All posts in category Ireland

Ulster Struggles

So there ya go – the dream is over. With Ulster’s development in recent years, Ireland have had three names supping at the top table of European rugby – we felt that the provinces were in a good position to replicate last season (and 2012)’s success and have three in the last eight. But, for the first time since 2010, Ulster won’t be there. We haven’t bothered crunching the stats – we’ll leave that to real numbers gurus like Andy McGeady – but we suspect there haven’t been many teams who have made the knockouts after losing their opening two games. After nicking a late bonus point in Welford Road, Ulster couldn’t even repeat that trick at home to Toulon and are now marooned with a single point. Bummer.

Now, losing to Toulon is far from disgraceful – they are European and French champions and produced the first powerhouse performance of the tournament on Saturday, whacking and bagging Ulster by half-time. Losing to this Leicester vintage isn’t so great though, and four wins with a couple of bonus points from here looks an extremely tall order, especially since one of those games is in Toulon.

In a sense, there have been some chickens coming home to roost for Ulster – organisational upheavel this summer, a lack of depth in the pack being exposed by injuries, and curious selection.

When Humph announced he was leaving for Glaws, Ulster rugger went into a state of shock, and it has taken four months for the endgame to play out. First of all, Cowboy was given the heave-ho with Les “Kissy” Kiss coming in on an interim job-share basis to bring his choke tackling expertise, hipster specs and sunny, thoughtful demeanour to Ravers – this was initally announced as a season-long measure. But then the announcement came that Kissy was going back to Carton House full-time and Ulster would shortly name a full-time coach. To no-ones surprise, a few weeks later, that was Neil Doak – with Kissy returning after RWC15 as Nucifor-stamped DoR. All of which ends well for Ulster, but it does mean that the Ulster players have had three head coaches for the 2014/15 season in 3 months – hardly the best preparation for European rugby.

And, although Doak has been around Ravers since, like, forever and has presumably – like the perennial bridesmaid – been preparing to be head coach for half that time, he only got the keys three weeks ago. Now, there can be no doubt he had input into team selection and tactics, so he wasn’t completely green, but having your second and third games as head coach against Leicester and Toulon is far from ideal. From Ulster’s perspective, the succession hasn’t been smooth – the best-managed corporates have a succession plan for everybody that they can put in place when required – Ulster might have got the outcome they wanted, but it took them a while to get there, and preparation undoubedly suffered. Perhaps there was a reason Doak couldn’t have taken over when Cowboy was slung out, with Kiss being lined up as 2015 DoR in time, but we can’t think of a persuasive one. Either way, Ulster have been in a state of organisational flux since June.

Secondly, the team was decimated by injury – or was it? The reality is that they are missing both starting locks  – Dan Tuohy, NWJMB – Ruan Pienaar and Andy Trimble. Pienaar and Trimble are virtually irreplacable but its the pack which has been hardest hit. Note: Alan O’Connor is also suspended, but if you are depending on an Academy player with two starts to rescue you against Toulon, you are in trouble. The reality of the situation is that Ulster’s depth in the pack was a concern 12 month ago and its got markedly worse since:

  • OUT: Tom Court (Prop, 32 caps for Ireland), John Afoa (Prop, 36 caps for BNZ, RWC11 winner), Johann Muller (Lock, 24 caps for SA, RWC07 winner), Fez (Flanker, 35 caps for Ireland, 2009 Lion) plus Niall Annett (Hooker), Adam Macklin (Prop), Paddy McAlister (Prop), Sean Doyle (Flanker)
  • IN: Wiehann Herbst (Prop), Ruadhri Murphy (Prop), Dave Ryan (Prop), Franco van der Merwe (Lock, 1 cap for SA), Charlie Butterworth (Flanker), Sean Reidy (Flanker)

Essentially, Ulster have lost their captain, 2 RWC winners, Ireland’s only player of the professional era aside from POC and BOD to be challenging for a World XV and 127 international caps and replaced them with a couple of wild card props and a once-capped Springbok journeyman. Poor planning, and ordinary recruitment. That’s going to hurt when you come up against a side who can lose Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe after five minutes and replace him with a MOTM contender from last year’s final. Ulster were so stretched, they had to rely on Clive Ross and Nick Williams as crack game-changers from the bench.

That’s a big enough handicap as is, but to find yourself struggling to identify your starting centres is pretty careless. Jared Payne has been the chosen one at outside centre for Ulster (and maybe for Ireland) but it’s fair to say he hasn’t got going there – when Ulster have brought Dazzler Cave into the team and moved Payne back to full-back, they’ve looked immeasurably more dangerous. Against the Tigers, Ulster went for brawn inside in the shape of Stuart McCloskey, but began to create opportunities only when he was replaced with the rapier that is Stu Olding. The against Toulon, it was Olding who started, but even before he got kicked in the head in a scene reminiscent of the Thing That Never Happened, he was being run ragged by Maxime Mermoz (aside: is this a first for anyone else to see Mermoz actually playing well? He has always seemed disappointing any time we have seen him) and Mathieu Boshtereaud.

Which isn’t to say Toulon steamrollered over Ulster – it was the technical brilliance of their pack and centres that won them this game – subtlety was the name of the game in the key moments. That awful feeling of being outclassed came a week after a litany of errors handed a free win to a Leicester Tigers team that subsequently gave the Scarlets (the Scarlets!) an easy win. Ulster have hid it pretty well in the Pro12 to date, but a pair of limp defeats in the rarefied air of the HEC/ERCC has shown them up for being a bit of a mess right now. If Doak didn’t know he had a big job on his hands, he does now.

by whiffofcordite on October 28, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in HEC, Ireland, Les Kiss, Nail Doak, Toulon, Ulster

Posted by whiffofcordite on October 28, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/10/28/ulster-struggles/

Naturalised Kiwis? I’ll Take Two

Joe Schmidt pulled a surprise yesterday by announcing his panel for the November internationals a week early. We don’t know what the logic behind the premature announcement is; perhaps he just likes to keep us on our toes, the scallywag.

As invariably happens with these things, the squad is pretty large so talking points are kept to a minimum. The real sniping only really gets going when the team is announced for the first test, so keep your powder dry folks! Nonetheless, with five new caps, 15 injuries and one or two notable omissions there was a bit of information to be gleaned.

Jared Payne has long been earmarked for a role as a naturalised Irishman and his moment has finally arrived. Will he be auditioned for 13, where he still doesn’t appear entirely comfortable, or seen as back-up for Rob Kearney? A test debut seems probable in any case.

