Ireland-27 Wales-12

THE TWO NATIONS

Of course I’m over the moon that Brian’ODriscoll’s 100^th appearance in an Irish jersey resulted in an emphatic win for the home side , but I still have my reservations.

I’d even go as far to say I’m extremely worried about our chances in the 2011 World Cup based on what I saw over the weekend.

Now before you compare me to George Hook in that I’m looking for a cloud in every silver lining, let me review the match at Croker first, then I’ll explain.

Two first half penalties defined the contest in my book.

After 26 minutes, Jonathan Sexton recovered his own kick forward and Shane Williams was penalised by the finicky-yet-consistent referee for not releasing properly from his tackle.

Tomas O’Leary stood over the ball yet looked for all intents and purposes like he was waiting to give his outhalf a chance to go for the points. But all of a sudden he tapped and went and with the entire Irish XV ready for him, before the visitors knew what hit them, Keith Earls was crossing for the opening score.

Compare that with what happened after 33 minutes.

Rob Kearney took the ball into contact and this time it was the Irishman who was penalised for not releasing. Martyn Williams, skipper for the day, went straight for the ball and looked back at his teammates for the possibility of a quick tap and go himself.

Right there was your ball game in my opinion. Not a single red-clad player was bothered with playing on, even though it wasn’t even half time yet and they’d all had more than a fortnight’s turnaround since the French match. They just wanted to get the breather afforded by a run-of-the-mill kick for touch.

Well if you don’t want it, you don’t get it, and where else can you lay blame for this attitude but at Warren Gatland’s feet.

Perhaps it could be argued that Ireland’s two tries came when Lee Byrne was off the field, but to that I say, why WAS he off the field? Because our trademark excellent jackling forced him to turnover possession so he cynically thwarted our attempt to use the ball quickly ourselves, that’s why.

Now even though I’m a Leinster supporter I have no qualms about admitting that this Irish victory was mainly down to the efforts of our southern cousins. Although I see why O’Leary won man of the match, both David Wallace and Keith Earls could easily have won it themselves.

I’d even go as far to say that in recent weeks the Munster players have taken the whole “they play in red but not in green” accusations and turned them completely around.

As for Jonny10, well it sure wasn’t his day with the boot, was it? I feel that when he misses his first place kick, he carries it round with him the rest of the game, and this is something that can be easily worked on by Kidney & co. His distribution from the hand was still excellent throughout, and I honestly believe it would serve the Irish squad better to start him against Scotland to give him the opportunity to find his kicking mojo again.

Now…to address my World Cup concerns…and to do so, I must factor in the other two test results from the weekend.

SCOTLAND-15 ENGLAND-15

FRANCE-46 ITALY-20

Of course I’m as aware as any rugby fan about the tradition, the passion and the sheer significance of the Six Nations Championship on the world stage.

But we all know the William Webb Ellis trophy is the most important one of all, right?

I mean, whatever about how you perform in competition against European opposition, surely the true test comes when the three, scratch that, FOUR powerhouses from the southern hemisphere are involved as well.

And given that the Autumn Internationals are merely friendlies against squads at the end of their respective long hard seasons themselves, the fact remains we have but six competitive international test matches to play between now and our opening World Cup encounter with the USA in New Plymouth on the 10^th anniversary of 9/11.

When I consider the performances of the six nations over the weekend just gone, I can only think one thing…

“Damn, I wish we could play France every week.”

Only then would we be ready for what the Carters, Matfields and Giteaus have to offer us in New Zealand.

Maybe the Italians can be forgiven in that they’ll only next year get an entire season of top level Magners League competition, but not so for the English, Scots and Welsh. They were all absolutely, positively AWFUL, and with their respective setups I can’t for the life of me see how they could possibly improve anytime soon.

It has to be said that this year, more than ever before, a Triple Crown victory will be a hollow one. Unless there’s considerable changes in attitude next week, I’ll be forced to dub this year’s tournament the Two Nations.

Sure, Ireland lost in Paris, but it was not due to a lack of cohesion on our part, rather one of execution, coupled with the rampant French display they’ve shown throughout the competition to date.

Whatever about the poor refereeing in Murrayfield Saturday, it had nothing to do with the galling mediocrity on both sides of the ball, and no matter how close either side got to their opponent’s try line, not once did I have any confidence that they would cross, and that had nothing to do with defensive capabilities either.

Trust me…I really DO hope the other four nations can step up close to the mark during the midweek turnaround, but I won’t hold my breath.

One Hundred Not Out

All eyes will be on Brian O'Driscoll at Croke Park today as he takes the field to represent his country for the 100th time. Unlike most other rugby sources, however, I have chosen to pay tribute not by recalling all his glories, rather than by showing that it wasn't all plain sailing. Here's a post I published on July 5, 2008 when I honestly felt that he needed a mammoth 2008/09 campaign to lockdown a legacy to leave the game. I think we all know what happened next...

HOW WILL BOD BE REMEMBERED?

It’s a wet miserable Saturday morning here in Dublin, so there’s not much else to do but sit in and watch Southern hemisphere rugby.

