Sunday, February 28, 2021

Online comments after Italy v Ireland

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 Good first half performance. Some very positive play. Great to see the offloads. Second half was a bit wearisome. Italians absolutely atrocious. Going in the right direction.
Michelle Tobin Starting front row have given management a selection headache, they were excellent. Pack was very solid again. Still have defensive concerns, Larmour's wing was under constant attack in the first half and defence isn't Lowe's strong point. Two big games ahead and some players have a lot of minutes under their belt. I'm nervous.
Brian Corr Delighted with the result and the 38 point margin similar to France who won there by 40 and way better than England at home with a 23 point margin.

Felt in the first half Ireland were playing good cohesive rugby but when all the subs came on in the second they got a bit haphazard, not great considering a lot of the replacements were previous weeks starters.

Delighted both Casey and Baird got on and both had good impact, personally would have liked to see them get 25-30mins rather than the 18 they got.

While Scotland are improved I still think we will win by more than 7 there. England are wounded not sure why they are so bad this year but could it be, by the time they get here they’ll have the much needed game time under their belt to click.

I think Wales being triple crown champions is funny, there’s no other way to look at it, what a yo-yo team, grand slam champs to 5th last year and here we go again.
Iain O'Connor Very sloppy when you consider the opposition. Still not convinced by our style of play, its still just one pass, then contact. Would be interested to see our passing stats if you take scrum half passes (as in passes from the back of a ruck/maul/scrum, not just ones from a scrum half). I would be shocked if it was double digits.

In general, win is a win and we avoided wooden spoon which is nice. Still unconvinced we are headed in the right direction
Conor Cronin There's a lot of positive there. Don't worry what the opposition was, there was free flowing offloading rugby on show this afternoon. I'd love to have seen more of those opportunities turn into points, and for a few less mistakes but it's great to see some invention and some intent.
David Ryle (reply to Conor Cronin) first game in a while we’ve had free flowing rugby.
Kieran O'Callaghan Casey the messiah has arrived and here to stay IMO. The front row Killer and Ronan must start either of Tadg or Porter. Row as is. Great balance in the back row which I wouldn’t change. Johnny10 has to play until Joey is match fit. I’d have Stockdale in for Lowe. I just love Keenan at fullback a real under the radar type who makes a big impact. If Conway was match fit he could cover wing and FB from bench. Our midfield selects itself, Henshaw so underrated except by those who really know the game.
Noel Hewson B- for me. Sloppy at times. Some good individual performances but still not sure on the attacking approach and how it would go against better opposition
Gav Heg Let's not get carried away. It was a woeful Italian team. I actually think we could have put 80 on them.

How does Alan Quinlan get paid to talk rugby? Utterly clueless. He grasp of the game is tenuous at best.

What about the reffing? Zero sense. One scrum kilcoyne is clearly scrumming in and then drips it yet we get the penalty? No ref now knows how to ref the scrum properly. Solution is a 5th official (scrum pro) that comes on at scrum time and advises the ref.

Connors is class, great to see the jukebox back, CJ had a good game, sexton ok, cannot wait for Baird to get going, the guy has a very bright future ahead of him.

Big decisions to be made now but I'm leaning towards Indian, we had Chinese last six Nations weekend.
Monica Keeler  Great to see the young uns get their first caps..think we left that 21 points on the pitch..but it will boost the confidence for the last 2 games..assomeone else said..big games to come tho..
Richard Mifsud Much improved performance though discipline still a concern. Much better synergy between the forwards and backs and the cohesion among the backs was pretty evident. I wondered how a bunch of Leinster backs would be directed to play given the kick fest that has gone on before, the answer is obviously that they were allowed to express themselves as they do at provincial level. With all due respect to Italy will that work against Scotland and England? I think it can, but we shall see. Is this the Farrell/Catt Ireland at last? If it is I like it. Not getting carried away at all as sterner tests await. Oh how could I forget!!! What was Romain on today? Hendo’s was a try as was Lowe’s. Tadhg a worthy POTM but so could quite a few others and that’s a very good thing. #forwardalwaysforward
Laurence Norwood  It’s pretty simple, a good Ireland performance!!
Sean Michaels A much improved performance all around. It was easy to see the Leinster influence among the backs with some excellent performances with Sexton pulling the strings. Forwards looked strong with Kelleher looking every inch of a modern, mobile hooker, I would say the No 2 spot is his to lose. I think Sexton was making a point staying on the pitch for the duration. Thought Casey did reasonably well when he came on although the forward pass to Lowe was a bit of a blot on his copybook. Forwards generally looked rejuvenated. Italy were a poor side but you can only play who’s in front of you and Ireland have struggled in the past against poor Italy teams, so plenty to build on. Ryan Baird had a great 20 mins and my MOTM was Will Connors.
Ian Frizzell It’s hard to be critical after a 30+ points win. So I won’t be 😀
Simon Willis Ringrose did well today. Felt he was unshackled. Did no harm re his Lions chances
James Griffin Veni, Vidi, Vici.
Cathal Mone Good Result but let’s not get carried away !! Loads to work on still
Monica Keeler Great to see the young uns get their first caps..think we left that 21 points on the pitch..but it will boost the confidence for the last 2 games..assomeone else said..big games to come tho..
Éamonn Rogers One score while they were down to 13 and none when they were back to 14. Not good enough.
Ní Shithigh Lisa (reply to Éamonn Rogers) not like they didn't try, at least 1 of the disallowed tries was during this period and while yea the 2 in the 2nd half were forward passes, the margins were very small on it
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