The IRISH RUGBY thread

[GetOverTheBar]

Saracens docked 35 points and fined £5.3m for breaching salary cap rules - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50300756

Just looking at their line up:
George, Farrell, Vunipola brothers, Itoje, Kruis, Daly

Plus:
Williams (Wales)
Maitland and Taylor (Scotland)
Koch (SA)

No wonder they have breached the salary cap.

Will they lose any titles won over the last few years??

Throw in Alex Goode who'll be well paid, Will Skelton, Brad Barrett, Wigglesworth and Ben Spencer will soon be on big terms.....

They have a serious squad.

[AZOffaly]

Saracens docked 35 points and fined £5.3m for breaching salary cap rules - http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/50300756

Just looking at their line up:
George, Farrell, Vunipola brothers, Itoje, Kruis, Daly

Plus:
Williams (Wales)
Maitland and Taylor (Scotland)
Koch (SA)

No wonder they have breached the salary cap.

Will they lose any titles won over the last few years??

Unless they're not allowed play in HEC, not much good to Munster 😀

[screenexile]

I think they're all within the pay scale but Saracens got creative and offered players loads of Joint Ventures with the MD where the players are involved in business dealings that are separate from their playing contracts!!!

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/international/matt-williams-national-coaching-plan-must-address-recurrent-world-cup-failure-1.4075868

Matt Williams: National coaching plan must address recurrent World Cup failure
Farrell needs to be brave and embrace what is a daunting challenge


Over the past 20 years Irish teams have played powerfully during the Six Nations tournaments, then travelled to the RWC, full of hope, only to fail at every quarter-final.

Ireland and Italy are now the only two countries from the Six Nations and The Rugby Championship who have not made a Rugby World Cup semi-final.

It is time for Irish rugby to embark on a change of thinking surrounding the national team's preparation for RWC 2023. As Einstein put it: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them".

If Irish rugby repeats what it has always done, then quarter-final failure awaits us again in 2023. A paradigm shift is required. Ireland needs new thinking to win at RWC 2023.

An independent committee to review the national team's processes must be established, with the aim of creating a new national coaching plan. This plan must detail the leadership, structure and the playing style of how rugby needs to be performed across all professional Irish teams for success to be achieved in France and beyond.

This review would obviously include Andy Farrell. However, Ireland must look outside the IRFU for independent experiences to offer guidance for the change that is essential within Irish rugby.

Graham Henry and Wayne Smith are the men to seek out. Both are wise and experienced rugby men who have lost a RWC quarter-final and gone on to lift the William Webb Ellis trophy.

The greatest rugby document I have ever read is the NZRFU's review, produced after New Zealand were defeated in the 2007 quarter-final by France.

While the media was full of demands for "lopping off the heads" of the coach, Graham Henry, assistant coach Wayne Smith and captain Ritchie McCaw, the NZRFU wisely brought in an independent team of consultants and conducted a deep analysis of the national team's performance and charted a course towards future success.


New Zealand rugby implemented the recommendations of that process and reappointed Henry, Smith and McCaw in their senior roles. History tells us that New Zealand won the next two World Cups (in 2011 under Henry) and it took one of England's greatest ever performances to knock them out of the third.

National effort
If Ireland are to fulfil their undoubted potential at a Word Cup it will require a national effort.

Joe Schmidt has been Ireland's greatest ever coach. He has rightly been applauded and should be celebrated for his wonderful successes. Despite his gargantuan efforts he has also proved one man can not do it alone.

It is clear to me one major aspect the national review must consider is the need for the appointment of an independent selector to act as an adviser to the national coach. Grant Fox, the former great outhalf, acted in this role for New Zealand.

New Zealand rugby has a national plan of how they want to play the game. If we watch the Kiwis Super franchises, we can observe a distinct style of rugby. Ireland must journey down a similar path. This process will take time and should not be rushed.

This places Farrell under great pressure from day one, as he has to act now as the Six Nations matches are approaching fast. He also must prove he is the solution, not part of the problem. Farrell should follow Rassie Erasmus's advice and turn the pressure of this situation into a golden opportunity.

