Monday, February 15, 2021

Online comments after Ireland v France

A selection of the “keyboard warrior” reactions after the full-time whistle of our featured matches of the weekend.

If you’d like to contribute stay tuned to our Facebook page for our “Feel free to leave your thoughts…” posts which show up around full time after Leinster & Ireland matches.

Imelda Reidy Some positives in that performance. Lineout and scrum were excellent. Henshaw made some great line breaks. Too many missed tackles / falling off the tackle. Not enough going forward. Struggled to make any ground. Byrne was good when he came on and the other subs made a difference also. Casey should have got a run out. He's not going to learn anything sitting on the bench for 80 minutes and Gibson Park made a lot of errors. Lowe was a bit shaky at times also. The French really are a joy to watch.
Monica Keeler In my opinion we shouldn't have lost..but we did..mind you I had expected France to do a proper job on us..they didn't.. let's take positives from being..very narrowly beaten by, who are arguably the best team in Europe right now..chill pills people..lots to build on..if we had won..which we could have done.. would there still be calls for getting rid of Farrell and Catt? 🤔
Conor Cronin That game was lost in the first half by our inability to convert possession and territory to points. Conceding 7 points while they were a man down demonstrated that best. Some real positives and good play in moments and from certain players, but not good enough as a collective.

Edit to add that this game should've been prepared for in the autumn by experimenting then. Yes, there was money to be made with a good placing, but we give our every world Cup about needing depth, that was a chance to build it. (i have 2020 hindsight!)
Brian Corr So close yet so far.

Kicking and kick chase was too loose, it worked for a lot of the game but with missed touch finders and over cooked kicks we were marginally worse than the French.

That toe in touch for Lowe how different could the game have been.

Felt the French won the battle of the loose, and their courage to throw the Hollywood pass or offload got them the first try even down a man the long pass took out 1/3 of the pitch and scrambled JGP’s decision.

Lots of players stepping up but felt this game was not the one to have Casey on the bench, maybe if Cooney, McGrath or Marmion were there they’d have been thrown on for 15-20 mins. It was too scrappy to give Casey a run on debut.
Michelle Tobin Serious defensive errors cost us. Constantly kicking the ball away cost us. Craig Casey left on the bench is just mindblowing. Majorly disheartened. On the plus side Paulie's influence is clear to be seen in the scrum and lineout. Unfortunately he seems to be the only coach with a plan right now.
Reenen Stenekamp I think Ireland can take massive heart from that second half performance. Yes they didn't win but they were down and out and played themselves back into it. This is a STRONG French team, I don't think anyone will deny that. And they had to dig deep to close it out.
Neil Keegan Social media is toxic!

It’s easy to pick the team and game plan from the couch
We had a third quarter where we urinated on our own feet again. But a lot of positives to go with the work ons

When you see what it meant to France it shows the job we did

Wait... sorry.... I meant to say.... Farrell out, new team, burn down the irfu
Colin Mcconaghie We learnt nothing what we have seen since 2019. We have no attacking game plan and while it’s easier to blame individual players we keep making the same mistakes no matter who plays in what position. We had lots of possession again but in reality created one try opportunity. We played with heart again, but really is that enough?
James Griffin Jesus but wouldn’t you love if Murray and Sexton just stopped all the box kicking ... oh wait ... 🤪. Seriously though, do we have an attack coach?
Gerald Williamson Improvements in scrums & lineouts noted. Backline attack static. We have not learnt how to cope with the rush defence. To many miss tackles in defence let in soft tries. Questions should be asked of the coaching team tactics.
Kevin Kelehan Back to a time when 'moral victories' mean something. I am confident that Paul O'Connell can instil a winning mentality in whats 3-6 players short of a very decent test side. Hugo Keenan looks the real deal and Ross Byrne was decent.
Sean Dempsey France looking solid

I love how our attack game plan revolves around statically falling into a wall of French players. Very creative

We have the players to do better
Craig Boyd There can take some positives that we stayed in the game right to the death but really France should have been out of sight. Scrum and lineout v solid but just a real lack of game plan or creativity. France are a different class to Ireland right now
Noel Hewson Frustrating to lose a score when a man up but in reality still a bit below Frances level. I’m not clear what the attacking plan is. They hung in there but right now hard to see where scores are going to come from.
James Murphy Opportunity for change against Italy. Bring in the young talent we have at 6, 9, 10 and 11,
Love to see Harry Byrne get a start,
Shane Mcdonald What is the idea behind the kicking game ? We have exciting backs give them the ball , bring a bit of spark to it
Richard Mifsud France deserved to win. They have an unbelievable D that we couldn’t penetrate. Much is made of our kicking strategy but TBH when done well it works. It worked during the first 30 minutes and then late on. We didn’t convert possession and territory or their YC into points and you won’t win matches in the 6N like that. Their 1st try was well taken but our D was shoddy for it. Let’s face it at the moment France are way better than us but we still came within a whisker. We put them under pressure but not on the scoreboard. We’ve lost two very tight games and we’re not a million miles away but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Our D is decent though not brilliant, our set piece has improved considerably (POC influence), our decision making could be better and our versatility in attack especially in the opposition 22 has got to improve. That said not many teams will get through France that easily. I actually think the Dupont effect dictated our tactics before a ball was kicked. I think AF thought if we played loosely, with offloads etc we’d have been mullered...he’s right. We haven’t earned that right against teams like France yet. So for the second week I find myself disappointed wishing I could vent on a player, a ref, a decision yet (saving last week’s red) I can’t. We actually didn’t play that badly IMO, France simply have more strings to their bow and are way better than us at the mo. They’re actually way better than most teams at the mo SH included. No doubt there will be loads of abuse on social media and the knives will be out but though the team should be rightly constructively criticised it needs to be properly contextualised. Will it be? Of course not, it’s more fun criticising. We’re certainly not far off getting back up to a higher competitive edge. It needs to click and if it doesn’t, then talk about rolling heads but certainly not yet
Hywel Davies A square kick in the balls. Again. Could easily have won. Sometimes it’s not your year. I don’t think there’s need to panic over on field or off field personnel.
Cathal Mone Missed tackles poor kicks no line breaks no flare !!!
Byrne should have started

Cooney playing well up in Ulster should get the nod before Park !!

Only for the French making mistakes this game would have been out of sight !!
Sharon Murphy Scrum and lineout were good everyone expected france to do a job on us and i thought our lads put it up to them. Onwards and upwards.
Many thanks to all who offered opinions.

Look out Monday for our match writeup JLP
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Taken by JLP from RDS press box on Nov 16, 2019