Connacht’s Darragh Leader is the beneficiary of both Connacht’s good start to the season and a scattering of injuries in the back three. He’ll be competing with Bowe, Zebo and Gilroy for selection on the wing and at the very least will get valuable exposure.

Dominic Ryan is rewarded for a strong start to the campaign after his career looked to have stalled. He was among Leinster’s better players against Wasps and in the absence of Sean O’Brien and Jordi Murphy, he adds welcome depth.

Munster’s Dave Foley looks a good pick having looked solid throughout Munster’s up-and-down start to the season. It wouldn’t be entirely surprising to see him named on the bench, because Mike McCarthy has looked a bit leaden for Leinster.

Of the five newbies, the biggest impact could be made by another naturalised Kiwi, Nathan White, Connacht’s rock-solid tighthead. With Marty Moore injured, there’s every chance he will leapfrog Stephen Archer and maybe even Rodney Ah You, who somehow remains in the panel, to perform the sizeable role of seeing out the match after Mike Ross collapses from exhaustion.

Elsewhere, the main talking point was Paddy Jackson’s omission. Schmidt has left out the Ulsterman in favour of Ians Madigan and Keatley. It’s a form call and one imagines if it was tight in the first place, this weekend’s events may have been the decisive pendulum-swing. While Keatley was being lauded for his drop goal heroics, Jackson rather summed up Ulster’s night in Leicester with a lackadaisical conversion which was charged down. It’s a very definite boot up the arse for Jackson, who will be well aware that in a World Cup year, one of he, Keatley and Madigan will find themselves squeezed out of the touring party. Get your game face on fella, starting this weekend against Toulon.

One player a shade unlucky to miss out is Duncan Casey. His lineout stats are unmatched in Europe this year, and neither Cronin nor Best are exactly technicians, so he would have dovetailed nicely. Richardt Strauss hasn’t done anything of note this season, but clearly Schmidt is a fan. Also missing out is Darren Cave, whose ship appears to now have sailed. Squeezed onto the bench at Ulster having failed to take his chance with Ireland this summer, it looks like other options will be explored.

There was better news for Tommy O’Donnell who is recalled. The Tipp man hasn’t quite hit the barnstorming heights of his early 2013 form, but he is at least out of the doldrums of last season. Another player who has been on the same up-down-up trajectory is Craig Gilroy, who looks back to something like the razor-sharp runner who stunned Argentina in one of the most memorable test debuts in living memory. Both play in positions with notable absentees and have a chance to stake a claim.  Now gentlemen, no more injuries, please.  Pretty please.  With sugar on top.

by whiffofcordite on October 22, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Ian Keatley, Ireland, Joe Schmidt, Paddy Jackson

Posted by whiffofcordite on October 22, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/10/22/naturalised-kiwis-ill-take-two/

Thirty Man Squads

Why are the World Cup squads capped at 30 players? It looks like an arbitrary enough number, set at exactly double the number of players on a rugby team. You might think it suggest that it enables a player and a back-up for all the positions on the field. Perfect? What more could you want?

Except that this appears to overlook the position-specificity of rugby, the development of tactical substitutions and also its attritional nature. Not to mention that certain positions in the team have essentially become 50-30 minute roles to be shared by two players, a development that has taken place in the last six or seven years – in the 2007 World Cup final, the victorious Springboks made only 1 permanent change and that for 8 minutes. Admittedly, their opponents, Dad’s Army, emptied the bench and gave luminaries like, er, Peter Richards and Dan Hipkiss runouts, but they were older and were chasing the game.

One other key development that it overlooks is that matchday squads have been extended from 22 to 23 players since the last World Cup. Not only does this mean that an extra body has to be supplied to each match, but it has a significant knock-on effect on the nature of prop forwards. Back when one prop took his place on the pine, the ambi-prop who could fill in capably on both sides of the scrum was a hugely valued commodity. The outstanding filler-inner in global rugby was Toulouse’s behemoth JB Poux. Sure, France had better tightheads than Poux, and better looseheads, but none were so capable at doing both. England had Matt Stevens and David Wilson. Stars of the game and world-class in the set piece? Not a bit of it but valuable filler-in for the 17 jersey. Ireland had Tom Court. The less said about his qualities on the tighthead side the better, but he was there to cover both sides, notionally at least.

But since the advent of 23-man squads the ambi-prop no longer has any value at all, and a specialist tight and loosehead can be – indeed, must be – accommodated on the bench. As soon as the new rules came into play, Tom Court could stop having nightmares about the playing on the tight side and get on with his role as loosehead… or just get dropped from the squad altogether. Matt Stevens could … er… forget about important things like fitness and conditioning but still somehow make the Lions squad.  What was our point again?

Given a lack of requirement to fill in on both sides, props have been left to develop their game on just one side. It means most nations will be looking at bringing nine front row players. The closest thing Ireland have to a prop who can play both sides is Jack McGrath who has filled in at tighthead the odd time, but scarcely for a over a year. Could we rely upon him as emergency cover or will one of Tadgh Furlong and Stephen Archer be required (along with Mike Ross and Marty Moore, who are appear locked down)? Surely it will be the latter.

Along with three props, chances are most squads will need three of that other specialist position, scrum-half. Only France have scrum-halves and fly-halves who are interchangeable; most nations see the roles as pretty disparate. It all means that three positions could take up 12 squad places and leaves room for just 18 players to cover the other 11. It puts a premium on utility players who can cover a handful of positions. It’s good news for these player types:

