Ireland v France player ratings
- 11 Feb 07, 06:09 PM
Croke Park - I was one of the 82,000 or so spectators who witnessed Sunday鈥檚 historic Six Nations encounter as Ireland's dream was shattered by France.
See if you agree with my ratings for players on both sides.
IRELAND
Girvan Dempsey - 6: Safe as houses under a plethora of high balls. Had little chance to really explode.
Geordan Murphy - 6: Was a little nervous in the early stages and appeared to be trying too hard. But was alert at all times and was unlucky referee Steve Walsh blew up early for his breakaway under the posts. Saved a certain try late in the first half.
Gordon D鈥橝rcy 鈥 8: Again always looked dangerous everytime he had the ball in hand. Has an insatiable appetite for work.
Shane Horgan - 7: He might not have looked too happy in midfield, but his presence was an enormous fillip to the side and took the game to the French.
Denis Hickie - 6: The old maestro has still a few fires to light yet and still maintains a good repertoire of skills.
Ronan O鈥橤ara - 9: Scored all of Ireland鈥檚 points and has added new running and support skills to his already loaded kicking armour.
Isaac Boss - 7: Boss鈥檚 defensive work rate was phenomenal and he did mix the game up well from the base of the ruck. His service may have been slower to O鈥橤ara, but it was accurate.
Marcus Horan - 6: Typically hard-working in the tight and loose and unlucky not to have been given something for his great piece of skill near the end when he almost scored.
Rory Best - 6: Worked hard all around the pitch. Good defence work and driving and his darts were spot on.
John Hayes - 6: The big man from Bruff just keeps on churning out the performances by doing all the dirty work. Ireland鈥檚 scrum never buckled.
Paul O鈥機onnell - 6: Still not playing to his best ability, but led from the front after taking over the captain鈥檚 armband from O鈥橠riscoll in midweek.
Donncha O鈥機allaghan - 5: Was fairly anonymous but did his usual fair share of grunt in a game that was for the purist forward tendencies.
Simon Easterby - 5: Not his best game for Ireland, but was nevertheless in the vanguard when the Irish pack dominated their opponents in the second half.
Denis Leamy - 6: Not a patch on last week鈥檚 performance and epitomised that spilling the ball from a French kick-off.
David Wallace - 8: Great game. Gave Ireland a lot of go-forward ball and was always on hand to momentum going.
Replacements:
Jerry Flannery - 6: Came on for Rory Best in the final quarter, but apart from line-outs found in hard to get into the game.
Neil Best - 7: Had 17 minutes of mayhem including one great turnover ball in the 73rd when he hit a ruck with great intensity.
FRANCE
Clement Poitrenaud - 6: Played a safe game, but was not allowed to anything adventurous.
Vincent Clerc - 7: Had a great all-round game and involved himself at every opportunity. His line-break and charge to the line in the last minute broke Irish hearts.
David Marty - 6: Looked dangerous at times against an Irish midfield defence that had to do a bit of scrambling.
Yannick Jauzion - 7: He was the big man who steadied the ship in the threequarters, but was well-marshalled in attack.
Christophe Dominici - 6: Had a more or less a defensive roll to play and rarely got the ball into his hands in attack.
David Skrela - 6: Nothing out of the ordinary. Missed vital penalties that could have had the game sewn up long before the end.
Pierre Mignoni - 6: An average day at the coalface. Was put under pressure by Boss at scrum time.
Sylvain Marconnet - 6: Had a superb first 40 minutes with some great drives and support work.
Raphael Ibanez - 8: He played a captain鈥檚 role. Always on hand either up front to lend the toiling pack, or out in the open.
Peter de Villiers - 6: A solid performance but did not break the Irish scrum.
Lionel Nallet - 6: Did what was expected of him up front and contributed well to France鈥檚 defence when Ireland were on top.
Pascal Pape - 5: Did not really feature in the game and was replaced after 50 minutes by Jerome Thion.
Serge Betsen - 6: A quiet enough day for the Biarritz bruiser. Never really got close to O鈥橤ara to put him off his game.
Imanol Harinordoquy - 6: Was brought on for his line-out work and it paid off for France who used him frequently.
Sebastien Chabal - 6: Began the game with typically rumbustious charges. However, he tailed off badly in the second half and was replaced after 53 minutes.
Replacements:
Sebastien Bruno - 5: Came on for his captain late in the game, but it passed him by.
Olivier Milloud - 6: Replaced De Villiers for the final 20 minutes and his fresh legs helped to give his side forward momentum at the end.
Jerome Thion - 7: Showed that he will be a force for France in the World Cup even after only 30 minutes work.
Julien Bonnaire - 6: Looked a lot sharper than Chabal when he came on, but was not able to put his s tamp on the game.
Lionel Beauxis - 6: Did all that was asked of him in the 24 minutes he was in action.
Cedric Heymans - 5: I do not think he touched the ball in the six minutes he was on the park.
Wales 27-18 England
Comments Post your comment
We're gutted here in Dublin.
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The Irish team ends up with 0.5 point average above the French, is there any reason for that? That was certainly not reflected on the pitch.
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I thought N. Best was immense when he came on, as was Trimble. Still Gutted though...
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That's funny, these ratings are so biased. I think especially Ireland's 3quarters are really overrated here as they seemed to miss O'Driscoll a lot.
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Despite France dominating the whole of that game you have marked it as if Ireland were the dominantant force, throughout france looked the better side and more attacking and more threatening, Ireland looked lacklustre and without the attacking incisiveness required
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A little bit of home bias perhaps :) I thought Ireland were put under a bit of pressure in the scrum and Gordon D'Arcy struggled a little bit in defence out of position. O' Gara a 9? Hmm... I thought France were superb in defence as well.
Desperately unlucky for Ireland though.
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One slip on concentration and we lose the game. Such is the fine line in international rugby between two top class teams. Like the previous poster I am absolutley gutted. But it also has to be said.....what a wonderful spectacle of a game. Fair play to the French. They hung on in there in to the end.
Depressed Irish fan.
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40 years watching irish rugby should innure one to this type of thing but still, this was hard to take. The end reminded me of the Ireland v australia WC quarter-final, 1991. After going beserk following the Hamilton try we screwed up the re-start with fatal results. But let's look on the bright side - imagine 7 months from now O'Driscoll ploughing over in the last minute to snatch victory over the french in the world cup and consign them to quarter-final against NZ. Not an impossible scenario.
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Were you actually watching the match? O'Gara given a 9 and Skrela a 6 seems to indicate you weren't!
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Great match, shame about the first 20 mins... why dont Ireland just Give France 10-15 point headstart before the game at least it would give them longer to claw their way back into it, in all the recent games against the french they have started horrendously, nearly pulled it off today for a change.
could someone tell me when the ref stopped shouting advantage over, i'm sure they used to do that and now its arm out or down how is a player in front of the ref supposed to see that his arm is down, the players looked confused twice when it didnt come back for a penalty
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Fairly generous to Dempsey I feel whose tackling looks dodgy.
Irish frontrow came back a bit but to mark the Irish props as high as the French seems a little generous.
Shane Horgan began as a centre but far more effective, and less ponderous on the wing where he'll return when O'Dricoll comes back.
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Really? Perhaps in the first half but Ireland were the better side in the second all round, more breaks attacks and possession. Pretty inaccurate to say France dominated the whole game, not sure which game u were watching here. Was evenly matched by the end and France worked a great try.
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I'm Irish, but where you watching the same game as me? Going by your ratings, you would have thought we won the game by 10-15 points. We were a bit lucky to be so close at half-time, and even allowing for Ireland's great 2nd half performance, I thought the French looked dangerous every time they ran at us and our defence got very stretched at times.
Gutted to lose in the manner that we did, but the French deserve credit and I don't think your ratings reflect that.
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lets look at the positives, when all irish feel is doom and gloom. France played very well, it was a day when everything went for them, bounce of the ball included. Ireland has relied on line out... didnt go our way today, competing at the breakdown... not upto our usual standard. And defense was v good as usual but for 2 obvious moments where the french punished us. We know we are alot better than todays performance, but are france... lets see in the WC? How to get back to playing at our previous high standards is the question. It has to happen in 2 weeks against the english! Lets salvage a triple crown and maybe someone can do one over on franch to help us win the 6 nations...
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"Despite France dominating the whole of that game"
Are you mad? A 15 minute stretch at the start of the first, and two other 5 minute spells were the extent of the French domination. In the second half in particular, Ireland were clearly the dominant force.
An unlucky result and gut-renching in light of the day that was in it, but there is plenty of build on going forward.
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to be fair, with O'Driscoll it would have been another game...but then France were unlucky big time not to finish the 1st half with at least a couple more penalties and a try...
Splendid game nonetheless, showed others how breathless rugby is played...an honourable introduction of the game to Croke Park...
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Ireland missed their absentees, O'D in particular. I thought Horgan was totally out of sorts and the times i've seen him play centre at international level he has struggled. Playing Darcy outside centre was a bizarre selection by Eddie and in my opinion left Ireland very exposed - effectively had 2 players playing out of position instead of 1. In the first 20 mins France looked like scoring every time they passed it wide. Ireland were dominant for the last 55 mins but France more clinical at the key moments.
Wallace was my man of the match. Also, your rating of Betson is way too low - the number of hits he put in was immense. Best should have been on from the start - for some mongrel.
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I don't think ROG deserved 9. I had the impression Ireland's kicking out of hand was rather unconvincing apart from boss and clearly inferior to the solid exhibition in tactical kicking by Skrela and Jauzion. the french pinned the Irish back on several occasions whereas ROG struggled to find touch.
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to be fair, with O'Driscoll it would have been another game...but then France were unlucky big time not to finish the 1st half with at least a couple more penalties and a try...
Splendid game nonetheless, showed others how breathless rugby is played...an honourable introduction of the game to Croke Park...
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I don't think ROG deserved 9. I had the impression Ireland's kicking out of hand was rather unconvincing apart from boss and clearly inferior to the solid exhibition in tactical kicking by Skrela and Jauzion. the french pinned the Irish back on several occasions whereas ROG struggled to find touch. I also don't agree what regards Dempsey since his tackle on Ibanez was woeful thus gifting him a try.
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Like many tight sporting occasions its a case of ifs buts & maybes. totally gutted. Lets hope Ireland learn from this and bring home the big one in the autumn. IT CAN BE DONE.
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How hard do you have to pull Marcus Horan's jersey to get a penalty from his kick ahead in front of the posts?
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The French were the better team today - yet their ratings are way below that of the Irish. Did the Fr fly half have a game 3 points worse than O'Gara - i think not. ROG sliced many a kick.
Just out of interest - was that the Irish (southern) national anthem. Bit outrageous singing that when there are Ulster players...
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Arrogant about how they were going to get the Grandslam before the Six Nations even started, probably only because the other teams are preceived to be weak at the moment and because of a couple of good games in the autumn serie against weakened southern hemisphere opponents. Then an undeserved win against Wales, after which the Grandslam was still supposedly going to be theirs...
Welcome back to reality guys...
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to be fair, with O'Driscoll it would have been another game especially when order and tactics went out of the window during spells of the 2nd half...but then France were unlucky big time not to finish the 1st half with at least a couple more penalties and a try...
Splendid game nonetheless, showed others how breathless rugby is played...an honourable introduction of the game to Croke Park...
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I don't think ROG deserved 9. I had the impression Ireland's kicking out of hand was rather unconvincing apart from boss and clearly inferior to the solid exhibition in tactical kicking by Skrela and Jauzion. the french pinned the Irish back on several occasions whereas ROG struggled to find touch. I also don't agree what regards Dempsey since his tackle on Ibanez was woeful thus gifting him a try.
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To say that France dominated that entire game you'd have to be either English, French or possibly American...i didn't get to watch the first half but in the second half the French were far from dominant! The Irish did however 'choke' as they seem to do so well in the 6 nations!
thought neil best did well when he came on but was part at fault for the killer try and we should expect more from someone with his hunger for tackling...i'd still like to see him start in two weeks time though in place of easterby
irish front row was outclassed by french in general but with a bit more luck the irish would have had that game...hopefully this will drive them on however for a fantastic game against england in two weeks time
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Horgan out of sorts - bizarre selection playing Darcy at outside centre - 2 players out of position.
Ireland controlled at least 60% of the game although France more clinical at key moments in the game.
O'Gara definitely not a 9 - his kicking from hand was poor. Never miss touch against the French. Best should have been on from the start for more mongrel.
With O'Driscoll, Ireland would have won - no doubt.
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im seem 2 recall som1 saying it was bad 2 giv ogara a 9 well i ahve 2 break it 2 u ppl he played amazing he was carrying dat team and he actually tackld well which was very promising and hopefully bod wil lb back and we will c th d' arcy we saw last weekend
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Living in Paris certainly intensified the emotion for me. Thought Ireland made a lot of unnecessary mistakes in the first half, but just as I believed they mught pull it off, the Grand Slam dream came tumbling down...
Don't think they'll let the game slip like that to the English in two weeks time, the Triple Crown is still to play for after all. O'Driscoll and Stringer will be desperate to get back, I'm sure.
Will be at the Stade de France on 21st September and hope to have a much better day.
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Great match, at last the 6 nations have started.Ireland were unlucky but clearly the French were tactically better and had better all round skills,shame Ireland were not at full strength I think that those missing would have given a 7 point difference to the score.
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I thought Ireland froze for the first 20 minutes not being able to cope with all the Croke Park hype and being favourites for the 6 nations.That said i thought the French defended very well and just about deserved the spoils.
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Could Walsh have been more biased...how could he have been allowed to judge anything in this match after his comments to the Welsh team last week. He contributed to the Irish losing this one...fair enough to the French but Walsh made crucial errors, e.g. ntoe allowing advantage to Murphy and thus allowing what would have been his try.
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on O'gara Vs Skrela :
Hi,
I really think O'Gara did amazing int the end of the first half. he did 50% of the try and 50%篓is a lot in a team sport!
Still, Skrela did miss two penalties in the first and he deserves a 6 for that. France has to reckon that you can not win a world cup without an international class scorer !
An o'Gara was desperately missing at the end of the game.
Best side won, that's my thoughts, but it's a french biased opinion ;-)
Beauxis is the best anyway, just look at the diagonal kick after it's missed drop :
That's exactly what we french are missing since ....
19.. ?
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france deserved to win today ,sad for ireland tough
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If we were Welsh we would be moaning about the ref.
Steve Walsh is becoming the Darrell Hair of rugby refereeing!
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Agree that French are underrated here. Chabal played better than a six, an Harinordoquy was worthy of a solid seven. Poitreneau didn't put a foot wrong, and a six underrated him also, Skrela missed a couple of kicks (and was yanked with the shepherd's crook after dropping short the restart when Ireland took the lead in the second half. Could go on.
The massively disappointing thing about this game is that Ireland did enough to win, had the class to win, and I thought they had the professionalism to close the game down. That I was wrong on this last point is the most devastating. Ireland have proved that they are able to compete with the big boys, and are up there in the rankings on merit. Now they need to move up and prove that they can win. Biarritz is a long time ago.
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you gave about 20 players 6. I know you guys get slated for ratings, but surely you could have some courage? I could go on arguing about your ratings for ages, but i feel hickie has been severey underrated at 6, considering he was exceptional in creating o'gara's try and made an intelligent break from his own 22. o'gara was his usual self but not worth as much as a 9, although his defence was very solid today! d'arcy on the other hand looked a mess defensively at 13, which surely suggests the less experienced trimble should have been given the nod with horgan shifted to the wing.
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James Daw
Thanks for showing your ignorance!!!!!!
You are an idiot and that is putting it mildly!!
Game played in Dublin in the Republic of Ireland therefore the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland will be played.
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This must be some kind of joke. Why do people from Britain and Ireland always ignore the French? They played a superb game here today.
When Ireland were in attack, they didn't look remotely threatening. France on the other hand, constantly gave the impression that they were going to cut loose.
I was a completely neutral supporter for this game and thought that the French thoroughly deserved their win, the margin should have been even greater perhaps. How can you have given Chabal 6??! How did D'Arcy get an 8 when he was caught out of position several times? These ratings are so biased as to be worthless.
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I am franch and i will say i very much agree with most unbiased observers to this game, The blu's very much a class above the ireland team and win the game well allthough playing not at home. If have more concern about the English rosbif team who will provide a much greater test i feel and if we fail to better our 2 performances I can see the English team win france after easily beat the ireland team in ireland.
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Spot on 'dude' - Corke Park got the game it deserved even if the result was a complete heartbreak.
At risk of sounding like Eddie we really do have to look for the positives.
Neil Best should have been on from the start - He's truly world class and would have seen off Skrela alot earlier. His turnover was just incredible - a rampaging style that scared the all-blacks last summer and the boks and wallabies in the autumn. He has to be there on 24th to bury Wilkinson.
As for the anthem point James - Amhran na bhFiann is Ireland's anthem, always played in Dublin. Ireland's Call is the IRFU's anthem so both have been played for the past several years now at home ties.
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Walsh proved once again he can't be trusted to referee international matches. The man should be ashamed of himself. Wasn't the only reason Ireland lost of course, but stupid decisions at critical times really change the way a game is going.
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absoluted gutted. why does it take so long for us to get into the game? we seem to always give the french ahead start and then play catch up. Hopefully we can make up for it by beating the english at croker.
As for singing the national anthem of your country I dont see the problem......
