Fra v Ire

game needs O'Gara bigtime

Drive a lineout here

IS it any coincidence that suddenly we look fluent with Reddan on the pitch?

until he fires an intercept icbd

Rory Best ffs. Every time when it really matters he is found wanting.

what a balls up. so wasteful

Game needs ROG?  Why?  We need to go and win it.

up til now, we've been playing in our own half, Kearney took control

DG must be on

D'Arcy 

Kearney took control..yes by running it!

D'Arcy, what is the point?

after Kearney got field position

Looks very very wet now, but even so......D'Arcy?

hands up whos on a draw

France offside every time Ireland have the ball ffs

We had no ball for 20 mins in 2nd half with which to play with, let alone gain field position.

Kearney's catching of the high ball is an entire gameplan all of it's own. Incredible stuff.

Heaslip kick it through = try

What was that from Sexton?

That is garbage , waste of time

Get ROG on now. DG wins this.

poor kicking there

Win a penalty ffs

Rog on!!!!!!!   He better get stuck in in defence the fecker

That was never a penalty.

idiot touchjudge

Beauxis

a goal

Ridiculous , why try that rubbish so early

Looked a pen to me lads. Weak one, but Trimble hit the jumper first. Got to be more careful.

Ireland trying their best to throw this one away.

Stupid play from both sides

Rory Best again ffs

Ryan win this lineout

off their feet ..........

Ireland have actually started listening to the referee. That's a hell of an improvement.

Why dont they keep going through the phases , making good ground and they throw it 30yds backwards

Mental

about time Pearson

Ferris immense again today

drawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

ROG DG

FFS!

waiting for a draw come on

waiting for a draw come on

waiting for a draw come on

waiting for a draw come on

Jesus don't give up a peno

fillet for a year boommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Court

Here comes the pen !!!!!!!!

Here comes the pen !!!!!!!!

FT France 17 Ireland 17

ireland had a couple of real good chances for DG's. way better than the ones france tried.

A satisfactory result

lmfao, easiest money ever seen on a draw there

France braindead in the end. What on earth were they playing at trying to score a try?

Not a bad resuly but could have won it !!

Kearney had game of his life

A biggy Vis?

Never took our dropgoal chances

That has been very very good for me, but I don't even feel that happy. Relieved more than anything after soooooooo many near misses this past year.

Probably a fair result in the end. Both teams had chances to win and didnt take them, but defences were good throughout.

Wonder who was MOTM?  Ferris for me.

Bowe

Ross and Sexton did very well, but I though it would have been Kearney by a mile? Looked easily the best on the pitch to me. Too easy to give it to Bowe for the tries, but he made a lot of errors.

Not that big injera - nice enough but the pattern of the draw - as in level for a long time ends up in Chinese water torture and it is difficult to not give too much away via the drip drip effect when you keep greening up a bit here and there

The best ones are the up and downers with it only going level as late as poss.

Not that I am complaining mind

Everything Kearney done was flawless expect showing Fofana the outside

DONT BELIEVE IT!! I've had 2 quid on a draw every single six nations match this championship and this afternoon I went out for lunch with my girlfriend and forgot.... what were the odds please lads? and what were the odds when at half time please? She'll be making this up to me for some time!!

around 30s earlier in the day, 27 at kick off, high 30s at HT. Dropped rapidly after about 55 mins.

ireland were rubbish, 7pts given to them by a dumb pass, a lucky try from Bowe and a scoreless second half, mistakes all over the place and a minor miracle they kept 15 on the pitch

Was Bowe MOTM then? See they interviewed him after the match but didnt mention MOTM.....

Yes, Bowe got man of the match.

in the end a bad result giving our lead but i certainly expected us to be smashed to pieces. fair play lads an absoloute brilliant fight a cant fault ne1 to win that peno at the end was absoloute marvelous defence just wished we cuda held on to give ROG a drop goal attempt. SUPERB PERFORMANCE

Mar 4, 2012 -- 6:02PM, sewter lives again wrote:

ireland were rubbish, 7pts given to them by a dumb pass, a lucky try from Bowe and a scoreless second half, mistakes all over the place and a minor miracle they kept 15 on the pitch

LOL, you backed France right ?

Ireland were the better team, only for abject officiating from PEARSON, BARNES and SMALL, Ireland would have won. IRB need to sort it out !!!