  1. The athletic second row who can run fast. The second row who is quick enough to play on the blindside has a big value, because he reduces the back-row/lock requirement by one. Donnacha Ryan made the last world cup on this basis. Step forward Iain Henderson for Ireland and Courtney Lawes for England. Wales don’t appear to breed this type of player; despite having an abundance of fine second rows most of their best locks would be an uneasy fit at 6.
  2. The fly-half who can play centre, or vice-versa. Fly-half is a pretty specified role and mighty important. You need three of them in the squad, in case one gets injured, but that leaves precious little room left for backs. So ideally, at least one of these fly-halves has to be able to play elsewhere. Or one of the centres has to be able to cover fly-half. This is why Paddy Wallace was in the last panel and Luke Fitzgerald was left at home. He could cover centre, full-back and fly-half. Those with especially long memories might recall that Geordan Murphy fulfilled the role in 2007 (when Wallace was the actual backup). Stuart Olding and Ian Madigan fit the bill this time around, and at least one of them is bound to travel. For England, Billy Twelvetrees is the man, while Dan Carter has a reasonable amount of experience at 12 for the Kiwis.  James Hook is probably the classic of the genre, but he’s so good Warren Gatland generally prefers to leave him out for vastly inferior players.
  3. The Utility three-quarter – if you can only play on the right wing, you’d better be damn good because if you’re only in contention as a squad man, you’d be better off if you could cover a few jerseys in the back division. Happily, Ireland have a good few of this player type, and all of Simon Zebo, Keith Earls, Luke Fitzgerald and especially Fergus McFadden have experience in at least two positions across the backline.
  4. The Catch-All Backrow – As with the back division, the flanker who can play a couple of positions has an inherent advantage. Ireland have found themselves with an unhealthy oversupply of blindside men in recent world cups, but Jordi Murphy – assuming he can continue his development from last season – can offer better cover at No.8 and No.7 than we’ve previously had. It also helps that Peter O’Mahony and Sean O’Brien have played in all three positions in the backrow. Luckily for England, all their flankers are interchangeable six-and-a-halfs.  On the flipside, New Zealand, Australia and Wales appear to have the clearest demarcation between blindsides and opensides, with the likes of Warburton, Tipuric, Pocock, McCaw and Hooper performing the roles of the openside in the classic ‘breakaway’ mould beloved of purists like Leinsterlion.

All this utility nonsense might not be so important if they extended the squad size to 32 players, which appears logical.  Nobody, least of all the coaches wants a 2005-Lions-sized panel with lots of players who won’t see any action loitering in camp, but two extra bodies would probably go down well. Also, forget any notions of Joe Schmidt having a cast of extras in camp so he can draft players into the squad quickly in case of injury. It’ll be hard enough keeping 30 caged animals happy, having a bunch of hangers-on who know they can’t get selected unless some lad goes down hurting is not going to run at all.

by whiffofcordite on September 23, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Ireland, RWC11, RWC15

Posted by whiffofcordite on September 23, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/09/23/thirty-man-squads/

RIP Leinstertainment

There was a documentary released a tad over 20 years ago called ‘An Impossible Job’ about Graham Taylor’s inept attempt to qualify England for the soccer World Cup in the USA. Taylor had a couple of fundamental issues that made his job impossible – he took it on right after England had achieved what was (and still is) their best performance in a major tournament not held in England, and the sky high expectations of fans who weren’t of a disposition to accept that Carlton Palmer and Les Ferdinand perhaps weren’t quite as good as Ronald Koeman and Ruud Gullit.

Its a decent comparison to Matt O’Connor’s lot when taking over from Joe Schmidt at Leinster – two Heineken Cups, a Euro-vase and a Pro12 title (in their third successive final) were won with style and verve and Leinster fans have become a little sated. Following Schmidt out the door were Isa Nacewa (retirement) and Jonny Sexton (Croissants and Coffee) to be replaced by Jimmy Gopperth (Newcastle Falcons) and Zane Kirchner (in November).

Schmidt was revered by Leinster fans for his intelligent and accurate rugby and for the feral manner in which his charges hoovered up the best in Europe and spat them out. Eviscerations of opponents in the RDS/Aviva were common and Leinstertainment became a frequently-used truism about the best team Irish provincial rugby has produced. O’Connor came unheralded from Leicester Tigers, an excellent team but associated with a style some Leinster fans consider beneath them – conveniently forgetting both the way Mike Cheika steadied the ship by grinding out wins through Ollie le Roux and Stan Wright, and how the sainted Schmidt’s teams played away from home in Europe, where ruthless pragmatism was the order of the day.

Leinster won the Pro12 in style last year, but limped out of Europe, albeit against a frightening Toulon team – the season was reasonably successful, and, on paper, better than the previous one where Leinster were dumped out of the HEC early and would surely have lost the final had Ulster not had to cede home advantage. That Leinster have lost some of their sheen is in no doubt – the accuracy of the Schmidt era felt like it ebbed away last year and the team often laboured in possession. O’Connor, predictably, got most of the blame, but there are some pretty big mitigating factors.

Leinster’s starting pack contains five current Ireland starters (DJ Church, Rosser, Lighthouse Toner, SOB and Heaslip), one player expected to make a serious push for the XV this year (Rhys Ruddock), and Ireland’s entire backup front row are Leinstermen. This pack anchored the Six Nations champions and has been among the best in Europe for several year now. In contrast, the current roster of backs is arguably the third best in Ireland, with only Bob a guaranteed Ireland starter. O’Connor lost his two most influential backs before he started and Leinster’s best ever player after his first season. They were not adequately replaced, although Kirchner was increasingly finding his feet as his first year went on. It’s pretty easy to see why playing a forward-oriented game suits his personnel.

One of the biggest rods used to beat O’Connor is the Ian Madigan one – we have been Madigan fans from year zilch, and he is an outstanding natural talent. The accepted wisdom among a significant chunk of the Leinster support was that, not only was Mads a sure thing to smoothly step into Jonny’s shoes, but it was actually a good thing that Sexton was forced abroad, as it would save the new coach the headache of how to fit both Madigan and Sexton into the team. We were worried that it wouldn’t be as easy as that – Sexton was the Lions fly-half and a key driver of the team. Sure, Mads looked great off the bench or against mediocre opponents in the Pro12, but it’s a different game with the pressure on.

Last year, O’Connor selected the journeyman (sorry, but it’s true) Gopperth ahead of Madigan for all the big games, and the perception was the Madigan was getting a raw deal . Mads did finish the season very strongly, for province and country, but there is no doubt who MOC saw as his first choice 10. It’s easy, and convenient, to jump on the “MOC ruined Mads” bandwagon but we just aren’t buying it – if Madigan was tearing up trees in training and MOC thought he could execute the game he wanted to play, he’d have been picked. Simples. But he couldn’t get Gopperth out of the team.

Now this season, Leinster have started the year poorly, and #MOCOut was trending on Twitter on Friday. But, again, it’s another over-reaction – it’s not quite in the Hook “Schmidt has lost the dressing room” from September 2010, but it’s just not that simple. For a start, the  first two games kind of went to the script:

  • Glasgow (A) – loss, with bonus point. Glasgow are one of the best sides in the league, and Leinster had humiliated them in their last fixture – they could expect a massive reaction. Glasgae were at home, and Leinster never start well – a losing bonus point was what most expected going into the fixture
  • Scarlets (H) – win, with bonus point. When you are pissed off and want a game to play yourself back into form, home to the Scarlets is about as good as it gets. Tackling is optional and set pieces are easy. Sweet – five points and all is well.
  • Connacht (A) – loss, with bonus point. Now, the performance was poor, and a team with 11 internationals should do better. But its a perennial bogey fixture for Leinster, and they were playing  a Connacht team with momentum and chips on their shoulder big enough to earn Axel’s respect. A setback, but not an absolute disaster.

