Ireland v South Africa (Sat 10th Nov, 17:30)

[caomhan]

Dekko selected to fail and succeeded.
Of the forwards POM was the worst. He doesn't have the defensive game to cope at international level.
Murray, better than for a while (as in no brain farts), but christ is he slow and ponderous.
Timble mixed the good with the bad.
Locky should start against the Argies, it's gonna be attritional.
We need Reddan to move the ball away from the Argie mangle (A mangle is turnip for those with no farming background) mangling machine!
Zebo and McCarthy were very good.
Earls still can't pass.
So Earls back to wing and Cave to 13.
And BTW SA were shite

Kidney is a total flop as an international coach he is biased narrow minded and conservative
good round up
murray = was a disaster at 9 (reddan or marshell clearly the better options)
POM = was so poor and gave away penalty after penalty
Trimble = was poor cant kick
Zebo = was decent
Mccarthy= was very good
Earls agree passing is terrible (kidney munster brainfart)
Ross = Good
Strauss = good game overall
Healy = very good carried well
Donnacha Ryan = Average
Henry = Good worked well at breakdown
Heaslip = average
Sexton = Good
Darcy = decent


That was a very very poor south african side and we lost at home
the south africans in the coaching setup should be kept a million miles away from our backline players stick to the defense/scrum

hook giving out about black jersey then saying our flag has yellow in it

[Donny B.]

5 losses on the bounce for the first time since the 90s (iirc). Who wants to talk about Grand Slams now...?

Is it not six on the bounce now? Think the Indo were saying we've lost more now since the World Cup then the 2000 to 2006 period.

O'Gara shouldn't be near an international jersey again kicking that ball away at the end. Very sad end to a great career for him.

SA were throwing a lot of punches which just didn't get called by Barnes, that man has no right to be reffing an international match. Telling Heaslip not to talk to him about it is not what a professional ref should be doing.

Barnes seemed to be more concerned with telling players to put their hands down than stop using their fists. But what do you expect from a second-rate ref?

[Peg Leg]

ROG kicking it away at the end, makes me think Kidney and himself are in cahoots in a betting circle, and the two of them plot to put Ireland away for big money gains.

Thought that was Redser?
Can we take a look @ Boss V Figi?

[tate]

Murray too slow to get to subsequent rucks. Is he being tackled after he passes so being hindered in some way? Certainly seems like it.
J10 was pretty average today, place kicking was good, from hand not so good.
Darce all right. We need a new face at 12 and soon though.
Earls had a few nice breaks in the first half, dont remember the comms mentioning him in the second.
Trimble tried manfully but dont think he has the skill to be a really good top-end winger. He's LG to a Samsung (did i get that right?) Or a skoda to a volkswagon.
Bowe anonymous in the second half as well.
Zebo did what was asked of him, ran nicely with the ball. Give him Trimbles jersey when we can select an actual fb next time

In mitigation of the backs we had f%~k all ball in the second half. Defensively we were poor though. Whoever thought to let SA run at us and try to gang tackle them was demonstrating remarkable stupidity. We lost every collision and with SA 1D approach to backplay I feel a more aggressive defensive line would have been beneficial.

In the pack

Healy carried reasonably, tackled well and scrummaged well.
Strauss good lineout (first wobble aside), tackled and ran well. Good debut in what must have been an emotional day for him
Ross looked sluggish throughout, scrummed reasonably well until the end when he needed to be replaced
McCarthy definitely MOTM from an Irish perspective, some monster tackles
Ryan done well too. Never again please for DOC.
POM did well overall, some poor decisions to pick and go, and ran laterally too much for my liking. Especially as a forward.
Henry excellent work on the ground, finally gets the call-up he's deserved
Heaslip all right, expected a big game from him. One he really took by the scruff of the neck.

Anyway, my €0.02

[Donny B.]

Mike McCarthy MOM? Eh?

I thought he deserved it

Really? Apart from one tackle I honestly didn't notice him that much.

[lummix]

Just left aviva. My opinions strauss man of the match, zebo did well but not a full back, o Mahoney misses far too many tackles counted 4, most disappointing performance kidney out

[TerenureJim]

Right positives because I just can't focus on the negatives on the coaching ticket.

McCarthy was outstanding, seemed to be everywhere, has taken his chance and deserves to be a regular based on this and his performances for Connacht. Also great for Irish rugby to have a Connacht starter starting for Ireland, long overdue.

Zebo, played well for me, couple of mistakes but I'd give him slack considering the unfair position he was in. Again great to see him take his chance.

Strauss was heavily involved in a lot of things, big ask to play against SA first up but will be pushing Best from here on in. This can only be good for Best and Cronin.

Bent, Hooks hostility pre game and silence post game says it all. Came on and looks seriously match fit and can really scrummage. Will be a weapon for us and Ireland as the season goes on.

Henry was a great nuisance can't be denied a starting spot from here on in. I'd have him at 7 and SOB at 6 for six nations when both fit. No more of playing two feckin 6's.

[rookie]

Mike McCarthy MOM? Eh?

I thought he deserved it

Really? Apart from one tackle I honestly didn't notice him that much.

Ha! Of course you didn't.

[Donny B.]

Really? Apart from one tackle I honestly didn't notice him that much.