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I am not a fan of Hickie but You have no clue about Rugby if you only give Hickie a 6 out of 10 today. He was by far the best back aside from ROG. Give up the reporting, you joker.
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gutted..
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Reply to post 17, No that was not the Irish southern anthem as you referred to it, it is the national anthem of the island of Ireland, Almost half of northern Ireland consider this their national anthem and almost all of the republic of Ireland. So democratically it is the anthem. Where is southern Ireland? Do you mean the Republic of Ireland. If you did, its is kind of ironic that the most northerly point of Ireland is in southern Ireland. Amhran na bhFian in no way insults the unionists people of Northern Ireland. Its is a symble of Irish independence, which we have a right to defend. Its not anti protsestant as alot of people claim. Irelands Call is then played to represent the unionist people united with the rest of Ireland as one international team. I think its a fair reflection of Ireland as a whole.
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As an Irishman,naturally I'm absolutely gutted.To lose a game in such a fashion is hard to take but you must give credit where credit is due.France were the better side over the eighty minutes although the Irish showed great resilience to put themselves in a winning position which they should've seen out.
There was a lot of positives to take out of that performance especially in the 2nd half where I felt we were probrably the better team.David Wallace was immence throughout,so too was Ronan O Gara but I have to question Geordon Murphy's defensive ability at this level.He was exposed for the first French try and although he made up for it with that wonderful try saving block,an international side can ill afford to have such a weakness in their defence.If it is between Murphy and Trimble for a place on the wing,Trimble should get the nod.
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I don't agree with your ratings. They are home biased. French were the best, the irish fought very well, struggle as better as they could but you have to admit that the better side was France. I would conceed the second half to the Irish but they rarely came into our side depsite the beautiful try they scored in the end, mmost of the time unfortunately for them, they didn't suceeded to overpass the french wall cause our defense was superb. French are the favorite for the six nations tournanent now cause our main adversory is out of range now. I sincerely hope to win the English to prove it was not a lucky strike. I do respect the Irish nethertheless cause I like these people. I would have been proud to attend this match so particular for them because the Irish in the whole have to proud of them.
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A game that both sides threw away although France were fortunate enough to pull it back again.
The French should have been ahead by a greater margin at the break if they'd managed to control the ball a bit better and Ireland should have killed the game off by kicking for points - Boss should have just dotted the ball and let O'Gara do his stuff.
Still, on balance it was a fair result as France - despite the panellist's ratings (O'Gara 9? LOL!) - were the better side.
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I was in Croke Park today, and was nearly violently ill when the French went over for a try in the second last minute. I couldn't physically speak for a few minutes afterwards.
So Ireland were desperately unlucky? Well despite a solid second half from the forwards, the bottom line is we just didn't play very well. We might have just done enough to win the match, but we were by no means entitled to a victory against the French. Our kicking was loose again and our passing and possession was error-strewn (how many knock-ons?) We knew, and it had been said all week, that to beat France we would have to play much better than in Cardiff, and not give them an inch. Today, through our own mistakes, we gave them miles.
The first try was ridiculously soft - embarrassing for the Irish defence. Just desperate. The French punished us heavily for the mistakes made off set pieces - nearly all their attacking play originated from loose ball off our own set pieces. You just can't do that against France and get away with it!
So they scored in the second last minute... Well, they had missed 2 kickable penalties and had hit the bar with a drop-goal attempt, so they would have felt pretty hard done by had the result gone our way.
On the other hand, the referee was an idiot for blowing up our advantage prematurely - that would have seen Murphy score a try. I also felt D'Arcy was clearly pulled back while running after that kick that he might well have scored from. Refs can't make these mistakes in a game of such high stakes!
However much that frustrated me, I'm still extremely disappointed in the Irish team. For all that was said about how professional and mature they are as players, the Irish lost concentration and gifted the French that late try. What a schoolboy error... And now everyones completely gutted. Grand Slam gone. Championship gone most likely too. This was not a good day.
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We shouldn't have kicked that last penalty. It should have been put into touch and held onto for the final 2 minutes.
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In reply to 27 Dave.
what does being English or American have anything to do with the outlook on todays game? Neither country were even playing today!
Why would you think that either of these nationalities would have anything against the Irish........ or is this just another example of small minded xenophobia that seems to perforate these blogs. Why cant people just comment on the game itself!!!!
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Like many another poster I am gutted. I am an Irishman who lives in South America, but was lucky enough to see the game live. I think the French dominated the first half, but the second half was a closer contest. There are some selection questions which give me pause for thought. For example, Trimble is a centre, but is never played there by EOS. Neil Best has the potential to turn a game.
On another note, and I suppose I am not really in a position to comment without regular access to Irish and British media, but it seems to me that the only people who were touting Ireland for the Grand Slam were the media. I don't recall any members of the Irish camp saying it was a cert.
Anyway, hopefully we can beat England in 2 weeks, and Italy and Scotland after that to end the tournament with the ability to hold our heads high.
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Come on guys, sportmanship and fair play!
France had a tremendous game in front of the Irish crowd. The got penalised for high tackles, Ireland never gont done, they should have scored a try in the 1st half but an Irish player played the ball on the floor to slow it down and got away with it, our scrum got penalised in the second half when it was obvious Ireland could not resit the strength.
one of the most beautiful games I have watched and a deseverved victory for France who never gave up!
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I am a massive french fan and very pleased with this game result. I repect and feel bad for the ireland but the machine french goes on!The predictons were done by a irish man, No? Allez les bleues
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What Game were you watching....
Again alot of the pressure put on Ireland came from their on mistakes
leamy dropping the ball from a start off which brought france back in to the game just after ireland had got some decent possesion and scored a try, france also had a talking to for giving away 3 penalties in row under irish pressure which should have resulted in a try rather than the 3 points for a penalty
Alot of this anti ROG stuff is because he told some truth about the English League not being that great ..... How Dare He voice his opinion
You have a population of 50+Million you should be in a totally different league to the rest of the home nations
on top of the fact that rugby is the 4th field team sport in Ireland....
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I am not so concerned with the ratings but this was a fantastic match between two teams who played with incredible guts and energy. I really felt for the Irish at the end, they put everything in and were the dominating side with most of the chances in the second half. If anyone was going to take the game and win it I fancied the Irish to do so. But the French did't give up and they are a really talented side. The one lapse on Ireland's part was all it took. With this win under their belts France start to look quite formidable, especially with their home games to come.
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Today might not seem like it, but it was one of the greatest day's in Irish rugby. In previous years when we were hyped up, especially against the French, we were found badly wanting. And in many of our 'epic' victories like Australia and England last year, the opposition was poor. But today we met a raging French team and stood shoulder to shoulder with them. Come September, with our captain back, we will have our revenge and maybe more....
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James Daw should also note that 1/3 of Ulster is actually in the Republic. Most British people seem to think Ulster = Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland is 6 out of the 9 counties of Ulster.
The anthems as played today is always how it is done in Dublin.
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Re post 47
Well said that man, before you start posting stupid messages, go away and learn some history - for a start the national athem of "southern" Ireland as you call it is always played with the recent addition of irelands call also played
as for it being southern ireland, please, i bet you think that Ulster just has 6 counties and not the bits of "southern" ireland as you call it that are more northernly than the north if that isnt too Irish for you
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Sometimes wonder if watched the same game.
Hickie more than 6
Horgan less than 7
O'Gara less than 9
My man of the match Wallace by a country mile
Poitrenaud less than 6 - daren't open his legs like the France of old.
All the french back row plus one. Chabal injury explains why he dropped off the pace a little.
Really sorry for the Irish. Don't hurt us too much in two weeks.....
Was it windy or raining by the way?
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To Peter Lawther, JoeD et al:
"Could Walsh have been more biased... He contributed to the Irish losing this"
"If we were Welsh we would be moaning about the ref.
Steve Walsh is becoming the Darrell Hair of rugby refereeing!"
Peter Lawther, you ARE complaining about the ref. The French got the bounce of the ball but they were also imperious at times and you were lucky to even still be in at half-time.
Last week against the Taffs you got the "bounce of the ball" and the balls of the ref. This week the ref had a bit more balls about hanky panky round the breakdown, made some dodgy decisions BOTH ways, and suddenly it's ok to moan. Irony stings.
Can't wait to have you to Scotland, where you can learn to lose with humility haha!
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France deserved it but great effort by Ireland. Why the niceties, Murphy gets 200k a year and it's a professional sport, ditto Dempsey,if I tackled like that in an under 12's game I'd have been dropped, the first 30mins was as bad a performance as I can remember.
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How do you rate such an atrocious performance by the ref and his linesmen?
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Re post 57
its smallminded and deflects away from a proper analysis of the today's game to say that the criticism of ROG is the result of his comments re the English league.
I thought ROG looked inventive and sharp in his running and distribution but his kicking from hand was not good enough to merit a score of 9. I think most observers of the match would agree with that.
I was also at the 1991 Australia/Ireland world cup game.
As the second half progressed I also began thinking of the Spain/Ireland match in the football world cup in 2002.....its not the dissapointment that hurts... its the hope beforehand..
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Dissapointed in O'Sullivan's comments--claims France were just "lucky." After last weekend against Wales it's a bit rich to bemoan the "bounce of the ball." Have more class man. France were excellent and played the kind of rugby we all want to see.
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France deserved it but great effort by Ireland. Why the niceties, Murphy gets 200k a year and it's a professional sport, ditto Dempsey,if I tackled like that in an under 12's game I'd have been dropped, the first 30mins was as bad a performance as I can remember.
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devastated by that result. gutted. terribly dissapointed by the way we started the match but we grew with confidence as the game went on. I thought O'Gara and Dave Wallace in particular were fantastic. Its really a shame that we just dont realise we can beat these guys until its too late. i think the occasion got to 4/5 of the ireland players and that weakened our performance in the first half. In the autumn when we were excellent, we were being portrayed as a team that now believes we are the best. i think that was propably a little too generous a remark as i dont think all the players feel like that yet. hats off to O'Gara though, i cant remeber the last time he had a bad game. i thought he did well against wales under difficult circumstances
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I think that the scoreline did reflect the match today. France deserved to win, but only just.
Compared to the ratings given yesterday to England's players, I felt that both teams were done harshly. There was far more attacking verve, pace and spirit in the game. Both teams were trying to play what was in front of them, rather than sticking to gameplans. Either England's ratings should have been lower or the Irish and French higher (I'm English).
Also think some of the ratings were a bit strange. Hickie deserved higher, O'Gara lower. The two French props bossed the Irish scrum and should have had at least sevens, and the French back row deserved more as well.
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James Daw it is people like you that try and ruin what was a great day regardless of the result. i thought your comment showed a complete lack of knowledge on the subject. We are not a racist country. english people are very welcome in Ireland. I hope they will attend the game in two weeks time in Croke Park and join in what should be a fantastic game. I also hope that some people from england will come back and watch some GAA games. they are more then welcome too.
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Who win? France...
I dont see that on this rating.
It's a joke, really!
The words are good, win a game is better....
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Irish props scoring the same as the French? Thats just plain silly.
Ireland had one opportunity to score a try and took it-well done, they also took their chances against Wales so they are definitely improving. But other than that they ran up blind alleys in attack and never looked like breaking down solid french defence. and their scrum was outplayed for 90% of the match, unforgiveably so in the first half hour.
marty looked twice the player d'arcy was today-darcy was out of position and out of his depth as a resultmof that. giving him 8 is absurd.
well done france-a thoroughly deserved win, well taken. class usually shows through against enthusiastic but amateurish endeavour in the end .
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Couldn't believe Ireland let France nick the win at the end but les bleu always looked dangerous whenever they had the ball and were the better team for it.
I am gutted we lost AGAIN to the French but will also be in Paris in Sept and who knows maybe we can nick a win back.
It makes me angry to read ignorant comments like 23. Its part of your history too.
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One french point of view:
I don't care about players'ratings or marks, we are not talking about basketball or any other individual sport,
we are talking about rugby, in which only the team spirit is important.
Today, we had a splendid match, with 2 teams I like since a very long time, just because the are 2 real and specific spirits of this game.
Of course I'm french, and I'll say we didn't stole the result, even if the end is very hard for irish people.
But France objectively did the biggest part of the job, and irish scored at the only occasion they had.
Like in every irish match, I've seen a very combative irish team, with good forwards, but I hadn't seen my team playing so well since a very long time, especially during first half, so an other issue would have be unfair.
(We should have score 20 or 25 points at half time, and the end is not so cruel).
But the way ireland came back in second half was good, and so representative of its fighting spirit I like so.
I was afraid we loose afterall, you probably shouldn't have kick the last one, but the result is not so important, we all had a very good match.
Go Ireland, go, I hope you'll defeat England in your beautifull Crok park.
See you in september, and do not forget O'driscoll this time, you'll need him.
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Well done to France for playing the game to the end and hard luck on the Irish lads to lose it at the end.
I felt sorry for the poor referee having such a bad game is this his first (and hopefully his last) international. Then I was told by one much wiser than that he is a seasoned internation referee. The IRB must seriously look at this man and wonder how he was appointed to a game that he was so poorly able to officiate. International Rugby team deserve referees who make the right decision. A lesser man that I, might suggest that the root cause of his poor performance was in fact a cheating mentality. But I would suggest that the cause of it was the desire to extract revenge for what had happened last week in Cardiff.
As an aside, I believe the marks awarded to ROD are way too high. He had a nightmare with his kicks to touch. Also with the decision to kick the penalty 2 minutes from the end. The kick to touch and a line out to follow (while the clock ticked down) would have been a far beter plan.
I, for I am a follower of Gaelic Football vubaoWalsh proved once again he can't be trusted to referee international matches. The man should be ashamed of himself. Wasn't the only reason Ireland lost of course, but stupid decisions at critical times really change the way a game is going
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I'm French , and i wanted to congratulate the Irish team that gave a very fine display today , it was a great game , perhaps the French team was a bit better today , but i'm convinced that the Irish team will bounce back as you have many quality players and a great team when at full strength , we wish you sincerely good luck Irish men ! :-)
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53 DK...
As an Irishman that has been living in England for a while now i can tell you that particularly since 2003/2004 the English have been very anti-Irish when it comes to rugby. They have been living off the back of a fantastic and well deserved world cup triumph and have since constantly been at the throats of the Irish when they enjoy some success! To say the English public (in general) have had nothing against the Irish is rubbish.
As for mentioning 'possibly American' this was simply referring to the fact that the Americans don't play much rugby and so would be less likely to know what they are talking about! I'm so sorry if this offended you!
Also as far as 'reality check' goes, can i point out this is the only game the Irish have lost in a fair while (and by only 3 points to a team ranked 2nd in the world) where as i seem to remember a fair string of bad losses from the English against some very ordinary sides! Having said that, I think the English team has got a far better balance to it these days and expect a very good competitive game in two weeks time.
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The national anthem issue is unclear for the non-irish, as when we go to our home games in Edinburgh, Cardiff, London etc only Ireland's Call is played. If Ireland were ever to play in Belfast would they play God Save the Queen and Ireland's Call together? Genuine question, has it ever happened?
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I am French and a rugby lover. I wathed the match, and had I been Irish I would have of course been gutted, like most Irish fans have; I would have liked the French to beat the English that way, for instance, since the English have always been our arch rivals ! I have travelled in Ireland,and I can assure you this was my best trip ever, the Irish are the friedliest of people.In a way, tonite, I share their disappointment. JP
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France were tactically,technically better in the first half. Ireland really had to dig in its soul to only be trading a couple of points at the break.
The second half was an almost mirrored affair, except that the Irish weren't as dominant as the French in the first half.
France showed great spirit by getting a try at the end of this game, in such a contest.
Irish fans might feel unlucky but with more luck the French should have had the game shut long before they scored that last-minute try.
Being french i can only wish Ireland luck and hope to see such a spirited game in september.
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It is a shame that Irish politics and history keep interfering with discussions of rugby. We all support the same Irish team and are all gutted by the result. Provincial pride says I would like to see greater Ulster representation. Given the realities of Irish history, I know it is hard for us to let stuff go, but let's leave the history and geography lessons where they belong...away from the rugby pitch.
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for those that think ireland were unlucky or "woz robbed" look at the stats: france dominated posession, turnovers, territory and set piece. thats all that needs to be said.
and for those that think Ireland lost because of walsh that won't do either. ireland were lucky to escape being penalised at the scrum - walsh penalised the french for shredding the irish pack at one scrummage!
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Gutted of course. So near and yet so far, but Ireland were the authors of their own misfortune, Can anyone remember France scoring from other than an Irish error? We lacked discipline, failed to perform the basics (securing the restart!!!), looked nervous and for a very long time shapeless. O'Driscoll was badly missed. The juggling of centres didn't work. So much for the negatives. Let's look at France - superbly organised (your ratings are frankly ridiculous, speaking as an Irishman, embarassingly chauvinistic), great talent, great effort. Overall, a draw would have been fair, Ireland, finally and belatedly, remembering how to play,dominating the second half. If you remove the Croker factor, maybe not much between these teams - the World Cup encounter will be fascinating. In the final analysis, however, we lost it through very simply failing to do the basics - even if the restart kick was the best of the match. Great game - after yesterday's crap it restored the faith. Roll on next round!
Denis
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From reading the scores given out here it would appear that are friend here was not one of the 82,000 or so that witnessed the events which unfolded in Dublin today. As an Irish supporter myself I am gutted but I do feel that these scores are somewhat biased. Also to say that John Hayes is still churning out the performances is a crime. Hayes ship sailed long ago. The scrum was not pretty from an Irish point of view and the Bruff man was at fault for both of the French tries by missing key tackles!