Leinster need to get their season going, but not only is it early days, the fixture list from here to Christmas is packed with winnable fixtures – indeed, it’s entirely feasible they won’t lose again until Stephen’s Day, when passion and honesty will be in the brave and faithful air in Limerick. Have a look:

  • September: home to Cardiff is essentially a banker. Nothing to see here
  • October: the Big Match in the Palindrome against Munster – normally an awful spectacle, but Leinster will be favourites and aren’t likely to fall flat here. Then it’s Zebre away and Wasps at the RDS – two wins surely. Next up is a trip to Castres to face the HEC’s favourite bunnies – assuming they don’t try a jot in the ERCC as well, Leinster’s pack should make this one winnable. Last up, Embra at home – five points please.
  • November: it will be the reserves, but then Leinster’s are better than most. Treviso away and the Hairsprays at home – both eminently winnable, although Ospreys typically make life difficult for Leinster.
  • December: first up, the double-header with Quins. Quins are slowly sagging backwards from the Premiership-winning season three years ago, and were tonked 39-0 by Globo Gym at the Stoop a few weeks ago. Again, Leinster will see this as an achievable two wins, but one win might be enough in any case so long as they come out ahead on match points over the two legs. Then, before the trip to Thomond, it’s Connacht at home, where there will be a whiff of you-know-what in the air.

Sure, Leinster have started slowly, but let’s keep things in perspective. The strength of the pack means Leinster will contend in every game, and cause celebre Madigan has started the season well. This year is going to be more pragmatic rugby, but rather than ruing O’Connor not being Joe Schmidt, merely winning games is still… winning games. And Leinster’s pack is brilliant. It wasn’t always this way.

by whiffofcordite on September 22, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Ireland, Joe Schmidt, Leinster, Matt O'Connor

Posted by whiffofcordite on September 22, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/09/22/rip-leinstertainment/

Jonny, Jump on the Jet, we’re off to Cayman

The news that Jonny Sexton’s return to Leinster is being funded by private (i.e. non-Union) money was confirmed this week, and also clarifies how they managed to stave off Toulon’s interest in Jamie Heaslip last January. Leinster’s main sponsor, Bank of Ireland, made Heaslip a “brand ambassador” and gave him a chunk of cash, and Denis O’Brien has bankrolled part of Sexton’s wage packet. Newstalk, owned by O’Brien’s Communicorp, was, completely coincidentally, the platform for an exclusive Sexton interview on why he is coming home.

The professional model up to this point has been founded on increasing commercial, ticket and TV revenue (largely from the national team), with the proceeds invested back in the game – part of which is player contracts. The Union (largely) controlled this process in Ireland, but in France it was the clubs. Rugby has become hugely popular and the players are success stories and icons of the modern age; they also have a job which could end any given day if they are unlucky, and they naturally want to be compensated for that risk. And of course they want to be paid the market rate, which is high for multi-HEC winning, Six Nations champions and Lions tour winners.

So this is the new dawn – we’ve been through the emotional “let’s build it together” of the initial bringing the players home and contracting them centrally, and since then player salaries have increased sharply, to the point where, from the Union’s perspective, they have reached a ceiling, for the very elite players at least. Hence the need for top-ups from private sources. The bumper wages on offer from France (and likely England in the future) cannot be matched by the Union, so in order to keep the players here, big business (and Bank of Ireland) have been contracted to help full the gap. It’s a model that was common in Australian rugby in the early 90s, where players were given cushy well-paid numbers with national team sponsors with the blessing of the ARU, but it’s a big step for Ireland, where the Union has been among the most conservative when it came to embracing professionalism.

The financial reality is that it’s this or doubling ticket prices – and the ticketing fiasco that greeted the launch of Fortress Palindrome, among other factors, would have made the second approach seem less desirable.

We can’t be too precious about it.  In an ideal world, the IRFU would be entirely self-sufficient and this sort of private funding wouldn’t be required, but the goalposts have shifted in the last couple of years, probably for ever.  The Top14, where the clubs are entirely funded by private funds, is awash with cash and the players can earn enormous sums of money.  Irish players have long been coveted by the top French clubs, and while Jonny Sexton has been the only one to take up the offer, numerous other players have gone close.  Without being too presumptuous, it appears that the general line from the players in contract negotiations is ‘<Insert French club> have offered me €X to play for them next season.  Now I don’t expect you to pay me the same, but you have to offer me something not a million miles away from it.’  As the all-important €X becomes higher, so too will the amount the IRFU has to pay.  This is the age in which we now live, the age that drove us to the Rugby Champions Cup and the fallout that went with it.  We have grown used to stadia and the team jerseys being sponsored and Leinster received private funds to build their state-of-the-art training facilities.  The next step it seems is the players themselves.

If the likes of Denis O’Brien and Bank of Ireland are offering to ‘save the day’ by making up the difference between what the IRFU can pay and what the player is demanding, it stands to reason they would find it very difficult to say no.  Imagine the outcry if Sexton had stayed in France, only for the story to emerge that the IRFU flatly turned down the hard-earned readies that would have kept him here.

It’s also important not to get ahead of ourselves too much and remember this has happened only in the case of two elite players, and is only likely ever to be relevant for the select group on the highest salaries.  Envisioning a doomsday scenario where every player has his corporate backer, and Charleveille Cheddar fork out an extra €50,000 to keep David Kilcoyne at Munster, or worse still, that Rory McIlroy offers the €300k to keep Peter O’Mahony in Ireland but only if he moves to Ulster, is not especially relevant.  It’s simply never going to happen outside of a handful of special cases.  Cian Healy and Sean O’Brien and maybe Conor Murray are the only other players we can imagine being offered the sort of pay packet in France that would put them outside of the IRFU’s reach. Although, O’Brien’s history of injuries reportedly put off suitors last year.

But it’s not a completely costless strategy. Modern players are very aware of their brand and how to monetize their image, so they aren’t likely to get too upset by having to sit for two hours at a ridiculous corporate event where they get given advice on team selection by half-cut Hooray Henrys. So that’s fine. But, for a start, it’s inherently advantageous to Leinster – there are simply more people and businesses who are likely to have the kind of funds required (appears to be ~€300k annually) and the need for a “brand ambassador” in Dublin than there are in Belfast, Limerick, Cork and Galway.

