ConnachtCows wrote:

Sheepsean wrote:

connachtexile wrote: Eoin Reddan broke his leg just above the ankle and is out for 3 months. Shame for Reddan as he was doing well and Leinster will miss him. Will also be interesting to see who Kidney picks to replace him Boss/Marmion/Marshall/ Williams/Stringer.

RTE:

Ireland's injury-depleted ranks were swelled even further by a number of other casualties with lock Donnacha Ryan damaging his shoulder and centre Luke Marshall sustaining concussion.

Both are doubts to face Italy next Saturday, while flanker Peter O'Mahony, scrum-half Conor Murray, centre Brian O'Driscoll and wing Fergus McFadden also picked up a variety of knocks.

Broke my own ankle years ago in a similar manner .In fairness to him,Reddan still presented the ball with agony on his face.Trainer told me i roared ,as if the world was coming to an end :whistle:

Seems to be very little made of the Penalty/Yellow card that wasn't given with the Earls situation.Thought it was criminal.At minimum , a penalty.

Felt sorry for McCarthy .Don't think he had regained his fitness in time.

If a penalty had been given against Ireland for that shoulder, I would have been freaking out. I honestly dont think there was a penalty in that. You see a lot worse go unpunished

Nonsense it was a stone cold penalty at the very least. If the prop hadn't come off his line to barge Earls into touch I have little doubt that Earls would have been quicker to the ball than Picamole. But it was at the very least a penalty, and I could forgive it not being given if there was not a Fourth Official available to review, but how Nigel Whitehouse came to the conclusion that the Prop had not obstructed Earls is totally incomprehensible the prop had no intention of playing the ball..



Outside of that abomination, it was much the same old story as against the Scots a complete lack of clinicality.

Also much as I think it's great that Macca is getting Ireland Caps, I have to wonder why he is being picked as in the three games he has played he has been used a lineout option on three occasions and not once against France.

Now it may be only me (and I'm a second row myself), but I don't understand why either Macca isn't utilised more (he does it week in week out for us) or if he's not seen as providing a viable option he simply isn't replaced by someone who does....

This is more of the Kidney square peg-round hole crap / inability to utilise the talent he has available....

Macca is dropping balls too often for my liking. I know the conditions were bad, but he has been responsible for some glaring knock ons in this tournament. It's as if sometimes he's not expecting the ball.

Hope he can turn that around, the rest of his game is full of impact.

I've seen them given and not given. The ref went up to the TMO and he decided there wasn't so you can't blame the ref. No complaints here.

As for McCarthy I thought he did well. I watched him at the breakdown every chance I got and he did dome great work there. He knocked a ball on once but apart from that it was a very good performance by him.

Sheepsean wrote:

connachtexile wrote: Eoin Reddan broke his leg just above the ankle and is out for 3 months. Shame for Reddan as he was doing well and Leinster will miss him. Will also be interesting to see who Kidney picks to replace him Boss/Marmion/Marshall/ Williams/Stringer.

RTE:

Ireland's injury-depleted ranks were swelled even further by a number of other casualties with lock Donnacha Ryan damaging his shoulder and centre Luke Marshall sustaining concussion.

Both are doubts to face Italy next Saturday, while flanker Peter O'Mahony, scrum-half Conor Murray, centre Brian O'Driscoll and wing Fergus McFadden also picked up a variety of knocks.

Broke my own ankle years ago in a similar manner .In fairness to him,Reddan still presented the ball with agony on his face.Trainer told me i roared ,as if the world was coming to an end :whistle:

Seems to be very little made of the Penalty/Yellow card that wasn't given with the Earls situation.Thought it was criminal.At minimum , a penalty.

Felt sorry for McCarthy .Don't think he had regained his fitness in time.

If a penalty had been given against Ireland for that shoulder, I would have been freaking out. I honestly dont think there was a penalty in that. You see a lot worse go unpunished

connachtexile wrote: Eoin Reddan broke his leg just above the ankle and is out for 3 months. Shame for Reddan as he was doing well and Leinster will miss him. Will also be interesting to see who Kidney picks to replace him Boss/Marmion/Marshall/ Williams/Stringer.

RTE:

Ireland's injury-depleted ranks were swelled even further by a number of other casualties with lock Donnacha Ryan damaging his shoulder and centre Luke Marshall sustaining concussion.

Both are doubts to face Italy next Saturday, while flanker Peter O'Mahony, scrum-half Conor Murray, centre Brian O'Driscoll and wing Fergus McFadden also picked up a variety of knocks.

Broke my own ankle years ago in a similar manner .In fairness to him,Reddan still presented the ball with agony on his face.Trainer told me i roared ,as if the world was coming to an end :whistle:

Seems to be very little made of the Penalty/Yellow card that wasn't given with the Earls situation.Thought it was criminal.At minimum , a penalty.