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Great post no.78
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"It was luck that really got them across the line at the end of the day." I quote here Eddie O'Sullivan...This late try surely doesn't come from luck, but from a great response of the whole French back line, ending by a great move with Clerc breaking through 3 Irish players.
A great game today, thanks to 2 great teams!
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"It was luck that really got them across the line at the end of the day." I quote here Eddie O'Sullivan...This late try surely doesn't come from luck, but from a great response of the whole French back line, ending by a great move with Clerc breaking through 3 Irish players.
A great game today, thanks to 2 great teams!
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As a Scot with an Irish mother, gutted for the Irish today. Not clinical enough in red zone, but not helped by eccentric refereeing - why pull back interception and how long does an advantage last? French were there for the taking.
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Great match, France deserved to win.Irish player's played their hearts out. Now Eddie know's what he has to do to compete with the big boys. Don't be scared to make a selection change, play the player's that could make a difference.
P.S I urge all Irish fan's not to fall into the Welsh trap of blaming every loss on the referee, or that everybody else cheats. Maybe in SPORT the other team was just better.
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Mr Daws you are a fool.
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jim, ratings are not reflective of the match . o'gara cost the game kicking out of hand continually put us under pressure. not the only one as hickie, dempsey, murphy all guilty of same.
we got out of jail but could not take advantage in second half and our own fault, though steve walsh can NOT hold his head high after failing to allow sufficient advantagae of 3 occasions when irish in ascendancy .. maybe he is having the last laugh !!!
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Amazing tense match both sides had great opportunity but the influence of the referee has to be addressed
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Frog speaking: very good game, any side might have won. The French did, fair enough.
The Irish will be a very tough team to play in the WC, when O'Driscoll returns.
I thoroughly enjoyed the game and think both teams should be congratulated for burnishing the image of a game that has lately turned into a contest of big men struggling with little talent for a small ball one can hardly see in the course of the game.
Three cheers for the fair play of the Irish crowd too: very much in tune with the real spirit of the great game.
Hope you lads thrash the English and win the Triple Crown!
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Post 73,
What game were you watching? You were obviously watching with rose tinted glasses? I think you need a lesson in Rugby and mathematics? 90% Just plain silly!!!
'Amateurish endeavour', can you enlighten me on what or who you are talking about.
Maybe it is the fact that the team you support are in the 'inadequate' category that you need to write such tripe!!
Get over it!!!
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Strange comments on the Irish song - they used to play the Irish National Athem until complete mayhem at an England match when Eric Miller (a southerner) sang God save the Queen & he and all the Ulster players were silent on "Soldier Boys are We" so they have had this selection of neutral offerings to highlight commonalities and not division - if the Irish NA was played today I would assume it was because the Irish Head of State was there..........(a good lady)
Sad Ireland lost but where was the Michael Gibson, Jackie Kyle or other controlling player with a functionning brain ? ? Having done all the hard work Ireland blew it - hope they learn something
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re: post no.39 by Steve
Steve,
When Ireland play Italy at Ravenhill in August will 'God Save the Queen' be played ?
Who's the idiot ?
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I concur with the general comments re your player ratings and I think the thing Steve Walsh should be ashamed of is his refusal to police the offside laws. Serge Betsen appears to be physically incapable of remaining onside in the blitz defence France operate and fair play to him for playing to the ref, but I am amazed that not once was a french player pinged for this offence.
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I feel for Ireland France have a nack of scoring in the last minute. I'm a Scotsman & I remember France scoring in the last mintue against us in RWC 1995. It was awful. But the Triple crown is still there cause I think Ireland can beat England and we cant score tries.
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Ireland need a Michael Gibson, Jackie Kyle, whoever to steer the ship - it's not that bad a ship but it has no rudder at key moments in tight games. Having an O'Driscoll can hide this but he wasn't there today to steal the match like he did against Wales......... and Trimble and Best came too late
Correspondingly Beauxis was the best player on the pitch - if he had played from the start Ireland would have been buried...........
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Although I'm very sad, I still thought France were the better team. France have much more cohesion, more self-belief and more innovative.
We have the players to do it, we just don't have the coach.
We rely too much on individual moments, but even when when we do break away, the support play usually isn't there and we end up throwing wild passes and losing the ball.
We lost a great opportunity to sack O'Sullivan last year, but we're now stuck with until the after World Cup...
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Giving ROG a 9 seems over generous considering his touch kicking was below par for the second weekend running. Okay he scored all Ireland's points and crossed the try line again but think of all the territorial advantage Ireland could have enjoyed if he managed to find touch! Also he could have had an easier conversion if he had touched down more centrally. I don't think anyone on the Irish team played to their potential. Maybe that might be unleashed in two weeks time - now that would be alright !!!
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I feel really sorry for ireland losing in the manner that they did, but as a welshman, I find it hard to take irishmen complaining about refereeing decisions, especially following last week's debacle. I personally though that Steve Walsh had a very good game, although he probably could have given the French a lot more penalties in the scrum, so Ireland can probably count themselves a little lucky there, and given ireland more penalties for unsubtleties on the deck, so neither side particularly profited. With Murphy's try that never was, the ball had passed through 2 sets of French hands before the referee blew his whistle (although it was lightning quick i'll admit), so by the law he should blow up, as he did. Hard luck to Ireland, but I think France deserved their win, and the Grand Slam claims were obviously a bit premature. Here's hoping Ireland stuff england in a fortnight though...and maybe wales can get some revenge for the celts (although not looking likely after the murrayfield shocker).
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pierre from toulouse thanks for your stereotypical gallic arrogance, its one thing to say that france deserved to win today(which they did), but another completely to say that ireland are a poor team that england should easily beat, were you not watching england v. italy? Also i still tip ireland to win the championship with either wales or england doing us a favour and humbling you...see you at the world cup
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Post 90:
How is it a "Welsh" trap? The number of Irish (today) and Scots (against England in the first round of matches) bemoaning ref decisions has been at least as bad, and the Irish whingers today seem to think they even deserved to win but for the ref. At least the Scottish complaint about Wilkinson's "try" was accurate.
When did the 6 Nations become such a whine-fest? Stop being a bunch of ladies and take defeat with some dignity.
PS. I'm a Canadian ex-pat before you make presumptions on my subjectivity.
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ROG - 9, are you kidding me? He couldn't get the ball out to his backs because he was too slow. He couldn't provide any attacking go forward ball from Darcy or Horgan because of his ineffective and lacking attacking game. He really dissapointed me. If he really is the northern hemispheres best outhalf, he needs to develop that part of his game otherwise Ireland will struggle to reach their potential.
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No point in Ratings, we made two huge defensive errors and France got trys from both, game over...as for poster 23 Mr. Daw, who wrote....."Just out of interest - was that the Irish (southern) national anthem. Bit outrageous singing that when there are Ulster players..." .....Tell you what James, go and support England or Wales then or whatever, but for sure look up the definition of Irish, you are not it.
i told you all we would lose.........this game.
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James Daw is ill informed, Ireland play 2 anthems. the first is the national anthem for the part of ireland that they are in and the 2nd "ireland's call" is the rugby anthem because irish rugby is non sectarian and includes all provinces.
just as it will be interesting to hear God save the Queen at Croke Park in 2 weeks it will be even more interesting to see the irish pool mathc in RWC2007 playing at Ravenhill when they should play G.S.T.Q as it is Northern Irealnds anthem !
Nick r
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unlucky 2day lads. disagree with the ratings o gara nt a 9 his kicking from hand was poor. wallace had an amazing game as did d'arcy. wit o driscoll we would have won it as when we had advantage he would have been telling o gara 2 have a drop at goal and even if he missed we still had a pen. really unlucky but lets put on over on the english in 2 weeks!! our revenge on france will come in october at d world cup! cmon ireland!!
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I was at the game and am a big Ireland supporter but your rating of our half-backs is crazy.
How may times did O'Gara miss touch and Boss was so indecisive at the breakdown.
Madness!
p.s. Has Contepomi got an Irish Grannie?
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Re: post.24 by Mark
First and foremost it was the media and rugby pundits who labelled the Irish favourites. In fact O'Sullivan tried to downplay the hype surrounding his teams chances. Furthermore, given their performances during the autumn internationals Ireland were more then dserving of this accolade. They completely outplayed two of the best teams in the Southern hemisphere Australia and South Africa regardless of what team was put out. You can only beat whats in front of you. Admittedly Ireland were not at their best against Wales but you forget that we prevented one of the most inventive back lines from scoring a try whilst scoring three themselves. I think it is you who needs to face reality.
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I suppose France were the better side on the day but I thought that the referee made two crucial bad decisions that may decide this year's 6 nations outcome - not playing the advantage rule for Geordan Murphy to score, and not penalising either one of two infringements which prevented a certain try for Marcus Horan. Please limit Mr. Walsh to refereeing junior rugby in Aukland-the Northern hemisphere deserves better!!!
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1 - That rugby, a gentlemen鈥檚 sport, if you want to criticize referees go on football section.
2 鈥 As every body I think these ratings are unfair
3 鈥 As every body I think Ireland will win against England in 2weeks
4 鈥 But England have could beat France at Twickenham (about 50% if Wilkinson healthy and in a good day)
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Guys....irish guys that is. let these guys have there moment(seems like mostly english but ireckon there's a few welsh in there.)
The only reason people are so critical of a team is when there in awe...when there better than there team...when for so long their team has dominated them but suddenly the limelight is on the other team and the fas can't hack it.
Why would the English be happy in a Irish Defeat?? What good does it do for English Rugby? France have been the dominant force for the last few years and you are still happy for them to win??
Like wales, you want the Irish to lose because the threat that Irish rugby might just be thriving so much and your teams arn't performing. Moan after maon...critism after critism....hey i got an idea...turn those jealous and witty comments to your own team.
The Irish have in no way been arrogant or so confident as to say they were going to win the Grand slam. I defy ANYBODY to come forward with proof that thus was said. Infact, this is not irelands style, but it is england and wales's style...so it does not come as a surprise that the jealousy is rampant...and if it isn't jealousy then what??? what is this hard to take attitude that you cant stand the fact that Ireland are...along with France...the only nations the southern hemisphere rate?
you lot have to learn, look at ireland...gracious in victory as they are in defeat. respecting the team that beat them...no matter what the circumstances. Even tho there might be small arguements asainst the referee...so you see the irish saying this...HELL NO!!
but of course the WElsh...oh yea that lot...they lose and Ireland are cheating. excuse me lads it wasn't cheating...its was beating you at your own game...it was Ireland wising up to the Top international stage of rugby...ENGLAND TAKE NOTE.
England fans that have commented no here...are you freaking kidding me?? do you even watch rugby??
Even tho i do think it fantastic taht you and the welsh seem it great to slag of the irish and put words in there mouths....it can only be described as jealously. you can only DREAM of a team like we have right now. And why cant we irish revel in it...it doesn't come around to often...but the fact that irish rugby overall through the heineken cup...magners league and 6 nations are dominating your teams...you can't take it. ITs laughable...and i love it...i love seeing hte oh so jealous commetns of the english in here and the welsh....you have been in coherts with the americans too long...you think you dominate the world...when by recent performances(even in war) you cant even buy a decent performance.
Support Rugby...support a great game today...not your petty comments like ireland "choked"!!
as for the ratings? as it looks a little flattering for ireland...overall...over the 80 mins..can u say ireland didn't dominate the second half?? we can all talk about the 1st 20 but ireland clawed there way back like any WORLD CLASS team would do.
im am looking forward to ENgland coming to croke park...i hope Ireland are ruthless and show England fans EVERY flaw in you armour. You are about to see the difference in class. but of course even if we win by 50 points you will have excuses!!! wouldnt be england without them.
however i do look forward to the english coming over here...the rugby(not the soccer) fans know how to havea good time. see you for a pint lads.!
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You were watching a different game to me. You gave Ireland 1001 points against France's 96. Were you watching a tape of a previous game or just biased?
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Post 110:
No I don't have an Irish granny. I think any player who scores 17 points in a 6 Nations game deserves praise. Why is everyone so critical of O'Gara? He is the best out half I have played against !!!
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Mr Daws,
From the general consensus in this blog you should be able to figure out who the idiot is. If you struggle I advise you look in the mirror. Then again ignorance is bliss!!
I cannot comment on what anthem they will play in Belfast as I am not sure if that has been decided yet by the IRFU. Anyway this blog is about player rating today and not teaching the ignorant!!
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ALSO..congrats to france...no one can say that you didn't deserve a victory. thank you for competing in a truly classic six nations tie.
as to julien...i hope your not welsh. if wales can critisize the Ref...cant see why ireland supporters cant.
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"Had we lost the match we could not have understood how but we can't understand how we won it either" that's what Imanol Harinordoquy said straight after. It's the kind of match you dont know how to rationalise...u can keep thinking about that last try but u need to look at the whole match and be fair...
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wow listening to the game in my cabin in northern Alaska was great but a Champainship winning team needs to play much better than Ireland have in the last two weeks .I am never fully confident with O Gara but I guess thats what we got .Great game though ,lets move on and finish this thing well
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am a bit disappointed that people wish for a france defeat at twickenham...to wish for anybody to the english is just wrong...and besides it'll only ever happen if they win at Croke Park, so be careful what u wish for :)
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Dear James no 23: In ROI Irish National Anthem played, if Ireland play in the North then historically it was British Nat Anthem. Irelands call is now the 1 anthem for all. As a ROI National and Leinster fan, it was brilliant to see so many Ulstermen in the team today, the Irish Rugby Team would not be the Irish team without them!
I was proud of the Irish Team today, they did not get the rub of the green or the ref no matter how hard they tried,France played very well and it was the most enjoyable rugby match I have seen in years. A true advert for rugby
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Re post 73:
"amateurish"? I take exception on two issues. Few teams in the world will stall a strong french side -especially that started so well - until the final minute. Secondly, the adjective you were probably looking for was "amateur." The"_ish" isn't necessary. Unless it was an ignorant way of conveying that the performance was somewhat professional and somewhat amateur? Although that is a very confused outlook. I apologise for having to pick on your poor choice of wording but it was the substance and not the style that compelled me to..
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That was a world class match! For sure the two best team of the 2007 six nations. I'm impressed by the game and the maturity of the french team. They're doing well in this championship, the coach manages to create a good competition between them.
France deserved to win this afternoon. The ref is not responsible for irish loose. The second half was so intensed. A very well done rugby, very few mistakes, both teams could have killed the match.
Maybe BOD could have changed smth. That's not sure. Ireland remains one of the best team in the world. You've got a very good generation of players. I hope they'll do great in the world cup.
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i just want to make the point that england have not been that bad over the past three years, but results have gone against us, and obviously rugby is a results game! to get jonny back is a huge boost and he is the missing link. any team with a world class experienced 10 can win any game, and england are now back in the bracket. Last year we should have beaten the irish and we only lost because of the allowed horgan try despite his foot being in the first row of the stand! recently ireland have only looked convincing at landsdowne road, so why they got rid of the only place they have proven consistency i dont know! after todays efforts they seemed to miss odriscoll as much as england missed wilkinson. Im confident if england can give robinson try scoring opporunities he will finish them and if ireland give away penalties they will be punished. until the game earlier i thought ireland england would decide who topped the table, now the best back line in europe has been shown not to be so solid and a pack that could usually win enough ball to feed the backs are not up to scratch in the scrum and breakdown! England look like a team who believe they can achieve even when playing poorly! bring on the irish!
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chris 125....your an idiot.
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On the issue of National Anthems it is right that both the Irish Republican anthem and Ireland's Call (to represent north and south) should be sung at home matches in Dublin. If it was in Belfast logic says it would be Ireland's call and an anthem for Northern Ireland (one that would represent both communities). God Save the Queen is not the anthem of Northern Ireland nor is it the anthem of England for that matter, it is the British anthem. The English and the Northern Irish should have their own national anthems just like the Scottish and Welsh have theirs!
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How bias was the commentary? And Ireland is a different country isn'it (yes and that includes the north)? Why shouldn't the commentary be impartial anyhow? Eddie Butler should listen to Richie Benaud.
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Not strictly a rugby comment, but as the subject of anthems keeps coming back...how about this? If memory serves, Barry McGuigan, former world champion boxer, used "Londonderry, or is it Derry, Air," more commonly known as danny Boy when he fought...would that be an acceptable compromise to our oh so divided community in Northern Ireland?
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It's easy to say in hindsight that Ireland shouldn't have kicked the penalty 3 minutes from time. France didn't score a point in the second half until that try in the 2nd last minute so to put 4 points between the teams was a fair call at the time. It was a bad lapse in concentration to concede the try at the end.
I don't think Ireland lacked belief, but they certainly missed the presence of Brian O'Driscoll. With him on the pitch, I think Ireland probably would have won the game.
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A reply to steve and the comments regarding national anthems. Ravenhill is hosting Ireland v Scotland as a warm up to the World cup later this year, though the IRFU will not allow The Queen to be played before kick off. Even though in history it was the norm. Equality between unions should mean if the soldiers song is played in Dublin, The Queen should be played in Belfast. Only fair.
