The IRISH RUGBY thread

[Dolph1]

90 players alone were born in England!

You need to clarify what you're saying. 90 players with irish roots? You didn't make sense there.

Doesn't escape the fact we are pretending players on the national rugby team are irish. It's basically being a Man City supporter in recent years. Buying your way to success. There's f**k all pride in that.

[gallsman]

Van Der Flier was born and raised in Wicklow, to a father born and raised in Finglas. If you don't think he should be playing for Ireland, you need a long hard look at yourself.

[Dougal Maguire]

Van Der Flier was born and raised in Wicklow, to a father born and raised in Finglas. If you don't think he should be playing for Ireland, you need a long hard look at yourself.

As I said, I think he's Jamie Bryson.

[LCohen]

While beating New Zealand is an achievement it still doesn't hide the fact that the win is tainted by using foreign mercenaries to achieve the result. You can't really call it an 'Irish" win when you're stacking your team with lads who have no actual ties to the country they play for.

Your argument is therefore is that any ROI soccer team with 2 or more guys who first considered themselves Irish when the carrot of international football was dangled before them had been "stacked" with mercenaries and therefore tainted??

Soccer is in an even worse state that most think then

[LCohen]

England have a much bigger pick in Rugby and they have players from Tonga, Samoa and NZ. The rules are their so Ireland and others take advantage of it. They should change the eligibility rule to 5 years instead of 3. Bundee Aki was probaly never in Ireland before, and 3 years later he was an Ireland International.

To be fair to England they don't have project players. Teo is there on the granny rule but the rest of those guys have spent most of all their lives in England

[seafoid]

Th 6N has a structural problem in that England and France have much bigger pools of players than the other 4 .
When England get organised they can dominate for years just because of that.
Thehistory of Irish rugby in the amateur era is a testament to the distribution of rugby players in the competition.
The project players are a way of balancing the competition and making it interesting,. At the end of the day it is a pro sport and
if punters are not interested there is no money.
In the same way he Pro 12 was extended to 14 for TV purposes.

Regarding Bundee- he was not the finished article when he arrived at Connacht. But what a player he is now.

[imtommygunn]

The bigger pools is actually working to their disadvantage SF hence why there is such a kick up on the structure of the european tournament. Ireland , Scotland and pretty much Wales have a large number of players playing top level rugby. England and France have at best the same number of players exposed to this level. However Ireland Scotland and Wales have the same guys year in year out gaining experience while England do not necessarily as the teams that are in europe vary year on year. This is hurting them.

[seafoid]

The bigger pools is actually working to their disadvantage SF hence why there is such a kick up on the structure of the european tournament. Ireland , Scotland and pretty much Wales have a large number of players playing top level rugby. England and France have at best the same number of players exposed to this level. However Ireland Scotland and Wales have the same guys year in year out gaining experience while England do not necessarily as the teams that are in europe vary year on year. This is hurting them.

That's true but over the longer term England has the advantages because experience in the smaller unions eventually gets old. It's the Man Utd/Barcelona/Crossmaglen problem- you can't drop the top players in a winning team and  when they retire en masse there are no replacements for them.

[oakleaflad]

On the residency rule lads, I don't actually think we need them to be competitive as some has suggested. Henshaw in for Aki and O'Brien in for Stander and our side isn't much (if any) worse. All it does is add that extra bit of depth to the squad. People say New Zealand weren't at their best but we were missing Murray, Henshaw, O'Brien, Leavy too so weren't exactly at full strength ourselves.

[seafoid]

On the residency rule lads, I don't actually think we need them to be competitive as some has suggested. Henshaw in for Aki and O'Brien in for Stander and our side isn't much (if any) worse. All it does is add that extra bit of depth to the squad. People say New Zealand weren't at their best but we were missing Murray, Henshaw, O'Brien, Leavy too so weren't exactly at full strength ourselves.