POC looked p issed off at the end, O'Gara had to pull him away from having a go at Blind Dave as they were walking off.  Some of those 2nd half pens were definitely homer decisions, not surprising from such a smiley ref of such poor quality.

If Ireland were rubbish then France were truly abysmal. The France try came from a shocking pass that went to ground and popped up perfectly for Fofana. But for the penalty they got in the first half (which came directly as a result of a farcical decision from Pearson to give France a scrum), they didn't remotely threaten the Irish tryline. Bowe's second try was arguably the try of the tournament and the Ireland defence was outstanding. Rubbish my ar$e.

I just read that Yoann Maestri was the official MOTM!!?? Bit bizarre...

the Irish boys on here must agree with me otherwise my comment from yesterday would have got an ugly tirade, certainly more than a very poor "lol you backed France right" from pacficrc-
and even that was wrong

and yes RW France were truly abysmal, and Bowe himself admitted he was lucky with the kick and the bounce, hardly try of the tournament

remember these are 2 tier one teams as some Celtic observers keep on telling us

Mar 5, 2012 -- 9:02AM, sewter lives again wrote:

the Irish boys on here must agree with me otherwise my comment from yesterday would have got an ugly tirade, certainly more than a very poor "lol you backed France right" from pacficrc-and even that was wrongand yes RW France were truly abysmal, and Bowe himself admitted he was lucky with the kick and the bounce, hardly try of the tournamentremember these are 2 tier one teams as some Celtic observers keep on telling us

What you are saying is you'd expect Irish posters go off an 'ugy tirade' to show your comments wrong, it doesn't say much about your belief in your own views - which are wrong !

The Irish side isn't perfect; we need McFadden at 12, possible introduction of Ryan and O'Mahony and Sexton needs to control games better. They should have won in Paris only for a disgraceful homer reffing display from Pearson, he's not called Blind Dave for nothing.

Ireland should have won the game basically for the fact that they got thmeselves in to a winning position , 17-6 up at half time. The priority then should be just to keep the score board ticking over. Ireland had a period of about 15 mins dominance where a drop goal or two should have been taken , O'Gara would have managed it better. Sexton had a great game but put in so much hard work that I feel he tired mentally when the drop goal decisions needed to be taken. O'Gara on 10 mins earlier would have won the game for Ireland.

"should have won" perhaps - but it wasn't exactly nailed on at HT.  Market only gave them a 66% chance of winning, so there was plenty of belief that Fra would still get up from 11 down.

Viz - the market this, that and the other. You place far too much belief in 'the market', so what if it gave them a 66% chance of winning ? The same market had them 1.25 pre-match !

Well it gives as good an indication as you are ever going to get of where your team is in terms of winning at any given stage of the match. 

This is after all a betting site..........

For me the market is everything.

Yes it is a betting site, and my view is to beat the bookies not agree with them, if you get what I mean.

Very harsh to say Ireland were rubbish. They made France look like a very ordinary side at times, which they are not. The Ireland defence was absolutely outstanding and that is what forced the Bowe interception. From how far behind the gainline was Rougerie trying to throw that pass? The French struggled to get any momentum going and rarely threatened the Ireland tryline.

In rugby you sometimes make your own luck. Bowe's second try came from turnover ball on the Ireland 10m line. They had the courage to run it in difficult conditions and Earls brilliantly drew two defenders to create the space for Bowe on the outside. Of course you need a bit of luck with the bounce of the ball, but it was earned.

If the players can be faulted for thing, it's perhaps going out with a slightly negative mindset for the second half, whereby they tried to defend a lead as opposed to building on it. That said, you do not go to places like Paris and get a result without having to defend for long periods and being kept scoreless does not refelct the balance of play in the second half.

Neither team was rubbish, but then neither team gave an all round performance worthy of taking all the points. That's 2 games so far where Ireland have got themselves into a commanding position by defending with ferocity and taking their chances, but have botched it towards the end by failing to defend with the same intensity and failing to take their chances.

No doubt it is all the refs fault and we woz robbed (this being the same ref that bafflingly failed to sin-bin Cian Healy for the most comical offside of the season), but failing to score a single point in an entire half is rarely something that a winning team will do.

