Spring Tour: New Zealand vs Ireland - 2nd Test. (16/6/2012, 07:35 GMT)

[Darwin]

Cheers how about lineout, hitting rucks, ball carrying etc? Who was Ireland's best player?

Both were solid at lineout, but I can't remember either making many yards with ball in hand. From my (New Zealand) perspective I thought it was really a team performance from Ireland - there weren't that many standouts (O'Brien was very good though), but I can't recall many who had poor games....

EDIT: Mike Ross had a pretty impressive game in the scrum too....

 

[Saintjay]

DK came close to beating the best team in the world. New contract coming his way till after the RWC?.

 

[austingtir]

I would still start gear next week. Savea is young and needs to learn that if you dont front or go looking for work when the teams in trouble you wont be playing next week.

 

[Mablung]

DK came close to beating the best team in the world. New contract coming his way till after the RWC?.

Goes without saying really.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Will be interesting to see what happens in the final game.
Ireland will have their backs up knowing how close they came to winning, but ABs will want to atone for their performance.

 

[Saintjay]

Goes without saying really.

Yep and given how most Irish fans seem to feel about him that's not good.

 

[antipodean]

Will be interesting to see what happens in the final game.
Ireland will have their backs up knowing how close they came to winning, but ABs will want to atone for their performance.

Beware the All Blacks next week Ireland - the media and public will congratulate the Irish and castigate the All Blacks for not only almost losing, but doing so at home. Whoever plays the All Blacks after a performance like that is normally on the receiving end of a dominant, atonement seeking performance.

 

[Jockstap]

Will be interesting to see what happens in the final game.
Ireland will have their backs up knowing how close they came to winning, but ABs will want to atone for their performance.

I reckon last week was a France at the WC tactic by Ireland. Put out an experimental team, let the All Blacks put over a big score and then try to shock them while their complacent the following week. It'll be normal service resumed next week for the All Blacks, I reckon they'll put 20 over Ireland.

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

Didn't they only change like three players in their team?

I think they were just poor last week, and great this week.

 

[grimebox]

DK came close to beating the best team in the world. New contract coming his way till after the RWC?.

Hopefully not to be honest. I don't think he is adventurous enough in his selection. I have no idea why he keeps starting Murray over Reddan. He finally stopped starting Donnach O'Callaghan recently as well

 

[William18]

The Ref made some enormous defining calls in this game had a huge influence on how it was played. In the end though i think he evened it out both ways as we lost some dodgy calls the irish deff lost some aswell.

I dont think the Irish will get a better chance to beat us than this game. Unless hansen has a brain explosion and starts williams, weepu, savea, dagg, thompson, SBW and mccaw. SBW in particular has been very ineffective against these guys.... time to start nonu.

So eight years of brilliant service and then two bad games would cause you to drop McCaw just like that? Am I reading this right?

 

[antipodean]

Standards are high in the All Blacks.

 

[lynam1104]

Firstly there goes all my Vcash.

Good performance, but i'd rather get thumped and DK gone the lose gallantly. One thing about next week is it will be BOD's last game against the All Black so it would be fair to epect a massive game form him next week we know he drag this team to a win maybe not against the All Blacks but we'll see.

 

[SelimNiai]

So eight years of brilliant service and then two bad games would cause you to drop McCaw just like that? Am I reading this right?

He's had a poor couple of games and players should be picked on form not 8 years past. Question is, would the replacement be a positive step. I say yes and, considering the series is won, what is the risk? Worse case he has a bad game and you bring McCaw off the bench. He's getting on a bit now, have to trust the successors sooner rather than later

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

At least Cane looked the goods in his first match - made the second most tackles for NZ, which is pretty good for forty minutes of work. Hopefully he kicks on nicely.

 

[austingtir]

The more i watch this performance the more disturbed i am by it (watching replay)... NZ is carrying alot of dead weight players imo. The franks brothers are totally overrated and have been for some time. I cant remember the last time our scrum was dominated like that. And it was dominated, the Irish had that last scrum for wheeling just made me go WTF NZ have won alot of calls for doing just that when dominating an opposition scrum.

 

[TRF Mr Fish]

The last scrum call was because Ireland intentionally wheeled around by having one player not push, basically. Watch their feet at the scrum, it's pretty obvious from that.

Hansen said B Franks had a sore shoulder, so I think that may have helped Ireland out a bit. I think we had the better scrum prior to Owen going off, didn't we?

 

[smartcooky]

The more i watch this performance the more disturbed i am by it (watching replay)... NZ is carrying alot of dead weight players imo. The franks brothers are totally overrated and have been for some time. I cant remember the last time our scrum was dominated like that. And it was dominated, the Irish had that last scrum for wheeling just made me go WTF NZ have won alot of calls for doing just that when dominating an opposition scrum.

I disagree. Scrummaging is not all about the front rows.

If you listened to the interviews after the match, Ian Smith asked Richie about it. He made it pretty clear that the reason our scrum got pushed back was because "the loosies were thinking about the next phase of play and not doing the job at hand". When we got pushed back, we had Read off, Thomson carrying a neck injury, Ben Franks with a injured shoulder (sustained just after he came on), McCaw switched to No. 8 and new boy Sam Kane on the openside. That's hardly ideal

When a scrum goes backwards, it is not just the responsibility of Numbers 1 to 5; it takes EIGHT players to push in a scrum!!

 

[Darwin]

The last scrum call was because Ireland intentionally wheeled around by having one player not push, basically. Watch their feet at the scrum, it's pretty obvious from that.

Hansen said B Franks had a sore shoulder, so I think that may have helped Ireland out a bit. I think we had the better scrum prior to Owen going off, didn't we?

Definitely - Ben Franks is not the best scrummager on the tight-head side. Read was also off, and he is known as a very good scrummaging number 8 (while McCaw is a makeshift 8 at best), while Williams also on at lock ahead of Retallick (not sure how much effect this would have had, as I would have though their scrummaging strengths were pretty comparable).

 

[ZeFrenchy]

Owen Franks is a freaking monster. I didn't see this game, so I can't comment on its particularities, though.
As for Ben, I think his international career will see a lot fewer games when the 8-man bench goes international.