The IRISH RUGBY thread

[orangeman]

As expected.... 

Flannery misses the rest of the Six Nations

Wednesday, 17 February 2010 13:14

Ireland hooker Jerry Flannery has been banned for six weeks for kicking France winger Alexis Palisson in last Saturday's RBS 6 Nations match in Paris, ruling him out of the remainder of the championship.


Flannery was fortunate only to concede a penalty after his wild swing connected with Palisson after the Montauban winger had picked up the ball.


Referee Wayne Barnes consulted his touch judge Stuart Terheege, who believed the challenge to be a 'shoulder charge', and so Flannery escaped a potential red card.


Best will obviously start now... Will Cronin or Fogarty make the bench now?  Either way it should provide them with good exprience

6 weeks - got away handy enough.

[trileacman]

Ireland's Jerry Flannery will miss the rest of the RBS 6 Nations Championship after being suspended for six weeks for kicking France winger Alexis Palisson.

Flannery, who pleaded guilty and acknowledged the offence deserved a red card, has been banned until March 29, ruling him out of Ireland's fixtures against England, Wales and Scotland.

Wasnt a great action but at least fair play to him for that.

imo that will improve the Irish team (best starting at hooker that is)!

however if Best gets inj - could be a disaster for Ireland !

I agree with you there, Flannery just hasn't been as dynamic this year, probably lack of game time. I rate Cronin very highly and think he'll be able to step up without any worries.

I think Best is a mistake. He's a weakness in the lineout and will not improve the scrum enough to compensate. We can effectively kiss any superiority in the lineout we had goodbye. A bit more dynamic in the loose and the ruck than flannery but not enough in my opnion to be considered effective. Would love to see Cronin get his shot if he is as good as he is being made out. Have seen next to none of him.

[Capt Pat]

Flannery could have got 6 months for that. Tommy Carr got a year for a lot less, similar tpye of kick.

[johnneycool]

Flannery could have got 6 months for that. Tommy Carr got a year for a lot less, similar tpye of kick.

What club did tommy Carr play rugby for?

[Capt Pat]

Sorry it is just hard to let go of some of these things.

[Bord na Mona man]

Come on lads.  Ireland have 2 chances of winning the World Cup (slim and none) and Slim has gone home.  For the World Cup we are quarter final material.

You don't have to be brilliant to make the semis or finals.
A middling Australian team got to extra time in the 2003 final - An Irish team with little ambition beyond edging out the Argies, were within a missed drop goal from beating them earlier in the tournament.
A not very brilliant England side got to the 2007 final only months after Ireland massacred them in Croke Park.

World Cup preparation should go in cycles. Ireland seem to hit into them like they are an unexpected speed bump between 6 nation tournaments.
Ireland can either go chasing a triple crown and an unlikely championship, or they can pull the plug on players who are unlikely to make an impact in 2011.

The choice now is to send players to a WC with almost two 6 nations campaigns under their belts, or make the changes at some future stage and have players on the starting 15 with only one campaign.

[Capt Pat]

The thing is we don't have high calibre players to be chopping and changing hoping to stumble across a winning formula. It doesn't work like that. What we have is an aging group of players that were or are potentially the best in the world or close to it when they play at the top of their game. O'Callaghan and Darcy fall into that category. Cullen and Wallace do not. That is not to say they are poor players or don't/won't have a role to play. Tom Court, Jennings, and others being mentioned to replace Hayes and Wallace won't take this team onto the next level either imho. We have to retain as much of our high quality players at their peak for the next world cup as we can.

It iis not all doom and gloom in terms of emerging players, Fitzgerald, Kearney, Bowe, Sexton, Earls and Trimble  are all good enough to play and compete at the highest level, as are Ferris and Heaslip in the backrow. O'Leary or Reddan are still overall a big upgrade at scrumhalf over Stringer. Just quit with the pick this guy, drop that guy rubbish, we are still in the 6 nations championship to win it or if not finish second and pick up a triple crown. We can not develop players to win a world cup by picking them to play against England. We need continuity and development, in the last game Earls was picked ahead of Horgan in part for development purposes, Ferris just back after injury and not at his best might have lost out to Quinlan if Kidney wasn't looking ahead.

We are in no way in a position to say f**k this for a game of marbles and start picking players from all over in the hope that one of them really steps up on the international stage and is all of a sudden a true star. That is what teams like Scotland have been doing for the last 10 years and going nowhere fast.

