. I can't even imagine the lift and momentum swing (even more so than they had) that try would've given them. Anyone else roaring at the telly when Sexton kept going for the corner? I thought the 3pts were a no brainer on every single occasion. He made up for it with that sweet drop goal I suppose.

Bar Murray and Sexton I don't think anyone had a top-class performance. CJ was unusually quiet. It was a good collective team effort, we did well to contain the French and deny them their game-plan but personally it wasn't a hugely inspiring or confidence building performance. There are still a few question marks over this Irish side. Our backline is so unexceptional. After the Scotland match I will fancy our chances in Wales but am seriously expecting them to step up their game. We won't get away with it if we played like we did yesterday. Also, I didn't think it was a turgid match as someone said earlier, actually thought it was quite entertaining and well, good?

Side point but anyone else get a little sick when they saw that ad for a feckin' documentary on our November series? I think that win over NZ and Aus is being blown way out of proportion. The Irish often get carried away with the result (France WC 2015, Christ...). Not to detract from a fairly sound performance yesterday, but the Irish media is just as bad as their English counterpart in terms of hyperbole.

In any case I'm just happy to have a cracking 6N again. :) I can't even put into words how bad last years was.


Everybody is disappointed obviously. Yes u right, it could have changed the game if Huget/Fickou would have managed better 2 or 3 attacks there was in the first 20-30 minutes. Still, we got slapped on the physicality and automatism level. Lets not forget there was an irish full force level against a french team that has only maybe 1/2 of the players who were planned to play at the start of the tournament, France has been crippled with injuries since the beginning of the tournament and it does not make easy when you have to call back some replacements in the middle of a tournament, guys who did not really live the adventure from the start in January.

But it does not stop me to recognize the superior fitness and collective game that the irish have shown yesterday. I won't rant again about Owens, I would just really hope that he retires soon, he has just pinning us down since too long....

For france, it feels like starting again from scrap after 5-6 encourageing performances (since Guy Noves is in charge), I think what was really disapointing, apart being not as fit as the irish (we knew already it would be hard to compete at the ruck level). is this impression that France was running like a headless chicken in attack after the 30 first minutes, certainly due for a part to the high pressure ireland has put on us, It gave the feeling that wee were back to the previous Saint Andre Era, I think that was the most disapointing.
There was the feeling that this match was important and would have launched a succesful year for the frenchies if we would have won. unfortunately, too high expectations...

Now there is not a lot left to do for the french in this tournament, just at least to try to win againt Wales (and ITaly obviously), IT feels like it is a failed tournament already.

The only good thing for France was to beat Scotland, it enables us to stay in the 8 first place of the IRB classification for the next world cup draw and therefore, avoid hopefully a death group.

Bernard Laporte (who is now the president of the french federation of rugby) has announced today that he will put a priority on a list of 40 players (certainly from next September, will need to be negotiated with clubs) who will sign for the first time in France a federal contract with the national rugby federation. This means that an important part of their salary will be covered by the national federation and the other part by the club they play for. what it means is that there will be strict rules of engagmeent for these players (no more than X matches a season, regular meeting and trainings outside 6 nations or Seasonal tours, regular rest period...). I do beleive this is the way to go, we will be finally able to fiht with same weapons than brit and irsih isles ..or ABs for example. It is not done and dusted, there will be some tough negotiations with Clubs I believe but Bernard Laporte has made it one of his priority for the time of his presidence, fingers crossed !
 
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@martinspoonboy1 mentioned it in the England thread, but I thought I'd write here cause this the game thread.
Sexton's wrap arounds are a thing of beauty.
It's mental because every man and his dog knows he's going to do them, he's been doing them most phases of play for most of his career. When you think of Sexton getting the ball you think of him running a wrap around play. But no one can stop it.
It's like when people talk about Conor McGregor: you know he's going to be throwing that left hand, but it's one thing knowing he's going to do it and a completely different thing stopping it.
 
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@martinspoonboy1 mentioned it in the England thread, but I thought I'd write here cause this the game thread.
Sexton's wrap arounds are a thing of beauty.
It's mental because every man and his dog knows he's going to do them, he's been doing them most phases of play for most of his career. When you think of Sexton getting the ball you think of him running a wrap around play. But no one can stop it.
It's like when people talk about Conor McGregor: you know he's going to be throwing that left hand, but it's one thing knowing he's going to do it and a completely different thing stopping it.

Paul O'Connell showed on BBC the key though way they used 2 forwards to do loops
 
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They have a huge amount of variations on it which helps. Sometimes Sexton will only be the dummy etc. It is undoubtedly more effective with him though. We still run it with PJ but not with such aplomb as we do with Sexton. I think his acceleration is really underrated and it helps out a lot as well as the way he squares his shoulders and doesn't need to turn his body to throw a big pass.

He really embodies the quote (which I'm not sure if I've just made up because google isn't helping me out with finding a source) 'if I touch the ball once we might score, if I touch it twice we will score and if I touch it three times then I'll score.'
 
They have a huge amount of variations on it which helps. Sometimes Sexton will only be the dummy etc. It is undoubtedly more effective with him though. We still run it with PJ but not with such aplomb as we do with Sexton. I think his acceleration is really underrated and it helps out a lot as well as the way he squares his shoulders and doesn't need to turn his body to throw a big pass.

He really embodies the quote (which I'm not sure if I've just made up because google isn't helping me out with finding a source) 'if I touch the ball once we might score, if I touch it twice we will score and if I touch it three times then I'll score.'

Mark Ella.

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone else think O'Brien looked laboured at times during the game?
 
Kearney apparently had the ball 8 times, ran 16m, never passed, never kicked, made three tackles and missed three tackles........ I mean we played relatively tight, and we're having a go at Zebo fairly, but that's wildly uninspiring. I'd love Payne to be international fit at the moment.
 
Kearney apparently had the ball 8 times, ran 16m, never passed, never kicked, made three tackles and missed three tackles........ I mean we played relatively tight, and we're having a go at Zebo fairly, but that's wildly uninspiring. I'd love Payne to be international fit at the moment.

I'm first to slate Kearney and would be big on stats. And admit I don't think he was great and wouldn't select him but think stats can be slightly deceiving as it was wierd game. But defensively he was poor and missed tackles added to being stepped twice looks poor. I'd say Zebo wasn't great either. But on Kearney only thing I'd say is guys like Cummiskey and Thornley who defend him to the heavens even are qiestioning his selection too.
 

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