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Credit where it's due, Ireland v France was the best game of the 6 nations so far, and by quite a long way. Ireland missed Stringer and O'Driscoll badly today, however I don't think they would have won, even had both been fit to play. Ireland went to sleep when they went 4 points up with 77 minutes gone, which a team that aspires to win the world cup should never do. The result of this is unquestionable, England will demolish a deflated Irish team on the 24th, and continue croke park's 100% record, then convincingly beat France at HQ. There is only one team from the northern hemisphere that can compete at France '07, and that is the current, and defending, world champions. And come the end of March, the, once again, 6 nations, grand slam champoions!
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easterbuy had a shocker, went missing from the game, showing no presence in the face of a physical french side. neil best was great when he came on and o'sullivan needs to pick up on these things earlier. best's influence was noticeable but too late. horgan looked out of place at centre, struggling to deal with the french blitz and refused to sit a bit deeper. murphy threw a few suspect passes and lacks the physical threat that trimble offers.
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We can all go on about how unlucky Ireland were, about Horan's jersey getting tugged and what if BOD had played until we're blue in the face but on the balance of play Frnace deserved to win. Ireland are still incapable of starting well and taking the initiative in a game especially against the French - remember our last World Cup encounter when we only started to play when France were out of sight, after failing to close out a game we should have won against the Aussies.
We are still making too many mistakes, kicks weren't reaching touch allowing France to run back at us, Murphy misses two tackles leading to the Ibanez try, another defensive mismatch costs us dearly for the try at the end and our re-start work also needs serious attention. Plus alot of players simply aren't performing at the same level they were during the Autumn internationals.
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Hi I'm Irish. I was really disappointed with the result and the final two minutes of Irish play. I had to re-watch the game again tonight to fully examine the course of play. Firstly I think the ref Walsh had a good game, initially watching the game live I thought Walsh made three bad decisions that could have effected the result of the game but watching it again in the cold light of day all his were valid even though he was unsighted for the Horan incident. Secondly France were superb a great performance and I thought their backrow were excellent winning clean ball at the breakdown. France should have been out of sight at half time that is with out question but fair play to the Irish defense for holding firm (Like in Cardiff) in the second quarter. It most be said that Ireland didn鈥檛 have any real threatening line breakers besides, D鈥橝rcy and Wallace and that was in the opposite to France were every player posed to be a line breaker. I thought France had the upper hand in the scrum and Ireland were lucky not to concede more penalties in that area. Playing Horgan at first center at was a disaster, you need a great fast pair of hands there and I felt Horgans鈥 passing was laborious and at times very telegraphed. I鈥檓 a great fan of Easterby but he had an unaually bad game by him standards today. Best when he came on really gave so that little more grunt in that postion. Boss really did quite well for the amount of international game he has had. He really stepped up in a big way I thought.
One previous post referrers to Irelands amateur display and I found that with two aspcts of there game 1. Once they kicked to touch their wingers never pushed up to prevent a quick line out, it was like a sevens game with the amount of quick throws taken, Ireland should have copped on after the first one, It鈥檚 really schoolboy stuff. 2. The restarts are way to deep not only do they give time and passion away but the French back row loved to run in those situations.
All in all well done to France on a great win, I thought we had done enough but in hindsight it would be unfair to deny France the win. It was great for the 6Nations and proves France and Ireland are miles ahead of the other four who played decade old rugby yesterday.
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was lucky to see the game on french tv in the caribbean..
to sum up, if ireland had won today it would have been robbery.
basics were terrible. lineouts (sorry leamy should not be jumping he is too short) but the killer was irelands kicking game. how many times did o gara, dempsey or hickie miss touch or kick aimlessly, whereupon poitrenaud put it right back with interest. this was irelands problem against wales and it wasnt corrected. inexcusable. i dont like to be negative but this ireland team will never be able to make that next step up with o gara at 10. paddy wallace needs a run against the scots.
in hindsight eos got a number of selection calls wrong today.
players shuold have been selected in their regular positions, murphy 15, horgan 14, trimble 13, darc 12.
i hope he bites the bullet against eng.
i was happy with boss today but the backs lay too flat off his step pass and had no space. bod badly missed darcy was well shackled. horgan is good at the offload but nobody ran off his shoulder
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Murphy needs to be dropped, Ireland would have won Grand Slam last year had he not gifted France 3 tries. With BOD Ireland would have won today, thoght Boss was very good strong defensively and is a threat around fringes. Dempsey is not up to imternational standard, O'Sullivan needs to give Kearney a chance.
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As a neutral (though with an Irish grandmother) viewing from Hong Kong, I felt very sorry for Ireland for I really thought this would be their year and their chance for the pinnacle of the Grand Slam - and it would only be their second following the famous Jackie Kyle team which won back to back triple crowns.
Although one felt France had the pedigree class to always be dangerous match winners,Ireland in fact controlled 70% of the game, and one would have thought, put it to bed with O'Gara's (a great game) 77th. minute penalty. But against a side like France you cannot be safe with just a four point lead, and Clerk took his try in World class fashion.
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Thought Irelands forward play was excellent, Chebal got run ragged in the second half. Very unlucky!
England will need to improve massivly to have any chance against either Ireland or France from yesterdays evidence.
Can't see past a French grand slam at the moment though!
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Jim Stokes .. a pity you did not rate Steve Walsh .. as a neutral I gave him a 5 for an International ref., as he made several bad decisions and they effected both sides . The game was excellent and in the end the best team won .
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In fairness, I thought France were worthy victors. They are improving steadily and could be a good bet for the WC. NZers might not have the easy run of it this fall as everyone is expecting.
The Irish backs looked really poor without BOD. Murphy and D'arcy were playing out of position which did not help matters. BOD makes a huge differnce to this backline and gives the other players space. I have no doubt that we would have won this one with him. Irish tactical kicking was awful. N Best made a huge difference when he came on. I Boss had a solid if not brilliant game. Murphy can't defend and should be dropped. Unfortunately Trimle looks a little out of his depth at this level. As you would expect of a country with a small rugby playing population, the Irish team's biggest problem is the lack of depth on the bench.
Referee was terrible. His poor decisions hurt Ireland more but he also hurt France on a couple of occasions. Where do they get these guys?
This defeat is a bitter pill for Ireland but it is probably also a wakeup call that we need some new options when key players are unavailable. Keep players in their regular positions. We also need to keep our focus for the full 80 if we want to run with the big boys. How do you not gather the kickoff and stuff up your jersey for the last 2 mins. Hopefully lesson learned and congrats to the French. Classy team.
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Anthony at No. 132 obviously did not witness his team's miserable performance against Italy AT HOME on Saturday. Ok, they played well against Scotland but erm, how much can one team rely on the performance on one person, my namesake Jonny!? He plays well, England play well. He play's terrible, England play terrible! He's not in the team for 3 years, England are non-existent for 3 years. I'm not saying England are a one man team because they do have a lot of strong players in their squad but......
We played terrible against France and still came close to beating a very tough French team. Yes, we had home advantage but sometimes having home advantage can go against you!! I would say that we played better against the Welsh but I think that the prospect of beating England at Croke Park will be enough incentive for Ireland to give an improved performance in two weeks time!!
If England perform against France / Ireland like they performed against Italy, they will have no chance.
Ireland to go on and win all of their remaining games, France to go on and win the Grand Slam AGAIN, and England to lose against Ireland and France.
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Sorry Ireland, I really hope you get the revenge you deserve against England. But you've got to give it to Les Bleus, often dismissed as "aging","inconsistent" etc... in the UK media before the tournament.
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If you are going to comment on both sides performances, then you need to watch both teams equally. It's fairly obvious from this marking that the author only had eyes for one team, and is struggling to know what to say about the other.
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Well, the presure is now off, if we had beaten France and went on to win the Grand Slam the expectations for the World Cup may well have engulfed and frozen the team (as seen in the first 20mins yesterday). France will now be the favourites in our group and I for one feel alot more comfortable with that. However, bring on England, can't wait!!
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Although France won, (I'm French) I think the ref WAS terrible, so you can't say I'm looking for excuses. He let advantage go on forever, he doesn't seem to understand that a player on the side of a ruck is not necessarily going in from the side, then there was that shirt holding by a French player, that was blatant enough, and also other mistakes penalising France too.
Most importantly the match was really entertaining/nail-biting, and good luck to Ireland vs the Rose, if England play like they did vs Italy, it should be a stroll, pints of Murphy's while running with the ball easy.
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Total home bias, Ireland may have shaded the 2nd half but were totally outplayed in the 1st, with the half time score flattering them. How can O'Sullivan say that Ireland were beaten by the bounce of the ball. Wrong Eddie, you were beaten by a .....better side. When will people learn to never write the French off. They were given no chance in this championship after being destroyed by the All Blacks (head and shoulders,the best team in the world).
Oh yes Eddie, Grand Slams are won on the pitch not with words before the kick off
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Cathal (135) has posted the most balanced and objective analysis of what happened on the pitch. Too many other people seem to think this is some sort of political slanging match rather than a rugby blog. I was gutted that Ireland lost, particularly in the way that the defence seemed half-asleep when it was obvious that France had to take a massive gamble in order, first, to secure possession from the re-start and then stretch the defence enough to be able to score a try. For me this said much about the attitude of the two teams on the day. I thought the Irish team were too frenetic and individuals made poor decisions too frequently whereas the French team seemed composed even when Ireland was really battering its defence in the second half. I wonder how much the emotion of playing at Croke Park was responsible for this: the singing of the various anthems before kick-off was spine-tingling, but, perhaps, counter-productive. Fire in the belly alone will not win championships which is why I was so impressed by France (though the analysis of the match that preceded this whole debate is too myopic to give credit where it's due). Laporte is forging a team that is well-balanced, hard in the contact areas and imaginative in attack based on a pack that does the dirty work with steely determination. For Ireland to succeed, it needs the same sort of platform, but too many of the forwards are not on their game and come the autumn, if they don't sharpen up their act, the best centre pairing in world rugby won't be able to keep the team in the competition.
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Well....it was a very interesting game to say the least. Obviously not very happy with the final score!! We were so close to winning! But France did do very well, played a good game! Let hope there's victory at the Ireland v England game at Croke park!!
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So the debate was Croke park or Choke park? I think we now knowe the answer. Overall I think the French were the better side and should have finished off teh Irish in the first half but due to missed kicks and lucky defending they missed out.
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Some French perspective - in the second half we lost control of the game but it was good to see them showing resilient and organised defence once again. Even Laporte's enemies must admit that under him (and Dave Ellis) the defence has usually been outstanding in the last 4 years and has won us some big matches, for example at Twickenham 2 years ago.
Also with the selection, I congratulate Laporte on picking Marty who showed some exciting running - he's probably only 3rd choice outside centre behind Fritz and (when fit) Baby. Also Mignoni has been better this tournament than I ever expected he would be.
It's strange for French supporters at the moment because we really have no idea who will be playing in the middle of the team in our own world cup. If everyone was fit and on best form (some hope!) I would like to see:
6 - Martin
7 - Nyanga
8 - Vermeulen
9 - Elissalde
10 - Michalak
- but only God knows what Laporte is gonna do.
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Ratings seem to indicate Green tinted spectacles. The sort of attitude that will do us no good for the future. Over all Darcy was MOM in my books. Rating O Gara 9 presumably ignores some poor tactical kicking and a loss of memory in how to use a grugger kick to a rush defence. Back 3 (backs and forwards) needs to be looked at as nowhere near the standard of last year. Neil Best deserves a full match, Flannery to return and would like to see Boss stay for a game or 2 but must be quicker.
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Every Irishman in the country must of been proud of the way there team battled in the second half, its was a fantastic game of rugby where no team deserved to loose, other coaches should take note, that was Rugby Entertaining thrilling & pure agrestion at its best, which kept you on the end of your seat or barstool to the end!
The winner yes the Fans of both nations many stories to tell, comments to make, but must of all they knew they had witnessed a game of class today.
A Good days Rugby and both sets of fans leaving the game proud of what they saw!
And Like Max Boyce use to say "I was There"
PS I live in France and could go to see Wales play in two weeks, but why should I they never came to see me when I was Bad!
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You should have given O'Sullivan a score for the game. It seems to me that picking a winger in the centre was the crux of the problems compounded by a full back playing on the wing. Pick the players in their natural positions thats where they are stronger and more confident.
A crucial part of the team out of position is constantly perplexed by decisions, this showed in the defence and the lack of drift and cover as the french expanded their game.
O'Sullivan is also guilty of not recognising the need for change soon enough. He always makes a similar substitution as his opening gambit, it never seems to be a game altering decision but more of a buddy system, Rory Best was making a contribution much greater than that of Easterby or Murphy or Horgan. Yet those decisions were the second bite at the apple.
O'Sullivan for poor decision making and poor responses to problem areas , I give you a 3
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O' Sullivan..........always gracious in defeat! Now it was only luck his team lost! He needs to accept that from his first two performances, his team are not a grand slam or championship winning side! Maybe he could swallow some pride some day and congratulate the opposition on a good game and a good performance...........im not holding my breath though!
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Ifs and buts. The Irish threw it away. But the French were the better side over-all.
O'Gara had a very mixed game. Some brilliance, some rubbish. His line kicking was schoolboy at times. More seven out of ten than nine.
The Irish midfield was a shambles early on. There was no pressing and the French backs could run the ball wide with ease which led to their first try.
The Irish pack were magnificent in the second half.
Both sides looked vulnerable to the rolling maul. That looks the best way to beat France.
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The French were magnificent and they coped with the pressure right from the start. They were not intimidated in any way by the crowd or the occasion. They should have been at least 2 tries ahead at half time and this is what gave Ireland the hope to resurrect themselves in the 2nd half. This Irish team is far from complete and the preparations for the WC look very poor. Ireland have little in terms of depth in the side and if key players are injured they will struggle big time. ODriscoll would have made a huge difference but not enough I think to win the game. AT least 3 of the French players should have got a 9 and David Wallaces performance deserved a 10 !!! The hype is over and if Ireland are going to make any impact in the WC we may need a new manager who is tactically astute and can read and plan for the way the likes of Wales and France will play. The Irish players looked totally confused agaisnt Wales and France in the first 20 minutes of each game. Its as if they had no idea what to expect. This has to be the coaches fault. Same thing happened in Paris last year. The Irish team look like a fox caught in the headlights .. make Wallace Captain he looks like the only one who can cope with the tactics that the Irish face. France well deserved the win and what a superb final try under the most extreme pressure,
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I'm sorry but in the first half France screwed up, had they kept up the pressure for an extra fifteen minutes, they would have annihilated Ireland. 13-3 up and they should have extended that to about 20-3, they were up and away far better than the half time 13-11 scoreline, Ireland you are claiming it was injustice, but I thought comparing the overall performance, France showed more flair and fighting spirit. At times they were brilliant. France at full pelt are a hell of alot better than Ireland
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Ifs and buts. The Irish threw it away. But the French were the better side over-all.
O'Gara had a very mixed game. Some brilliance, some rubbish. His line kicking was schoolboy at times. More seven out of ten than nine.
The Irish midfield was a shambles early on. There was no pressing and the French backs could run the ball wide with ease which led to their first try.
The Irish pack were magnificent in the second half.
Both sides looked vulnerable to the rolling maul. That looks the best way to beat France.
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Well wat can i say. I am truly gutted for the irish boys as this game was so close. We started the match really poor and should have counted our blessings at half time. Second half was controlled by Ireland but I have to say that D'Arcy looked extremely uncomfortable in that position. I know a team doesn't rely on one person alone but the irish certainly missed the presence of O'Driscoll. Can't take it away from the French (although i would like to!!) but they did play well and it was a brilliant try to secure their win. I'll still support the irish till the death and look forward to the encounter with England!
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As posted on many comments, I think you've been slightly biased in your ratings.
France should have been at least 10 points up at half time time.
Darcy was worthy of his marks but how you give O'Gara 9 I don't know. Yes he did score all of your points but apart from that he was pretty unconvincing.
Best team won on the day I'm afraid.
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Oh please!
It was a really good game and the Irish lost, 20 years ago they'd have been happy to have got that close.
Next game is England, so Ireland will lose again and ruin all the pre six nations prognostics.
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To respond to 114 - hang on, I am English and wanted the Irish to win. I enjoy the way they play and the defence is high quality, remember you're ranked higher than the SpringBoks and 'Roos. Believe me, I was gutted that it didn't go your way. I don't want France to win a 3rd Championship in 4 years, but now there isn't really a team left to stop them. You will out gun England at Croke and France will do the same at Twickenham I'm afraid. England have little time left to build momentum before the WC. The shoe's on the other foot now isn't it.
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Neither team "dominated". Over the course of the 80 minutes they were probably about equal.
Don't forget that in Horan incident - he still made it to the ball and had the opportunity to pick it up but he knocked it forward. You can't really complain about what might have happened on the way there if he still gets there and then makes the mistake himself.
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Firstly, stand up Mr. Jenkins and take a great big Welsh bow, happy now? Mr. Walsh successfully "got us".
As far as previous comments go, explain to me how France should have been out of sight in the 1st half and were the dominant force in the whole game? Does defence not mean anything anymore? As far as I can remember we leaked a try and the French had only one other serious attempt at the line in 78 minutes of this game. Ireland were leading by 4 points after 78 minutes, had a perfectly good try disallowed and somehow, several advantage calls disappeared into thin air. Is it a case now were u only get advantage if you kick straight to touch or foul the ball yourself? Might sound like sour grapes and it probably is but after the comments made by Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Walsh in the lead up to this match, it smells a little off. (I must commend Eddie O'Sullivan on his post match comments, sporting and magnanimous as ever)
Well done to the French, as sporting as ever in victory and defeat, I really enjoyed the weekend in your company and look forward to you returning the favour in a few months time when we meet again.
