Heaslip is still trying to find his feet, remember he's only five games into his captaincy. Nothing wrong with his performance on Sunday, certainly compared some other players on the pitch who were either anonymous or disastrous.

O'Callaghan/ O'Mahony and Earls respectively for starters..

Jacksons kicking was a known issue so there were no surprises there if anything Kidney was at fault for selecting him knowing the issue existed.

Best was always up against it at line-out time against a massive Scottish line-up and a very limited Irish one with probably Ryan the only serious option.

Ryan is also line-out Captain I believe, not sure if was his call tactically but there was nowhere near enough variation in our lineout to disrupt the Scottish jumpers, we should have been mixing up the number of jumper ever lineout in the first half, well either that or have started Henderson instead of O'Mahony to strengthen our Arial options or brought him on much earlier to tidy it up.

I think the best thing at the moment is to leave it with Heaslip and when Kidney goes have the new lad come in with a broom remove O'Gara and 'appoint' a new captain. It will most likely happen this year and the damage has already being done with regards to the 6 nations.

P.S. Do people think POC still has an international career? I'm not doubting his quality or commitment but the chances of him lasting till the next world cup are slim.

yes i think it is.

Is it reasonable to resurrect this thread in the wake of yesterday's debacle?

It happened again on Sat, he wanted to go for the posts on the last penalty with 30 secs to go, but Farrell insisted they go down the line and win the line out.

theCulk wrote:

The IMF wrote: Let's remember where Chris Robshaw was as a captain 3 games ago for England, pilloried from pillar to post after their losses to SA & Aus but now he is seriously touted as a Lions captain.

From what I revcall it was only the SA game. When he pointed to the posts with a minute to go instead of going for the corner. The difference between him and Heaslip is that Robshaw maintains a constant line of communication with the ref. He's alway encouraging and talking to his team. An dhe has learned big tmie from all the flak he received after that SA game

It finished Eng 14 - 20 Australia, Robshaw got a fierce battering over here in the media (wrongly IMO) because Eng had 3 pen opps at various times in the 2nd half, which as Captain he was blamed culpable of not taking when the easy analysis came out after the game. That set the foundation for the SA match where he was hung drawn and quartered after losing the faith of his team - remember him openly arguing with Farrell when he asked him to kick near the end of the game. All I am saying is it's funny what a couple of wins can do to enhance the reputation of a captain.

In criticising the choice of Heaslip as captain I am not laying the whole of the loss at his feet. It is just that the defeat highlighted the error. Of course people are going to question the role of the coach or captain when the team are winning most of the battles, but losing the war. You can debate the importance of a captain in the modern game with all the preparation that goes on beforehand, but he must still be able to get the players motivated one way or another.

Ireland will need to make sure they are not as flat against Scotland or they will once again find themselves on the losing end. The Scots will fancy their chance to run the table and, with some help from Wales, win this 6 Nations. They will be plenty motivated for Ireland's trip to Murrayfield.

i agree with you that Rog is past it now but you have to give credit to the english effort without the ball. they put our recivers under serious preesure throughout which caused the turnovers and ultimately penanalties which won them the game. we didnt put them under anything like that type of pressure for most of the game. we allowed t..hem back into our half far too easy.
you dont require a game plan to know that you are require to give 100% and chase down kicks in order to put as much pressure on reciver as possible. we didnt do that and our players stand indicted of laziness or lack of application in that regard.
the kick and chase decided the outcome in this game and it was the one area that they dominated in tbis game. the dissappointing thing is that that is an attitude and application thing.

rossie wrote: the most obvious and serious problem was the attitude, application and energy levels of the team which when compared directly to the english attitude, applicationa and energy levels were found seriously wanting and cost us the game.

Maybe we should have stuck it up the jumper and struck round the fringes, bashed them dastardly English up and made 200 70-centimetre-Paulie/Jamie-carries-from-a-standing-start. :evil:

The attitude and energy schtick doesn't cut it. We had the better of scrum, lineout, turnovers, possession, territory, penalty count; in fact our hapless captain asides (and didn't he have a stinker?) nobody in the pack played poorly. We even won the fight, pyrrhic though that victory will be for Healy.

I will grant you that the coaching ticket have to take a hit for the unfocussed kicking-based gameplan (as you say, it wasn't like Sexton was looking too hot before he got injured and maybe I should cut ROG some slack on that basis), but if your pack are on top then it's up to the playmakers - the halfbacks - to use the possession provided. Murray was fine, so the outhalves are the next point you look at, and while Sexton was poor ROG was awful - physically not up to it, standing too deep, his passing was horrendous and: He. Couldn't. Even. Kick. A. Penalty. Up. The. Line. Any. More.

