Wales V'S Ireland

[red49]

C'mon Jamie heaslip lead us to a win , nervous as hell but think win is on the cards , Zebo for first try

Did you back him?

Yep! delighted with win today, best, bod and sob outstanding, hopefully ross ok for next week and hopfully scotland tear into england and rough em up a bit for next week. pom also put in a great 50 mins i thought some great carries. gonna miss bod when he goes, some man.

[thepunter]

C'mon Jamie heaslip lead us to a win , nervous as hell but think win is on the cards , Zebo for first try

Did you back him?

Yep! delighted with win today, best, bod and sob outstanding, hopefully ross ok for next week and hopfully scotland tear into england and rough em up a bit for next week. pom also put in a great 50 mins i thought some great carries. gonna miss bod when he goes, some man.

good stuff red, had gilroy myself, Ireland +2 and 1-12 in swimmingly though

And agreed, POM was brilliant

[Comer Toes]

Superb stuff today. Everyone played well but BOD, Best, Murray, SOB, Healy, POM were outstanding. Normally when we let such a big lead go it's due to Ireland errors or a reduced intensity but can't say that about today; we were actually really good in the second but obviously from a defensive perspective. Poite also screwed us on the Best yellow I thought.

Error count was hugely pleasing; was DOC knock on at the death our first in the game?? Think or might have been, bar couple of lineout malfunctions.

BOD's pass just sublime, nearly reduced me to tears it was so good!

Bring on the English!

[Armchair]

BOD outstanding! Gilroy far better in defence than I thought he would be and played really well, Ross and Darcy injuries a worry! Please do not pick Earls in the centre next weekend! McFadden might be on his way home from Dubai quicker than expected!

[Mackman15]

Cian Healy to score a try in 80 mins at 17/2.
Stage night tonight...... Thank you kindly Church.

[jezzer]

Some great stuff, we definitely took our foot off their throats in the second half, straight after the BOD try. That led to the pressure which had us playing with 14 for half an hour. Team spirit was excellent and some sublime passing. If BOD had done that Zebo foot flick, we'd be prostrating ourselves in awe. So fair play to a beautiful piece of instinctive play.

[red49]

Rte reporting ross pom ok, darcy to have sca
n but management dont seem too concerned about all 3

[ribs]

Ross injury looked bad. He immediately signaled to be subbed, then they left him on for 10 minutes and at the next scrum he folded and was subbed

[blockhead]

Simon Zebo......what an outrageous bit of skill. never seen that before, ever. He's a bit special me thinks. Bod n Darce in midfield were awesome at the breakdown and that dominated the first half. Best must have run Bod close for MOM, maybe the yellow card put paid to that.
Excellent attacking rugby in first half, excellent defense in the 2nd.
Next week we need Ross in the scrum, and even then we will be busting a gut just for parity.
Keith Earls, not a center, good runner with ball in hand, but what about passing and defending? He's pushed hard to get a center spot and now the likes of Zebo and Gilroy have snuck up behind and he's caught in no mans land. Excellent winger, poor center.
Murray seems to me to have got over his slump and is playing with more urgency.

[johng]

That heel by Zebo was pure magic. sign of a player with bags of confidence. bod's pass for his try was unbelieveable too. he had a few milimetres to work with.

[fourthirtythree]

That heel by Zebo was pure magic. sign of a player with bags of confidence. bod's pass for his try was unbelieveable too. he had a few milimetres to work with.

Both of those were perfection. Milimetre perfect.

Zebo's was outrageous though.

Thought Gilroy tackled like a demon as it went on (as did Sexton - how he held up Faletau at the post I don't know). If they had started with Tipuric on we might have been in trouble.

I would sooner have McFadden on the bench next week to Earls is everyone is fit.

[Donny B.]

Right let's win this f%~ker!!!!

1. MURRAY AND SEXTON: Play well and we'll win, don't and we're f%~ked! Murray needs to do nothing but watch his display against Argentina again. Quick to the rucks, quick to pass with Sexton playing flat and giving him a constant achievable target. Don't think, just do the same again please and we'll all love you! Sexton needs to put all the transfer stuff behind him and come out and play like a goddamn Boss! Cause that's what he is, he's a f%~king boss and he'll lead us to another Grand Slam if given his head. And Kidney, none of this give ROG the last 15 to see the game out bullshite. Trust Jonny to win it and only bring ROG on for the last two minutes if we have the game won!

2. DE-FENTZ!!!!! One of the worst memories of last season was our defense scuttling back on their little legs as the bohemoth Welsh backs ate up the space. No soft line bull-sh!t this year lads, we get up in their sh!t and hit them early and often! If our wings are beaten one on one by the big Welsh wings, it won't be their fault, it will the the 13 guys in front of them.