As the All Blacks look to exact some retribution on the Springboks for their having the audacity to snatch the World Cup from them last year, I begin to wonder what the next European season has to offer, and only one thing springs to mind.

Since he burst onto the scene in 2000 with his famous hat-trick in Paris, we have all been waiting for Brian O’Driscoll to assume the mantle his potential demanded – the world’s greatest player. And of course, with consistent Six Nations performances (albeit with limited success), he was given the ultimate accolade when he was named captain of the touring Lions in 2005.

Captain! Of the bloody LIONS!!! It really doesn’t get better than that, does it?

Enter Tana Umaga and Keven Mealamu.

Since the infamous spear tackle in Christchurch, we have seen the odd flash of brilliance from O’Driscoll; a blistering sprint for a try here, a pinpoint crossfield pass there, and now and then what I consider his trademark, a try-stopping diving tackle out of nowhere rarely seen anywhere on the globe.

But can we say that we have seen him maximise his true potential? If we had been told back in 2000 that his achievements would amount to the Lions captaincy, a few Triple Crowns and a Meaningless League crown, would that have been enough?

I guess it challenges us to determine what we consider success. When it comes to European rugby, once you look at the success of Wales and Munster and realise that it is not all about the English and the French, the only silverware that really matters a damn is the Six Nations Championship and the Heineken Cup. Both have eluded O’Driscoll.

Not that I’m saying that it is all his own fault, and I hope the above YouTube file demonstrates that I appreciate the role injuries have played on his career.

What I’m getting at is just how important the 2008/09 European season is for the man.

In the May edition of Rugby World magazine, controversial columnist Stephen Jones picks his Lions squad for the tour next summer, and he leaves BO’D at home, favouring Shanklin, Henson, Tindall and Barkley.

Now Jones has a reputation for being a bit anti-Irish (he also excludes Paul O’Connell) but one sentence in his column hits the mark in my view...

“O’Driscoll will need to find some of the old freshness next season before the real Lions are chosen.”

You’d find it very hard to convince me that Brian has done enough in the past 12 months to guarantee him the Number 13 jersey for the first test in Durban on June 20, 2009.

And if that’s the case, then how would it look on his CV to be brought along as a replacement, or even worse, an also-ran on the midweek team having been skipper four short years earlier?

So I believe the upcoming season is crucial for BO’Ds legacy. He needs a string of outstanding performances, he needs his name regularly in the back page headlines, he needs to be the inspiration to meaningful silverware for his teams.

How will he do that? Well of course, he needs to stay fit, and that is in the lap of the Gods.

One thing that can help would be to take the captain’s armband away from him and allow him concentrate on his own game. If I were close to him I’d advise him to actually request this and make it publicly known.

Despite the risk of injury I’d also like to see him playing some role in every match throughout the season, at very least the first half of every Meaningless league encounter.

Although I have been a critic of his in the past, I still have no doubt that he has the ability to make the upcoming campaign a success, and hopefully my Leinster season ticket purchase will be worthwhile.

Interesting times ahead.

© JL Pagano 2008

(Eddie's 2008) Ireland-12 Wales-16

If ever you wanted a demonstration of what Eddie O'Sullivan's tenure as Ireland coach did to this particular Leinster rugby blogger, you need only to read this account of our corresponding match in the 2008 Six Nations Championship with our Celtic cousins from the valleys. Just what was I thinking when I made the suggestion at the end? Eddie really did make me foolish!

CONGRATULATIONS WALES

Of course if you’ve read this blog before now you’ll be expecting an Eddie-bashing-fest from me, and you can be sure I won’t let you down on that score.

First, however, I have to extend my heartfelt congratulations to the Welsh.

You should have seen Sinnotts at 12 noon yesterday. As you walked down the stairs into the place you’d have sworn that you just walked through some kind of wormhole and ended up in downtown Cardiff!

The sea of red jerseys throughout the pub was almost embarrassing!

But on to the action. Yes, I know my prediction was wrong, but no prizes for guessing why I think it was!

I’m no expert on coaching by any means, but I think I know enough about it to at least say the following…

When preparing for a match, you have your gameplan, and you drill your players into executing it.

Of course, you should also be aware that your opposite number also has a gameplan, and for the first fifteen to twenty minutes of the contest, you will both see how those plans stack up against each other.

THEN you should be aware that if your preparation seems to be working, your nemesis is going to react and change things around.

Surely you should be ready for this and be able to adapt accordingly.

THIS is where Eddie has failed. After four years at the helm, when he was supposed to prepare us for a World Cup tournament, we played four matches in France and not ONCE did we appear to have a Plan B.

Then he called the World Cup a blip and a lot of us gave him the benefit of the doubt, even if only a Six Nations Championship trophy would offer him redemption.

Well much like Shane Horgan’s attempt at a try, O’Sullivan has fallen short yet again, and it all seems to point to his own handling of the game from the sidelines.

We were all over them from the start. They were actually rattled. Steve Jones was all fingers and thumbs, even when he was kicking. O’Gara on the other hand was showing an immaculate touch placing the ball at will around the field.

But even though Mike Phillips’ moment of madness cost them an easy three points before the break, surely we should have been ahead by more than 6 to 3?