Although I am left feeling gutted and despondent, I am cheered by the prospect of listening to "Amhr谩n na bhFiann" or "the soldiers song" as some of our less educated contributors have called it, before beating the English in two weeks time, as a point of note, the IRFU (the islands singular rugby body) swears no allegiance to your country or crown.
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I have followed Irish rugby since I was 7 (when Ireland last won the championship) but as you can imagine given that I am in my late twenties for most of my rugby watching life we have been terrible-often the whipping boys of the five nations. Suddenly hope arrives in the alst few years and this year - this was the year. Well I am gutted feel despondent and feel like I have been punched in the stomach.
I thought from 20 mins we were better than France but like Wales last week, we didn't take our chances. France threatened our line twice and scored twice. We had several try scoring chances including the interception but scored one try. I too think we should have kicked for the corner on the last penalty and wound the clock down. I thought ROG was def man of match and def better than Skrela. I think Poitrenaud's kicking made France look better than they were. I think the absence of BOD's leadership and Stringer's head lost us the match. ROG's performance was something to take away. For the record I thought Steve Walsh was excellent referee.
I am still hoping to be crowned 6 nations champions and, whilst I do not begrudge France their win I am looking forward to taking my seat in Stade de France in September with my French friends to witness sweet revenge.
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The points are a little over-rated and somewhat biased, and would agree with a number of posts saying O'Gara's is way too high (6/7 seems about right to me). Skrela's is however also about right, oroptimistic even, I was amazed he wasn't dragged off and replaced by Yachvili in the first half let alone the second or not at all as transpired. However the scores are pretty on the button for a team that went ten points up and then did not score a point in almost 65 minutes, very nearly lose the game, and then rely on a wickedly opportunistic response to some overexuberance and lost concentration from their hapless oponents. Not as big a gap given away at the start as in 2006, but same outcome, Ireland - head in hands and the ultimate dream burst, French crusing along.
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Totally gutted :-(
If any team give the French a 20min possession head start before getting stuck in, they deserve to loose - but as so many of you have said, "look at the positives" 鈥 it didn鈥檛 rain!
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I do not know how you can give O'Gara a 9 - his place kicking was excellent but his kicking out of hand was awful - he kicked aimlessly down the park frequently; some of the backs playing in the schools cup at the weekend would have kicked better!!!
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Blogger Dave #53. The reference to English or American I think was to identify that both countries have an overtly pompous attitude of superiority. England beat Scotland & you had the majority of English bloggers claiming the 6 nations & WC were now England's for the taking. Biased 91热爆 broadcasting also makes the rest of BRITAIN sick. JW this & England that all the time. Inverdale had the ignorance on Sat to say that there wasn't just one team playing. However, we must have had about 15-20 mins drivel about England & 5 mins review of their opponents Italy!!!
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Great game but a significant factor for me was the amount of space between the touchline and the advertising hoardings in Croke Park. France took so many quick lineouts from O'Garas kicks which worked to their advantage. That happened much less at Landsdowne as the ball would be in the stand. Lets move the hoardings closer to the line for the England match so that they can't take the quick throw in as easily and give the Irish forwards a bit of well deserved rest!
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Its a bit rich for EOS to bemoan luck and not to mention a touch arrogant.Ireland were lucky to still be in the game at half time as you cant equate for 2 bad penalty misses from Skrela and the French cocking up a huge overlap.Ireland huffed and puffed in the second half but never looked like scoring any more tries.EOS should take a leaf out of Brian Ashtons book and admit defeat in this case was his fault and down largely to his buddy act with certain players.With O'Driscoll out,it was obsvious to pick Trimble and leave Horgan on his wing.Minimum disruption I think.But no ,he continues with the limited Dempsey and shuffles players all over the place,causing D'arcy to look out of place, Horgan to look like what he is, a winger in the centre and leaving Trimble to keep warm on the bench.Luck, Eddie sometimes is of your own making and you used yours up in Cardiff!!!!!!.Finally to those of you carping on about Walsh he was ok ,well as good as he ever is.Murphy was playing to the crowd with the intercept as the whistle was long gone and he knew it and yes,he didn't play a long advantage but it had no bearing on anything.Like you Irish said to the Welsh last week just take your beating,you just weren't good enough to-day......are you listening Eddie!!!
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Hi, I have just about recovered my voice after the celebrations of yesterday. It was an amazing game and I don't think we have seen many that good in recent years for the 6N. Congratulations to both team that gave everything for 80+ minutes.
I felt very sorry for my Irish friends as the Irish team was very solid.
France had a dream start, stealing irish balls at lineout, scrums and in broken play. Our backs were superior and had better angles.
Ireland came back and had better possession but I feel, didn't use the ball well enough with their backs and hit the French wall. They only threatened with long range kicks. That's where the difference was yesterday I think.
Was very worried 20 minutes from the end as I thought that physically the french players would drop as they have a busier season, but Laporte had a good coaching, and we have depth in the team.
Thought Skrela was very good for his 2nd selection this year and in particular his field kicking and in defence (maybe offside once or twice though.. ;-)). I would rate him at leat 7 as one of his penalty was a difficult one. 9 for ROG is generous. Wallace was terrific again and it was nice to see a new scrum-half.
The world cup game is going to be awesome!
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Great open match from two teally good teams but I think a neutral should be giving player ratings - somewhat Irish bias me thinks. Scores should be lowered for players not concentrating beyond 78mins.
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Im not quite sure but I thought that if a defending team committed 3 or more fouls within the 5metre line that a penalty try should be awarded? Now Im convinced I saw the french do this in the first half and the ref just issued a warning to their captain?
I think after the ref's comments earlier in the week he was convinced not to let ireland get away with anything and so was more lenient on the french-obstruction after kick throughs-I saw on 2 occasions.Illegally bringing down a maul. Maybe Im just biased.
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I think that was a very exciting, well fought match between two well matched sides. It could have gone either way and I don't think anyone can complain about the result. As an Irish fan, it's so good to have a team to support which is exciting, competetive and very watchable. Gone are the days when we relied on penalties to win matches - now we score tries and good ones.
Fair play to the French - they played very well.
Roll on Saturday week - I can't wait for another chance in croker.
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Great open match from two teally good teams but I think a neutral should be giving player ratings - somewhat Irish bias me thinks. Scores should be lowered for players not concentrating beyond 78mins.
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Like many a fellow Irishman today I'm absolutely gutted! I also believe that the ratings given to the Irish team are a little too generous, and it looks like you have gotten carried away with the sense of occasion that was generated at Croke Park yesterday. Ireland will however need to pick themselves up and more importantly learn from this and I think O Sullivan needs to take some issues on board and take on some actions for the rest of the tournament:
- replace Easterby with Best (more mobile and aggressive)
- not tinker with team but replace an injured player with a direct replacement (BOD injured SO replace BOD with a direct replacement at 13!!!) Eddie puts a winger at 12 (Horgan) and a 12 (Darcy) at 13!!!! - balance throughout was all wrong)
- Use 4 and 5 as main lineout jumpers - why use Leamy 1,90m and Wallace 1,88m??? Is Mal O kelly a loss???
- Create a game plan for the 1st 15mins which focuses on a mistake free approach! (We have got to get over this "give the opposition the first 20 minutes of the game" approach!)
As for the controversy over anthems, etc.. Looking at the players faces yesterday, and hearing the words of "Ireland's Call" booming out from the stands, one could not help but feel moved. It is without question one of the more emotional moments I can remember at an Irish supporting event, and hinted that there could be a sense of union between players and supporters that hasn't been there before. Right now you feel that all rugby supporters on the Island of Ireland are proud to have a team which can ignite their passions and make us all proud to be Irish under whatever guise that is. This is the way forward for our Island - encountering a common ground and allowing us to unite and wade in behind it. Well done to the IRFU for showing the way. Wouldn't it be great to see the F.A.I and the Irish F.A., as well as the political institutions of both parts of the Island take a leaf out of their book and promote similar harmony???
Let's look at the positives and move forward and not have anymore remarks about inappropriate anthems at inappropriate venues.
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Murphy was awful, whatever tricks pundits claim he has up his sleeve do not compensate for the fact that he is a defensive liability, i know for a fact one of his under-age coaches once described him as "porous", nothing has changed, the "mercurial" tag is a joke, unless mercurial means "cant/wont tackle"...(another fine murphy miss can be seen during the lions 3rd test, turnstile murphy ushering conrad smith to the line...)trimble cant kick but he wouldve made that tackle and is far more dynamic
dempsey deserves higher as does hickie who looked very sharp. the general standard of tactical kicking was poor and ogara deserves a 6 in this regard. though horgan's hands were poor at times, missed odriscoll more than i thought we would. gutting end to a good game, one lapse at the worst possible time cost us dear
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I would like you guys to tell me how by having only one player rated 8 and all the overs on 6 or below, France still managed to beat Ireland having ratings significantly higher.
What does it tell me? France even if palying average can still beat Ireland on their own pitch and with probably their best team for a while. I am shocked, at one stage you have to be objective and give the players what they disserve. France dominated most of the game, where is the credit for this? Anyway I am glad that with a team full of players who hardly played abive average we still managed to defeat one of the world top 3 team.
Maybe the 91热爆 should look for some rugby specialist because we obviously didn't see the same game.
And I am sure that a 5 out 10 rating will be anough to beat England at Twickenham, I know that you guys hate the Frenchies winning but for god sake at least accept that someone has been better than you.
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As an (English) neutral, I really enjoyed the game at Croke Park as a spectacle. The effort and endeavour by both teams were magnificent but, apart from the odd flash of brilliance, the rugby skills levels weren't that impressive. (Missed touch kicks, unforced knock-ons, unseen overlaps etc)
It was hard on Ireland to lose in the last couple of minutes but they should consider themselves lucky to have still been in touch at halftime. The French spurned at least one golden try scoring opportunity and an excellent 'read' by Geordan Murphy stopped another certain score - and they missed two relatively straightforward penalties.
I'm still not convinced by Ronan O'Gara as a stand-off, although he kicks his goals. Decision making and tactical kicking are variable to say the least.
An enjoyable game for the neutral but nothing there to frighten the Southern Hemisphere from either side. England will have to improve to compete in two week's time but beating us won't make up for Ireland not winning yet another Grand Slam. The Triple Crown shouldn't be beyond them if their heads are right after Sunday.
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Totally gutted at the end but France deserved their win. They dominated the first half, had Ireland rattled on several occasions, and should have had a bigger lead at the changeover. Ireland came back well in the second period, and should have maybe taken more points but they were never really controlled when they had the ball in the attacking 3rd. France rode the storm and did a professional away-team job, maybe being a little fortunate that Ireland seemed to switch off thinking the game was in the bag. Hopefully this is a lesson learned by the Irish; bring on the Triple Crown and the world cup!
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Gutted Irish Fan.
Again Ireland failed to live up to potential and demonstrate the form of the Autumn when needed. Some great performances (Wallace especially) but the team failed against a superior French outfit.
Rog a 9? - NOT.
Roll on Super Sat - Ireland unshackled from expectation & smarting while England needing to re-establish their credibility after Italy.
Bring it on.
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I'm an England fan with a soft spot for Ireland (I'm about 3% Irish!). I've been to Croke Park and learned a bit about the history of the GAA, Hill 16 and 1920. It was great to see Rugby played there yesterday, and the atmosphere came over the tv as magnificent. I will have to get over for a game - can anybody give me an idea of how easy it is to get tix? Has the one-legged tout I brought tix off at Lansdowne moved north of the Liffey? ;-)
I'm afraid we aren't taught much about Irish history over here, that may explain one or two comments that Irish fans perceive as ignorant.
Ireland should really have closed the game out, but it shows what a class team France still are, and how they have been overlooked this year.
I hope for a great game in two weeks, hopefully as good as 2003 with a similar outcome! I also hope this silly nationalistic squabbling will come to an end - Rugby is above it.
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just replyin to all this controversy on anthems. Ulster is a nine county province, not the six as expoused here, and if the demographics are checked it will show that there is a majority, even if only 13,000 people, that would consider amhran na bhfiann to be their national anthem so this solves the problem of what should be played in ravenhill if we are going to be politically correct about it.
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Great open match from two really good teams but I think a neutral should be giving player ratings - somewhat Irish bias me tinks. Scores should be lowered for certain players not concentrating beyond 78mins and losing the game.
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As an Englishman and a true rugby fan I have to say that the Irish boys deserved to win on Sunday but you have to give credit to the French, they never gave up and when you go 4 points clear with 2 mins to go you really shouldnt be so slack at the restart. Best game of the weekend by far. on a personal note come on England what are you doing!!
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To be honest you can't really lay the blame with the players, though several did have below par performances, but this was also symtomatic of last weekend in Wales.
The blame for another huge disappointment for the Irish rugby public lies firmly at the door of Eddie O'Sullivan for his cras stupidity, stuborness and poor tactical judgement.
To begin with I would have questioned his selection of the team prior to the Welsh game were he left out, what I thought was a key player for our sucesses in the autumn internationals. O'Sullivans reasoning of (Playing in Wales experience!) for including Simon Easterby in the starting line-up ahead of Neil Best was pathetic to say the least considering Neil Best was arguably the performer and find of the autumn internationals for his abrasive, robust and intense performances. (We sorely missed this kind of play yesterday against France and were unfortunately only treated to this type of agressive play at the rucks from Ireland from about the 63rd minute! which led to us getting the penalty to put us on 17 points).
O'sullivan has also failed to use his squad effectively and wisely in todays modern hard hitting game. I cannot remember the last time or if ever O'sullivan has used his full compliment of substitutions.
Against Wales he yet again allowed key players to continue with bad knocks which are likely to be exaggerated by an extended period on the pitch.
I recognise theat he may be keen to keep key players such as BOD on the pitch in close games, but this can't be to the cost of the overall team. He has to have some confidence in the depth of his squad which he appears to not have. This does not bode well for the future or the World cup and yet again indicates to me that O'sullivan will not rotate his squad during pool games an will result in burnout as we witnesed in the last world cup when ireland were blown away by france in the 1st twenty minutes.
Another poor decision was the selection of Horgan at inside centre. In my opinion he should not have started in the 1st place coming back from injury, so he would be lacking in fitness and match sharpness which we clearly witnessed. It was even worse that he played at inside centre which served only to slow the ball down even further. The quick witted,skillful powerful darcy should have been played at inside centre and with trimble running off him on the outside . How many times may I ask have you seen Andrew Trimble scoring by coming on to the ball from pace off his inside man? You will find quite a lot!
The obvious choice should EOS decided he wanted Horgan back into the team would have been to play him on the wing or bring him on from the bench in the later stages to apply his finishing strength to a weakened and tired defence.
But unfortunately this did not happen and we are left with yet another dissapointment.
Just when is somebody going to stand up and say that Eddie O'Sullivan is a bad man manager who has had the fortune to be blessed with talented world class players such as BOD, Darcy and O'Connell.
O'sullivan must bear the responsibility for yet again causing so much disappointment!
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The French ratings do not match up to the comments made. 6's for most? I thought France played a great game away from home and this report is clearly pro Irish! Give credit where its due. Only 7 for clerc? 6 for Betsen did you see his work rate and tackle count? 8 for D' Arcy who got skinned on the outside on several occasions? David Marty was clearly better than Horgan and yet Horgan gets a better rating? Bad luck for Ireland who played well but when all said and done they choked at the vital moment and lost the game! That is how a players performance should be judged. First quater of French domination has clearly been forgotten.
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Gutted about the defeat. It's very hard to take. I thought we were lucky to be only 2 points down at half time but the 2nd half was a vast improvement. Murphy should have stopped Ibanez for his try in the first half but I can't work out why Steve Walsh didn't play advantage hen Murphy broke away in the 2nd half. That's not to take anything away from France though. They showed tremendous bottle to come back and claim the win in the end. They are nailed on to win the grand slam now because judging by the other 2 weekend games I can't see Scotland, England or Wales beating them. We will have to at least regain the triple crown and hope France suffer a major upset!!
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i think this is a little unfair to the french as they did dominate the 1st half and as always had lapses in concentration as they always do, fair play to ireland in the 2nd half but to give higher rating to ireland is just typical of this country the commentry and these ratings are not acurate with the game that was on. I think that the french forwards were outstanding and the back 3 for france were clinical. just a thought
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I'm an England fan with a soft spot for Ireland (I'm about 3% Irish!). I've been to Croke Park and learned a bit about the history of the GAA, Hill 16 and 1920. It was great to see Rugby played there yesterday, and the atmosphere came over the tv as magnificent. I will have to get over for a game - can anybody give me an idea of how easy it is to get tix? Has the one-legged tout I brought tix off at Lansdowne moved north of the Liffey? ;-)
I'm afraid we aren't taught much about Irish history over here, that may explain one or two comments that Irish fans perceive as ignorant.
Ireland should really have closed the game out, but it shows what a class team France still are, and how they have been overlooked this year.
I hope for a great game in two weeks, hopefully as good as 2003 with a similar outcome! I also hope this silly nationalistic squabbling will come to an end - Rugby is above it.
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To be honest you can't really lay the blame with the players, though several did have below par performances, but this was also symtomatic of last weekend in Wales.
The blame for another huge disappointment for the Irish rugby public lies firmly at the door of Eddie O'Sullivan for his cras stupidity, stuborness and poor tactical judgement.