Farrell must focus on new playing processes for Ireland to perform with success in the Six Nations and on the tour to Australia. Preparation time is frustratingly short. A shrewd move by Farrell would be to adopt the ready-made playing template sitting in D4. Leinster's current philosophy of play is an excellent fit for the national team.

In attack, Leinster use footwork before contact. As do England, Wales, Australia and New Zealand. Currently, Ireland do not.

Leinster have a varied attack using mauls, attacking kicks, forward runners and wide backs attack. As do England, New Zealand, Australia, Wales and South Africa. Ireland do not.

Leinster use attacking shape with co-ordinated interaction between the forwards and the backs to create a "whole of team" attack. They attack from turn over ball, counterattack, as well as set play. As do England, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa. . . just about every team except Ireland.

In the long term a national coaching plan is required where all the provincial teams will be required to fall in behind the national team plan and play the "Irish way". Right now and for the last 20 years "the Irish way" has been impossible to define. Farrell must give "the Irish way" life.

Attacking options
That does not mean Muster have to play like Leinster. It means all the provinces have to play a style and work on skill sets that can be transferred to the international stage.

This immensely difficult task will be the making or breaking of Andy Farrell as a head coach. If we continue to witness an Irish team as bereft of attacking options under Farrell as we did at RWC 2019 then, sadly, Farrell will be replaced before the next Lions tour.

I know that is very harsh and unjust, but it is also the reality. Coaching is a tough business that's becoming brutal. As a player in Rugby League, Andy Farrell was one of the bravest I have ever seen.

He now needs to be the same as a coach.

[seafoid]

 https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/international/conor-o-shea-appointed-england-performance-director-1.4099062
Conor O'Shea will join the Rugby Football Union as director of performance rugby next year, the governing body has announced.

Irishman O'Shea resigned as Italy head coach this month and was previously director of rugby at Harlequins.

"I am privileged and honoured and it is an incredible opportunity to join at a really exciting time for English rugby," said the 49-year-old, who will become the RFU's director of performance rugby.

[GetOverTheBar]

Arguably a step up for O'Shea

[screenexile]

Arguably a step up for O'Shea

It's an indictment on Irish Rugby that someone of his calibre has not been involved in the last 10 years!!!

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/international/irfu-review-admits-ireland-caught-cold-by-japan-at-world-cup-1.4104769
IRFU review admits Ireland caught cold by Japan at World Cup

The IRFU's review into the 2019 World Cup has accepted that there were mistakes in the build-up to the tournament and during it, most notably in not developing Ireland's game, in underestimating Japan and in not giving the staff and players sufficient help in dealing with the anxiety that crept into the squad from the beginning of the Six Nations onwards.
Some of these findings, and more, were divulged at a briefing with the media today by the union's performance director David Nucifora, who earlier today presented the review to the IRFU's Management Committee and Professional Game Board.
The review followed the process adopted at the same juncture in 2015, with a survey of players and staff before the World Cup, conducted by the same outside source, supplemented by interviews with key personnel after the tournament, which were conducted by Nucifora himself.
The report contains over 50 recommendations, some "operational and boring but useful for us for the next Rugby World Cup, " said Nucifora, but the first one in relation to Ireland's quarter-final exit was whether the team's game had developed sufficiently.
"I know there's been criticism over a period of what we should do, offload or counter-attack more," acknowledged Nucifora, who never mentioned Joe Schmidt, or any of his assistants by name, although it's clear the buck stops with the now departed head coach.
"It's not as if coaching staff don't consider that, they consider everything. A coach is like a risk assessor in insurance," he added, "who assesses the strengths and weaknesses of his own team and opposition.
"I believe leading into the World Cup, post-Six Nations, those things were all assessed and the strength of the team was the strength and clarity of how they play. That doesn't come overnight, it comes from being drilled intensely over a long period of time. Change would have been difficult."
Nucifora stressed that coaches have a limited time frame to develop games, confined mostly to the eight to ten weeks before the World Cup given the match intensity of the Six Nations. But, crucially, having said all that, Nucifora concluded: "Should we have developed our game further? Potentially yes, with the benefit of hindsight."
Maintaining that "our coaches" have been good at making decisions over a long period of time, that change would have crested risk, and citing the examples of the All Blacks, England and the relatively consistent game employed by South Africa, Nucifora concluded: "There's an argument for both sides around style, but should we have armed our players with more tools? I think, with benefit of hindsight, we should have. It's not absolutely certain that we'd definitely have gotten a better result. It could have been worse, and all turned to custard."
The next most notable finding of the report, according to Nucifora, were issues around anxiety/stress in Ireland's performance, arising from the expectation generated by the achievements of 2018. These were compounded by a deflating Six Nations and the defeat by an underestimated Japan and an overt focus on the opening pool game against Scotland.
"This was very relevant for us before and during the tournament, I think that at the end of 2018 we were now the front-runners. And I'm still getting my head around this but to deal with that mentality and how you handle pressure and expectation of being the best, as we came into Six Nations and we genuinely did; the bell curve started to drop with performances.
"Straight away, there was a level of anxiety. Some of it was stress, it can manifest itself in staff and players. Going into the world's biggest competition, we probably underestimated the level of support we needed to give staff around that area, helping them manage the expectation that was on them which came from the success they'd had.

