Ireland Vs Australia

[pwrmoore]

Generally thought that Shaggy, Tommy, Trimby and Geordan performed well.

O'Connor and Leamy did well.

Line-outs really disintrgrated after Byrne went off for repairs. Not sure if that was down to poor throwing when he came back with the scrum-cap on, or a disintegration of communication.

RO'G was dreadful for the first 20 and then improved some - but not enough. There is a real difference in the amount of leadership shown by Humph compared to wee Ronan - still Humph made a few howlers and didn't exactly cover himself in glory.

Stringer is really living dangerously these days - seems to spend too much time trying to get the ref's attention and not enough digging the ball out.

This was a game Ireland should have been capable of winning. EO'S will have to ask himself some serious questions about why they didn;t...

[**toots**]

Certainly a good debut from Trimble. The young lad has come a long way in only one season, even english counterparts of mine, being forced to watch the game, commented on the young blondie!

Another decent game from Tommy, pity about Matt's error-strewn performance, think he's played himself out of contention for a while.

Would loved to have seen Neil Best getting a run out, all the Ulster lads should do next game though - fingers crossed!

[Rooster]

Think you are being hard on Matt there toots, he did a lot of tackleing and had no more errors than most of the old hands.

[colinh]

Unfortunately his errors were more obvious but one pass in particular was about ten foot high. He did work very very hard and put in a tremendous amount of work.

Colin

[aarons]

Humph giving away the intercept try reminded me of the game in Gloucester last season. Or am I making that memory up?

Was a woeful performance from start to finish. The players never seemed to be on the same wavelength, and there wasn't even a semblance of a consistant gameplan. Ho hum.

One of the newspapers I bought in Dublin airport had an article calling for Eddie's head. Let's hope there's more of that in tomorrow's papers.

[colinh]

Humph giving away the intercept try reminded me of the game in Gloucester last season. Or am I making that memory up?

Hey ho funny you should say that. I was speaking to Rooster earlier and he reckoned the same. You what they say about Hump. He can win you and he can loose you a game.

Colin

[Rooster]

Humphs did give an intercept try again, but as usual he helped get one back
He has a bit of a habit of this but on the other hand Ronan was dire for the first half hour, if he had stayed on we would still not have won the game. The crazy thing is comical has a bench of players and even when we are stuffed does not use them, how is he ever going to see if any new talent is worth starting, he said when he announced this team that he thought the players last week could do more and gave them another game, yes some of them were better this week but for a squad that has been together now for 3 weeks training he does not have much to show for it. Englands performance against The All Blacks today plus them beating Australia last week shows what we will be up against in the 6 nations
Whats the odds he sticks with the bulk of the team for next week give them another chance

[barney]

Here's a team that, despite boasting some very talented individuals, is going backwards.

I have rarely sat through a more depressing afternoon. We were beaten by Australia C when they were down to 14 men!

Today was a new low. A shambles, a sham, call it what you will. It was certainly an affront to the paying public.

Credit to Trimble, Bowe, O'Connor and Leamy. The rest of them should be embarassed.

[Flankers Lugs]

IRELANDS PROBLEMS IN TWO WORDS......RONAN OGARA.

[fermain]

Humphs made a mistake with the intercepted pass, but it's only because he's trying to be creative, and move the ball. Some mistakes will always be made during a game, but Ireland have to try to score trys, not just go for goal each time. Humphs for me came on and took over leadership of the team, maing them more dangerous for a spell, He should have been on from the start. McCullough.., yeh made a couple of bad mistakes, lost us a try, but his workrate was great. The southern media, and BOD showed little respect for his abilities. I have seen him play very well for Ulster. If he was playing regularly for a winning Ireland team, he would be on top of his game.

Whats to bet that comical does change the team for the Romania game? He'll put out the bench to prove that he can try out players, but even if the new fifteen perform well, and score shedloads of points, how will that prove anything, as they weren't in the side that was up against the best 2nd team in the world, nor their wannabees.

EOS's policy of bringing on developing players for both the 6N and RWC2007 has been exposed as extremely lacking. The guy has no long term foresight, and no plan B. He should be able to analyse the game for how it is being played and be able to communicate with the players how to change ther play to challenge the other team, something I thought he was once able to do.

[Rooster]

The guy has no long term foresight, and no plan B.

Backed up by BOD's statement from the touchline at the start of the second half when he said, " the guys have a game plan and it is going fairly well so they will stick with it for the second half." No mention that they might just possibly change it, last week it was keep the ball in hand and run at them, this week it was kick the ball at all costs. Why does he never use both options in 1 game.