Don't take this as an assault on ROG: the fault lies with the selectors. He's gone. But he'll be whipped long past the point of usefulness, just like Hayes was and D'arcy will be (he's teetering right on the edge of past it too). At least BOD looks like he'll have the sense to get out before he goes downhill.

It's gone very quiet on the new contract for the coach front, hasn't it?

the most obvious and serious problem was the attitude, application and energy levels of the team which when compared directly to the english attitude, applicationa and energy levels were found seriously wanting and cost us the game.

Rog was poor no doubt, jonnie wasnt doing much better before him but this was a poor tam performance and cannot be laid at the feet of one man be it rog or jamie. they targetted our kicking game and worked their asses off in the chase to close it down. we didnt work our asses off to do the same to them. almost all kick returns by them were carried into our half before the first tackle. there is no excuse for that. you compare that to our kick recivers who were met inside their own 22 more often than not. that was the difference between the teams. not rog or jamie or even kearney. the mistakes they and others made were forced by this work ethic.

"And he will have to hand the reins for the start of the revival, at the very least, to Ronan O'Gara."

Despite the fact that the most obvious and serious problem on Sunday was a certain replacement outhalf, there are still a few in the Meeja on there knees in front of the bould ROG. They'll be touting Heaslip for Lions captain next.

Anyone care to guess the pundit?

The IMF wrote: Let's remember where Chris Robshaw was as a captain 3 games ago for England, pilloried from pillar to post after their losses to SA & Aus but now he is seriously touted as a Lions captain.

From what I revcall it was only the SA game. When he pointed to the posts with a minute to go instead of going for the corner. The difference between him and Heaslip is that Robshaw maintains a constant line of communication with the ref. He's alway encouraging and talking to his team. An dhe has learned big tmie from all the flak he received after that SA game

For me Ben Kay hit the nail on the head tonight with his analysis of where the game was won and lost: the kicking game.

Something along the lines of when they kicked the ball, it looked an organized preemptive cohesive effort, whilst when we kicked it looked completely off the cuff. The decisive difference being in the resultant kick chase and the pressure applied.

We can't blame Heaslip for that structural deficiency in our game can we?

I don't know, I guess I just feel his captaincy is highlighted as a primary cause when we lose but it wasn't even alluded to when we beat Argentina and Wales. Rightly or wrongly he is the man with the armband now, let's just get behind him for the rest of the championship and analyse the rights and wrongs of it when we have a bit more information to go on.

Let's remember where Chris Robshaw was as a captain 3 games ago for England, pilloried from pillar to post after their losses to SA & Aus but now he is seriously touted as a Lions captain.

the captaincy decision came as part of the central contract negotiations between jamie and irfu. imo in order to justify the size of the contract necessary to keep him here the captaincy became part of it just like Bod before him.
it shudnt be set in stone and imo he was a bad choice for all the reasons listed by others already.

If Kidney made the decision based on the RWC it was a mistake. Heaslip is struggling to keep the starting job as it is what would make DK believe he would be able to nail it down for the next two + years? I would have gone with Best or BOD for the next 6-12 months then you can start thinking about which player should lead the team to the RWC.

As for replacing Sexton, unfortunately Ireland still have a chance for the 6N title so Kidney will play it conservatively and start ROG against Scotland. There is no way O'Gara gets discarded completely. It would be a bold move beyond Kidney and probably most coaches to go with two from Jackson, Madigan and Keatley. My call would be to start Madigan.

From looking at other messageboards it is nice to see some neutrality with regard to this topic. Every Munster fan wants him out and every Leinster fan thinks he is the greatest. It is nice to read peoples honest thoughts here.

I do not think he is the right person to lead us to the next world cup. I do not think he portrays the correct image. One of the things that bothers me is the headphones as well as talking about Simon Zebos dance moves in press conferences. I know it is a bit of light heartiness but it gets under my skin. He is beginning to remind me of James Haskell who wants to be the joker around the place. I watched the two matches with great interest and it appeared that every big decision was made by O'Driscoll. When he came on, Chris Henry, was the player doing all the talking in the pack.

I think the best thing that could be done for Heaslips game is to "rest" him. Let him know that although he is captain he can still be dropped. Kidney and Schmidt both must see something they like in him as a leader but I don't think that the general public have seen it yet. He has not performed to his ability since he has been named captain either.