You do need replacements for the World Cup though and RWC is highly attritional so you need them even more

[yellowcard]

Van Der Flier was born and raised in Wicklow, to a father born and raised in Finglas. If you don't think he should be playing for Ireland, you need a long hard look at yourself.

As I said, I think he's Jamie Bryson.

I'd thought he was a Springbok when I pooled him in with Aki and Stander, seems I was wrong and he is in fact irish. I like Bundee Aki and he seems like a bit of a character but he should not be playing for Ireland.

Why would you deliberately conflate this with Jamie Bryson's school of thought, I'm not with you.

[johnnycool]

Those claiming that McKenna is a tit, an idiot, a ball bag and a clown are only doing so because they disagree with him. Which is fine. However McKenna is an excellent journalist and whilst I don't always agree with him, he never takes the populist approach and is willing to ask the hard questions that a proper journalist should. Some people mightn't always like this as it is human nature to want to join in with the team that is winning but the likes of McKenna and Kimmage are rarely ever too far off the mark either.

Rather than attack McKenna with personal insults it would be better if the points he raised were dissected and debunked where relevant. It's easy to join in with the mob and particularly in the aftermath of a victory like last nights but it doesn't make some of the points that he made in last weeks article any less relevant.

Post 7327

Fair enough, that was one of his points and one I would disagree with him on. But it's not enough for me to think he is an idiot either.

He did make some other good points about player welfare, player nationality and the medicalisation of the sport that media and former players ever rarely get asked about.

For players nationally, is he consistent across all sports?

I honestly don't know but few other other sports define nationality so loosely. Cricket possibly.

Personally I don't think Aki, Stander or Van der Flier should be playing in a green jersey. They aren't Irish and have no bloodline connection with the country. Other than being bought by a provincial side to make a living here, they would be lining out for their own countries.

However those are the rules even if I strongly disagree with them.

Are you Jamie Bryson?

Van Der Flier born and raised in Dublin I believe.....?

He's got a big Dub accent when interviewed the other night well. He didn't pick that up last week.

Look,
  that's the rules, NZ do the same, England, France, whoever, get over yourselves.

As for the game, it was pretty tight throughout and yes NZ lads were making mistakes you don't normally see from All Blacks, but maybe we need to credit the Irish lads with giving them something to think about and they were under huge pressure for the full 80 minutes, something Ireland have failed to do in the recent past.
Schmitt probably got it right with starting big Dev and in fairness to Dev he offers a lot more that lineout now. He can tackle and even now when he is tackled himself he doesn't hit the floor as quick as he used to and less likely to turnover ball. The flip side of this is that Henderson brings fresh physicality to the pack when introduced and is bloody good at counter rucking when the need arises. Yes, the lineout struggles and that needs looked at for 2019 as kicking to touch is a big attacking platform for Ireland and that was poor on Saturday night. I think three times Ireland failed to win them cleanly and let NZ off a bit.
Not a big fan of Marmions box kicking but Kearney went after them like a man possessed and made them work for Ireland. Kearney can probably count himself lucky to not pick up a yellow when he upended the fullback in the air and whilst he'd only eyes for the ball it didn't look good and the much maligned Barnes kept his cards in his pocket and was consistent as Ireland were looking a yellow at the end of the first half when NZ were conceding penalty after penalty.

Hansen is already at his work proclaiming Ireland  are favourites for the WC and whist Schmitt is shrewd enough to not buy into that, you'd fear that the media in Ireland go all out on this just like their English counterparts are.

Good win but no medals are handed out yet.

[seafoid]

Those claiming that McKenna is a tit, an idiot, a ball bag and a clown are only doing so because they disagree with him. Which is fine. However McKenna is an excellent journalist and whilst I don't always agree with him, he never takes the populist approach and is willing to ask the hard questions that a proper journalist should. Some people mightn't always like this as it is human nature to want to join in with the team that is winning but the likes of McKenna and Kimmage are rarely ever too far off the mark either.

