He's 17/22 on conversions, that's 77% and we frequently score in the corner. I don't remember him doing something mental like declining to take a conversion.

Again, i saw Cooney striking touchline conversions, I can't remember many from Carty since Wasps magical one.
Poor misses inside the 15 meter-line on monday, and earlier (Munster home, Scarlets away, Cardiff away too IIRC) + he doesn't kick beyond 40m...

But Carty is vastly improved in open-play for sure, I'm not calling for him out of the 15.
What's bothering me the most is he misses at least one kick-to-touch on our pen, each game.
Leader in would help

ThisYearWillBeDifferent wrote:

connachta wrote:

salmson wrote: This is my new favourite unconscious confirmation bias post. Criticises Carty's kicking style (granted it does look rather artficial) when his kicking stats are 79% in the league & 90% in Europe, while talking up Cooney's importance as a kicker when he's had a mare off the tee all season (68% league; 67% Europe).

I think, there, stats aren't relevant. I don't remember Carty succeeding in many "difficult attempts" (touchline or like monday windy). Cooney does (sometimes)

A spatial repartiton, like "hawk-eye" for serves in tennis, would be needed

Or, conversion stats (where there is no alternative to kicking).

I would have said the opposite, that penalty stats would be a better judge of a kicker's worth. Deciding whether to kick for goal - is kick is in range, is it achievable given the conditions and so on - is as much a part of penalty kicking as striking the ball.

For conversions, you'd expect Cooney at Ulster to be taking more conversions from the touchline than a Leicester kicker (or Carty for that matter), so that might not be the fairest of comparisons. Though Cooney's overall strike rate is awful (of the 20 players with > 15 attempts in the Pro14, his strike rate is 17th) his penalty stats are still excellent, pretty much identical with Jack's. Maybe Ulster haven't scored under the posts all year?

Carty
Cons: 17/22
Pens: 20/22

Cooney:
Cons: 15/29
Pens: 20/23

connachta wrote:

salmson wrote: This is my new favourite unconscious confirmation bias post. Criticises Carty's kicking style (granted it does look rather artficial) when his kicking stats are 79% in the league & 90% in Europe, while talking up Cooney's importance as a kicker when he's had a mare off the tee all season (68% league; 67% Europe).

I think, there, stats aren't relevant. I don't remember Carty succeeding in many "difficult attempts" (touchline or like monday windy). Cooney does (sometimes)

A spatial repartiton, like "hawk-eye" for serves in tennis, would be needed

Or, conversion stats (where there is no alternative to kicking).

salmson wrote: This is my new favourite unconscious confirmation bias post. Criticises Carty's kicking style (granted it does look rather artficial) when his kicking stats are 79% in the league & 90% in Europe, while talking up Cooney's importance as a kicker when he's had a mare off the tee all season (68% league; 67% Europe).

I think, there, stats aren't relevant. I don't remember Carty succeeding in many "difficult attempts" (touchline or like monday windy). Cooney does (sometimes)

A spatial repartiton, like "hawk-eye" for serves in tennis, would be needed

RoadRunnerR1 wrote: McFadden never had even the slightest of chances of competing with TOH for that ball and in truth he never even tried. He had plenty of opportunity to pull out of the tackle but chose to take TOH out in the air regardless of the consequences. That's a red card all day long and given McFadden's previous disciplinary issues a fairly long holiday to follow. That the ref, assistant ref's and video ref's deemed it not even worthy of a yellow is worrying. Player welfare is supposed to be their primary responsibility on the field and yesterday they failed miserably. McFadden has a history of succumbing to the red mist far too often and being dangerously reckless bordering on cynical.

I've seen SOME more blue leaning commentary now starting to murmur about how what O'Halloran did was potentially dangerous to a player in McFadden's situation. Incredible. :whistle:

Wasrednowgreen wrote: In fairness , I think Carty's kicking has recently moved up a notch in an overall sense. Furthermore, recent form has been excellent on the park too.

However, he still has that stupid tendency to go 'high' with all kicks at goal - not always the best strategy & it has most definitely costs him / us scores when we really needed them. In my opinion, it is the part of his game that will always hold him back unfortunately from the TOP TOP levels of rugby.

Interesting to see how vital a kicker for Ulster Cooney has now become.