What if the sponsors start demanding more of the players than was agreed? After all, he who pays the piper calls the tune etc. What if O’Brien rings up Sexton (or rings up Browne who rings up Sexton) to tell him he needs him to come out for some after-dinner-circuit Q&A two nights before a Six Nations match. O’Brien is an important sponsor for the player, the province and the Union – can they tell him to bugger off? Now, based on his experience with the FAI – where he stumped up for Il Trap’s pay packet – he is unlikely to do this – but it’s hardly an impossiblity for other sponsors in the future. Extreme care needs to be taken.

Also, is there some consideration of who the sponsors are? If this model was put in place in, say, 2006, Anglo Irish Bank could have sponsored Dorce. When they became the most evil bank in the history of evilness, this would not have looked like great business, either economically or reputationally. Ireland is far from a well-governed modern country, and the likelihood is that, like in the 80s and the 90s and the 00s, a big Irish company will go from flavour of the business circles to a scandal-ridden shell. To protect its investment, the IRFU needs to exercise due caution when accepting private funds.

Now, back to the rugby, and over to the stadium announcer (who, sponsorship or not, seems unable to pronounce non-Irish player names):  ‘At No.8 and captain it’s Bank of Ireland’s Jamie Heaslip. Now everyone, let’s stand up for YOUR Bank of Ireland Leinster team.’

by whiffofcordite on September 18, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Corporate Shill, Ireland, Leinster, Munster, Six Nations, Ulster
Tagged

Posted by whiffofcordite on September 18, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/09/18/johnny-jump-on-the-jet-were-off-to-cayman/

Countdown – T minus 365

After Week One’s crisis, turns out the provinces aren’t do bad after all, going 4-for-4 in the Pro12. Team Milky Bar are gradually leaking the big boys back into the provincial setups, and this week was noticeable for the injection of quality – in the two games we watched anyway (half of us were on the west coast watching Ms Ovale tear it up in the Ras na mBan – no, really). We have criticized the player management system in the past – particularly in 2013 when it seemed like every player Deccie wanted to pick got injured the second he donned provincial colours after what seemed like an age being “managed” – but while it isn’t perfect, there is no denying it has delivered for Ireland, and has enabled the provinces to build depth unimaginable a decade ago.

Breaking the Ireland team into Untouchables, Probables and Possibles can be instructive – here’s a look at how they did this week.

The Untouchables

In Schmidt’s Ireland set up, if DJ Church, Besty, Paul O’Connell, Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip, Johnny Sexton and Bob are fit – they are in. End of story. Jamie Heaslip and Bob made their returns for Leinster this weekend, and it was like seeing a pair of Rolls Royce’s smoothly steam into a boxcar demolition derby – Heaslip was man of the match (well – he was in blue, that’s when he pulls the finger out, right?) and Bob scored a brace of tries. Up north, Besty didn’t have much fun. His very first involvement was to put down a pass for a walk-in try, and the lineout was a disaster, with four throws lost. The Zebras were utterly hopeless, and less errors would have been good.

The Probables

With a fully fit selection, at this point in time you’d expect Joe Schmidt’s wings to be Andy Trimble and Tommy Bowe. Probably. Bowe is the most experiened of all Ireland’s wings, but missed last years campaign due to injury and is effectively battling his way back to the team. Trimble, in turn, was a revelation in 2014 – and coming back into the Ulster team, he was a class apart – strong in defence, and scored a try to boot. In the second row, Devin Toner continued the pattern of the last 5 years and made incremental progress to become an international class lock last year. He’s probably battling NWJMB and Donnacha Ryan for the right to partner Superman at RWC15.  Big Dev has become Really Big Dev, as he looks noticably bulkier this year.  Word is he has gone from a feather-weight 122kg to a rock-solid 127kg.  Alun Wyn Jones made a similar transition from bean-pole to pack enforcer and made the leap from ‘already pretty good’ to world class as a result, captaining the Lions in their final test in Australia.  Can Devin Toner use his new-found bulk to make a similar step forward?

The Possibles

In the summer tour to a wintery Argentina, two of the players who came home with their reputations enhanced were Rhys Ruddock and Robbie Diack. With Fez finally confirming that the dream is over, Peter O’Mahony is battling with Chris Henry for the final slot in Schmidt’s championship backrow, but both the alternatives, Ruddock in particular, are breathing down the two Probables necks. But it was Diack who shone this weekend, looking like the best forward in Ulster’s pack, carrying well and getting through a mountain of work, both seen and unseen. Dan Tuohy also shone in the loose, but in the interests of fairness, needs to take some debit for the dogs dinner of a lineout. Tuohy could be a RWC15 squad member, as he offers something different, but it all depends on how Henderson and Ryan pitch up after spells out through injury.

Speaking of something different, step forward Mr I. Madigan of the Southside – and we aren’t talking about his hair. This time, anyway. Sexton is miles clear of the chasing pack, with Jackson and Madigan locked tight in the battle to back him up.  It looks a classic case of ‘Jackson would start if Sexton was injured, but Madigan offers more as an impact reserve’. In any case it’s likely that both of them will travel t the World Cup, with Madigan’s versatility a bonus.  Recall that Luke Fitzgerald missed out on the last World Cup because Paddy Wallace was needed, in case either ROG or Sexton got injured.

Madigan had a classic Good Ian night, kicking well and scoring a couple of tries – his star is rising again, particularly with Jimmy Gopperth’s difficulties.  But is he a 10 or a 12?  Does it matter?  Being able to play a bit of both will do his prospects no harm.

We’re going to start a RWC15 Player Power Ranking in a couple of weeks and try to quantify some of all this nonsense, but you can bet your bottom dollar all the Irish (and the New Irish like Diack and Jared Payne) are well aware of the ticking clock in Joe Schmidt’s mind which stops in around a year.

by whiffofcordite on September 15, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Ireland, Joe Schmidt, Leinster, RWC15, Six Nations, Ulster

Posted by whiffofcordite on September 15, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/09/15/countdown-t-minus-365/

Kiss me Quick, Cowboy

It’s a new dawn at Ulster – for the first time since a fresh-faced ruddy-cheeked youngster was studying Law at Oxford and putting the Irish in London Irish, the season starts without Humph at Ravers. After finishing his playing career, he went upstairs and worked with Shane Logan on building Ulster into a proper professional setup – the academy, stadium and on-pitch development stand as testament to the road travelled (not that Humph gets full credit of course, didn’t Rory McIlroy pay for it all anyway?). Now he’s off to Glaws to try and take a talented but flaky looking squad to heights not seen in Kingsholm since the heyday of Lesley Vainikolo.  Last we saw of him he’d appointed Laurie Fisher as head coach and George North was running amok through his team’s defence: “Smithers, I’m beginning to think that Homer Simpson is not the brilliant tactician I thought he was”.