As pointed out somewhere else, the difference between winning and losing at this level is often very small margins indeed, but right now Wales are the team that is snatching victory from the jaws of defeat (or draw) and Ireland are going the opposite way about things. Looks like Ireland and England will be playing off for 3rd place in 2 weeks time, which is a direct result of both failing to finish games off.

"Failing to defend with the same intensity ?"

How ? There wasn't a point scored in the last 30 mins by either side, I wouldn't under-estimate the terrible playing conditions either in what was a hugely physical match. Ireland had enough possession to win it but better decisions should have been made - lost an easy lineout and kicked possession out on the full and to the French fullback to mark. But I wouldn't have the game as a 12 - 4 penalty count to France, by any stretch.

I was referring more to the Wales game regarding the defending, but in both cases decent leads have been blown. Ireland keep having these problems with the refs, like last season when they got beaten by France from a raft of 3-pointers. It was more clear cut then - they simply refused to listen to the man with the whistle - but if you keep getting on the wrong side of these decisions at some point you have to ask if you might be better off approaching things differently.

Ireland's defence in the Welsh and French matches were chalk and cheese - against France it was a very aggressive rush defence and against Wales it was passive, needless to say a vast improvement.

Irelands problem is that we dont have the killer instinct, the ability to close out games against the higher rated teams, its as if we clap ourselves on the back and go great we are in the lead instead of applying the coup de grace we give them cpr and let them back into the game.

Oh sure we can close out the odd game as in aus in the rwc, but we cant do it on a regular basis, were not used to winning and it shows.

Is it lack of a killer instinct or Kidneys conservatism? I'd love to be a fly on the wall in an Irish dressing home at half time because thats the third time in 12 months (England,Aus,France) when we were ahead at half time and should have gone out in the second half as we began in the first but went into our shell instead.

I see Murray and O'Connell are out for the rest of the tournie. At least he'll have to start Reddan now but O'Connell is a big loss. Best will be named captain I presume

Mar 5, 2012 -- 10:41PM, ballaman68 wrote:

Irelands problem is that we dont have the killer instinct, the ability to close out games against the higher rated teams, its as if we clap ourselves on the back and go great we are in the lead instead of applying the coup de grace we give them cpr and let them back into the game.Oh sure we can close out the odd game as in aus in the rwc, but we cant do it on a regular basis, were not used to winning and it shows.

That's a lazy comment ballaman, O'Gara has proved on numerous occasions he has the ability and know how to close out games, he's probably the best in the game at it. Then you say of course there was the Australia match ....

I dont think so pacficrc, how many times have we beaten nz,aus, sa  we can do it on occasion except for nz but they are rareties gara has closed out many a game for munster without a doubt but we dont strike fear into the higher rated nations, we are an irritant who on occasion distract the higher ranked teams but we dont finish them off as often as the quality of the team should allow us to.

I agree we should be achieving alot more with the players available, an-ultra conservative selection policy doesn't help in any way regardless of any injuries (was it Lancaster who introduced 5 new caps in one game lately yet Kidney fields a first XV against Italy), there's alot to be said for new blood and it removes any complacency. Tactics look a bit dull lately aswell. I could probably name the starting XV for the New Zealand test now, which isn't a good sign and I'm not sure how he expects to develop a real squad, there's a little more than IRB ranking points to be considered.

yep pacficrc England had 7 players in the Wales game who had never played at Twickenham

cheers, which makes the performance even more impressive. He's doing a damn good job imo, I think there were 5 Six Nations newbees in the first match

A combined team from last weekend I'd go with the following, what do you reckon: -


15 Kearney , 14 Bowe , 13 Earls , 12 Fofana , 11 Clerc , 10 Sexton , 9 Parra , 8 O'Brien , 7 Dusautoir , 6 Ferris, 5 O'Connell (c) , 4 Maestri , 3 Mas , 2 Servat , 1 Healy.


That's some team.

Sounds about right.  Earls at 13 only name that stands out as undeserving, but not sure who did any better than him tbf.

Ah c'mon icbd, credit where it's due, going on last w/e, Earls easily outplayed Rougerie. Murray and Parra is a hard call but Parra shades it just on experience. Best is unlucky not to make hooker, but the lineout didn't go very well, conditions were bad but throwing or lifters were at fault add in a great defencive performance from Maestri.

Forgot to add, O'Gara on bench to close it out.

The only surprise is that you didn't choose to start him