To begin with I would have questioned his selection of the team prior to the Welsh game were he left out, what I thought was a key player for our sucesses in the autumn internationals. O'Sullivans reasoning of (Playing in Wales experience!) for including Simon Easterby in the starting line-up ahead of Neil Best was pathetic to say the least considering Neil Best was arguably the performer and find of the autumn internationals for his abrasive, robust and intense performances. (We sorely missed this kind of play yesterday against France and were unfortunately only treated to this type of agressive play at the rucks from Ireland from about the 63rd minute! which led to us getting the penalty to put us on 17 points).
O'sullivan has also failed to use his squad effectively and wisely in todays modern hard hitting game. I cannot remember the last time or if ever O'sullivan has used his full compliment of substitutions.
Against Wales he yet again allowed key players to continue with bad knocks which are likely to be exaggerated by an extended period on the pitch.
I recognise theat he may be keen to keep key players such as BOD on the pitch in close games, but this can't be to the cost of the overall team. He has to have some confidence in the depth of his squad which he appears to not have. This does not bode well for the future or the World cup and yet again indicates to me that O'sullivan will not rotate his squad during pool games an will result in burnout as we witnesed in the last world cup when ireland were blown away by france in the 1st twenty minutes.
Another poor decision was the selection of Horgan at inside centre. In my opinion he should not have started in the 1st place coming back from injury, so he would be lacking in fitness and match sharpness which we clearly witnessed. It was even worse that he played at inside centre which served only to slow the ball down even further. The quick witted,skillful powerful darcy should have been played at inside centre and with trimble running off him on the outside . How many times may I ask have you seen Andrew Trimble scoring by coming on to the ball from pace off his inside man? You will find quite a lot!
The obvious choice should EOS decided he wanted Horgan back into the team would have been to play him on the wing or bring him on from the bench in the later stages to apply his finishing strength to a weakened and tired defence.
But unfortunately this did not happen and we are left with yet another dissapointment.
Just when is somebody going to stand up and say that Eddie O'Sullivan is a bad man manager who has had the fortune to be blessed with talented world class players such as BOD, Darcy and O'Connell.
O'sullivan must bear the responsibility for yet again causing so much disappointment!
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We are getting off the point, forget the player ratings forget the ref forget the what could have been and forget the maybes. Ireland lost a game they had won by allowing the French to re gather the ball on the restart in the 78th min. The Irish forwards stood like little boys watching the ball drop from the sky while the French chased got in amount the Irish forward tapped the ball back and scored.
Simple.
E O'S going on about the 'bounce of the ball' is nonsense. Ireland lost because they lost focus. What did they think was going to happen? The French were 4 points down needed a try to win. It was do or die, in this case the French did while Ireland died. All feels too familiar.
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save the queen from what???
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reading a lot of these comments makes me feel depressed. writing as a welshman, with strong irish connections, i love the irish people. i love the spirit they show playing and watching their sport. i have always enjoyed the craic with them, as i did last week in a pub full of irishmen - it was a tough day for the welsh, but i had a great time with my celtic brothers.
let's stop this petty backbiting. the french deserved it yesterday, although they snatched the game in the most heart-breaking of ways. i respect the irish posters who are magnanimous in defeat, but the ones who start lashing out at the welsh are just letting themselves down.
i hope ireland bring croke park back to life for the england game...and this time play some rugby from the first minute!
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Like everyone else gutted watched on TV and the feeling of despair when that try was scored was just awful.
Anyway a point many people overlooked brought up by Conor O'Shea in the first twenty minutes the French played excellent rugby of the highest level and Ireland played well in defence just to stay in touch - remember stade de france 2006 the game was over as a contest at half time
Thought Darcy struggled out of position but can understand the logic of Darcy/Horgan when BOD pulled out the sheer physicality of the French needed to be thought about and perhaps EOS thought Trimble would find it tough.
Sea bass was consigned back to just an ordinary player he was well and truly flattered by Italy last week and just like against Munster when he played for Sales in the Heineken was shown as just ordinary.
O'Gara I thought had a poor territory kicking game although the French handling was superb and why didn't he employ a few grubber kicks for Darcy and Horgan to chase or chips through to keep the French and thier rush defence guessing?
Finally a moan about Steve Walsh don't want to come over all Jonathon Davies but he did seem to be quick to penalise Ireland and slow to penalise the French, how did he reach the decision ''advantage over'' when Horan was going through i have no complaints about the fact he didn't call that as a penalty but how could advantage be over?
The analysts watching this game will be telling thier players not to play on in such situations and take the kick at goal which will make the games a lot less attractive to watch in this case Isaac Boss was penalised for trying to get 5 instead of 3 points!
Given his history wasn't he banned for verbally abusing Shane Horgan during the Lions 05 tour? and the fact he stated in advance that he would specifically be penalising Ireland at the breakdown after being touch judge in Cardiff he should have been replaced as referee immediately he said that to the Welsh but it is no surprise that he was not. As someone else said well done Eddie O'Sullivan for not making a huge issue of it
As an Irish supporter am gutted but at least Ireland have been involved in two memorable games of rugby one win and one loss.
As for the French you have to give them credit any win away from home in international rugby between two fairly evenly matched sides is a huge achievement.
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I m french, and i m must said that u're not fair with your players, they were very good, as the game was.
Great intensity, good movements, hard defences in both sides; sure that ROG does not deserve a 9, but Skrela was far from him, very far to my point of view.
It's a pity that a wonderful player like BOD was not on the pitch, for Ireland team and for the game.
At the same time french had a lot of players left in home injured.
I m pretty sure that with Michalak and Elissade the first time would have been worst for Ireland.
To my point of view french team as done a lot mistakes, some players don't deserve to be in that team, how Yachvili can be put on the bench for a very pale Mignoni ?
It's surely not the best team we can have. The positive thing is that they fight 'til the end.
ROG was good it's not a wonderful hand player as we call them in France but he does not miss the target when his team needs points.
And i m wondering ? Why does that Best was not on the pitch from the start, great player...
Even if victory is french today i can help feeling sorry for all that crowd, what an atmosphere!!!
These Irish team is my favorite one, after mine, they can play very well, and they will, wish them the best for the rest ....
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Hello,
I am French, and of course I support the Franch team. But I love Rugby also. What I want to say to all Irish Fans here, is that Ireland played a great game, and that I think, in spirit, they should have won this game. The French got very very lucky. They played probably a more concrete and down to the ground game, but in that aspect, they missed vital penalties, missed the drop, missed several passes that should not have been missed. On the contrary, I think the Irish were very very impressive, young in their apprasail of the game, and the way they attacked, and I loved the guts and the joy they put in that game. They were creative, very dangerous at all time, and actually they should have won that game.
So I feel sorry for Ireland, because they played the way I like rugby to be played.
With guts, freshness and, above all with joy.
Bravo.
Nicolas
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No. 148 - Please elaborate
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To be honest you can't really lay the blame with the players, though several did have below par performances, but this was also symtomatic of last weekend in Wales.
The blame for another huge disappointment for the Irish rugby public lies firmly at the door of Eddie O'Sullivan for his cras stupidity, stuborness and poor tactical judgement.
To begin with I would have questioned his selection of the team prior to the Welsh game were he left out, what I thought was a key player for our sucesses in the autumn internationals. O'Sullivans reasoning of (Playing in Wales experience!) for including Simon Easterby in the starting line-up ahead of Neil Best was pathetic to say the least considering Neil Best was arguably the performer and find of the autumn internationals for his abrasive, robust and intense performances. (We sorely missed this kind of play yesterday against France and were unfortunately only treated to this type of agressive play at the rucks from Ireland from about the 63rd minute! which led to us getting the penalty to put us on 17 points).
O'sullivan has also failed to use his squad effectively and wisely in todays modern hard hitting game. I cannot remember the last time or if ever O'sullivan has used his full compliment of substitutions.
Against Wales he yet again allowed key players to continue with bad knocks which are likely to be exaggerated by an extended period on the pitch.
I recognise theat he may be keen to keep key players such as BOD on the pitch in close games, but this can't be to the cost of the overall team. He has to have some confidence in the depth of his squad which he appears to not have. This does not bode well for the future or the World cup and yet again indicates to me that O'sullivan will not rotate his squad during pool games an will result in burnout as we witnesed in the last world cup when ireland were blown away by france in the 1st twenty minutes.
Another poor decision was the selection of Horgan at inside centre. In my opinion he should not have started in the 1st place coming back from injury, so he would be lacking in fitness and match sharpness which we clearly witnessed. It was even worse that he played at inside centre which served only to slow the ball down even further. The quick witted,skillful powerful darcy should have been played at inside centre and with trimble running off him on the outside . How many times may I ask have you seen Andrew Trimble scoring by coming on to the ball from pace off his inside man? You will find quite a lot!
The obvious choice should EOS decided he wanted Horgan back into the team would have been to play him on the wing or bring him on from the bench in the later stages to apply his finishing strength to a weakened and tired defence.
But unfortunately this did not happen and we are left with yet another dissapointment.
Just when is somebody going to stand up and say that Eddie O'Sullivan is a bad man manager who has had the fortune to be blessed with talented world class players such as BOD, Darcy and O'Connell.
O'sullivan must bear the responsibility for yet again causing so much disappointment!
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As a welshman I'm just grateful that we got a fantastic game after the abysmal fare served up on Sat in both matches.
Got to feel for the Irish fans, but on balance France just about deserved the win. They definitely had more control up front for half the game, although the Irish forwards fight back was great to watch. More importantly the French backs were much more of an attacking threat than the Irish. Agree with many posts that picking Horgan at inside centre was bizarre. Boss is lively but he takes too long to decide what to do, and so the momentum is lost from 2/3rd phase moves. The step-up from provincial to international level that Keith Wood was talking about. ROG worth an 8!
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when trimble came on he should have went to centre and horgan to the wing.
so gutted if Rog had kicked to touch oor a tap and go penalty ireland could have played out the remaining
time.
even if he had missed the penalty
france would never have scored from
a 22 drop out.
i think if sckrela had not been
substituted ireland would have won as t the replacement out half was far superior.
also it was neil bests mistake for the try he rushed forward and left the gap in the line leaving hayes
isolated.
easterbuy would not have made that mistake, but best is more explosive tough call at no 6 for the next game.
i think the irish front row played well against a vastly superior french front row and held their own.
credit to hayes and horan for 80 mins. when the french can bring on replacements for the last 20.
just gutted, credit to the french a great restart at the end, i wish ireland would have beeen cynical and just infringed conceed the penalty and get the defense re organised.
roll on the england game so we can get the disappointment out of our system, and lets not loose heart lets beat the french in the WC
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I'm not irish and I don't want to sound like a football manager, but I can't imagine either side was happy with the standard of refereeing.
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Re post 132:
Anthony you鈥檙e a clown, cop yourself on.
There is absolutely no chance England are going to 鈥淒emolish鈥 Ireland that鈥檚 just silly talk and I鈥檒l have to assume you were off your head on crack or something when you posted that.
If there will be any demolishing done it will be by Ireland. I would be very surprised if Ireland run big numbers up against England however it is possible as is an England victory, however I feel that Ireland will run at least 25 past you especially with the BOD and D鈥橝rcy partnership back versus the mickey mouse centres you have with Tindall and Farrell.
Johnny is back yes but don鈥檛 get carried away you silly boy.
Plus as was mentioned earlier you are just bitter that Irish rugby is in such good shape at the moment and that for once England are underdogs.
England are far from being world class especially seeing as though you can only put a difference of 13 between yourself and Italy, easily one of the worst rugby matches I have ever seen.
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A fabulous game of rugby, the fitness levels of these two teams, was of the highest level.
I was willing the ball to be put out or knocked on just so I could catch my breath (from my armchair you understand)
and in relation to the scores, purely instinctive at the end of the game, would be interesting having had a day to think about it, and maybe watch it again, whether the same scores would be given.
Steve Walsh, hmmmmmm needs to pay more attention, maybe getting a little chubby and cannot keep up with the game!!!!
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when trimble came on he should have went to centre and horgan to the wing.
so gutted if Rog had kicked to touch oor a tap and go penalty ireland could have played out the remaining
time.
even if he had missed the penalty
france would never have scored from
a 22 drop out.
i think if sckrela had not been
substituted ireland would have won as t the replacement out half was far superior.
also it was neil bests mistake for the try he rushed forward and left the gap in the line leaving hayes
isolated.
easterbuy would not have made that mistake, but best is more explosive tough call at no 6 for the next game.
i think the irish front row played well against a vastly superior french front row and held their own.
credit to hayes and horan for 80 mins. when the french can bring on replacements for the last 20.
just gutted, credit to the french a great restart at the end, i wish ireland would have beeen cynical and just infringed conceed the penalty and get the defense re organised.
roll on the england game so we can get the disappointment out of our system, and lets not loose heart lets beat the french in the WC
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By the way, static (Post 114). Liked the way you denied being arrogant and then spent the rest of the post being arrogant! When you ask why the English would be happy with an Irish defeat, perhaps you should turn that question on your own countrymen and ask why so many of you celebrate English defeats that are nothing to do with you. Psychological crutch of having a hate figure, perhaps?
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A few things to think about!
a) In terms of a grand slam, people get too carried away. We have as much of a chance next year. Bear in mind a third of the French team will probably retire after the WC
b) The french were struggling in the second half, but have the strength in depth to have a bench of real quality to rely on. 4 massive forwards came in to reinforce their pack. We don't have these options, no matter what EOS says. However, they will have to do this in the WC as well.
c) Trimble should have played at second centre. He's played against the french there in the past. Shaggy should have stayed on the wing - he's not an explosive player, just one who needs a bit of space to build up momentum. Trimble's got great acceleration over 10 metres, and would have allowed D'arcy to stay at 12... Geordan and Girvan should be left to compete for their best position at full back.
d) Boss had a good game, obviously talent. No obvious weakness in his game. There were many hairy moments where the thought of having Stringer would have made me shudder. Boss needs to play a little more cynically though - he's got to take advantage of all penalty situations as they arise - he was a bit naive in this regard yesterday.
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As a frenchman, Im quite proud of what the XV tricolore managed to pull-off on sunday, but considering the constant irish pressure in the second half, I dont think its fair to say that France "deserved" to win. We just had a stroke of luck on Clerc's final try.
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I know i am slightly biased being from Ulster but i don't think anyone except EOS thinks that:
1) Easterby should be on for N Best
2) Trimble should have been on the bench.
If you ask me the best way to sort out the back line after BOD's injury would have been to keep as many players in their own positions as possible. check out my back line without BOD:
9) Boss (yes, ahead of Stringer)
10)ROG
11)Hickie
12)D'Arcy
13)Trimble
14)Horgan
15)Murphy
As for the person who has brought up the argument of the national anthem, i am embarassed as he gives us all a bad name but i am in no way surprised coming from the heart of the Protestant community in N. Ireland as this is still commonplace. I think it is very sympathetic of the Republic to allow us to play alongside them after how we have treated them over the years! Imagine a N. Ireland team and then u will be glad that we are allowed to play alongside the likes of BOD, O'Connell etc. Although saying that i think the Irish are also glad of our support as we have produced some great players over the years. PS does anybody disagree with my back line and N Best being left out? as i don't think many people could argue with it, if u do then i would like to hear your argument as i know i am biased!!
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These comments make depressing reading.
Most Irish fans seem to be blaming the loss on the ref and if anyone questions this, they get accused of being english and racist.
Re comment 73, about england being full of racists: I've lived in England/Wales all my life and have NEVER seen anything remotely like that which you babble about. I moved to Wales when I was 18 expecting the people to be a lot like the English and not be particularly bothered by nationality. I get spat at in the street when I wear my England top. I have NEVER known anything like this to happen to someone in England.
Re general comments about the ref. I thought he had a fairly good game considering. He didn't give advantage to Murphy, but if you watch the replay, when he blew his whistle france were still in possession. What you're really looking to do is blame anyone other than yourselves. Irish defence was very poor and unless it improves Ireland won't be going anywhere. If you keep blaming other people you won't ever improve.
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I agree with the marks but can categorically give Steve Walsh 0/10!
Nobody has commented on the referee in this game. I have seen a few games Walsh has refereed including last year's Wales v Scotland and he is just not up to international standards. He may be a Kiwi, but it doesn't make him a good ref as the IRB has already admitted by banning him twice before.
Numerous times in the last 10 minutes, he gave the Irish advantage, not allowing them the option to kick for goal which would have increased their lead. It seems to me that he either didn't realise the time in the game or that his attitude is that he's the ref and it's up to him. I'm sure O'Gara would have gone for the points if given the option.
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Hark at the Irish fans complaining about tackling without the ball - short memories me thinks............
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Don 85 got it in one when talking about Hayes. When will EoS learn that this boy has passed it.
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Re post 132:
Anthony you鈥檙e a clown, cop yourself on.
There is absolutely no chance England are going to 鈥淒emolish鈥 Ireland that鈥檚 just silly talk and I鈥檒l have to assume you were off your head on crack or something when you posted that.
If there will be any demolishing done it will be by Ireland. I would be very surprised if Ireland run big numbers up against England however it is possible as is an England victory, however I feel that Ireland will run at least 25 past you especially with the BOD and D鈥橝rcy partnership back versus the mickey mouse centres you have with Tindall and Farrell.
Johnny is back yes but don鈥檛 get carried away you silly boy.
Plus as was mentioned earlier you are just bitter that Irish rugby is in such good shape at the moment and that for once England are underdogs.
