The IRISH RUGBY thread

[6th sam]

There are people that want to make the Premiership in England a sort of NBA of the game, or perhaps have an England/France duopoly on the club game in the way that the Premier League and La Liga dominate European club football

But the problem with that is that that there just aren't enough people interested in club/provincial rugby - and nobody follows a team outside their own country

Like, nobody in Ireland follows Leicester or Saracens in the way they follow Liverpool or Manchester United, even in England, nobody outside Leicester or its hinterland follows them

There isn't a Barcelona or Real Madrid of rugby, Toulouse would be the closest thing in terms of there being a "big" European club with cachet but it's not comparable at all

The Munster/Leinster thing was/is unique in the world in terms of attracting mass support at club/provincial level and it was also very much of a time and place, their support has dropped off significantly, there's nowhere near the same buzz around them as there was in the 2000s

Rugby is a bit like GAA in that even in the professional era, it is a game very much based on place and identity, international drives the money, and that is why international teams will always be the main show

At club/provincial level, an England/France duopoly would be very bad for the sport - but at the same time the Celtic League is good few notches down from the English and French leagues in terms of competitiveness and general spectacle, and it's been particularly bad for Scotland and Wales as it doesn't capture the imagination there at all - their teams are mostly franchises bar Llanelli Scarlets and Cardiff and supporters don't buy into it

I've sometimes wondered if a European Super League would be a runner but the English and French competitions are big business in and of themselves in those countries, and a European Super League would require a lot of clubs there to be effectively turkeys voting for Christmas

Fair summary, difficult road ahead

[Rudi]

Passing the ball to static attackers is easy to defend against. We have to get attackers at pace beating the first defender, thereby creating space. Pat Lam is the man, those English lads weren't good enough for England, how could they be good enough for us?

[johnnycool]

This clip is pretty damning for Billy Burns

Throw the ball, for chrisake

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344

For Burns or Farrell ?

It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...

[sid waddell]

This clip is pretty damning for Billy Burns

Throw the ball, for chrisake

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344

For Burns or Farrell ?

It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...

Farrell doesn't trust the players and the players don't trust him

Funnily enough one of the best Irish tries I can remember was under Brian Ashton - Denis Hickie versus Wales in 1997

Philosophy is everything

Mick Doyle changed things in less than a year, so did Ciaran Fitzgerald, Pat Lam did it with Connacht

Galthie and Townsend have done it with France and Scotland, who were both playing turgid rugby not that long ago

[seafoid]

This clip is pretty damning for Billy Burns

Throw the ball, for chrisake

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344

For Burns or Farrell ?

It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...

Farrell doesn't trust the players and the players don't trust him

Funnily enough one of the best Irish tries I can remember was under Brian Ashton - Denis Hickie versus Wales in 1997

Philosophy is everything

Mick Doyle changed things in less than a year, so did Ciaran Fitzgerald, Pat Lam did it with Connacht

Galthie and Townsend have done it with France and Scotland, who were both playing turgid rugby not that long ago

It's a  difference of culture. Interview with Galthie

https://sport24.lefigaro.fr/rugby/xv-de-france/actualites/le-xv-de-france-se-relance-apres-sept-mois-d-arret-1017144
On vit avec l'imprévu. Des fois, on parle du chaos. Ça fait partie des éléments qu'il faut essayer de maîtriser. 
« Avec les joueurs, on se prépare toujours au plus mauvais des scénarios, à l'entraînement, durant la semaine. Et en fait, la réponse que le staff doit apporter aux joueurs, c'est : n'importe qui, n'importe quand, n'importe où, il faut être prêt. » Vaille que vaille...

"We live with the unexpected. Sometimes we talk about chaos. It's one of the elements we have to try to control. We always prepare the players for the  worst scenarios  during the training sessions. And what the training staff communicate to them is no matter when, no matter where, we have to be ready."

That is a long way from Farrell.

[6th sam]

This clip is pretty damning for Billy Burns

Throw the ball, for chrisake

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344

For Burns or Farrell ?

It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...

Farrell doesn't trust the players and the players don't trust him

Funnily enough one of the best Irish tries I can remember was under Brian Ashton - Denis Hickie versus Wales in 1997

Philosophy is everything

Mick Doyle changed things in less than a year, so did Ciaran Fitzgerald, Pat Lam did it with Connacht

Galthie and Townsend have done it with France and Scotland, who were both playing turgid rugby not that long ago

Irfu have proved imaginative and creative in response to change to professionalism . Now they have a fresh challenge.
To be more competitive on the world stage they need to widen the appeal, player wise and coaching wise. For parents with young children , especially if they are outside the top rugby schools ,  would they want them to play rugby, given the increasing head injury risk?
Combat sports such as boxing , coach heavily on safety /self preservation. Gloves and head protection in training also help. In rugby it's the high velocity high force unpredictable hits with no protection. Crazy stuff. When you have respected role models like Conor Murray defending Peter Omahoneys hit, it exacerbates the problem.

[johnnycool]

This clip is pretty damning for Billy Burns

Throw the ball, for chrisake

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344

For Burns or Farrell ?

It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...