It all seemed to hinge on how we handled the man advantage from the re-start, and when you look at what transpired, it’s clear that Warren Gatland gave the better half-time talk.

Look at the facts – we played HALF of the second period with a man advantage, yet we couldn’t put together any kind of move that looked like breaking their line.

O’Driscoll was responsible for my most frustrating moment when he needlessly flung the ball behind him as he was going out of play – surely an experienced international like himself would have known we badly needed a regular spell of possession and throwing a blind pass was no way to ensure that?

If the captain isn’t firing on all cylinders, what hope the rest of the XV?

Also, though I’m not suggesting he wasn’t injured, I thought it ironic that he limped off at a time we seemed to be doomed much like Dan Carter did for the All Blacks against the French in the World Cup quarterfinal.

So overall, while I have every respect for the Welsh and their achievements, in Croke Park they took what we gave them.

And although it was a wild challenge and actually deserved a yellow card, I sincerely hope Bernard Jackman isn’t blaming himself for the result.

What for the future? The IRFU should bite the bullet, get rid of O’Sullivan and bring in a fresh set of ideas, one of which could be to make Ronan O’Gara team captain.

What will ACTUALLY happen? The “old school tie” mentality that still pervades the game despite the professional era will rally around Eddie and he will keep his job right to the next World Cup and he may even get the Lions coaching job into the bargain in 2009.

The mind boggles.

At least we had some consolation in Sinnotts – you can be sure both Irish AND Welsh eyes were smiling at the result from Murrayfield!!!

Cardiff-20 Leinster-29

BACK ON TOP

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the best team in a rugby tournament was the one that scored the most tries, wouldn’t you?

Not so in the Magners League so far this year.  After 13 rounds, Leinster top the pile with only one other team having scored fewer tries, and that’s Connacht.

And even though we have two games in hand on some of the other teams, if you had followed our progress all year you wouldn’t bat an eyelid if we won both games without adding too many 5-pointers to our total.

Take yesterday’s match in Cardiff.  We started brightly, with Fergus McFadden crossing for an all-too-easy score after 8 minutes.  It looked like it would be the first of many.

But the home side came back into it with three tries of their own, and it appeared that the cornerstone of our recent success, our tenacious defence, had deserted us.

But after Czekaj crossed just after halftime to force reporters to double-check the spelling of his name, it seemed like our forwards were able to turn it around in the loose and added domination there to that which they already enjoyed in both scrums and lineouts.

Our front row was phenomenal, and were rewarded with a Jackman try following an excellent linebreak by the young Eoin O’Malley.  But props Wright, Van der Linde and Ross acquitted themselves very well in support taking the ball into contact for yardage gains time after time after time.

The backline blew hot and cold, mainly from the halfback pairing.  Eoin Reddan was man of the match in my book despite McFadden’s Sexton-esque goal kicking – although the ball was coming slowly from the rucks, he made up for it with quick, well-executed decisions…sadly his teammate in the 10 jersey wasn’t able to do much when those decisions included him…Berne was also found wanting in the tackling department more than once.

But as happened in most of our eight Magners League victories this season, we did enough in the 80 minutes to stay ahead, and I guess that’s what counts!  And McFadden’s last gasp penalty from halfway was icing on the cake, if a bit unfair on the hosts denying them a bonus point.

And taking the weekend’s action as a whole, the only argument against Reddan and Sexton starting against Wales that would make any sense to me would be that the scrum half would have a 6-day turnaround.

We’ll see what Kidney goes for…it will be a very interesting announcement.

England-16 Ireland-20

BACK IN BUSINESS

I had over 1000 words written on this match before a computer crash wiped them clean…I’m not a happy bunny right now.

Still, I want a record for posterity so I’ll do my best to recreate them, albeit whilst clicking “save draft” every few seconds.

I know there are those curious to know how I got on at NewsTalk’s “event” at the Odeon bar in Dublin, but I’ll save those thoughts till the end, though perhaps the inverted commas will give you a clue as to my overall impression...

This was, in my view, the perfect display we could have expected from Declan Kidney’s men after the setback in Paris.

Despite the fact that this is quite possibly the worst squad of England players I’ve seen assembled in the 30 plus years I’ve followed this sport, there were several levelling factors on the day on top of the home advantage…namely the conditions and the finicky applications of the laws by referee Mark Lawrence.  Despite Martin Johnson’s post game whinging, there were more than his fair share of 50/50 calls that went his way over the course of the game.

I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that I believe it was the Irish Jonny10 that won the battle of the out-halves, and more than earned himself a start against the Welsh.  If you looked at the stats from the kicking tee you may think otherwise, but given his huge involvement in our first two tries PLUS the degree of difficulty of all the kicks he missed, he can be more than proud of his display.

Though at the time I was bemoaning the introduction of ROG, after mature reflection, it now makes sense.  With BOD gone from the backline it was a good time to introduce experience, and I certainly hope Sexton didn’t take it as any more than that.

