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Tag Archives: Ireland
One To Watch: Conor Murray [Ireland]
All the potential to be the best Irish scrum-half of the last thirty years
Crystal Ball Gazing #1
Pool A: NZ, France, Tonga, Japan, Canada
Pool A hosts the opening game of the World Cup so look forward to discussion about the merits of warm up games ending and the real stuff beginning.
The first Rugby World Cup opened with New Zealand annihilating Italy and winning by massive margins in the pool stages has become a New Zealand tradition. New Zealand and France will qualify from this pool, in that order. None of the other teams really have a chance of upsetting the top two, who could pick any selection from their squads and win the three games required. Of more interest will be the composition of Henry and Lievremont’s first choice XVs. Who will Graham Henry allow into his prefect’s club? His rotation of the starting halfbacks could be the rock upon which this World Cup tilt perishes. There’s a nagging suspicion that Lievremont picks his team blindfolded, after a few glasses of red wine. France have the personnel to go far in the competition but rarely set the pool stages alight and often make heavy work of less talented opposition. Continue reading
A Decade Of Six Nations And They Put You On The Day Shift
A decade worth of Six Nations tournaments under two coaches for Ireland, and what have you got? Some kack-handed analysis of the most basis of statistics, that’s what. Hooray!
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Ireland vs England Reaction, Episode 4: Fragile – Do Not Drop
Handle With Care
Keith Earls was shown up in a huge way very early in the game, and while he fought to come back into it, he’s a somewhat fragile player who isn’t responding well to being moved around in position. Continue reading
Ireland vs England Reaction, Episode 3: Decision Making? What Decision Making?
At least there's something behind it.
Warm-up matches that are scheduled after squads have been picked are an odd case study. Consciously or subconsciously, players are aware that the dangers of potential injury far outweigh the dangers of potential poor performance – they’re already on the plane, so to speak. Continue reading
Ireland vs England Reaction, Episode 2: The Payoff of Being Seen to Avoid Eddie O’Sullivan’s Bearpit
August 2007 in Ravenhill and Declan Kidney is struck by a precognition of the future four years from now.
Such an arduous selection of warm-up games always had the potential of throwing some injury spanners into the selectorial works, but for the most part, Ireland’s initial medical reports were largely positive. Long-term sick-notes Jerry Flannery, Stephen Ferris, Rob Kearney and Geordan Murphy have all come through their rehab and out the other side, and it looked until this week that the sole trade-off would be the luckless Felix Jones. That has all changed with David Wallace’s most unfortunate injury. Continue reading
Ireland v England Preview
Ireland prepared for the last World Cup by sitting in the freezing cold in the Polish countryside, eating (8,000 calories per day!) and playing contentious friendlies – witness the anthem debate before the Italian game in Ravenhill and the Battle of Bayonne. Continue reading
Two Big Calls
McFadden: "I thought this photo-shoot was with Kearney, not a carney."
Biggie #1: Isaac Boss
In the style of Sports Illustrated doyen Peter King, here’s an interesting nugget: Isaac Boss hasn’t started an international for Ireland in four years. He made his last start against Scotland on 11 August 2007, the first of the warm-up matches for the ill-fated RWC07.
No matter what way you look at it, that’s really pretty incredible. The Rotorua-born scrum-half has made two world cup panels under two different coaches four years apart, and hasn’t started once in between. There have been forty-one test matches since that game: twenty-nine under Declan Kidney, ten under Eddie O’Sullivan and two under Michael Bradley. He hasn’t been in the starting line-up once. Continue reading
Irish RWC 2011 Squad Preview
For What It’s Worth
When journalists go about choosing a squad for the world cup – and just about all of them have done it – there’s a distinction between those who try to pre-empt Declan Kidney’s announcement by picking the ‘right’ squad i.e. the squad that will go to the world cup, and those who pick ‘their’ squad, i.e. the squad that they would choose were they manager. Continue reading
Digging Like a Demented Mole 