One thing Humph loved in his role as glum-faced box-dwelling long jacket-wearing Ulster capo was a compliant coach to take training while he made the real decisions behind the scene. One of Logan’s first moves with Humph out of the picture was to welcome Anscombe back to work with a shiny P45 and to hell with the consequences. So now Les “Kissy” Kiss is the acting Ulster coach and it ties Ulster right into Joe Schmidt’s setup for the season – for good or ill.

The Ulster players didn’t even bother to play the game and give Anscombe a happy send off, content instead to talk about how great Kissy was and how they were looking forward to working with him. With quasi-forwards coach Johann Muller back home to somewhere – anywhere – warm and sunny, it’s a brand new team in Ravers. Will it be a warm and sunny year? Let’s start to pick holes.

So, Les Kiss then .. didn’t he invent the choke tackle? Kissy originally came into the Ireland setup with Deccie back in 2008 – he started off as defence coach, then became, at one point, defence and attack coach as Deccie’s ticket descended into a dogs dinner. He resumed his specialist defensive duties under Joe Schmidt, and Ireland had an excellent time, conceding just four tries in their victorious Six Nations campaign. Kiss is universally popular with players and is a thoughtful and intelligent coach – he would make a good choice as permanent coach, but the fact remains he isn’t permanent. Joe Schmidt is his boss, and if the choice needs to be made between a selection Schmidt would prefer to see and one that Kiss wants to maximise Ulster’s chances in a particular game, Kiss might be in a bit of a bind.  At best it’s a decent makeshift placeholder.

When will they actually pick a new permanent coach then? We don’t know – the complication comes from the Super Rugby season and the World Cup – if Ulster want Kiss, they’ll need to wait 12 months. If they want an experienced sub-SR level coach from the Southern Hemisphere, they’ll need to wait 12 months. Either way, they might be able to make an appointment this year, but probably not until after Christmas. It’s not ideal, but clearly deemed preferable to another year of Cowboy. Don’t forget – Muller took the forwards in training for a lot of last year, and his input was going to be lost anyway. Ulster have a pretty stable institutional setup by now – they should be able to wear this, and Kissy keeps some continuity for the international brigade – himself, Besty, Chris Henry and Dan Tuohy should be able to share a Mini down to Carton House.

Ok cool – so coaching seems like it might even be a net positive. Speaking of Muller, how have they replaced him? Off the pitch, it will be difficult to replace Muller, but on the pitch, his influence has been in decline in recent years. NWJMB will be earmarked to replace him in the second row with Muller-lite Franco vd Merwe pencilled in to Henderson’s second row-blindside role. At least until Henderson got injured.

A second row injury eh? Sounds familiar.  I know – Ulster have struggled to get their first choice engine room on the pitch in recent years – Dan Tuohy has struggled to stay fit in particular. Their depth in the pack is not great – with Henderson now out, they are one injury away from having to start Lewis Stevenson in the ERCC – not a recipe for success against Bakkies and Ali Williams. If Ulster end the season with Henderson and Tuohy fit and flying, they will be in a good place, but the backups aren’t really there.

Speaking of backups, Ulster bade farewell to both props last year – how are they replacing them? Bang on – John Afoa went home to New Zealand to Glaws with Humph  and Patsy Court managed to get a 3-year contract that Ulster wouldn’t match from Lahn Oirish. They have replaced Afoa with Wiehann Herbst and brough Ruadhri Murphy back from the Brumbies. Perhaps the most important change is Allen Clarke getting the forwards coach job – Clarke is very highly regarded and is credited as a big influence on the Ulster scrum in recent years. Herbst had a good start, admittedly against the Scarlets, but he’ll need to keep it up, for Ulster won’t be going too far if they are relying on Deccie Fitz to stay fit.

Sadly, Fez won’t be around. I know – don’t start the tears. Diack-Henry-Wilson is an acceptable ERCC-level backrow, but (again, depth!) after that you’re looking at Nick Williams. Skittling tiny Wels scrum halves and carrying for 65m against Zebre might all be some harmless Pro12 fun, but he’s not at ERCC level.

Ok – let’s talk about good things – Stuart Olding – what a player. What a player is right – this early in his career, he was right to take a long time to get fit and recover from a serious injury. He sparkled at the tail end of 2012/13 and got into the Ireland team (minus its Lions) for a North America tour – he looked excellent against the Scarlets and a source of some much-needed creativity. Ulster were horrendous in the red zone last year – if they went over three phases in the opposition 22, you could almost guarantee a knock-on or holding on penalty – some clinicality was highly desirable, and Olding could be the guy to provide it. The bigger question is where he will play – PJ has a lock on the 10 jersey so he is competing with Bamm-Bamm, Darren Cave and Jared Payne at centre. An interesting combination Kissy tried in the second half last week was Marshall-Olding – we often wonder if this isn’t the long-term solution for Ulster – Payne’s defence at 13 doesn’t fill us with warmth.

Yeah – the Southern press seem to have him inked at 13 – that is presumably driven by Schmidt. You’d think so alright. The flipside of One More Year is that we have no outside centre with the RWC 12 months away – the Argentina tour wasn’t a massive success in that regard and the shirt is clearly up for grabs. Joe will undoubtedly want Payne to get some game time there, particularly ahead of November, where he likely to see Test action. If Kiss doesn’t see Payne as one of his first choice centres, it might get awkward for him, but then – all the alternatives are Irish-qualified too, so it’s a bit of a lab run anyway.

What’s the target then? Well, Ulster got a stinker of a draw in the ERCC, but they qualified from their pool with an equally stinking draw three seasons ago. They’ve reached four knockout stages in a row, and will be disappointed in they don’t continue that run. The fixtures are ok for Ulster – they will be aiming for 9 match points against the Scarlets in the double header then hope to have their destiny in their own hands for the final pool game at home to the Tigers. Still, anything further than the QFs might be a stretch, unless they get a home draw, which looks very tough. Domestically, they want a pot. Badly. The Pro12 is a legitimate target and the idea of a home final in a white-hot Ravers, preferably against Leinster, will have Ulster fans panting.