And on the subject of BOD’s clatter to the noggin…is it something about playing England that makes him get his bell rung?  Or is it the fact that those who do the ringing either are involved or will one day go on to be involved with Munster?  Either way, every Irish man, woman and child wishes him a speedy recovery so he can make his 100th appearance against the Welsh in a fortnight.

Even though there were a couple of lead-changes to follow, the turning point for me in this game was the penalty reversal brought about by the sheer stupidity of Danny “Devil May” Care.  He and O’Leary were going at it several times up to then and he let it get the better of him, and the decision of the ironically-French touch judge was totally justified.  Instead of giving Wilko a chance for another 3 points which he probably would have taken, it gave Sexton the chance to put a perfect kick in the corner which led to Earls’ excellent finish.

But the key stat on the day was the tackle count.  England made around forty and missed six.  We made NINETY-NINE and missed but one.  You have to wonder if the home side were good at retaining possession or was it that we were so confident of our counter-rucking that we were happy to give it to them.  Either way, despite Tommy Bowe’s brace of tries, Jamie Heaslip’s man-of-the-match award was testimony to the entire team’s feverish defensive work for the entire 80 minutes.

The weekend’s rugby action has, as it often does, left me with a few queries when it comes to the laws of the game.  At Twickenham, I was curious about the whole “use it” rule.

Several times early on Mark Lawrence shouted at one of the scrum-halves to use the ball once it appeared at the base of the ruck.  That’s fine, makes perfect sense in my book.  But when Wilko’s drop goal had put England ahead and time was running down on the clock, Paul Hodgson was tackled in his own 22 and seemed to hold the ball for half an hour before it was used.

Luckily, when it eventually was used and cleared to touch, the resulting Irish lineout led to a POC catch, a TOL swerve and pass, and a TB burst and touchdown for the winning score.  So justice was served, only not from the man in the middle.

Now…as for the Odeon, well, the draft Heineken was good.  And for sure there weren’t any gobshites blocking the screen.

But as for the overall wisdom of sacrificing the guaranteed atmosphere of Sinnotts for this, well, not so much.  Between them the Ulster Bank, NewsTalk radio and the pub itself went to so much trouble to get me there I thought they’d at least try to make a lasting impression.

As it turned out you wouldn’t know the bank had anything to do with it, and as for NewsTalk, well, I know Ger Gilroy is a broadcast personality of note in his own right, the fact remains that people want Hook, Popey & co’s take on the action and even if it’s for a rival network, you’re surely better off giving it to them.  What few words he was saying that we could make out from our seat at the bar rarely made sense in relation to the action that was actually happening.

Also I’m a bit annoyed that the girls with the trays of food didn’t pass our direction more often, and I certainly wasn’t going to go running after them.  But maybe that was our fault for our choice of seat?  We made up for it with a post-match visit to the Best Drunk Food Spot in Dublin (Zaytoons) but given a few more spring rolls, wings and wedges, we could well have stayed put for a few more jars apres match.

We did get one thing out of it…a mini NewsTalk rugby ball, which a kind fellow spectator seemed to feel the need to make sure we got before we left.  Perhaps I stood out a bit from the crowd with my wild screams at the telly while the action was going on, but it was a nice gesture anyway.

WALES-20 FRANCE-26

One thing Irish and English fans agreed on this weekend…they all wanted a Welsh win in Cardiff on Friday night.

Well the scoreline doesn’t even BEGIN to reflect how the game went.  France were toying with their opposition like a cat with a dead mouse early on, creating a 20 point lead without so much as breaking  sweat.

But the home side battled bravely, and were it not for some ludicrous errors, particularly wasted kicks by Lee Byrne, the result could have been so much different.

And here’s where my second query of the laws of the game came into play.

Why should a game be allowed to end with a deliberate infringement?  I’m all for the whole “game over next time the ball goes out of play” rule, but after Shane Williams’ late try I don’t understand how, once the referee allowed the kickoff to take place, the French could deliberately make it not go the required distance only for the game to then finish?  Surely the Welsh should have had the scrum back?  Not that they would’ve scored, but the way the match ended didn’t seem to hold up to what the spirit of the rules should be.

ITALY-16 SCOTLAND-12

Again I blame the Odeon for not knowing too much about this match, no sound on the telly at all for this one, but to be fair, nobody at the venue seemed to be paying much attention anyway.  Sad for Scotland but still, this tournament needs Italy to win matches and hopefully one day become competitive, so I guess I have to see it as a good result.

HOW THINGS STAND NOW

The Irish still have one thing working in their favour…the order of play.  Though it’s still up to us to beat Wales and Scotland by good enough margins as to negate the hammering in Paris, were we to do that, the French would then have all the pressure on their own shoulders in the finale against England, and would be forced to earn the Grand Slam.  There could possibly be even a further twist in that Martin Johnson’s men could still be in the mix themselves.

I predict that when they kickoff in that final game at the Stade de France, there will be a number on all our lips.  That number will be the amount England have to win by to be Champions themselves, and if they win by less than that figure, then we’ll have retained the trophy.

It’s the best we can hope for at this stage, provided of course you don’t consider winning at Twickenham and a Triple Crown to be good enough?  Personally I don’t.  Decco & Drico are winners and need to get the boys thinking like winners again until the fat lady sings in this Six Nations Championship.