England are far from being world class especially seeing as though you can only put a difference of 13 between yourself and Italy, easily one of the worst rugby matches I have ever seen.
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Hmmm - very biased ratings. Ireland were lucky not be about 15 points down at half time, but they were undoubtebly the better side in the second half.
Ireland had the luck last week, but it didn't happen for them yesterday. I do find it ironic that the Irish are having a pop at the referee after last week's game against Wales.
Swings and roundabouts!
What a fabulous game of rugby, though.
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Gutted! The missed tackles for the 2 french tries were dissapointing but it was a great game of rugby. Was I the only one who thought the pitch was very slippery? I never saw so many players slipping in a rugby match. Are the players allowed to wear longer studs?
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Ireland need a Mike Gibson or Jackie Kyle to direct the talented but slightly rudderless team. Ever see the look of concentration on Gibson's face? No sleeping in the 78th minute.
Fly-halves were average. O'Gara's try & place kickng showed his talent, but his general play showed his flaws.
(Beauxis looks the part - doubtless we will see more of him soon.)
I can't believe I didn't feel gutted at the result - Ireland blew it. We saw Eddie head back down memory lane again - Hickie, Murphy, Easterby and Horgan in the Centre - were the autumn internationals just a mirage? - the future is mostly in the future not completely in the past! Usual Irish malaise. That's why they lost.
But glad to see Wales hammered !
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Blogger 192. I used that one legged tout before for a soccer match!
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Irish scrum stood up well to the mighty french pack. You could tell Ireland had done a lot of work on their scrummaging. Boss did ok but I still feel the Irish backline benefit more from Stringers quicker pass. Horgan played all of his early career as a centre but he is a much better winger.
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Really impressed with how Ireland came back in the second and so it seems were the French though I think apart from not giving enough to the French on the player ratings I think you really overlook the effect John Hayes had. Maybe he did all right against Marconnet but he was responsible for getting in Murphy's and Best's way and therefore conceding two tries. Magic game though and clearly the two best teams in it, can't wait til the world cup
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I wonder how France ever managed to win the game, based on those paltry ratings...
As a french supporter, I was obviously delighted with the outcome ; this cliffhanger last-gasp try recallls great memories of two french historic wins down under : Blanco's winning try vs Australia in the semi-final of the first world cup, back in 1987, and, greatest of all, Philippe Saint Andr茅's try "from the end of the world" vs NZ in 1994.
However, France should have sealed the game long before the 79th minute, and they 'll have to be far more clinical when they face major rugby powers, including Ireland next fall. No offence to Skrela, but they need a reliable world class kicker.
Vincent Clerc was outstanding, and it is a real pleasure that he eventually fulfills the expectations that he raised several years ago. His try was worthy of Joe Rokocoko.
Ireland obviously missed BOD, and I reckon it could have been a different result, had he played. I'm confident they'll beat England in a fortnight.
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I m french living in Ireland, yesterday i watched the game on TV with my girlfriend family.. a lone french in the middle of 8 irish .. and all of us thought the same at the final whistle, great game, could have gone either way. One thing is sure Ireland and France are the best european team at the moment and they are playing very good rugby. Ireland missed Stringer and BOD but on the other side the french team was not the strongest possible. The main difference here is the depth in the squad. I think the bench had a huge impact on the game, the french substitute being overall better than the irish. To me Williams, the irish flancker was the man of the match, great ball carrying, great vision and great mobility. I was very impressed with the french game as i was expecting much less after the disastrious autumn test matches. i though the forwards were very good and powerful and our line out and scrum was awesome. I was a bit disapointed with Horgan i reckon he would have done much more damaged on the wing, it would have been difficult for clerc or dominici to stop him.. he s easily 2 stone heavier than them. ROG had a good game all together, after all he did score all the points but i thought that he prolly could have done better for the territory kicks. D'arcy was good but you could see that he was a bit lost without BOD on his side.
To me the championship is not over, we can easily lose against wales in Paris, they still did not have a good game but it 3will happen eventually. I can't imagine england beating ireland in Croke Park, they simply are too weak at the moment.
Overall again a great game, we were lucky at the end but ireland just needed to win the last start kick to have the game.
I will obviously sheer for ireland in 2 weeks time !
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Let's just settle Murphy's "disallowed try". The ball was picked up by a French player passed to another and the whistle blown, quite reasonably, by the time Murphy got the ball. The French had stopped, so it was no wonder he managed to break away!
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#203 is mistaken for blaming Neil Best. If he had watched the game he would clearly have seen that Hayes flapped around instead of making an easy tackle.
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Correction to my post # 209, in 1994, Saint-Andr茅 did not score, he started it, but it was Sadourny who grounded the ball. "Give back to Caesar..."
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I find myself being pulled into a debate on national anthems and political identity....Although I am an Ulsterman I do not always agree with the posturing that takes place in my home province. In fact, I would go far as to say that Ireland should never have been divided. That being said, however, it was and Northern Ireland is a separate political, and some would argue cultural entity from the Republic Of Ireland. The existence of Northern Ireland is based on its political boundaries, not on the demographics of the Province of Ulster. Last I checked Ravenhill was in Belfast, which is in Northern Ireland and as such it is a separate entity from the Republic. It therefore has a separate anthem and that anthem is the one that should be used when Ireland play at Ravenhill.
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this little bit of data tells a sorry tale! - a comedy of errors!
Top Errors
Name Count
Skrela 3
Boss 2
D Wallace 2
D'Arcy 2
Easterby 2
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i think ireland played pretty well but were out muscled by the french.we will kill enganld in 2weeks time
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Anthony (132) - how you can have so much confidence in an England team who are a one trick pony, who have not yet been properly challenged yet in this six nations, and struggled to beat the Italians, is beyond me.
I hope it stays fine for you!
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Great game for the impartial.
Dreadful commentry for anyone other than the Irish. I dont pay my licence fee to be told by the commentator that 'its okay Ireland still have the ball'. I pay it for a balanced proffesional commentry. Maybe the fact that the scrpit that was pre written by the 91热爆 (France to loose to Italy) has been binned that they are guessing as they go. I never thought I would say it, bring back SKY and fast.
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Rich has got it wrong when he talks about Stringer and a quicker pass. That has been a weakness for Ireland with Ogara and the other backs being put under pressure from the slow service which Stringer ALWAYS provides. Why doesnt Osullivan look at the other provinces for a tight head prop when it was clear again to see on Sunday that Hayes has passed it.
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Cant agree with a 7 rating for Horgan,
he was out of his depth sunday, poor passing etc- poor Mr Darcy hardly got a ball all day to do anything with it.
EOS should have made some subs at half time as the french did:
Horgan off Trimble on ( he shouldn't have been dropped in the first place), and Easterby off for Neil Best ( looking like he's after come of that Chabal money with that hair and beard).
Once again Eos left his substituting too late!!
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Cant agree with a 7 rating for Horgan,
he was out of his depth sunday, poor passing etc- poor Mr Darcy hardly got a ball all day to do anything with it.
EOS should have made some subs at half time as the french did:
Horgan off Trimble on ( he shouldn't have been dropped in the first place), and Easterby off for Neil Best ( looking like he's after come of that Chabal money with that hair and beard).
Once again Eos left his substituting too late!!
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Cant agree with a 7 rating for Horgan,
he was out of his depth sunday, poor passing etc- poor Mr Darcy hardly got a ball all day to do anything with it.
EOS should have made some subs at half time as the french did:
Horgan off Trimble on ( he shouldn't have been dropped in the first place), and Easterby off for Neil Best ( looking like he's after come of that Chabal money with that hair and beard).
Once again Eos left his substituting too late!!
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Guys it was great game as we like to see.
I'm french living in Ireland so i was in the ambiance and the drama of the Croke stuff. I was a bit surprised to see the media giving a grand slam to ireland with such confidence with the tournament just started. A confidence fetched on a good autumn series over South Africa and Australia. However These teams had poor sides in Autumn that were certainly not there best Line up ( certainly not a team that would have been called for a three nations game ! ) and have played under gales and lashing rain when it was summer in the southern hemisphere. If Ireland wants to impose such respect over international scene they need to have result in International competitions ( and triple crown doesn't count= that means nothing to us french people) . So far the only result that we saw is a Heineken cup win. I believe in this generation of Irish player and think they are up for big achievements but between the possibilities and the real titles there is a gap that needs to be filled otherwise who will remember these guys other than munster and leinster fans ? Big teams have consistent result on International competitions ( NZL = 1 WC, few 3nations, SA = 1 WC and three nations, Australia = 2 world cups and three nations, England ( man i don't even like to talk about this team !) = 1WC and all times 6 nations wins leader by far. France = 2 WC finals ( should be three if the damn referee had awarded the valid try in the semi against south africa in 1995) and 3 times winner of 6nations over the last 5 years. these lines talk to people.
About the marks i think they have been given by an English journalist so are not really relevant for the french side that will always be underrated by the 91热爆...
Concerning this match i saw a well organized French side dominating in first half and desserving more points ( yachvili would have taken the points on the missed penalties ). In second Half Ireland dominated for 25-30 minutes but i don't consider that they controlled the game : it was draft desperate line breaking old style hero but as the french defence get the man there is nobody behind...
I hope Ireland will beat the English in 2 weeks though and will start to build their legend and i know it will be tough in the World cup. Ireland were missing BOD and Stringer but we miss michalak, traille, castaignede and i think beauxis should have started the game...
All the best to ye paddies !!
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Cant agree with a 7 rating for Horgan,
he was out of his depth sunday, poor passing etc- poor Mr Darcy hardly got a ball all day to do anything with it.
EOS should have made some subs at half time as the french did:
Horgan off Trimble on ( he shouldn't have been dropped in the first place), and Easterby off for Neil Best ( looking like he's after come of that Chabal money with that hair and beard).
Once again Eos left his substituting too late!!
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I agree with OConnells 6 but as Captain his decisions not to take 3 points is often rash. BOD seems a bit more level headed and calculating in those situations.
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Here are the Match Stats - How Jim can give the above player ratings is just bias gaelique adn beyond me. france Spent 14 minutes longer in our half
Scrums won/lost:
Ireland: 5/1
France: 11/0
Line-outs won/lost:
Ireland: 20/1
France: 13/0
Penalties/free-kicks conceded
Ireland: 4/1
France: 10/0
Ruck and drive/ruck and pass:
Ireland: 22/46
France: 13/45
Turnovers won:
Ireland: 5
France: 12
Tackles made/missed:
Ireland: 74/10
France: 84/16
Errors made:
Ireland: 15
France: 12
Minutes in possession - first half/second half:
Ireland: 10:31/14:10
France: 14:25/13:30
Minutes in opponent's half - first half/second half:
Ireland: 18:11/21:30
France: 25:08/28:11
Top tacklers:
Ireland: Leamy 11
France: Betsen 11
Top carriers:
Ireland: D.Wallace 8
France: Chabal 8
Most errors:
Ireland: Boss 2
France: Skr茅la 3
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I might be wrong but when ireland cleared the ball to touch in which led to france's first try. the winger threw the ball to himself instead of taking the lineout. I think he didn't throw the ball straight. as i said i might be wrong.
did anyone else notice.
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Guys it was great game as we like to see.
I'm french living in Ireland so i was in the ambiance and the drama of the Croke stuff. I was a bit surprised to see the media giving a grand slam to ireland with such confidence with the tournament just started. A confidence fetched on a good autumn series over South Africa and Australia. However These teams had poor sides in Autumn that were certainly not there best Line up ( certainly not a team that would have been called for a three nations game ! ) and have played under gales and lashing rain when it was summer in the southern hemisphere. If Ireland wants to impose such respect over international scene they need to have result in International competitions ( and triple crown doesn't count= that means nothing to us french people) . So far the only result that we saw is a Heineken cup win. I believe in this generation of Irish player and think they are up for big achievements but between the possibilities and the real titles there is a gap that needs to be filled otherwise who will remember these guys other than munster and leinster fans ? Big teams have consistent result on International competitions ( NZL = 1 WC, few 3nations, SA = 1 WC and three nations, Australia = 2 world cups and three nations, England ( man i don't even like to talk about this team !) = 1WC and all times 6 nations wins leader by far. France = 2 WC finals ( should be three if the damn referee had awarded the valid try in the semi against south africa in 1995) and 3 times winner of 6nations over the last 5 years. these lines talk to people.
About the marks i think they have been given by an English journalist so are not really relevant for the french side that will always be underrated by the 91热爆...
Concerning this match i saw a well organized French side dominating in first half and desserving more points ( yachvili would have taken the points on the missed penalties ). In second Half Ireland dominated for 25-30 minutes but i don't consider that they controlled the game : it was draft desperate line breaking old style hero but as the french defence get the man there is nobody behind...
I hope Ireland will beat the English in 2 weeks though and will start to build their legend and i know it will be tough in the World cup. Ireland were missing BOD and Stringer but we miss michalak, traille, castaignede and i think beauxis should have started the game...
All the best to ye paddies !!
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The mean average rating for Ireland is 6.47, with or without the subs. France's is 6.2 and falls to 6.1 with subs included. How interesting is this rating which suggests that France played worse, particularly in the last 20 minutes when coaching was done, whereas Ireland kept the pace and presumably showed a better performance since they only got 2 subs in... Ireland played so well that one Frenchman edged out 3 Irish players in the last minutes... From what I read in the Irish and English press, the French did not turn out to be impressive, yet they won. And that's all what matters. Should this rating reflect that Ireland outperformed France, England is believed to have torn apart Italy.
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The mean average rating for Ireland is 6.47, with or without the subs. France's is 6.2 and falls to 6.1 with subs included. How interesting is this rating which suggests that France played worse, particularly in the last 20 minutes when coaching was done, whereas Ireland kept the pace and presumably showed a better performance since they only got 2 subs in... Ireland played so well that one Frenchman edged out 3 Irish players in the last minutes... From what I read in the Irish and English press, the French did not turn out to be impressive, yet they won. And that's all what matters. Should this rating reflect that Ireland outperformed France, England is believed to have torn apart Italy.
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horan was a beast. at least a 7.
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Re: 233 Quick throw-ins - they don't have to be straight -just not go forwards.
The referee did not affect the outcome but making the comments he did before appearing before 80,000 was rash. As Mourhinho says - referees should be anonymous.
The outcome was a balance with France messing up good chances & dominance and Ireland on the other hand going asleep; the one decent fly-half that appeared did the trick.
With reference to the ratings - bring back Maggs for these emergencies? or find another centre to cover for BOD (he is bound to be injured again) - Horgan on the wing only please so who is the cover centre? (Trimble was/is a centre?)
Don't pick Dempsey and Murphy in the same team & try and play Trimble if BOD isn't there - you need some sort of strike force; Hickie was a great player in his day but surely has to be on the bench now?
Apart from ROG's try caused by the forced aborted drop-goal attempt that paradoxically sent the French defence off the wrong way, Trimble's run was the only time the Irish backs made any breach in the French line.
Similarly Best gives Ireland a physicality in the tight that no other forward has and is a great counter-balance to the elegant Wallace (weren't we told that Easterby (who is OK) had been chosen v Wales because of his local knowledge so why was Best not picked this time?) Leamy is a potentially great player which will be interesting with Heaslip following behind. I don't understand front-row play- but there must be someone out there? And as for half-back - ROG needs to believe Ireland actually have a team that doesn't need a gambler at fly-half although the Irish forwards need to play a lot harder. Ireland are still a bit locked into the plucky under-dog so let's take a chance mentality rather than simply dominating so it was fitting that the luck of the bounce defeated them in the end.
You can probably thank Skrela that the game was so close - if I was Ireland I wouldn't be complaining about the bounce I'd be fixing a lot of rather gaping holes.
The trouble with BOD is that he is a Get Out of Jail Card (eg against Wales) that covers up weaknesses that could in fact be plugged with the right selection. 50 years of watching Ireland play - it's weird that they have their strongest side ever but where is the Jackie Kyle, Mike Gibson, Ollie Campbell, Eric Elwood, Mike English even - and Andy Mulligan, Roger Young, Colin Patterson etc etc - there has to be someone out there between 8 and 11 who can impose?
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Paul comment #185 - Ravenhill is in Northern Ireland, a separate country with our own national anthem. Just to clear that up for you, as i dont think you are getting this conversation. Peter comment #221, you were spot on. And Ireland will thump England. One more point, why not have Irelands call as the national anthem and take away the Soldiers Song? Comment please
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How is it possible that Neil Best was sidelined in this match until midway through the second half? His attitude was awesome and scared the bejasus out of the French. If he is overlooked for a starting place against England then it will really be a travesty!!!!!
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Seems people don't really understand the laws of rugby. Walsh didn't have a bad game. Go and read somewhere the laws about advantage and then come back and make your comments.
Those who have made some comments...have you ever seen Stringer's pass? The one that takes its time and ends up at ROG's feet. I'm worried that EOS might for some reason put him back in.
In terms of the ratings, if France are the 2nd place team in the world and Ireland 3rd then if both teams play the same then France's ratings should be slightly lower overall.
Ireland didn't really look like scoring at all, backs were very flat and played to France's defense instead of coming up with something. Darcy again proved he doesn't like to pass the ball. SO what if he makes 5 yards evey time it slows the game down. And ROG seems to think he's a hard hitting runner and yet loses the ball half the time he takes it up. Good supporting running from him though. Hoping that his kicking game comes back next week, he's all we really have at outhalf.
Don't understand why best isn't on, as someone pointed out earlier in this was the find of last year at international level.