"Players and staff, they're all human and have other lives and stresses. To be able to manage those things, the stress and expectation of performance is a big area for us to look at and service our staff. Our performance psychology needs to be improved, as well as health and well-being. We need to continually upgrade, upskill how we utilise those disciplines because if we continue to do well, manage to get on top, near the top we need to be able to manage it better."
Nucifora admitted the primary focus in the build-up to the tournament was on the Scottish game, as it was perceived as "our biggest pool game".
"Everything we worked towards was to have success (in that game). We achieved that, but we've asked the question is did we get it wrong in not coupling it up? With a six day turnaround, how would people respond when climbing the mountain and get the same level of focus, enthusiasm to perform against the home side who had nothing to lose?
"We underestimated the intensity of what Japan were able to play at, that genuinely surprised us," said Nucifora, somewhat damningly. "Coupled with coming off Scotland, how we dealt with it, we got a few things wrong. If we had our time again, our focus would have been split more evenly about how we go about it."
Not that Ireland would have changed their game strategy, he added, but in terms of their preparation and mindset, "there were learnings for us."
"Dropping that Japanese game sets a tone, a mood. Stress, anxiety, wanting to perform, that damaged us and there was more pressure on us to perform to the level we wanted to perform at."

[screenexile]

Big statement from Ulster against a string Munster side.

They were fairly brutal though will be an interesting few weeks in the European Cup.

[Tony Baloney]

Big statement from Ulster against a string Munster side.

They were fairly brutal though will be an interesting few weeks in the European Cup.

Cooney must be in with a decent shout in Farrell's plans.

[Milltown Row2]

Big statement from Ulster against a string Munster side.

They were fairly brutal though will be an interesting few weeks in the European Cup.

Cooney must be in with a decent shout in Farrell's plans.

Was at it last night, a cracking game and Cooney has to be in with a shout! His try last night was great, some pace on him too. On a side note, for a night out with the mates or with the family Ravenhill/Kingspan have it spot on

[Hound]

It's not just the Cooney is playing so well, Murray is absolutely awful. Living off his reputation for a couple of years. It's a no contest now for the Irish number 9 jersey.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-pledges-extra-10m-to-new-connacht-rugby-stadium-1.4136334

[GaillimhIarthair]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/taoiseach-pledges-extra-10m-to-new-connacht-rugby-stadium-1.4136334

A great boost for Connacht Rugby indeed.  Easily known there is an election around the corner the way the 20 million was announced - the 10m LSSIF announcement early yesterday and then Sean Kyne springs the additional 10m late afternoon!!

[Hound]

Big risk for Munster to pick JJ for Sunday, despite him having trained feck all this week.

If his dodgy hamstring goes in the first half they're going to look pretty silly. Hopefully they can pull off (another) miracle and also do everyone else a favour by knocking out Saracens.