Rather than attack McKenna with personal insults it would be better if the points he raised were dissected and debunked where relevant. It's easy to join in with the mob and particularly in the aftermath of a victory like last nights but it doesn't make some of the points that he made in last weeks article any less relevant.

Post 7327

Fair enough, that was one of his points and one I would disagree with him on. But it's not enough for me to think he is an idiot either.

He did make some other good points about player welfare, player nationality and the medicalisation of the sport that media and former players ever rarely get asked about.

For players nationally, is he consistent across all sports?

I honestly don't know but few other other sports define nationality so loosely. Cricket possibly.

Personally I don't think Aki, Stander or Van der Flier should be playing in a green jersey. They aren't Irish and have no bloodline connection with the country. Other than being bought by a provincial side to make a living here, they would be lining out for their own countries.

However those are the rules even if I strongly disagree with them.

Are you Jamie Bryson?

Van Der Flier born and raised in Dublin I believe.....?

He's got a big Dub accent when interviewed the other night well. He didn't pick that up last week.

Look,
  that's the rules, NZ do the same, England, France, whoever, get over yourselves.

As for the game, it was pretty tight throughout and yes NZ lads were making mistakes you don't normally see from All Blacks, but maybe we need to credit the Irish lads with giving them something to think about and they were under huge pressure for the full 80 minutes, something Ireland have failed to do in the recent past.
Schmitt probably got it right with starting big Dev and in fairness to Dev he offers a lot more that lineout now. He can tackle and even now when he is tackled himself he doesn't hit the floor as quick as he used to and less likely to turnover ball. The flip side of this is that Henderson brings fresh physicality to the pack when introduced and is bloody good at counter rucking when the need arises. Yes, the lineout struggles and that needs looked at for 2019 as kicking to touch is a big attacking platform for Ireland and that was poor on Saturday night. I think three times Ireland failed to win them cleanly and let NZ off a bit.
Not a big fan of Marmions box kicking but Kearney went after them like a man possessed and made them work for Ireland. Kearney can probably count himself lucky to not pick up a yellow when he upended the fullback in the air and whilst he'd only eyes for the ball it didn't look good and the much maligned Barnes kept his cards in his pocket and was consistent as Ireland were looking a yellow at the end of the first half when NZ were conceding penalty after penalty.

Hansen is already at his work proclaiming Ireland  are favourites for the WC and whist Schmitt is shrewd enough to not buy into that, you'd fear that the media in Ireland go all out on this just like their English counterparts are.

Good win but no medals are handed out yet.

The danger is that it's a timing issue like getting excited about beating Kilkenny in the Leinster final in 2012
The AIF was going fine until Shefflin put his foot on the pedal.
The rest was pure group psychology.

If you give an elite team one opening when it is down to the wire they will kill you. 
As Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

[imtommygunn]

The bigger pools is actually working to their disadvantage SF hence why there is such a kick up on the structure of the european tournament. Ireland , Scotland and pretty much Wales have a large number of players playing top level rugby. England and France have at best the same number of players exposed to this level. However Ireland Scotland and Wales have the same guys year in year out gaining experience while England do not necessarily as the teams that are in europe vary year on year. This is hurting them.

That's true but over the longer term England has the advantages because experience in the smaller unions eventually gets old. It's the Man Utd/Barcelona/Crossmaglen problem- you can't drop the top players in a winning team and  when they retire en masse there are no replacements for them.

If that held it would already have happened though as Ireland had what they thought was a once in a lifetime crop with O'Driscoll etc. N.B. All the teams you mention are clubs.

[Farrandeelin]

Christ lads, can people not enjoy a win? I'm not the greatest of rugby fans, I'll be the first to admit it, but as someone else said to be able to look the All Blacks in the eye and beat them twice in a row, or 2 out of 3 maybe, (see my rugby knowledge) but that would be unthinkable in the 90s.