3. PACE! For once we have it, so let's use it! Gilroy and Zebo are raw but so what, they're the quickest pair of wings we've named in years. So let's not use them to bash it up the middle. Let's use Jonny's and Bod's and Darce's passing skills to get these lads in a bit of space and let them rip. They need to work extra hard to get on the shoulder of Rob once he starts his counter attacks too. One good offload and these lads could be under the posts.

4. LINEOUT: POM and Ryan the main men on oppo ball, Mike Mac and Jamie main men our ball. Best's throwing needs to be on the sh!t. Smart and cool on our throw, and ultra-aggressive and cunning on theirs and it could be the winning of the game for us.

5. SCRUM: Jenkins is the poster boy for not going to France, totally unfit and Ross will look to have him on toast. Healy has struggled to contain Adam Jones in the past and with Poite refereeing, he'll be itching to ping him from the start any time a scrum goes down. Ciano needs to get up in Jones's face and prove he's the Lions number 1 loosie!!

6. BREAKDOWN: Warburton is a fine player but is no McCaw. He's brittle and can be taken out of a game. Seanie at seven always looks a little wrong to the people who saw him make his name for Ireland and Leinster at six, but he has grown into the role and was fantastic against McCaw in the summer tests. POM is at his best at blind-side tackling all day and generally pissing people off and though not a classic power runner, he can make good ground with his pace and footwork.

7. JAMIE: Last but not least. One of the most unjustifiably vilified players in Irish history. He's routinely slated and scapegoated in the media and the mere mention of his name down south raises heckles and screams of "CAWWWWWWWWWWWLIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!" It's his time to prove to everyone what a great player and great captain he is. He has to put in his enormous usual shift in terms of tackles, rucks hit etc etc, but he also needs to make some big bursts. He's skipper now and he's got to lead by example in this. Let Seanie and POM hit the ruck after him, just go for it!!

Overall, provided Kidney doesn't get in the way with any of his conservative bullshit, I predict Ireland by 10.


That's my thoughts for the match, people!

I thank you!

FFS lads! I called this sh!t perfectly, for 45 minutes at least!

[johng]

If they had started with Tipuric on we might have been in trouble.

If we started Earls in the Centre............

[Metal]

Anyone else think Adam Jones was a bit OTT with the boot at the breakdown?

[No23]

How come ROG never got a run?

[sid]

Anyone else think Adam Jones was a bit OTT with the boot at the breakdown?

I thought the rucking was pretty bad in both games today. A lot of it was in situations where the player was trying to get out of the way but couldn't move. I don't know why it wasn't penalized or even mentioned.

How come ROG never got a run?

Because we were trying to win.

[mikey]

That heel by Zebo was pure magic. sign of a player with bags of confidence. bod's pass for his try was unbelieveable too. he had a few milimetres to work with.

Amazing improvisation from Zebo - and bod was mesmeric !! As others have said he's so good I could just weep.

[deco]

We are really going to miss Drico when he hangs up his boot, his pass for Zebos was amazing.

Zebo, although caught out defensively a few times, was worth his spot for that heel alone - brilliant!!

I was surprised, and pleased, Deccie didn't wheel Radge on for the last two minutes to grant him another cap. Expect Radge to throw a wobbly in an interview anytime soon.

[ceemec]

Absorbing game. The opening half was as good as we've played in the last couple of years. We were accurate and aggressive at a high tempo. Wales never had the opportunity to settle. We hit them ferociously at every opportunity, hammering rucks and carriers. It was no surprise to see several players being treated for blood in that half.

The sub plot of the Lions will never be far from the mind in this season's 6N and today saw multiple contenders come face to face with their opposite number. Healy, BOD, Best, Zebo, SOB and Ryan all made big claims for their spots. Heaslip was very good but his opposite number was arguably the best Welsh player on display and bounced through Heaslip badly at one point, 5m from the Irish line. RK had a solid game but Halfpenny just doesn't have a bad game. Just like it was on a knife edge 4 years ago between RK and Byrne, it will be very tight this time around between those two.

I wouldn't worry massively about Wales sliding back into the game. There's a massive psychological swing when we were 27 points up and they were in front of their home crowd. They were always going to come back into it. We didn't help ourselves with some defensive errors but the cohesion they found with Tipuric and Owens gave them much more of a threat coupled with the eradication of basic errors (Davies was horrific) in the first half. When we played 20 of the last 35 minutes with 14 men, we were always going to concede.

England will be a tougher prospect next week, I expect. Their continuity and ability to offload and keep things moving was impressive. They've a pack filled with comfortable carriers. Hopefully Ross can get on top of Marler and we disrupt their set piece. An unfamiliar centre partnership may be exposed too. Hopefully Tuilagi doesn't make it back. People are critical of him and yes, he is limited, but he's more than capable of punching a hole through us especially if D'Arcy is out.

[Donny B.]

How come ROG never got a run?

Ruined the game for me...as well as the lack of his doleful expressions when Jonny was kicking,,,