Farrell doesn't trust the players and the players don't trust him

Funnily enough one of the best Irish tries I can remember was under Brian Ashton - Denis Hickie versus Wales in 1997

Philosophy is everything

Mick Doyle changed things in less than a year, so did Ciaran Fitzgerald, Pat Lam did it with Connacht

Galthie and Townsend have done it with France and Scotland, who were both playing turgid rugby not that long ago

Irfu have proved imaginative and creative in response to change to professionalism . Now they have a fresh challenge.
To be more competitive on the world stage they need to widen the appeal, player wise and coaching wise. For parents with young children , especially if they are outside the top rugby schools ,  would they want them to play rugby, given the increasing head injury risk?
Combat sports such as boxing , coach heavily on safety /self preservation. Gloves and head protection in training also help. In rugby it's the high velocity high force unpredictable hits with no protection. Crazy stuff. When you have respected role models like Conor Murray defending Peter Omahoneys hit, it exacerbates the problem.

He was never going to hang a teammate out to dry. At least there's a bit of consistency as the Scottish lad got a red for the same thing on Saturday.

On the Healy/Henderson head clash, scrum caps won't prevent concussion but they would have prevented that..

Time to introduce them on a permanent basis?

[highorlow]

[quote]It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...
[/quote]

It appears to be a more organised version of the way Munster play lately. It's akin to Munster with better set plays. Against the big teams it will get us "brave defeats" rather than victories. Maybe this is the ambition or enough to keep the likes of Farrell in his job. Farrell needs to be sacked if we don't beat Scotland or England.

[sid waddell]

This clip is pretty damning for Billy Burns

Throw the ball, for chrisake

https://twitter.com/Murray_Kinsella/status/1361068225228857344

For Burns or Farrell ?

It's hard to know what Ireland's gameplan is if they had one other than crash ball and the odd Garryowen in the hope we catch it or put enough pressure on the opposition that they knock on or make a mess if it.

We don't offload or even attempt to offload in the tackle, the passing amongst the backs is always pretty safe in the hope of a linebreak from Ringrose or Henshaw but you don't see any intelligence in their play.

It was a few French unloads that opened us up at will.

Maybe Farrell doesn't trust the players to have that skillset like Brian Ashton back in the day...

Farrell doesn't trust the players and the players don't trust him

Funnily enough one of the best Irish tries I can remember was under Brian Ashton - Denis Hickie versus Wales in 1997

Philosophy is everything

Mick Doyle changed things in less than a year, so did Ciaran Fitzgerald, Pat Lam did it with Connacht

Galthie and Townsend have done it with France and Scotland, who were both playing turgid rugby not that long ago

Irfu have proved imaginative and creative in response to change to professionalism . Now they have a fresh challenge.
To be more competitive on the world stage they need to widen the appeal, player wise and coaching wise. For parents with young children , especially if they are outside the top rugby schools ,  would they want them to play rugby, given the increasing head injury risk?
Combat sports such as boxing , coach heavily on safety /self preservation. Gloves and head protection in training also help. In rugby it's the high velocity high force unpredictable hits with no protection. Crazy stuff. When you have respected role models like Conor Murray defending Peter Omahoneys hit, it exacerbates the problem.

The head injury thing is a general problem rugby has, it's not an IRFU problem

I think the IRFU's role since professionalism is over rated

The reality is they got lucky, they had four ready made franchise teams with a history and a sense of place which the public found attractive - that's the main reason why these teams have been a success

The structure of the professional game here pretty much fell into their lap, they exploited it well but there was no act of genius on the part of administrators, it was luck that the system worked out as it did

Scotland and Wales had to create new franchise teams which the public had no real sense of attachment to - in both, the club game and only the club game was where the attachment lay, they didn't have ready made provinces like Ireland

The reason the game still doesn't spread very much outside of the traditional heartlands is simple - the mainly fee paying schools system

If you look at where Ireland soccer internationals from Dublin have traditionally learned the game, it's on the street, then with local clubs, then they progress to academies like Stella Maris, St. Kevin's, Home Farm, Cherry Orchard or Belvedere, then they get picked up by an English club - there is no barrier other than talent

There's no similar outlet for a working class lad from Dublin to make the grade in rugby, because the academies are the likes of the other Belvedere - Belvedere College, along with Blackrock, St. Michael's, Terenure, St, Mary's etc.

The schools game is the hothouse for developing talent which goes on to play at senior level

And because most of these schools are fee-paying, working class kids are always cut out of it

But the system works in terms of producing players and these schools have massive power so the IRFU are never going to change it

What the IRFU have never done is to produce a genuine alternative pathway for kids from non-rugby heartlands to emerge, you'll always get the odd one from rural areas like Sean O'Brien or Tadhg Furlong, but it simply doesn't happen in Dublin or urban areas

Another problem that is emerging is that younger players in the professional game are not getting enough game time and so develop more slowly, or not to the level that might have been anticipated

Ireland has often benefitted in the Six Nations from being able to spare their players more at provincial level, thus they were fresher, but that advantage did not transfer to the World Cup because the other teams were able to rest players from the previous May

Leinster have so many players now though that they don't know what to do with them

Somebody mentioned Nucifora above and a lot of people seem to be of the view that he hasn't been doing a great job in terms of putting players with the appropriate teams for their development and for the development of the teams themselves

I mentioned the brutal analysis of people like Mick Doyle in a previous post, and one thing that has definitely crept into Irish rugby in a big way is a sort of backslapping, PR-driven, business speak culture, most people sort of bite their lip rather than be honest, in the amateur era and even the early professional era the game was noted for its honesty and sparing no feelings

If most people were honest, they'd surely say they expect Farrell to fall flat on his face

[Applesisapples]

As a GAA follower of Rugby why can the national team not match the performances of the provinces?