England-33 (Eddie’s 2008) Ireland-10

As Irish rugby fans we’ll never forget our two great victories over the English in the Croke Park era…but I’m sure I won’t be thanked for reminding them of our last visit to Twickenham which was sandwiched in between.  Still, I think it’s significant to remember that dismal day, which fell just before Paddy’s Day 2008, as it represented Eddie O’Sullivan’s last match in charge of the Irish team.  Here’s how I felt about it at the time, and I’ll give the IRFU and Eddie SOME credit in that it WAS done soon, in less than a week.

 

OUT OF REACH

No point analysing this match really.

It would be hard to do without repeating everything I’ve ever said on my blog about Eddie O’Sullivan.

So let me make things brief by simply outlining two more reasons I dreamed up why I think he should be fired.

#1 – Let’s presume the Triple Crown means nothing, shall we? Basically it means you won 3 matches out of 5 in a tournament, and if that’s so, both England and France won it as well as Wales this year. That being given, Eddie faces the embarrassing statistic of winning nothing of real note since his appointment, while the guy he replaced, Warren Gatland, won the Grand Slam at his first attempt since his departure. Surely that says it all.

#2 – The longer we leave Eddie in charge, surely the harder it will be to negotiate with the new coach. The IRFU will be desperate to replace him with quality, but if I’m a half decent coach and they approached me, I’d be sure to tell them – “OK, I’ll do it, but considering all the allowances you made for O’Sullivan when he effectively did nothing, I want a contract SO watertight that even Brendan Drumm of the HSE would be fired for incompetence before I would.”

Now it’s up to the IRFU to act. Sure, it’s going to cost them dearly because however inept E O’S may be, even he wouldn’t be stupid enough to resign. But with only five full internationals between now and the next Six Nations campaign, if a new pair of eyes is to brought in to take over the set-up, it needs to be done soon.

Leinster-27 Scarlets-14

THIS SEXTON’S ON FIRE!

How many times does a player have to prove he can handle pressure?

Jonny Sexton did it coming on for Felipe at Croker.  He did it again at Murrayfield.  He did it at the RDS in his first Ireland start.  He even did it whilst beating the 2009 Team of the Year.

And in many ways, with the taste of the first competitive defeat of the Kidney era still fresh on the palates of Irish fans, Saturday night’s Magners League contest against the Scarlets represented the 24-year-old’s biggest pressure outing of all.

With Ronan O’Gara shooting himself in both feet by whinging about a journalist, the stage was set to show he was worthy of stepping in at Twickenham next weekend.

So let’s see…how did he handle it?

22 of his side’s 27 points, including a try and 2 kicks from the touchline.  Several crunching tackles.  Tremendous versatility with the ball in hand.  What the hell more do we want?

Let’s face it – we all know that O’Gara is a quality international out-half, but that’s just the point.  WE ALL KNOW IT.  And so do the other five nations.  There’s a playbook on how to go up against him, and there’s no other country in this competition more likely to go by a playbook than Martin Johnson’s England.

So as well as another four Magners League points, Leinster fans were celebrating a display from their super Number 10 that surely has earned him the starting jumper.

We’ll see.

As for the rest of the team, well, to be honest they played like a unit that hasn’t been together in a long time, and guess what, that’s exactly what they were.  Had it not been for McCusker’s blooper moment (see this YouTube clip) the outcome could have been very different, but I’m satisfied we did just enough over the 80 minutes to come out on top.

Despite putting in a strong performance himself on the night, it looks as though Girvan Dempsey’s hopes of making the 22 for the weekend are non-existent with the call up of Geordan Murphy to the squad.  It looks like it’s between the Leicester Tiger and Keith Earls for the vacant 15 jersey.

And spare a thought for poor Sean O’Brien.  He probably wouldn’t have started against England, but what an impact sub to have off the bench.  It has been a great season for the Carlow man and it would be a shame if it were over for him already with so many big matches in the coming weeks.

Last, and certainly not least, even though it was only for a couple of minutes, what a debut from young Rock boy Andrew Conway.  I blogged about a feature on him in Rugby World magazine last May and with a try-producing offload at one end and a try-saving tackle at the other in his brief appearance, he is surely one to watch.

Overall it was an entertaining Saturday evening at the RDS, even if it was kind of like Something Happens coming on to play one song halfway through a U2 gig.

APRES MATCH…

Once the final whistle blew, it was on into town for the #heavensgametweetup.  On the night I met @inshin, his wife Michelle, @heavensgame himself of course, @22dropout, @deiseprop, @broddo, @Grayzie, @TheRealAmz, @holyschmoke, @ruggerwines and @AMcDermott .   Sadly the other guest of honour Mr Hook wasn’t able to make it but despite that and the snowfall (and a nearly-lost blackberry), a great night was had by all in Buskers.

Tried to get some juicy rugby gossip off of @heavensgame but unfortunately he saw right through me and wasn’t coughing up the ball!  Oh, well.  Maybe next time.

Thanks again to @inshin for putting the night together, hopefully we can all do it again soon. 