[barney]

Fair enough Fermain, but there was also the appalling defensive lapse for the second Aussie try.

I've edited my original post to account for the effects on a large quantity of post-match anaesthetic and the red mist which is slowly clearing.

Still think we're firmly stuck up a dead end and can't see any improvement under the current regime.

[Rooster]

I would not guarantee many changes according to this

The Sunday Times November 20, 2005

Coach: ‘We will have to push on’
Despite another defeat, Eddie O’Sullivan says he does not expect to make drastic changes for the match against Romania
AFTER THE defeat, the recriminations. But, hardly surprisingly, Eddie O’Sullivan, the Ireland coach, wasn’t minded to be too hard on his players. “There was some improvements in certain areas last week — we defended a lot better and created some good turnovers from our defensive play. I think the thing from last week that we haven’t really improved on is that again we had chances that we didn’t execute.

“We actually played quite well in the first half, we went at them so at half-time I was fairly happy with things. We had a really poor start to the second half, I think 10 points in the first five minutes was a real sucker punch. In many ways I think it was a better performance than last week but again there were times where we needed to be more composed — we weren’t and we paid a big price for that.

“We said at the start of the season we had a tough schedule ahead of us — we just played Australia and New Zealand two weeks on the trot. I think the team is in transition — we have seven injuries to the squad, including two previous captains, so if you put all these things together it’s going to be a tight game.

“We will look at the remaining game and change things around, but I wouldn’t say there will be a raft of changes. We’ll get over today and have a look at what we want to get out of next week. It doesn’t change our plan of pushing on. I thought Andrew Trimble had a super game — he hasn’t a lot of experience at senior level. I thought he acquitted himself really well and he was outstanding in his work rate and defended superbly.

“We made a decision this year that we would take a few more risks and play with the ball in hand. There’s a risk element that when you lose the ball in these situations you get punished, but you have to take the risks or you won’t progress.”

Simon Easterby, the Ireland flanker and captain said: “It was the second chance for a lot of us. Fourteen of us played last week and we were pleased with the first half. Maybe Australia are not as good as New Zealand but the intensity and heat was there. Going in at half time we really thought we could dominate but at the start to the second half we lost our composure.”

Andrew Trimble, the Ireland debutant centre, said: “It was a big step up for me and I learnt a lot out in the field today. We should have been more clinical but I was happy with my debut overall.”

The mans head is stuck so far up his ar$e that he can't find the way out.

[colinh]

Hopefully ROG has proved he is not up to the mark with lack of pace and a dwindling skill base. Hump playing his normal gave would be the best option and not the catch up game Eddie puts him on to play. Eddie has to think outside the box and stop being so rigid in his assertions about players. However it is a sad indictment of Irish rugby that we have to rely on an outhalf who at 36 when the next RWC comes around could be number one choice. It is not that Hump is a bad player but at that age he will have lost a foot or so of pace and a body a bit tired of getting banged about a bit.

Controversially I reckon Ireland may be improving. If you look at the performances of the 6 Nations last season we were very poor in that we let the opposition dictate. In the opening half yesterday we took the game to them and tried to play it wide a bit with a new look about the pack. Although there are still some tired old faces the likes of Simon Best has improved as has Leamy and OConnor at this level. The great unfortunate is that we just do not have enough international quality players and some of those we have are blatantly ignored.

It will take a while to be contending for the 6 nations but then again we always knew that. We are never going to be one of the rugby great nations unless rugby becomes the number 1 sport in this country and that is highly unlikely.

Colin

[jamesie]

thought matt did ok... didn't have time to establish himself really... same old

decent run out from trimble... summat special obviously. just the sort of mindset we need.

stringer needs to be put down along with that lump hayes... hump was unlucky but the stats don't lie unfortunately... got the feeling this is going to be a long hard season

i gotta say also that i wasn't impressed with the lansdowne experience being right beside the eerily quiet north terrace didn't help, but there was a serious lack of atmosphere... at least the aussie fans made some noise.

i was ashamed to be beside a bunch of imbecilic ulstermen who could do nothing but shout some downright offensive insults to the (usually southern) players in quite a vitriolic fashion.

furthermore half of them seemed hell bent on doing their best tony spreadbury impressions complete with ear pieces and erroneous hand movements.

sooner they knock that oul' shed down the better. it's a disgrace compared to all the other modern stadia most other nations have today.