Ulster under Cowboy (and Muller) were a tough and obdurate side that were difficult to break down but struggled to score tries in the opposition 22. They also seemed to play by numbers a bit sometimes – it might seem something small, but when was the last time you saw Ulster have a restart strategy – PJ booting it long to the opposition winger then settling for a lineout is Jurassic rugby. The arrival of a new voice, particularly one as imaginative as Kissy, might give Ulster that (hold your nose, here comes Gerry) X-factor they need to beat the best sides in big games. With a bit of luck with injuries in the pack, Ulster have a sniff of silverware this year – how ironic for that to happen in Humph’s first season out.

by whiffofcordite on September 11, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Ireland, Joe Schmidt, Les Kiss, Six Nations, Ulster

Posted by whiffofcordite on September 11, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/09/11/kiss-me-quick-cowboy/

Jonny’s Coming Back

Hello everyone. Welcome back! The rugby season is cranking up and the blog will be getting back to its usual schedule after our summer downtime. We’re wonderfully refreshed after the break, thanks for asking.

So… where to begin?

The Indo is reporting that Jonny Sexton is returning to Leinster next season. And while the phrase ‘The Indo is reporting…’ should come with the usual disclaimers, the report appears pretty definitive and a bunch of other news sources have jumped on it. We’d been given a ‘you heard it here first’ last week that the deal was ‘dans le sac’.

It’s impossible to see it as anything other than great news. There has been the odd bout of griping that the IRFU could have saved a packet by leaving him in France where he was doing just fine, but such arguments miss one crucial point. The IRFU is committed to having all the players on home soil, and the model for Irish rugby that has proved reasonably successful since the dawn of professionalism has been to have the best players centrally contracted and playing their rugby for the provincial teams.

The system has its flaws and isn’t perfect, but is founded on the principal that the players’ performance is maximised by managing their gametime and ensuring that the national team’s interests are fed into by the provinces. If you don’t agree with that premise, that’s fine, but be sure to apply the same logic when, say, Peter O’Mahony, Iain Henderson or Robbie Henshaw are negotiating their next contract. Sexton is arguably the single most important player for Ireland’s World Cup and future Six Nations chances, so if an optimally managed Sexton is just 5% better than he would otherwise be, it will be money well spent.  That’s before we even get into the benefits of visibility of our star players, marketing the game to punters and other intangibles.

We’ve said before that negotiating these high-profile contracts is a thankless job; sign the player and you’ve paid him too much money, lose him and you’re too much of a penny-pincher. So it is nice to be able to say the IRFU should be given a pat on the back for a job well done. The problems arose in the first place because they dragged their heels and looked complacent, giving Racing and other suitors all the time they wanted to sweet-talk the player, but this time they’ve wasted no time, locking things down before the domestic season has even started.

Readers will recall Joe Schmidt’s lamentation during the Six Nations preparations that ‘we have lost control of the player’, and no doubt he has impressed upon those writing the paycheques the importance of keeping the players at home where they can best manage them. Sexton is a card-carrying member of the Schmidt fanclub and it’s easy to imagine Schmidt having a hands-on role in the deal.

So, Ireland will stand to benefit. It’s a World Cup year where the players’ game exposure tends to be managed more strictly than ever. Sexton won’t get the benefit of that over the next nine months, because he won’t be here until next season, but presumably his World Cup build-up and pre-season will be managed by the IRFU now. But the biggest winner by far is Leinster. After all, Ireland still have access to the player and their frustrations in terms of Six Nations preparation time pale beside Leinster’s problem; they lost their most important player. Now they will have him back (in a year’s time) and the knock-on effect should make Leinster a more attractive proposition for other players. A Leinster with Sexton at 10 should be competing for silverware on all fronts.

There will be lots of talk of Ian Madigan being ‘the big loser here’ and it being ‘time to think about his next move’ and so on, but the be-quiffed one and everyone else would be as well ignoring it. He has an entire year before Sexton gets here and should be focusing exclusively on playing as well as he can this season; that means making himself first-choice at Leinster (whether at 10 or 12), continuing to get exposure at test level and securing his place in the World Cup squad, for which there will be significant competition. He’s contracted with Leinster until 2016 in any case, so any long, dark nights of the soul are miles down the road and there is plenty he can do to shape his career in the meantime.

by whiffofcordite on August 25, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Ireland, Jonny Sexton, Leinster

Posted by whiffofcordite on August 25, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/08/25/jonnys-coming-back/

Sayonara Anscombe

Well, that was a surprise wasn’t it? Deep in the midst of the Northern Hemisphere rugger silly season, where we had been trying to feign interest in Ooooooooooooooohh James Downey’s move to Glasgae, Ulster only went and sacked Anscombe! Yesterday was Anscombe’s first day back at the office, supervising training for the non-touring Ulstermen – basically Neil McComb and Mike McComish, who we assume were practicing thirty-metre passes – when he got the curly finger and was dispatched summarily. He had known nothing in advance.

Coming hot on the heels of Humph’s departure to Glaws, it seems obvious the events are related. But how?

  • Ulster’s bicameral coaching structure, whereby the DoR, Humph, was responsible for only off-pitch matters with the head coach, Anscombe, taking training and picking the team, was effectively built around Humphreys and his departure meant what felt like a strong and suitable management structure now became pointless. Better to bite the bullet now than have a lame duck for a year
  • A willing pawn no longer had his protector and was chopped at the first available opportunity. Humph’s Machiavellian control structures were no longer needed and have been swept away.

Ulster have moved to combine the roles and recruit a big beast accordingly – Les Kiss comes in on an interim basis with his funky specs and choke tackles and will “assist” Neil Doak and Jonny Bell in coaching and picking the side. Kissy has been Ireland’s defence coach since Deccie came in, building a strong system, and has lots of respect in the game. He also had a rather underwhelming spell as shunting-the-ball-from-side-to-side attack coach for a while – but the less said about that the better. He hasn’t had a head coaching role before and it’s clearly a temporary, if interesting, solution imposed from D4. One wonders if this bears the fingerprints of Nucifora.

Unlike Humph (and McLaughlin), Anscombe will be unlamented by Ulster fans. The view was Humph had replaced one not-great coach with another, and that Anscombe was a yes-man who was out of his depth and who struggled with bench usage in key games, repeatedly falling short. While Ulster progressed in his time, they never added enough to their game to win a trophy, and their strike rate in opposition 22 has become increasingly woeful.  They just kept falling short in the same manner in a number of big games.