Heaven’s Game…and so is George!

Have to hand it to the Magners League for coming up with the whole “100 days to go till Grand Final” promotion yesterday…you know, to remind all us Six-Nations-crazed rugby fans that their competition still exists.

Well, they didn’t need to do that to get my bum on a seat at the RDS this weekend…the five points on offer against the Scarlets will come in very handy, and I sincerely hope we can do it.  Doesn’t make me feel any less wary about the wisdom of squeezing these matches in during the season’s premier tournament, but what can you do…

And tomorrow night’s rugby evening won’t end at full time in Ballsbridge either.  I’ll be heading into town for the #heavensgametweetup…the creator of the famous rugby blog from Down Under, Jeremy Benyon, will be in town and he’ll be meeting up with us mere mortals from the Irish rugby social media world for a beverage or two in the Temple Bar Hotel.

But I hope Mr Benyon won’t object to conceding top billing on the evening to the larger-than-life presence of none other than Mr George Hook, who has all but confirmed attendance via Twitter.  Should be an interesting evening, hopefully there will be plenty of stories and pictures to show for it afterwards!

Kudos to Denis Vaughan, aka @inshin, for organising it, very much looking forward.  Click the link in the corner there to get more details or even to confirm your attendance.

France-33 Ireland-10

THE KNOCK-ON EFFECT

After all the hype, all the build-up, all the pundits claiming this was a Six Nations decider, the match kicked off and the ball flew into the ait, straight to good old Mr Dependable himself Rob Kearney…

…who knocked it on with the first touch off a green jumper.

From then until the final whistle, you can take your pick of costly mistakes.  Cian Hayes’ sin-binning, Jerry Flannery’s fly-hack of Palisson which reversed a possible 3 points for us, Tomas O’Leary’s bad decision to go for a try with time elapsed rather than take the easy 3 right before the half, or Keith Earls’ balls-up of a simple tap-ball, we just plain and simple made too many basic errors on the day.

And the bounce of the ball didn’t help us either.  When our players were involved with the padding around the base of the goalpost after D’Arcy’s stunning line break, it went against us, but when Servat dived at it down the other end, they scored.

But when you analyse this match honestly, you have to look beyond our mistakes and our misfortunes and look at what was quite possibly the most flawless 80-minute display of rugby union football the Six Nations has ever seen.  Seemingly at will the French were able to surge forward like a TGV train and I very much doubt any team on the planet would’ve found it easy to stay with them.

Of course the scoreline would’ve been a lot closer had we not made so many basic errors on the pitch, but for the first time since he took the reigns I may have to question the wisdom of Declan Kidney’s use of the bench.

Two tries down at halftime and nothing seemingly happening at the start of the second, would it have been ridiculous to throw on Sexton to mix things up?  I really think not.  And perhaps he was injured, but if not I don’t see why Leo Cullen had to come off; his line-out jumping was one of our few success stories on the day.

But in a desperate attempt to look for a silver lining, it could be argued that this result will do Kidney’s World Cup 2011 preparations more good than harm.   There will be performances just like that awaiting us in New Zealand, of that we can be sure, and it’s better to face one now and get a hiding so we can be sure it doesn’t happen again.

I still have a lot of faith in this squad.  Sure – the whole “successive Grand Slam” thing may be gone, but the Championship sure isn’t, and the way the other two matches transpired this weekend proves it.

Wales-31 Scotland-24

Two decisions turned this match around.  First Gatland made one sensible call in hauling off Cooper and replacing him with Rees at halftime.  Sure, the Scottish defence was solid in the first half, but the Cardiff Blues #9s inability to get the ball quickly from the base of the ruck virtually neutralised the star-studded backline behind him.

But even with a new scrumhalf for the home side in the second half, you still felt the Scots had done enough to bring it home, particularly with Parks providing more than adequate cover for Paterson from the kicking tee.

Then enter replacement hooker Scott Lawson.

The man is 28 years old.  You’d like to think even a schoolboy player would know that if you’re up by 10 and there’s less than ten minutes left in a match, there’s no need to give ANY sort of penalty away around the halfway line, let alone one that could possibly get you a binning.  From there, the Welsh got their try and with the Scots guaranteed to be a man down to the end, they were always going to be vulnerable to what happened.

It must be so infuriating for the poor Scottish fans.  And for me as well, since I tipped them to win two this year, and surely this was their best chance.  Just don’t do it against us!

As for the Welsh, well for 70 minutes they reminded me of Ireland under Eddie O’Sullivan…maybe, just maybe, Gatland has the balls to acknowledge his mistakes and fire them up to take on the French and blow this Championship wide open Friday week.

Italy-12 England-17

What can I say about this rancid kick-fest excuse of a rugby game?

It seems Johnson’s men took the phrase “When in Rome…” a bit too much to heart…I see why the Italians kept kicking, coach Mallet is simply doing his best to make the resources he has work in this competitive Six Nations tournament, but what was England’s excuse for kicking it right back to them every time!

The fact that Jonny Wilkinson was happy to kick a drop goal to wrap up the victory says it all.  They should have been miles ahead by then and they know it.