This is my new favourite unconscious confirmation bias post. Criticises Carty's kicking style (granted it does look rather artficial) when his kicking stats are 79% in the league & 90% in Europe, while talking up Cooney's importance as a kicker when he's had a mare off the tee all season (68% league; 67% Europe).

Sean74 wrote:

Mark Mostyn wrote: If anyone saw Scarlets - Ospreys last week Steff Evans got a red for something very similar to the McFadden incident, some consistency would be nice.

Evans got a 4 match ban too I think for that tackle. McFadden's would have been a yellow you would have thought and if the tackle was the other way it would have been for sure.

www.the42.ie/kieran-keane-tight-lipped-l...ter-3776634-Jan2018/

How could anybody suggest -looking at that photograph-that McFadden was making an attempt to catch the ball? Another fudge - and somehow it happened in Leinster's back-yard:-(

Mark Mostyn wrote: If anyone saw Scarlets - Ospreys last week Steff Evans got a red for something very similar to the McFadden incident, some consistency would be nice.

Evans got a 4 match ban too I think for that tackle. McFadden's would have been a yellow you would have thought and if the tackle was the other way it would have been for sure.

www.the42.ie/kieran-keane-tight-lipped-l...ter-3776634-Jan2018/

In fairness , I think Carty's kicking has recently moved up a notch in an overall sense. Furthermore, recent form has been excellent on the park too.

However, he still has that stupid tendency to go 'high' with all kicks at goal - not always the best strategy & it has most definitely costs him / us scores when we really needed them. In my opinion, it is the part of his game that will always hold him back unfortunately from the TOP TOP levels of rugby.

Interesting to see how vital a kicker for Ulster Cooney has now become.

If anyone saw Scarlets - Ospreys last week Steff Evans got a red for something very similar to the McFadden incident, some consistency would be nice.

ya sorry not that we didn't pose problems for them, Bealham's try being an example of that, but at the end in particular Leinster looked so sure in defence, I know there's a fine line between looking strong and us having just sneaked over, but our lads looked out on their feet and I think the fact we had a few bench players still in the stands was a mistake, I think Quinn definitely could have added something at the end, because Cannon and Dillane were out on their feet after terrific performances. Regarding Healy I don't think we have to worry about him being involved with Ireland, Joe knows how important he is for us so like letting Tiernan miss the Autumn I'm sure he'll punish McFadden for that awful attempted tackle and force him to spend a few weeks in Carton house for his trouble. But in all seriousness I'd be less surprised to see Larmour and McFadden involved than TOH and Healy, just going on form (Joe's form at picking teams that is).

McFadden never had even the slightest of chances of competing with TOH for that ball and in truth he never even tried. He had plenty of opportunity to pull out of the tackle but chose to take TOH out in the air regardless of the consequences. That's a red card all day long and given McFadden's previous disciplinary issues a fairly long holiday to follow. That the ref, assistant ref's and video ref's deemed it not even worthy of a yellow is worrying. Player welfare is supposed to be their primary responsibility on the field and yesterday they failed miserably. McFadden has a history of succumbing to the red mist far too often and being dangerously reckless bordering on cynical.

I'm worried about Healy.

he's playing so well he could come back into Schmidt's consideration soon

I think we did ask serious questions Mulman, it's just that Leinster had some good answers, the only away seems to be over them or around them, but never through them; a serious team. They are also happy to play foul, giving up a 3 pointer rather than a try - classic AB stuff. Should mention JvdF also, apparently he had 34 tackles, pretty incredible by any standards.

While we lost, the performances after the Zebre debacle have been very solid, and the confidence is rising, so we should be more than hopeful vs. Munster. If we can defend their maul better than Ulster (who couldn't) we should have a good chance. My guess is after two losses that Munster will have their full A team, so our back three better be up for Murray's up and unders, I cannot believe that they will let JJ near the pitch - he was absolutely shocking yesterday.

MulMan wrote: ...but by my calculations Matt is now 1 try away from Fionn Carr's record or am I totally off the mark with that one.

Yep you're right he's on 41 just one short of Fionn.

I thought he'd equaled the record against Leinster but one of the sites I use for stats had him incorrectly marked down for a hat-trick (rather than the 2 he scored) against Treviso a few years back.

So far he has:
League - 22
Challenge Cup - 14
Champions Cup/HEC - 3
Champions Cup Playoff - 2