[Bord na Mona man]

The thing is we don't have high calibre players to be chopping and changing hoping to stumble across a winning formula. It doesn't work like that. What we have is an aging group of players that were or are potentially the best in the world or close to it when they play at the top of their game. O'Callaghan and Darcy fall into that category. Cullen and Wallace do not. That is not to say they are poor players or don't/won't have a role to play. Tom Court, Jennings, and others being mentioned to replace Hayes and Wallace won't take this team onto the next level either imho. We have to retain as much of our high quality players at their peak for the next world cup as we can.

It iis not all doom and gloom in terms of emerging players, Fitzgerald, Kearney, Bowe, Sexton, Earls and Trimble  are all good enough to play and compete at the highest level, as are Ferris and Heaslip in the backrow. O'Leary or Reddan are still overall a big upgrade at scrumhalf over Stringer. Just quit with the pick this guy, drop that guy rubbish, we are still in the 6 nations championship to win it or if not finish second and pick up a triple crown. We can not develop players to win a world cup by picking them to play against England. We need continuity and development, in the last game Earls was picked ahead of Horgan in part for development purposes, Ferris just back after injury and not at his best might have lost out to Quinlan if Kidney wasn't looking ahead.

We are in no way in a position to say f**k this for a game of marbles and start picking players from all over in the hope that one of them really steps up on the international stage and is all of a sudden a true star. That is what teams like Scotland have been doing for the last 10 years and going nowhere fast.

I wouldn't suggest chopping for the sake of it.
8 or 9 of the current team would hold their own on what a World Cup winning team might resemble.
I would just rather Kidney starts now picking what his WC2011 team might be instead of waiting until next year.

For example John Hayes will be almost 38 come the World Cup. All the signs are that he is in a decline that won't be reversed, so why wait until summer time or next year to look for a replacement?

The same with O'Gara who has been in decline since early 2007 with good performances becoming rarer. Even at his peak he made little impact on Southern Hemisphere tours or World Cups. So why waste time going through a charade of  gradually phasing Sexton into the team, when all the indicators are that Sexton is a more realistic WC prospect?

David Wallace will be 35 next year and by keeping him in the side you are essentially banking he'll still have his bullet pace which is his main asset.

Roll the dice and you might come up with a better scrum half and 2nd row partner for O'Connell. If O'Leary, Cullen or O'Callaghan are still the best options, then so be it.
Leaving the team alone is just postponing the inevitable.

[Celt_Man]

The thing is we don't have high calibre players to be chopping and changing hoping to stumble across a winning formula. It doesn't work like that. What we have is an aging group of players that were or are potentially the best in the world or close to it when they play at the top of their game. O'Callaghan and Darcy fall into that category. Cullen and Wallace do not. That is not to say they are poor players or don't/won't have a role to play. Tom Court, Jennings, and others being mentioned to replace Hayes and Wallace won't take this team onto the next level either imho. We have to retain as much of our high quality players at their peak for the next world cup as we can.

It iis not all doom and gloom in terms of emerging players, Fitzgerald, Kearney, Bowe, Sexton, Earls and Trimble  are all good enough to play and compete at the highest level, as are Ferris and Heaslip in the backrow. O'Leary or Reddan are still overall a big upgrade at scrumhalf over Stringer. Just quit with the pick this guy, drop that guy rubbish, we are still in the 6 nations championship to win it or if not finish second and pick up a triple crown. We can not develop players to win a world cup by picking them to play against England. We need continuity and development, in the last game Earls was picked ahead of Horgan in part for development purposes, Ferris just back after injury and not at his best might have lost out to Quinlan if Kidney wasn't looking ahead.

We are in no way in a position to say f**k this for a game of marbles and start picking players from all over in the hope that one of them really steps up on the international stage and is all of a sudden a true star. That is what teams like Scotland have been doing for the last 10 years and going nowhere fast.

I wouldn't suggest chopping for the sake of it.
8 or 9 of the current team would hold their own on what a World Cup winning team might resemble.
I would just rather Kidney starts now picking what his WC2011 team might be instead of waiting until next year.

For example John Hayes will be almost 38 come the World Cup. All the signs are that he is in a decline that won't be reversed, so why wait until summer time or next year to look for a replacement?

The same with O'Gara who has been in decline since early 2007 with good performances becoming rarer. Even at his peak he made little impact on Southern Hemisphere tours or World Cups. So why waste time going through a charade of  gradually phasing Sexton into the team, when all the indicators are that Sexton is a more realistic WC prospect?

David Wallace will be 35 next year and by keeping him in the side you are essentially banking he'll still have his bullet pace which is his main asset.