And what’s more, the unthinkable upset may very well have happened had Moody been sin-binned for his dangerous challenge on Luke McLean. 

It was a shocking performance by the men in white, particularly in the lineout, and if they don’t make the right improvements in the next two weeks, they could struggle against what surely must be a fired up Irish 22 at “Headquarters”.

© JL Pagano 2010

France-26 (Eddie’s 2008) Ireland-21

Time to turn the clock back yet again to Eddie O'Sullivan's last Six Nations campaign which in terms of fixtures anyway mirrors the 2010 version. The scoreline doesn't even begin to reflect the way I felt watching this one, particularly when Clerc did such an extravagant touchdown for his 3rd try. Good to see he's playing this Saturday…the quest for revenge could make for an interesting sub-plot...

 

 

 IT WAS THERE FOR THE TAKING

Turned out to be quite a match, didn’t it?

I’m sorry to take the role of the nay-sayer, but although it was a good thing that we came from virtual oblivion to within a whisker of winning, I still took a lot more negatives from the performance than I did positives.

First of all, why were we down by four tries midway through the second half? Because we couldn’t hold onto possession, that’s why. And what’s more, when we did have it in attacking situations, we couldn’t make it count.
This began in the opening minutes in my opinion. We had a good backline move which nearly saw us break through for a try, but the French defence recovered and we had a few phases under the posts which seemed to be going nowhere.

I was thinking – definitely drop goal is the way to go. You’re in Paris, and you take the easy score to go ahead early and ease the pressure. But no – they went for the try and it gained nothing. Still, not the end of the world.
Then we started losing crucial lineouts in their 22. Each time, Jackman’s throw seemed to be on the mark; it’s almost as if the home forwards were reading the calls each time and their jumper was able to get into the air in advance of the throw.

Then before you could say “sacre bleu”, three turnovers left Kearney hopelessly out of position and in the blink of an eye they exploited the space and got Clerc in for his hat-trick. Didn’t you just want to give him a thump for the extravagant way he put the ball down for his third five-pointer???

So according to the commentators, Heymans’ fourth in the second half meant it was “curtains” for Ireland. I was almost afraid to watch the rest of the game, but fair play to the lads, they found some backbone, albeit against pretty much the entire French subs bench.

We scored two tries in quick succession. How? By exploiting their weakened pack in both the lineout and the loose.
So when we get to within five points and we’re deep in their 22 once more in the dying moments, what do we do? Instead of continuing to pummel their pack, we play long risky passes through the backs, and in the end we hand them victory by literally throwing the ball out of play to stop the clock. Had we kept the phases going there was every chance of being awarded yet another penalty try because it seemed they had no answers.

Yes, I know Donncha squeezed out a few tears with his interview and yes, they did play better in the second half. But I’m sick of this “nearly is good enough” attitude that has been cultivated in Irish sport over the years.

By doing the basics right we would not have been chasing this game. We could have actually won it comfortably.

I said before this Six Nations campaign that only winning the Championship could vindicate O’Sullivan’s decision to go with virtually the same team he brought to the World Cup. He scraped a win against Italy, THEN made changes, and still lost in Paris, and realistically all we have to hope for is yet another Triple Crown.

And how easy is THAT going to be, with Warren Gatland motivating his Welsh squad to get revenge for him in a few weeks???

One last complaint - with the French TV director doing stupid tricks like super-imposing people's faces onto the screen when you're trying to watch the actual play, coupled with RTE's inability to keep the elapsed time in the top left hand corner, I think I'm going to have to make sure I get to Paris myself in two year's time to enjoy the next game properly!

Ireland-29 Italy-11

WEEK ONE, JOB DONE

Ireland’s display on Saturday was much like Jamie Heaslip’s physique…a bit flabby round the edges, but good enough to get the job done. By the end of the first series, we sit atop the Six Nations standings, and I’m not sure how much more we as Irish fans could have asked for.

Brian O’Driscoll, who showed some flashes of sheer genius on the day, said it well afterwards via his twitter account…they played like a team that hadn’t been together since November and I say we listen to the man and have faith that the boys have their A game tucked in their back pocket for the two massive away games to come in this tournament.

And to be honest, right up to moment that Rob Kearney’s lazy attempt at a clearance led to their only try, we were showing the domination, poise and tactical prowess we’ve come to expect from the boys in green.

The backs were trying out some new moves, always good to see when you consider the other 5 nations will no doubt have spent hours analysing DVDs from 2009.

Leinster skipper Leo Cullen gave Declan Kidney yet another glorious selection headache as he seemingly picked off Italian lineout darts at will and set up our second try.

It was as though the visitor’s score served as a wake-up call to the lads in that maybe now was a time to shut up shop, forget about points difference and bring the game home focussing on injury minimalization.

And guess what, that’s exactly what they did. Italy got their last score in the 44th minute and there was NO way they were going to cross our line again even with their break in the closing minutes.

Now…of course I agree ROG had a good outing, but in my book, that’s all it was, good. He kicked his kicks, but each one were ones he’d be expected to get and the only pressure that was on him either came from his own early-season form or his Leinster nemesis sitting in the stands.