Ha! Of course you didn't.

Mea culpa, he seems to be well praised so I'll take Dave's word for it.

In my defence I was so bored by the general standard of play that I started a Mexican wave in my own living room.

[tate]

My boy Freddie is starting against Australia, and the game is actually entertaining!

[TerenureJim]

Oh yeah one more positive I thought the black jerseys looked sublime(inated).

Plus when Hook went off with his rant about the jerseys just being there to make money for the IRFU (including his epic mistake about the national flag as pointed out above) Shaggy destroyed him with the response that he hoped the jerseys made a lot of money for the IRFU because they'd have more to put back into the game.

Think we've seen perhaps the beginning of the end of Hook. Maybe February will see a lineup with Shaggy, O'Shea, Pope, Linehan, Costello. Time for a change of the guard at RTE.

[tate]

Oh yeah one more positive I thought the black jerseys looked sublime(inated).

Plus when Hook went off with his rant about the jerseys just being there to make money for the IRFU (including his epic mistake about the national flag as pointed out above) Shaggy destroyed him with the response that he hoped the jerseys made a lot of money for the IRFU because they'd have more to put back into the game.

Think we've seen perhaps the beginning of the end of Hook. Maybe February will see a lineup with Shaggy, O'Shea, Pope, Linehan, Costello. Time for a change of the guard at RTE.

Too much to hope we'll lose Kidney and Hook in one go.

[rookie]

Oh yeah one more positive I thought the black jerseys looked sublime(inated).

Plus when Hook went off with his rant about the jerseys just being there to make money for the IRFU (including his epic mistake about the national flag as pointed out above) Shaggy destroyed him with the response that he hoped the jerseys made a lot of money for the IRFU because they'd have more to put back into the game.

Think we've seen perhaps the beginning of the end of Hook. Maybe February will see a lineup with Shaggy, O'Shea, Pope, Linehan, Costello. Time for a change of the guard at RTE.

I hope you're right. Rugby on RTE is starting to look like a scene from cocoon

[nelly the elephant]

Mike McCarthy MOM? Eh?

I thought he deserved it

Really? Apart from one tackle I honestly didn't notice him that much.

Ah Donny...I thought he had a great match.....was expecting him to be "found out" today......more than happy to admit he was a worthy MOTM recipient...

[blockhead]

6 defeats in a row, 6 (six)!! We are so undynamic at int level, did we even get into the SA 22? Cant honestly remember. Murray is a decent SH but his dawdling at the breakdown is killing our attack. Only positive to take from the game, Bents scrum. leinster now have a 2nd TH. Thats very good news. Kidney disease has to be removed.

[AwayTheWell]

Where is all this talk of six defeats in a row coming from?

England, New Zealand x 3 and now South Africa. Were Scotland somehow awarded a game I wasn't aware of it. Looks like Tom McGurk and his cronies got their figures wrong. Good old licence payers money.

As for the actual match, agree that we didn't lose on selections. Our general play is uninspiring and a mixture of injuries, lack of back-up in key positions and most importantly coaching makes us look like we will have it all to do to get the better of Argentina.

[sid]

Only positive to take from the game, Bents scrum.

Didn't really get why everyone was so excited about that tbh. As soon as we got the penalty the commentary went mental. It was just one scrum ffs

[Oldschool]

6 defeats in a row, 6 (six)!! We are so undynamic at int level, did we even get into the SA 22? Cant honestly remember. Murray is a decent SH but his dawdling at the breakdown is killing our attack. Only positive to take from the game, Bents scrum. leinster now have a 2nd TH. Thats very good news. Kidney disease has to be removed.

I don't get this "Murray is a decent SH but his dawdling at the breakdown is killing our attack" - You're contradicting youself.

[SaS]

This is dire sh!t and no matter what the result is, it won't paper over the cracks.

Oh I think the papers will paper over the cracks

I think Gerry will paper over more cracks than Treasury Holdings....

[Oldschool]

Where is all this talk of six defeats in a row coming from?

England, New Zealand x 3 and now South Africa. Were Scotland somehow awarded a game I wasn't aware of it. Looks like Tom McGurk and his cronies got their figures wrong. Good old licence payers money.

As for the actual match, agree that we didn't lose on selections. Our general play is uninspiring and a mixture of injuries, lack of back-up in key positions and most importantly coaching makes us look like we will have it all to do to get the better of Argentina.

Poor selection played a major part in losing the game. Using your bench is a subset of selection.
Dekko was well off with his 23, so we shouldn't be surprised we lost.

The more I think about it, Dekko is from an amatuer era and has not developed his own skill set.
He's basically a school teacher. He might still be up to doing under age stuff, where there is no need to think long term, but that's about it.
Dekko doesn't seem to do strategic thinking at all. Neither do the people who appointed him, because if they did, neither Dekko or EOS would have got their contract extensions.
On both occasions the timing was appalling. So why did they do it? is the air in the AVIVA, because the FAI made the same mistake with Trap.
Is it a laziness by the powers that be, fear of change, moving out of their comfort zone.
They did it once with Gattie, tried to influence his selection policy and dumped him at the first opportunity they got, because he rightly resisted. What does history say about that?
A lot of posts on here are about how Dekko manipulates the media. This begs the question, What are his priorities and Who is setting them?