An away win is great, no matter how we get it but we have a serious amount of work to do before we meet them again in the HC.

You can bet your last Euro that Zebre will not want to loose twice in a row to us at home. We were poor, made too many mistakes and gave a poor team too much freedom around the field. They will get better and we will need a 100% improvement before October or we will not come away with the same result.

Borders no.2 wrote: Positives:
An away win!

This is the main thing for me personally. I will never forget listening to the match this time 2 seasons ago when we beat Glasgow away (Duncan Weir missed a sitter of a drop goal if I remember correctly) and how monumental that was since the last away game we won in this league before then was back in a scrappy game away against the Dragons years before.

Away wins in this league are fantastic, and I cant be too critical with a win at this stage of the season, albeit we should be 2 from 2 now, but the win has put our season back on track.

I think we will have some frech air with alternatives : JHW for Reynecke and Fla, Poolman for Vaini, Mc Sharry for Fafita, Browne and Kearney for Swift, Wilko for Ah You... to judge the whole team, wait and see if they can bring extra pace and cohesion...

Think we're being a bit overly negative lads.

First of all, scrum and lineout were excellent, and while we coughed up some at the breakdown we got as much back. And against an Italian team, no matter how poor they are behind the scrum, winning the forwards battle is good enough for me. Line speed in defence was excellent too any time they tried to go wide.

I thought Nikora kicked very well (from the hand too, watch it again and look at the touchfinders when we got ahead in the first half) and was pretty good until he had to go to scrum half, where injuries are really starting to get worrying.

The game itself was scrappy and messy and very poor at times, but when this kicked off it was 27 degrees in the shade. The Italian players were breathing out their arseholes after 10 minutes, never mind us.

Of course there are negatives - scrumhalf injuries, discipline, and the need to widen our lock options chief amongst them.

The two tries were down to one man errors - Duffy and Faloon should have nailed their men - rather than system failures, which is worhable on, but admittedly worryingly reminiscient of last years horrible run.

Mind you, after having our arses handed to us on a plate away to Aironi the last 2 seasons, this is a vast improvement.

salmson wrote:
As I mentioned in a previous post the first half is in a separate program

I got burnt by this! Pressed record on my sky box as the game was starting. I had pressed the info button, and the description probably explained that it was only the first half, but it was in Irish, and after only 13 years studying the language, how was I to understand it?!! By the sounds of things, I didn't miss much anyway. A win is a win I guess.

I'm pleased people aren't allowing the final result to paper over what was at best a poor performance.

Positives:
An away win!

Nikora kicked all his goals (I think) some of which were quite tricky. Got a bit more of some of his line kicking than usual at times.

Well worked first try following the turnover which Denis Buckley pounced well on.

Great spirit from McCarthy to first of all get us clear and then chase up after 80+ minutes in very hot conditions

Jarvis' boot was pricless on a couple of occasions near the end, once to clear to half way when we were struggling and 2nd time to kick it just over their try line to relieve the pressure

A couple of fantastic turnovers from JOC

Negatives:
Our inability to push on from 23-7 up after approx 55-60 minutes. Absolutely criminal mistakes on the restart to give them field position to make a game of it again.

Once again we lacked ideas and were in general unable to break the gainline against a very average side and then resorted to some very poor up and under kicking. Some of our kicking to the corners was much better but not nearly often enough.

Two tries were very poor defensively. First probably had a forward pass in the lead up but shouldn't have caused us problems with the cover there. 2nd was very poor. No.8 was powerful but attempted tackles were dire.

Zebre should have had two more tries, one from no-one covering the knock down from McCarthys lineout steal

By the end there was no tackles going in, we were out on our feet and lucky they knocked on and early engagement at next scrum

Our inability to tear a terrible Zebre team to shreds. Our scores / visits into their 22 ratio was dire, some awful handling errors. Handling error near the end when Rodney passed to Swifty wasn't good enough, a good team closes out those situations and works a score to kill the game or at least eats a few minutes off the clock.


We'll take the win and move on but the dross we have witnessed in the past 2 weeks won't be good enough in any other game this season.

We made serious hard work of that win. Much harder than what was needed. Way too many mistakes again. Same old story we get into a good position and have the ball and we f*ck up. This happens too many times. We needed to win that and we did so I'm not complaining (too much)

Christ that was a sick joke of a game

So so so poor. We've gone backwards alot. We have a ridiculous amount of work to do. Eric would want to pull the finger out, too often the management seem to bury there heads in the sand and not face facts that we are nowhere near the level we need to be. The mindset is so weak, we should have had that game dead and buried and instead were hanging on for dear life. So mentally weak.

Griffin did well for a lad that's feeling his way back up to speed. Johnny O Connor was brilliant at the breakdown, same as last week. George played ok, Buckley scrummed well.

On the other hand, Swifty is on the wane rapidly. I think we'll regret not snapping up a TH lock like Damien Browne to share the load. The rucks were a mess in the first half, not committing enough numbers. Ah You is a waste of time in the scrum because if he doesn't win the hit he's on the retreat rapidly and can't turn it around. Nikora's tactical kicking for most of the 1st half left alot to be desired. Very little penetration, fuck all line breaks. Way too predictable, lack of ideas. Poor to watch.

4 points though, which I'd have taken at the start. Scarlets will tear us a new one next week

The IMF wrote: Does anyone know why the 2nd half appears to be streamable but not the first?

So frustrating not getting any type of commentary for the first half!

All updates greatly appreciated here please!

As I mentioned in a previous post the first half is in a separate program to the second half and our betters from down south. Guessing the lazy b*stards only bothered streaming one. That'll teach me to big up TG4's coverage.

So it's well played then !!!!! well done lads.

Thanks s4p

The amount of times we have lost games like that i will take 4 points and a series of heart attacks all night long.

Players looked blowing all the way through the second, i don't think you can overstate the conditions playing a massive factor tonight, i hope it's that warm for our visit in October!!

Criminal that Zebre didn't allow themselves to come away with a bonus point with that wild pass. They played the better rugby in the 2nd half. Great hustle by Macca to be down there to fall on the ball for the try.

Sportitalia stream clock seemed to have the right time, folks probably would have been a little more nervous had they known there were 5 minutes left when Zebre had moved to within 6 points.

KnockOn.ie ‏@KnockOnRugby
Wait, turnover, hack down field, scramble defence but ball thrown wildly back, Mike McCarthy is first on it (Don't know how?) and scores!

game over after 87mins.
im confused and im taking a break. jebus where am i

good clearance. good chase by fetuu, defender through a blind pass. irish mike grabbed and fell over the line.

clock says 86 mins even though the clock stopped few times.

30-17

Huge scrum coming up

Will be a tense 5 minutes now.