Ireland need to bring in a backs coach who can remind them before the game of a few of the lines runners need to make to be distracting, we've done them about twice over the past few years and yet seem to forget about them after we've done them once. There's no doubt where the ball is going...not once when we passed it out.
And France always looked like they had the potential to score a try. if we were unlucky then surely France were unlucky not have been back in the lead with that dropgoal attempt?
Enjoyable from a tenseness/heartbeat/nervous perspective and gutting for Irish fans at the end. But both teams nullified each other a bit with good defensive displays. Roll on the English and we'll see what happens when as we all know the French are going to end up playing the All Blacks in the WC quarter finals...if they can beat Argentina that is.
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Seems people don't really understand the laws of rugby. Walsh didn't have a bad game. Go and read somewhere the laws about advantage and then come back and make your comments.
Those who have made some comments...have you ever seen Stringer's pass? The one that takes its time and ends up at ROG's feet. I'm worried that EOS might for some reason put him back in.
In terms of the ratings, if France are the 2nd place team in the world and Ireland 3rd then if both teams play the same then France's ratings should be slightly lower overall.
Ireland didn't really look like scoring at all, backs were very flat and played to France's defense instead of coming up with something. Darcy again proved he doesn't like to pass the ball. SO what if he makes 5 yards evey time it slows the game down. And ROG seems to think he's a hard hitting runner and yet loses the ball half the time he takes it up. Good supporting running from him though. Hoping that his kicking game comes back next week, he's all we really have at outhalf.
Don't understand why best isn't on, as someone pointed out earlier in this was the find of last year at international level.
Ireland need to bring in a backs coach who can remind them before the game of a few of the lines runners need to make to be distracting, we've done them about twice over the past few years and yet seem to forget about them after we've done them once. There's no doubt where the ball is going...not once when we passed it out.
And France always looked like they had the potential to score a try. if we were unlucky then surely France were unlucky not have been back in the lead with that dropgoal attempt?
Enjoyable from a tenseness/heartbeat/nervous perspective and gutting for Irish fans at the end. But both teams nullified each other a bit with good defensive displays. Roll on the English and we'll see what happens when as we all know the French are going to end up playing the All Blacks in the WC quarter finals...if they can beat Argentina that is.
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The Irish backline defence in the first half was disorganised due to an I/C playing O/C and O/C playing I/C with a weak tackling full back on the wing
Horgan can play inside centre but only coming in from the wing in broken play at set pieces he thinks and acts as outside centre winger
That the french on the day were the better side that I think can not be questioned it is not that they won that chokes but the way and the time of the winning try that causes the pain
But this was a very make shift Irish side and not the one that play earlier in the year a mite experimental with three players out of position in the backline
The mistake that Ireland made was to try and make the win safe by kicking a penalty for a four point lead with under five minutes to play the safe option was to go to corner for the lineout on the french 5 metre line
keep the pressure on the french in their own half
By taking the penalty they allowed the french to get back in to the Irish half and put the pressure on them
The real moment of regret was Walsh's only early whistle in the match when Murphy was running under the posts
If only---
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Did anyone actually see Frances first half performance?! This ratings are totally biased towards Ireland, although they did have a great game in the second half. Poitranaud, Jauzion and Clerc all had amazing games that deserved them at least a rating of 8, Walsh had a good even game and was consistent in all his decisions, O Gara, although his place kicking was awesome, his out of hand kicking was very inconsistent, perhaps because of the MASSIVE Croke Park pitch! A factor a think which influenced many of the plays from either side, e.g. the ability to take quick lineouts from France - THIS ALL COMING FROM AN CORNISHMAN WITH IRISH ANCESTRY!!!!! Ireland vs England should be a good game, and anyone playing France watch out!
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With regard to Post 221 composed by Peter. Northern Ireland is the only state within Uk not to have its own National Anthem so he is asking Ireland A to stand to God Save The Queen should they play in Ravenhill again..... I dont think so!
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Post 114: static9876.
What a bitter little man.
You are STILL criticising other teams for feeling hard-done-by, while acting up the hard-done-by yourself.
Have more character. It is this spoilt child attitude that ruins it for your good-natured and gracious-in-defeat compatriots. No wonder the other 5 nations want your scalp. Not just because Ireland are a great team, and they certainly are, but because you think it's ok to jibe losing teams' wounded pride, while bleating about your own.
I hope (but don't believe!) Scotland will take you the cleaners!
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118. static9876.
"as to julien...i hope your not welsh. if wales can critisize the Ref...cant see why ireland supporters cant."
But you are and you're still shanking the Welsh for it. Can't have your cake and eat it, laddy...
135. Cathal.
Congratulations for being one of the gracious Irish on here today. That was a valiant post and I agree with most (not all, but most) of what you say. You are the kind of person who I look forward to having the pints and the banter with when yous bunch hit Edinburgh - and leave your bitter, griping compatriots behind to complain about the other nations and the ref.
You'll win of course, but ah the winners get the first round...!
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146. LeXVdeRob.
Mate, if you're going to pretend to be French so as to give your arguments against the referee a bit more "authenticity" and weight, at least have the sense not to sound so Irish.
Rumbled.
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Why did EOS not have the confidence to use his replacements?
How many French replacements were used?
Would a fresh prop have made the tackle that Hayes failed to make?
Modern rugby needs more than the 18 players used by EOS.
If you make the squad then you should be good enough for a part game!
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Biller,
Ulster players are asked to stand for "the Soldier's Song." Actually, England does not have their own anthem...they use God save the Queen, which I thought was the British anthem, as was mentioned elsewhere. I was being somewhat crafty if you noticed I never said they should stand for "The Queen." In fact, in an earlier post I mentioned the example of Barry McGuigan. In my humble, and undoubtedly minority opinion the sooner the people of NI write their own anthem and adopt their own flag the better. Of course, this is not going to happen any time soon. It is probably also why we will never see a unified football team.
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If they can't stand for the same anthem may be they need two teams.
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Best watched as Clerc ran past him, he played for only 17 minutes and is still rated better than 12 french men who ran ireland ragged for 40 minutes...hmmmmm......
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Why has the star of the autumn internationals, Mr Best the flanker, been left on the bench twice? He came on far too late in the game. Easterby is a mediocre player in comparison and his performance on Sunday was thus.
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The mean average rating for Ireland is 6.47, with or without the subs. France's is 6.2 and falls to 6.1 with subs included. How interesting is this rating which suggests that France played worse, particularly in the last 20 minutes when coaching was done, whereas Ireland kept the pace and presumably showed a better performance since they only got 2 subs in... Ireland played so well that one Frenchman edged out 3 Irish players in the last minutes... From what I read in the Irish and English press, the French did not turn out to be impressive, yet they won. And that's all what matters. Should this rating reflect that Ireland outperformed France, England is believed to have torn apart Italy.
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This anthem thing came to a head about 10 years ago or so when Eric Miller - a Southerner - sang God Save the Queen but nothing during Soldier Boys Are We at the Dublin Ireland/England match.
It was one thing Northerners not singing Soldier Boys Are We (at least they didn't sing the English one) but having a Southerner sing the English anthem was plainly too much so thus the neutral anthem.
Rugby is just about the national sport in Northern Ireland and the players are generally more than happy to play for Ireland. I don't think the anthem is going to get them to change allegiance - but a feeling of fairness or unfairness on selection might.
I know of one current Scottish player whose father is Northern Irish and mother English.
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Don't think the Anthem is that crucial - the defining moment as I recall was the Southern authorities witnessing a Southern player namely Eric Miller singing (in an absent minded way) the Englich NA but not the Irish one before the match at Dublin about 10 years ago - don't think they were that bothered that NI players weren't overly keen to sing about the IRA during the Troubles but whatever (they had sung it for years) that was the start of the neutral anthem. (Has there has been a bit of a thing recently about what will be sung at the upcoming Ravenhill international ?)
Anyway, what might cause NI players to migrate allegiance is any sense of unfairness in selection. I know of one current Scottish player who has a NI father and English mother.....
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I didn't think the ref was too bad,
As a ref myself (though in the lowest echelons of welsh rugby, the general rule regarding advantage is that the team getting the advantage gets one chance to do something with it, if they fail you call them back if they go through the phase to the 2nd phase of posession then you call advantage over, which i felt Steve Walsh did.
The only exception was the try that was called back and there again there was a blatant knock on, a few players stopped when the french regathered the ball he blew his whistle before the interception at the point of blowing his whistle it looked as if France had a 2 on 1. it was marginally early but I think most refs in that situation would have blown.
I felt the referring of the breakdown was better than the previous week and this resulted in quicker ball for both teams, all in all not brilliant but not bad either.
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Agree with many of the posters about the partiality of the scores - they are not merely partial but divorced from reality. ROG 9? OK he scored all the points but his kicking from hand was again hit and miss and put us under pressure. D'Arcy did his best but playing him at 13 completely neutralised his strengths and left Horgan very exposed at 12.
Way too much hyperbole as well.
This Irish team, which is without doubt the best 15 in Europe, has once again let down itself and its fans when it came to closing out the crucial game.
It is monumentally depressing that they will probably never win a Grand Slam.
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Oh please No not the pathetic anthem debate again!!!!!
Can this not be out behind us once and for all.
The GAA have taken a big step in allowing rugby and soccer in to croke park and they did this knowing full well that the second team to visit would be the England rugby team and that would entail the signging of god save the queen. Well done to the people in the GAA with the courage to see an opportunity to help to take the country forward.
As a northern rugby supporter I try and get to a game at least once a year (when I can get a ticket that hasn't been snaffled by the corporate sector or offered on E-bay for profit - now there is a debate maybe) I absolutely love the singing of the anthems for both teams I and my family will stand respectfully for the visiting teams anthem and the Irish anthem and sing with as muvh gusto as my poor talent will allow Ireland's call - I am pretty sure most northern supporters will do the same.
As for soccer one of the world's greatest ever footballers namely Mr George Best born and bred in protestant/unionist/loyalist east Belfast was a fierce advocater in suppor of an all Ireland soccer team same as we have for rugby. Just imagaine Pat Jennings, George Best, Liam Brady, Sammy Mcilroy, Niall Quinn, Roy Keane, Norman Whiteside and players of that calibre all being eleigible for the same team at various times I think they could have been a huge success but it has been an opportuntiy missed
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In reply to post #23.
Is this the first Irish game you have seen in Dublin? The Irish National Anthem is always played in Dublin for matches in respect to the country hosting the game.
Also 1/3 of Ulster is made up of the Republic, so I assume you mean the lads from the six counties, known to most as Northern Ireland.
Keep your pathetic attempt at stirring to yourself mind your business and try to be at least a little bit correctly informed.
Anyway whose to say that all the Norn Iron boys are not all Nationalists and consider the Irish National Anthem their own.
Apologies to all for venting but the ignorance of these people bugs me. He's probably cheering Ireland on in the pub on the pub shouting 'Come on the British'.
Back to the game. The best team on the day won, I thought. The occassion got to us for the first half. The French looked like scoring everytime they ran at us. To concede a try like that in the last minutes was reminiscent of the Ireland of old.
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hahaha ! Hilarious, it's just proves my last statement on another post by Jim, he couldn't have watched the game!, Girvan did absolutley Jack other than take the ball into contact, Neil Best was amazing when he came on, not average, Skrela had and excellent game apart from the missed pen at the end of the 1st, "Ireland scrum never buckled" oh yes it did!! Bos (apart from not having the nouse to kick two late penalties with about 10 minutes left) did superbly just to get the ball out of a contunally disrupted Irish scrum! Also you have as mentioned above scored the Irish as better than the French plyers (overall) which wasn't the case!
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Hi all
I was delighted by the French win, as I believed we did not deserved to loose.
But as a french player said at the end of the game "today we could have won only god knows how, but the Irish could have win only god knows how".
It was a beautifull game even if the Irish look like less dangerous than the French who made more mistakes close to the goal line than the Irish.
Some Irish are overrated compare to some french player who are underrated because of to many hand falls (french were better on scrums) and spend most of the second half defending.
Good luck to the Irish for the rest of the tournament, as the deserved to win this game too (a 4 points advantage 1 minutes before the end of the game, whoever was the best team, we are talking about rugby)
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Even I as an Englishman was dissapointed to see Ireland lose against the French on sunday, they played fine rugby and did really well to get ahead of the french after what happened in the first half, Having said that though the Irish seemed to lack concentration when France kicked off again following Ronan O Gara's final penalty, which raised doubts over their maturity as a team. Ireland are still in with a chance of the title though, as France are yet to travel to Twickenham which could be tricky if England continue to progress. I cant wait for the next round of games!
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Maybe Ireland should change their "anthem" to having a loud ringing alarm clock or other suitable hooter with a Voiceover of "Wakey Wakey Rise and Shine"
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Well think both teams will have more than enough in their armoury to beat every other team easily in 6 nations. Ashame the deciding fixture was put so early in calender. Should have made it more of climax with this game as last.
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Overall the ratings are completly innacurate once again. Jim Stokes must have been watching a completly different game from me if he can give Ireland a greater average than the French who probably should have been out of sight by half time. As for team selection EOS has a lot to answer for. Playing Darcy out of position to make room for Horgan is quite possibly one of the most stupid decisions ever made by an Irish management team. Horgan has never played well in the center and the French must have been delighted to see him playing there. I am also worried that Eddie is confused with Rory and Neil Best, because Rory is anything but International standard but still starts and Neil is one of the best new prospects in Irish rugby but warms the bench, daft is the only word for it.
All in all one of the most disapointing days I can remember in Irish sport.
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I do not understand these ratings.
Ireland was the favorite, right?
Now France won; so or Ireland didn't play that well and couln't live up to the expectation, or France did. so how come the French have lower ratings?
But I do agree with the 8 Ivanez received. He made all the right decisions.
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Absolutely devastated by the result. Thought the French would win before the game, but to be so close ... that said, I think they shaded it on the day.
I agree that Neil Best should start. He has a dynamism that leads by example and has a lot more presence than Easterby. I think he could make a good captain in years to come, in fact.
I thought the French ratings could have been higher all round. They looked as good without the ball as they did with it - and looked pretty good with it. Poitrenaud and Skrela were notably good (apart from Skrela's kicking from the ground).
I think Wallace was the only Irish player who stood up in the first 20 minutes and was our best player on the day.
ROG did everything he usually doesn't do - tackled well, ran with the ball, even got stuck into a ruck or two. His kicking was not up to his usual standards though and I think kicking is where the game was lost for Ireland. Too many wayward kicks being lobbed aimlessly towards the French 22 only for them to return them with interest into the corners. With defences on top, good territory is what won the game and even in the second half, France had a superior territorial platform.
Bring on England. If we can get the ball, we will win. Big if, though.
Re anthems. This is rugby, not choir practise. Who really cares?
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How wrong could Mac be to say Best watched as Clerc ran past. It was a terrible bit of defending from Hayes that led to the second try. You think he could have got it right the second time after he was to fault for the first try also.
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Same thread as earlier-ish, but I really do feel that Ireland have no reason whatsoever to bemoan luck or refereeing decisions, when they are renowned for having most of the luck in these sorts of situations. Their luck it seems has finally run out, having enjoyed good deal of it, I feel, in the past (Italy, England 2006, Wales 2007 to name a few). Besides, the early whistle on Murphy was by the rules of IRB refereeing-it passed through two sets of opposition hands folloing the infringement, so the ref has to blow up! They were very unlucky to lose as they did, but then France probably should have been out of sight after 30 mins, so no complaints there I feel. I feel sorry for Ireland, but what is done is done, and some decisions go your way, some don't, and you've got to accept it, hard though it may be (I know how that might sound to irish fans, being a welsh fan having watched the wales v ireland match). I do find it comical though that some sour fans have called on Horan being dragged down close to the line off the ball. They either didn't watch the wales game, or just feel that all decisions should always go Ireland's way. All in all however a much better losing response than from most of the welsh fans after the opening game!
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Totally gutted at loosing to France in the last minute. Ireland can claim that decisions didnt go their way, but you have to give it to the French. They are a class act and didnt give up. Totally professional outfit. They were the better team on the day.
Hopefully Ireland will have a better start against England in 2 weeks.
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Poitrenaud was outstanding and surely deserves ahigher rating than the six given
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i thought that it was unfair the wy the french were slated in their statistical analisys because each of them did their jobs, like sebastian chebal, he was always there in rucks and mauls when he needed to be and therefore giving france a sturdy backbone. skrelas goal kiking wasnt up to scratch but his tactical kiking was. ireland also played well considering how awesome their opponents were!
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Thought I'd point out a few FACTS on the anthems issue.
1. The Ireland rugby team represents two separate juristictions, the ROI and NI.
2. Irelands call was written to be an anthem that all people in ireland can relate too.
3. The official national anthem of the republic of Ireland is played at home games as the games is played in the republic of Ireland.
4. The only official national anthem for Northern ireland is God save the Queen.
5. The rules then would mean that when italy play Ireland at Ravenhill (in Northern Ireland) the anthems played would be Irelands Call (rugby anthem for combined all island team) and God save the Queen (official anthem of the country hosting.
6. The IRFU have asked that God save the Queen is not played.
7. Many people from Northern Ireland have stood for the anthem of the ROI, even though they feel no association with it but are proud to represent Ireland and have stood with respect for the home anthem. This good grace is now beong thrown in their face as the anthem of Northern Ireland has effectively been banned by the IRFU.
This is not opinion...it is FACT
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