The IRISH RUGBY thread

[An Watcher]

How's Argentinas form heading into this tournament?  They've got a great draw and if they can heat England could be facing a quarter final against Wales or fiji

[seafoid]

How's Argentinas form heading into this tournament?  They've got a great draw and if they can heat England could be facing a quarter final against Wales or fiji

This was upthread

6. Argentina

The Pumas have made huge strides since joining the Rugby Championship. Over the last four years Argentina have beaten New Zealand (twice), South Africa, Australia, England, Scotland, and Wales.

Put simply, they are no mugs and on their day are capable of beating any side in the world. The biggest obstacle to their progression has been the Jaguares leaving Super Rugby, leaving their best players plying their trades all around the world, making it very difficult to get any sort of cohesion or continuity.

What Argentina are is a very difficult side to play, and they have a set of forwards who can match any side physically while there is a lot of finishing prowess out wide. Ironically, their biggest Achilles heel is their scrum but they do have arguably the world's best goal kicker in Emilano Boffelli.

Given they have ended up on the so-called right side of the draw, Argentina have every chance of reaching what would be their third World Cup semi-final.

[An Watcher]

Cheers seafood.  Thinking more about recent results and performances.  Would they be capable of beating a poor enough English side

[seafoid]

Cheers seafood.  Thinking more about recent results and performances.  Would they be capable of beating a poor enough English side

If things click I would assume so. NZ will improve, Wales might but England are poor

[Joeythelips]

How's Argentinas form heading into this tournament?  They've got a great draw and if they can heat England could be facing a quarter final against Wales or fiji

They have every chance of reaching a semi final, in fact they would be the best of the so called outsiders to win it if you fancied a punt.

They are in Group D with England, Samoa, Japan and Chile, all of whom they are more than capable of beating.

Top that group and they play 2nd place in in Group C which contains Australia, Wales & Fiji in the quarter finals. Again more than capable of beating all 3.

If they reach the semi finals they will face one of the big hitters of South Africa/All Blacks/France/Ireland, whoever it is will have just had serious matches to get through and might have taken a bit out of them and a similar story if they were to reach the final.

Lets remember they are used to playing the big hitters. Just back in July the beat Australia in Sydney and only lost by 1 point to South Africa in Johannesburg so on that form its seems odd that they would be bigger odds than a struggling England side.

[gawa316]

Ireland team to face Romania: Keenan; Earls, Ringrose, Aki, Lowe; Sexton (capt), Gibson-Park; Porter, Herring, Furlong; McCarthy, Ryan; Beirne, O'Mahony, Doris.

Replacements: Kelleher, Loughman, O'Toole, Henderson, Van der Flier, Murray, Crowley, Henshaw.

[dec]

For those of you in the US, all the World Cup games are on Peacock TV (which also gets you a lot of Premier League and Six Nations games as well)

[gawa316]

For those of you in the US, all the World Cup games are on Peacock TV (which also gets you a lot of Premier League and Six Nations games as well)

Noticed that...happy days. Will be linked into the MIL's account!

[yellowcard]

The draw looks very lopsided with the best 4 sides all in the same 2 groups. I think they will either exit to NZ or France in the quarters or go all the way to the final. It might actually be best to finish as runners up in the pool depending on tomorrows result between NZ and France. 

[Keyser soze]

Has form been a good predictor in any previous world cups?

[Joeythelips]

Has form been a good predictor in any previous world cups?

It certainly has not been a good predictor when it comes to Ireland, you could probably argue we have been the most underperforming side in World cups, hopefully this year we buck the trend and at least get to a semi final.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/66656941

[johnnycool]

Has form been a good predictor in any previous world cups?

It certainly has not been a good predictor when it comes to Ireland, you could probably argue we have been the most underperforming side in World cups, hopefully this year we buck the trend and at least get to a semi final.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/66656941

Ireland have been handed a really shitty draw this world cup and a lot will depend who's still standing player wise after the SA and Scotland games, their last two games in the group. Even Tonga can't be taken lightly.

Then if we do survive that it's looking like France or NZ in a quarter-final.

You would struggle to come up with a harder group to be in.

[seafoid]

I watched the post match interview with the French manager after the 6 match again. Unfortunately it is in French only He had loads of questions about why they lost. He said they had to replace all the big forwards after 55-60 minutes because they were knackered. We have an excellent coach in Farrell, who planned this, to run rings around the motherfuckers and mitigate their game influence. Ireland are also very disciplined. The whole squad. this is also strategic. Plus we have a rugby league defence .  All of this is underestimated I think.

Also when we have a good team we never give up. This one of my favourite sports videos. It is nothing short of inspirational.  We need that in the qf. In France this is called le drop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOjF6rRRHWQ

[johnnycool]

I watched the post match interview with the French manager after the 6 match again. Unfortunately it is in French only He had loads of questions about why they lost. He said they had to replace all the big forwards after 55-60 minutes because they were knackered. We have an excellent coach in Farrell, who planned this, to run rings around the motherfuckers and mitigate their game influence. Ireland are also very disciplined. The whole squad. this is also strategic. Plus we have a rugby league defence .  All of this is underestimated I think.

Also when we have a good team we never give up. This one of my favourite sports videos. It is nothing short of inspirational.  We need that in the qf. In France this is called le drop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOjF6rRRHWQ

Is this not the reason the South Africans are going with the 7-1 bench split? a whole new pack coming in on 50 odd minutes?

Also, I see a lot of complaints about SA slowing the game down to allow their pack a chance to recover from the very thing you talked about. It will be interesting to see how this timewasting is refereed in the coming weeks.

[seafoid]

I watched the post match interview with the French manager after the 6 match again. Unfortunately it is in French only He had loads of questions about why they lost. He said they had to replace all the big forwards after 55-60 minutes because they were knackered. We have an excellent coach in Farrell, who planned this, to run rings around the motherfuckers and mitigate their game influence. Ireland are also very disciplined. The whole squad. this is also strategic. Plus we have a rugby league defence .  All of this is underestimated I think.

Also when we have a good team we never give up. This one of my favourite sports videos. It is nothing short of inspirational.  We need that in the qf. In France this is called le drop.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOjF6rRRHWQ

%0 mins

Is this not the reason the South Africans are going with the 7-1 bench split? a whole new pack coming in on 50 odd minutes?

Also, I see a lot of complaints about SA slowing the game down to allow their pack a chance to recover from the very thing you talked about. It will be interesting to see how this timewasting is refereed in the coming weeks.

50 mins leaves a lot of time for one of the backs to get injured and replaced by a fatty .I think it's too risky for a World Cup. I think in that match SA wanted to annihilate NZ and NZ didn't care. They were themselves 3 months ago.