Roll the dice and you might come up with a better scrum half and 2nd row partner for O'Connell. If O'Leary, Cullen or O'Callaghan are still the best options, then so be it.
Leaving the team alone is just postponing the inevitable.

That could be argue that the whole team did the same not just ROG.

and would Wallace's main assest really be his pace, thought it would be his work on the ground at rucks and getting over the gain line in those last few hard yards

[tyroneboi]

Bit of a public spat going on between Ronan O'Gara and Kevin Myers of the Irish Independent:

Kevin Myers original article:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/kevin-myers/kevin-myers-its-an-irish-characteristic-we-are-comfortable--with-failure-its-a-familiar-condition-and-it-suits-us-2064681.html

ROG's response:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/ronan-ogara-why-i-refuse-to--be-scapegoated-by-kevin-myers-2070434.html

Edit: Just noticed there is a thread on this particular topic 

[Capt Pat]

David Wallace has been one of Irelands best players even though Eddie O'Sullivan wouldn't pick him for a couple of years and O'Connell, Wallace and even O'Gara get all the hype. Wallace deserves the spotlight an average enough performer like O'gara gets. So I would roll the dice with Wallace and hope he is still good enough in 18 months. He will be roughly the same age Neil Back was when he won his world cup with England and his main asset was his pace and his on the ground abiliity.

These guys like o'Driscoll and O'Connell and wallace and even O'Gara Hayes to a lesseer extent are a bit special and we should be doing everything we can to make sure they hang on till the next world cup. Of course that could mean not playing them in every game and trying out other players. If we get all these players to hang on it means we will be putting close to 15 world class performers out on the field as opposed to about 10 at the next world cup.

[Hoof Hearted]

Sexton in for O'Gara - dont know whole team yet

[Celt_Man]

Jonathan Sexton handed Ireland start for England game


Jonathan Sexton will make his first Six Nations start in Saturday's clash against England after edging out Ronan O'Gara for Ireland's fly-half spot.

Sexton starred against South Africa in November but then sustained injury and O'Gara returned for the opening Six Nations games against Italy and France.

Geordan Murphy replaces injured Rob Kearney at full-back while Rory Best takes over from banned Jerry Flannery.

The other change sees fit-again Donncha O'Callaghan replacing Leo Cullen.

Cullen performed well against Italy and France but O'Callaghan returns to partner his Munster colleague Paul O'Connell at lock.

John Hayes will win his 100th Ireland cap in the Twickenham clash.

The 36-year-old will partner Best and Cian Healy in the front-row.

Tony Buckley replaces Tom Court in the replacements as prop cover although the Ulster player was troubled by injury last week.


With Ronan O'Gara on the bench, Paddy Wallace drops out of the Irish replacements.

Andrew Trimble returns to the Irish bench after being left out of the 22 man squad for the defeat in Paris.

The Ulster winger did start in Ireland's opening win over Italy.

The bench also includes Leo Cullen, Sean Cronin, Shane Jennings and Eoin Reddan.

Sexton's inclusion at fly-half is not a surprise after his impressive showing for Leinster in Saturday's Magners League win over the Scarlets.

The Leinster fly-half produced an impeccable display of place-kicking at the RDS and also scored a late try.

Murphy will earn his 64th Irish cap after making his last appearance as a replacement in the Grand Slam clinching win over Wales last March.

Ireland: G Murphy (Leicester), T Bowe (Ospreys), B O'Driscoll (Leinster) capt, G D'Arcy (Leinster), K Earls (Munster), J Sexton (Leinster), T O'Leary (Munster), C Healy (Leinster), Rory Best (Ulster), J Hayes (Munster), D O'Callaghan (Munster), P O'Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster). Replacements: S Cronin (Connacht), T Buckley (Munster), L Cullen (Leinster), S Jennings (Leinster), E Reddan (Leinster), R O'Gara (Munster), A Trimble (Ulster)

[Celt_Man]

Cullen will feel very disappointed... Murphy was always gonna get the no. 15 jersey after a great performance at the weekend.  Thought Reddan would get in with Sexton as a duo but O'Leary probably deserves another shot after the ball coming to him in Paris was deseperately slow.   I wonder how bad Court's injury is - enough to prevent him being on the bench?? - because Buckley being named there ahead of him is a strange one.  Good chance that we will get a look at Cronin in a tough full blooded encounter.
Would like to see what impact Jennings has on the game when introduced and Wallace leaving the 22 must have been a tough enough call

[magpie seanie]

Cannot understand how O'Leary is still on that team. Good luck to Sexton receiving ball from him.