The IRISH RUGBY thread

[AZOffaly]

Pretty grim reading

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/rugby/gerry-thornley-munster-travails-do-not-bode-well-for-national-side-1.2492973

Thornley is a Munster fan. Throwing money at Munster will not resolve their issues.

Money is a problem, but it's not the  main problem. We are paying Chisholm, Saili, and others big enough wages. Saili is on 500k a year. So
a) The money we have is not used wisely
b) The coaches are completely out of their depth experience wise
c) There is no coherent gameplan
d) Effort has started to fall off, which is unforgiveable.
e) The Academy is producing some decent quality, no superstars maybe, but the likes of Scannell and Jack O'Donoghue have a chance.

You have to fix a, b, c and d. We'll never have massive money, but we can get the most out of what we have at the very least.

I think there has to be changes at the top as well. Some of the comms that came out recently were shockingly inflammatory. Instead of telling people the would work hard to improve blah blah blah, they came out with a reminder of the supporters code of conduct! Unreal. Then the cheerleaders in the media didn't help. Interesting to see Quinlan stick the boot in, and now, lo and behold, there has to be major changes is the narrative. Media dickheads.

[AZOffaly]

Andy Farrell has joined the Munster set-up.

Very interesting, can't imagine Foley asking for it though.

Saw that. Costello is toast. I can't imagine Andy Farrell standing for people falling off tackles like they did last Sunday.

It's the attacking gameplan that is driving me mental though.

[seafoid]

axel hasta go
When a team fails like Munster is failing the buck stops with the manager. the players are probably sick of him

the IRFU could step in, get a new manager like Pocchettino at Spurs with new ideas, put in some money and revamp the Irish model
to more expansive less bash bash more offloads   

[AZOffaly]

axel hasta go
When a team fails like Munster is failing the buck stops with the manager. the players are probably sick of him

the IRFU could step in, get a new manager like Pocchettino at Spurs with new ideas, put in some money and revamp the Irish model
to more expansive less bash bash more offloads

It has to be coherent though. You can't just say 'We're going wide, and going to offload in the tackle', without having some sort of strategy to give you numbers to exploit. At the moment, Munster's first option appears to be to go wide, from positions where it just is not on. Every team they play just puts a straight line defense on them, with the full back drifting in the direction of the play. All they do is make a tackle, and Munster go across and back without making any yards.

They need to reinvent themselves. Kick for touch, not box kicks for turnovers. Pressure the set piece. Then when you have the ball, strong running for a couple of phases, and then go wide when the defense has been sucked in. It's not rocket science, but it looks like at the moment they don't know what they should do.

[Hardy]

There's a very simple answer. J.P. McManus.

[deiseach]

Poor JP. There's only one trophy he really wants and it's one of the few trophies that he can't buy.

[seafoid]

axel hasta go
When a team fails like Munster is failing the buck stops with the manager. the players are probably sick of him

the IRFU could step in, get a new manager like Pocchettino at Spurs with new ideas, put in some money and revamp the Irish model
to more expansive less bash bash more offloads

It has to be coherent though. You can't just say 'We're going wide, and going to offload in the tackle', without having some sort of strategy to give you numbers to exploit. At the moment, Munster's first option appears to be to go wide, from positions where it just is not on. Every team they play just puts a straight line defense on them, with the full back drifting in the direction of the play. All they do is make a tackle, and Munster go across and back without making any yards.

They need to reinvent themselves. Kick for touch, not box kicks for turnovers. Pressure the set piece. Then when you have the ball, strong running for a couple of phases, and then go wide when the defense has been sucked in. It's not rocket science, but it looks like at the moment they don't know what they should do.

shur look at Offaly 98 when Babs went too far. Agree it has to be coherent. It must be painful to watch
Box kicking has to be dumped as well but a lot of Irish players know nothing else

[Dinny Breen]

Poor JP. There's only one trophy he really wants and it's one of the few trophies that he can't buy.

<cough!> Dublin <cough!>

[deiseach]

Poor JP. There's only one trophy he really wants and it's one of the few trophies that he can't buy.

<cough!> Dublin <cough!>

As if JP wants some knockoff Ardagh Chalice.

[seafoid]

Poor JP. There's only one trophy he really wants and it's one of the few trophies that he can't buy.

Beyonce

[mouview]

axel hasta go
When a team fails like Munster is failing the buck stops with the manager. the players are probably sick of him

the IRFU could step in, get a new manager like Pocchettino at Spurs with new ideas, put in some money and revamp the Irish model
to more expansive less bash bash more offloads

Goes deeper than that. Ireland's golden era of rugby, (such as it was), is rapidly drawing to a close. No more O'Dricsoll, O'Connell, D'Arcy, O'Gara, Stringer etc. Like Galway football, the next wave of players look very modest indeed. Ireland are a raging short in the 6 Nations - keep an eye on value for bets in winning only one or only two matches.

[seafoid]

Charlie Byrne is selling a book called where miracles happen the story of Thomond park. We need a board prayer to st Jude.

[manfromdelmonte]

When Munster cannot poach players from Connacht their supply line has dried up

[oakleaflad]

axel hasta go
When a team fails like Munster is failing the buck stops with the manager. the players are probably sick of him

the IRFU could step in, get a new manager like Pocchettino at Spurs with new ideas, put in some money and revamp the Irish model
to more expansive less bash bash more offloads

Goes deeper than that. Ireland's golden era of rugby, (such as it was), is rapidly drawing to a close. No more O'Dricsoll, O'Connell, D'Arcy, O'Gara, Stringer etc. Like Galway football, the next wave of players look very modest indeed. Ireland are a raging short in the 6 Nations - keep an eye on value for bets in winning only one or only two matches.

Funny I'd rather have Henshaw, Sexton and Murray over those 3.

[AZOffaly]

Listen to this from Garret Fitzgerald. Pure shite. It's re. Andy Farrell's appointment and role.

Munster chief executive Garrett Fitzgerald has confirmed that the co-opting of Ireland defence coach Andy Farrell as a temporary consultant to the Munster coaches will see him link up with the squad about two days a week, with no involvement on match days. Nor did Fitzgerald envisage this in any way undermining the role of head coach Anthony Foley, who still has the offer of taking up the one-year extension to his contract.
"There's no change to the coaching structure," stressed Fitzgerald. "We've brought Andy in as a consultant to work with the coaching team, predominantly; to assist them, to have a fresh voice in there, to look at what they're actually doing, to see if it can be tweaked.
.....
.....
Nor will Farrell's advisory role be confined to his area of expertise, namely defence. "Any input he has is not specific to defence or atck, it's an overall thing. It could be the overall game plan, it could be meeting with the defence coach, the attack coach, everything like that. There is no specific plan, it's general and I think his background is he's well qualified. There's no specific function."


They are basically throwing shite against the wall, and hoping some of it will stick.