Ulster have felt well-run in recent years but the nature of recent changes has been rather slapdash (like indeed the infamous Humph-McLaughlin presser when Humph toe-curlingly insisted he wasn’t firing his coach) – the Ulster players in Argentina heard about Humph’s departure by text from Fez, and Rory Best has described the situation as “concerning”. Peter O’Reilly summed it up better, calling it a “shambles”.

So where to from here? The press have dusted off their over-optimistic requests from days of yore and have pinpointed Dingo Deans and Wayne Smith as Ulster’s preferred men – anyone who has been tracking recent provincial spend, or remembers the underwhelming feeling when Penney and Anscombe were appointed will perhaps expect something more left-field.

The key men in the appointment will not be Logan and Humph like last time, but Nucifora and Schmidt – the process followed and team appointed will be part of a broader Irish rugby-based vision than the narrow provincial focus of before, and late fifties Southern Hemisphere rent-a-coaches might not fit that template. Jeremy Davidson might, or Birch, or Mark McCall, or even Conor O’Shea or Geordan Murphy if they could be tempted home. Despite the promptings from Munsterfans.com, Michael Bradley and Eddie are unlikely to be in the mix.

Ulster’s appointment will be the first in the new ERCC world where Irish provinces will need to compete based on strong sustainable coaching structures and domestic talent – how it proceeds and who drives the bus will be very interesting.

by whiffofcordite on July 1, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Deccie Kidney, Ireland, Joe Schmidt, Les Kiss, Ulster

Posted by whiffofcordite on July 1, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/07/01/sayonara-anscombe/

Five Years of Hurt

That was a tough series for Ireland wasn’t it? And we won it – the first and second test wins in Argentina. Argentina is a tough-ass place to go in June – long journey, different seasons, no-one, no-one, speaks English, plied with Malbec, tough local backrow forwards smelling blood looking to make a name. And all after a seriously intense season – we’ll remember this year for the Championship win in Joe Schmidt’s first season, but when Paul O’Connell comments on the intensity of the Schmidt regime from day one, you can be sure, its physically and mentally demanding. Its ten months since Schmidt first got his hands on these players, and in this, the final action of the season, he has made sure he has got his pound of flesh, with no let-off in the demands – as high as ever.

And rightly so – in the weekend England assured us that they will be RWC contenders (with Chris Ashton’s WINNING try! What? They lost? So why did he do that stupid dive? … never mind .. prick), South Africa showed us the standards we will need to attain, and we don’t have long to get there – no wonder the Milky Bar Kid is in a rush. Fatigue can wait, there are trophies to win – and its not the Guillermo Brown Cup he cares about.

So short-term, results-wise, the tour was a success and Joe Schmidt got more time with the squad. What about the longer term planning for RWC15? Well, we learned four things from this tour:

  1. In the month Fez retired, Rhys Ruddock showed his credentials as an international backrow – with SOB already awaiting re-integration to a high-functioning unit, this is a “good problem” for Schmidt. With injury rates as they are, having Ruddock (and Diack and Murphy) around is useful
  2. Brian O’Driscoll and Dorce’s partnership will be very tough to replace – more of this later
  3. There is room for Zimon Zeebs in a Joe Schmidt technocrat rugby team – we finally got a glimpse of his game-breaking in the second test. Andy Trimble and Little Bob are a little samey if you want to beat the best, Zebo can offer the *groans* X-factor that we might need. Although, we scored plenty of tries in the Six Nations – we aren’t fully bought into the idea that we need flair for flairs sake, but Zebo is a great player and its great to see him involved
  4. Rodney Ah Here. Ah here

Now, to the centres. We said ahead of the tour the biggest to-do was to start the post-BOD process. After a decade of Dorce-and-BOD plenty, we might be realizing how tough its going to be to replace not just the greatest player in our history, but his reliable sidekick as well – any player wearing 13 is already going to be damned by “well, he isn’t Brian” comment, but then any breakdown in communication with their centre partner will be magnified into a “well, where is Dorce” situation.

Darren Cave played well in the first test, but had a bit of a shocker in Tucuman – the Irish midfield was pourous looking all game, and then not having the pace to finish off the try felt terminal for his international ambitions – even for us used to the one-paced Dorce/BOD combo, Cave looked like he was running in clay. Outside him, Ferg was gamey but doesn’t really have the distributive skills for an international 13. Bamm-Bamm was withdrawn early in the first test with (another) possible concussion, and hasn’t quite got a Plan B into his game yet. So we are 0 from 3 when it comes to new centres – and, as we said before the tour, the point of the tour was really to start this process, so its basically been a bit of a fail in that regard, and the games before RWC15 are slipping by.

The next to audition cohort is likely to go be Kiwi attacking talent with dodgy defence Jared Payne, pure-bred rosey cheeked bosh merchant Robbie Henshaw, and creative youngster Stuart Olding, who will all likely get a callup in November, and hopefully gametimes – its getting very late for experimentation, but desperate times etc.

Its very easy to say we need to get behind BOD (and soon to be Dorce’s) successors, but we need to know who they are first – we sucked deeply on the addictive weed that was BOD to get our Championship win, but we are liable to pay now, and time before RWC15 is short. In 2012, we exhorted folk to stand behind Keith Earls, be aware he was likely to make a few defensive clangers, but give him time to grow in the 13 jersey – we did, and he did, but then he was clearly the best option. Now its not as clear.

If we were betting folk, and we wouldn’t ever do something that is so abonimable to God, we think Joe might decide on a Dorce/Keith Earls centre partnership for the RWC and play it in the Six Nations – they are known international quantities and dovetailed well in 2012, and they are the lowest risk to meet a short-term need. If there is a player to play their way into that base scenario, its probably Payne – Olding is likely to be backup fodder until he breaks into the Ulster starting XV, and Henshaw is very raw. Which makes the whole “future” debate essentially about RWC19 – for RWC15, we just need to get something in place, and quickly.

Cnetre-wise, all we can say after Argentina is that Ferg is an emergency option (at best), Cave probably doesn’t have it and Marshall needs to put his health first. Mind you, no-0ne said this was going to be easy.

by whiffofcordite on June 16, 2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Darren Cave, Fergus McFadden, Ireland, Joe Schmidt, Oooooooohh Robbie Henshaw, RWC15, Six Nations

Posted by whiffofcordite on June 16, 2014

https://whiffofcordite.com/2014/06/16/five-years-of-hurt/

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