Felt sorry for McCarthy .Don't think he had regained his fitness in time.

France might be in dissarray at 10 atm on their own ball but they are defensively sound with a huge pack and powerful scrum. The penalties dried up in 2nd half(apart from earls one in corner which wasnt given by ref after tmo recommended it) . I dont recall any blatant scores being left behind on the field. We kicked for field position and chased well. It paid dividends in first half and they were more secure on it in 2nd. It was still the rigjt tactic for conditions though imo. They sre huge men who hit hard and it took its toll over the 80. Its somewhat of an illusion that we should have won. If parra was goalkicking they would have won reasonably comfortably. The fact that he wasnt allows us to hold that opinion because we led for so long.

Eoin Reddan broke his leg just above the ankle and is out for 3 months. Shame for Reddan as he was doing well and Leinster will miss him. Will also be interesting to see who Kidney picks to replace him Boss/Marmion/Marshall/ Williams/Stringer.

RTE:

Ireland's injury-depleted ranks were swelled even further by a number of other casualties with lock Donnacha Ryan damaging his shoulder and centre Luke Marshall sustaining concussion.

Both are doubts to face Italy next Saturday, while flanker Peter O'Mahony, scrum-half Conor Murray, centre Brian O'Driscoll and wing Fergus McFadden also picked up a variety of knocks.

I have no problem with Ireland tiring as the game goes on as its clear to all and sundry we don't have the bench to match any of the top teams these days even with a full deck to choose from. The point is that it was the lack of a killer instinct when the game was there to be put away in the 1st half and early in the 2nd half which was again extremely dissapointing. Like against South Africa, Ireland were content to try and hope that a 9 or 10 point advantage would be enough to carry them through to the finish. Once France got back within a score even a team is dissarray with a jokeshop out half who gave us back possession as much as he could they still knew they would get a result if they hung in there.

rossie wrote:
We arent a good team at the moment.

That's it in one (understated) sentence. There were player in the wider squad this week wouldn't make the bench for Connacht.

Come on the physical effort it took to get on top of that french pack took its toll and from around 60th minute on the power of the french players started to dominate the game. One of our centres was clearly concussed and other played at least the last 15 on one leg. Church did well apart from scrum and didnt need replacing. Archer like all our bench ths are for use only in emergencies. What plan b would you recommend in those conditions? I think reddin was introduced to reinforce the gameplan as murray tired. No coach can legislate for what happened later.

We arent a good team at the moment. We are a top 8 team playing at our level of ability. France are a top 4 team struggling for form and leadership. It evened it out to a draw.

Same old story for me at least, not capable of playing a full game, bench weakened the team (although in fairness injuries didn't help at all, but deccie clearly didn't trust his two sub props). When plan A stops working there is no plan B. The mauls were pretty impressive, seemed like a suicidal tactic at first but came good, but it was the only real plan Ireland seemed to have. If it wasn't for michelak kicking Ireland would have lost that for sure.

Also just occurred to me but yet again a scoreless second half. This again is related to having no plan B, teams go into the dressing room and the opposition coaches can clearly see what needs to be done to counteract Ireland, even France.

taking of man of the match (by a mile) at 62 mins was asking for trouble!

good 60mins for ireland tho.

Third game this season Ireland have blown by not killing the game off while completely dominant. Effort was good but at crucial times execution was poor. Let a completely ramshackle French outfit off the hook. People saying this isn't a bad result. France are a complete joke at the moment. This is a poor result.

Yeah its really sad to see Hagan's career nosedive so badly considering he was starting to show some real ability imo at the end with Connacht and even now when he has played for Leinster has been good more often than not, become stronger and leaner too. Now even if he came back west he'd be behind a former Leinster team mate and Loughs, and although him and Loughney could scrap it out I can't see either of them overtaking White barring some serious changes in form for all concerned.

Also I like others seriously fear for Archers health, France usually put the Irish scrum under insane amounts of pressure anyways, never mind against a Rabo prop.

Its all over anyway. Even if we beat a French side in disarray so what. Might as well just jump on the women's 6 nations bandwagon and wait for a new coach to be appointed.

I shudder to think what may happen Archer if he's brought on. He has shown signs of improvement but for most of the season he's been a glorified Rodney. Can't really argue much of a case for anyone else though which is a damning indictment of our ability to bring through props at tighthead in particular. The fact Jamie Hagan is about 5th or 6th choice among a very poor list of candidates says it all about what a poor mistake he made in heading back to Leinster.

RogueXV wrote: I'd have to say a wooden spoon would seal Kidney's fate and I have a feeling Ireland will be battling the Italians for it on the final weekend.

And trying to hold off an Italian side smelling blood in Rome by a confidence sapped side in transition would be no banker either...