[sid waddell]

As a GAA follower of Rugby why can the national team not match the performances of the provinces?

In the last 20 years they largely have done in the Six Nations, they've generally been top 3 or higher with regular wins over England and France and almost always very competitive, plus regular wins over Southern Hemisphere teams

As I said, a large part of that is down to the freshness advantage in that the provinces can spare players more than club teams in England and France

That advantage goes put the window at World Cups when other teams can give players a long lead in time, the playing field is levelled - and the World Cup is a brutal competition - so Irish players have to deal with more rugby in a short space of time than they're generally used to, whereas English and French players, as well as a lot of Welsh players, are used to it

Ireland are shit since 2019 because Schmidt's low risk game plan was found out by teams who been planning long term rather than short term, namely England in the first game of the 2019 Six Nations - Ireland never recovered from that, followed by Farrell's appointment

2011 was a huge opportunity and they fluffed their lines, that was their real big chance, they were in form, players were fit, everything was going their way, and they still couldn't get it done against Wales - Declan Kidney never recovered from that

In 2015 they put everything into the France game and lost four key players winning that - Sexton, O'Connell, O'Mahony and O'Brien, probably their four best players, and were sitting ducks by the time of the quarter-final against a fresh Argentina team a week later, especially given that they picked Dave Kearney, who made James Lowe's defending yesterday look good

I think part of it is down to mentality, there's a sort of fraud syndrome lurking deep in the DNA of Irish rugby players that tends to rear its head at the worst possible time, a bit like the Scotland football team used to suffer from in the 70s and 80s

Wales have never had that, even the Scots don't seem to suffer from it as much

[Ash Smoker]

As a GAA follower of Rugby why can the national team not match the performances of the provinces?

The trouble is there are only four provinces and right now only one of them is up to scratch.

[Estimator]

Dan Leavy out for the rest of the season. Another player who has been through the wringer with injuries over the last couple of years.

[seafoid]

As a GAA follower of Rugby why can the national team not match the performances of the provinces?

In the last 20 years they largely have done in the Six Nations, they've generally been top 3 or higher with regular wins over England and France and almost always very competitive, plus regular wins over Southern Hemisphere teams

As I said, a large part of that is down to the freshness advantage in that the provinces can spare players more than club teams in England and France

That advantage goes put the window at World Cups when other teams can give players a long lead in time, the playing field is levelled - and the World Cup is a brutal competition - so Irish players have to deal with more rugby in a short space of time than they're generally used to, whereas English and French players, as well as a lot of Welsh players, are used to it

Ireland are shit since 2019 because Schmidt's low risk game plan was found out by teams who been planning long term rather than short term, namely England in the first game of the 2019 Six Nations - Ireland never recovered from that, followed by Farrell's appointment

2011 was a huge opportunity and they fluffed their lines, that was their real big chance, they were in form, players were fit, everything was going their way, and they still couldn't get it done against Wales - Declan Kidney never recovered from that

In 2015 they put everything into the France game and lost four key players winning that - Sexton, O'Connell, O'Mahony and O'Brien, probably their four best players, and were sitting ducks by the time of the quarter-final against a fresh Argentina team a week later, especially given that they picked Dave Kearney, who made James Lowe's defending yesterday look good

I think part of it is down to mentality, there's a sort of fraud syndrome lurking deep in the DNA of Irish rugby players that tends to rear its head at the worst possible time, a bit like the Scotland football team used to suffer from in the 70s and 80s

Wales have never had that, even the Scots don't seem to suffer from it as much

I was bored at work one afternoon during the last RWC and I analysed RWC quarter finals. Wales won 3 of them. They beat us, France and England. Quite impressive.
Scotland won one . Against Samoa. The jammy bastards.
Ireland never got any of the Samoas in the quarter finals

Wales did not qualify for the quarters on 3 occasions. Both Scotland and Ireland did not qualify on 2 occasions. 

[whitegoodman]

As a GAA follower of Rugby why can the national team not match the performances of the provinces?

The trouble is there are only four provinces and right now only one of them is up to scratch.

At least 3 of the provinces are in the top 5 in the pro 14 which includes Wales and Scotland so they should be beating both of those sides.  I also think that 3 of the provinces would be in the top 6 in England.

That is bad news on Leavy, he was such a brilliant player before the injury.  Stockdale is still on the injured list on the weekly injury update sent out by Ulster so he is probably unavailable for the rest of the championship.  It has gone very quiet re Doris injury as well.