I suppose possession should be nine-tenths of the law when it comes to Kidney’s selection for Paris, but it will be a close call nonetheless.

All in all I have faith in this squad to use the 7-day turnaround to iron out the kinks and be ready for battle in the Stade de France.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the competition….

England-30 Wales-17

Uh…word to the wise, England fans…you didn’t actually win the World Cup!

Watching their fans in the Twickenham crowd and reading their tweets, you’d think they had, and some non-English pundits even referred to their display as “awesome”. Were they watching the same game?

They scored 3 tries…two when AW Jones was in the bin for a moment of madness and one after a wayward pass by Stephen Jones while they were chasing the game.

This says it all….when Jones got his yellow, the score was 3-3. And the quality of rugby up to that point was about as exciting as a documentary on stamp collecting.

I’ll give Martin Johnson one thing…he definitely instils belief in his players. They just don’t seem to have the skills or tactical nous to back it up. They’ll make things tough when Ireland come to town, that’s for sure-especially after a likely 2nd victory in Rome will leave them undefeated at kickoff-but you can be pretty sure they won’t have possession handed to them quite so easily as the Welsh did.

As for Warren Gatland, I think he sits at the opposite end of the coaching spectrum. His players have the talent and the know-how, he just doesn’t seem to get them to gel on the day. Personally, I think it’s time to give Leigh Halfpenny his chance to raise his game to the next level.

Scotland-9 France-18

Midway through the first half I feared France would run away with this one and top the standings at the end of the weekend, but then I realised their philosophy was much like Ireland’s…no need to go for tons of points when you run the risk of injury for bigger games to come.

And so the game at Murrayfield was very similar to that at Croker…two first half tries then time to shut up shop. Scotland showed a bit of promise at times but admirable though their attempts at crossing the line may have been, I feel they should have known their limitations and taken the easy drop goal opportunities when they had them and maybe the outcome could have been different.

Nice touch for them to honour by way of their jerseys the one player who chose not to tog out for them on the day, though…

© JL Pagano 2010

What are the chances?

Meet Grandy McSlam…the official Six Nations mascot to the Pagano household.

You see him above in his lofty perch at Dicey Reilly’s pub on Harcourt St in Dublin where he resided throughout the nail-biting thrillfest that was the Six Nations decider at the Millenium Stadium last March.

So…what are the chances of repeating?

Well I’ll tell you…nothing makes me want to smash a radio more these days than hearing a sports bulletin where the reader refers to the fact that “Ireland would be the first to win back-to-back Grand Slam titles since France in 1998”.  I’m as superstitious as any Irish fan and I’m even thinking I’ve hurt our chances by typing out that sentence on my blog at all!

We need to appreciate just how difficult a back-to-back Grand Slam is.  For one thing, there’s the obvious fact that as reigning champions you can be sure that the other 5 nations will see you as the team to beat.  But this tournament has the added flavour of the reversal of the fixtures, so if you are to beat everyone again, you must do so on a different ground.

But having said all of that, if we’re EVER going to win 5 out of 5 for a second year running, this is the year we could do it.  Sure, we’ve had a few injuries, but our talent pool has never been as deep as it is now and we seem to have adequate cover at every position, even in 1st-cappers like Kevin McLaughlin.

Plus there’s the fact that the other nations are having a few problems of their own.  Wales are down two quality scrum-halves, England are, well, being led by a man who would play the entire World Cup winning XV from 2003 if he could, and the French will always leave you guessing what XV they’re going to play on any given day.

I know I was a bit mean to the hopes of Scotland and Italy with that last sentence, but although I do believe the Scots will cause an upset somewhere and emerge with 2 victories in this campaign, even their most avid fans couldn’t put either in the frame for 1st place this year and keep a straight face.

So, what does that mean our task is this coming weekend?  Simple.  We have to make sure we’re in 1st place on the table come Sunday evening.  And since we’re up first, to do this we must come out all guns blazing against the Italians and put them to the sword.

No more of this pussy-footing around our chances of success, I say.  If you can’t believe in a team coached by someone of Declan Kidney’s pedigree, who CAN you believe in?

COME ON IRELAND!!!

Technorati Tags: Six Nations,rugby,Ireland rugby,Declan Kidney

(Eddie's 2008) Ireland-16 Italy-11

Just before the 2010 Six Nations Championship kicks off, this is a good time to turn back the clock and reflect on just how far we've come in the past two years.

At this time in 2008, we also kicked off the campaign with a match against the Italians at Croke Park, but things weren't running quite so smoothly back then...here's how I saw it in this post first published on Feb 2 08...

STILL A BLIP, EDDIE?

I hate to say I told you so – no, scratch that. I’m LOVING it.

Eddie O’Sullivan seemed to think his World Cup tactics were still viable and picked virtually the same starting XV for the Six Nations opener with Italy. Well he was wrong.

George Hook set the scene perfectly before the match when he said that Ireland were actually in a good position to win the Championship, since the other five teams were beginning a rebuilding phase which should have given us the edge.

Well when you consider that Italy’s performance was average at best, it puts this final scoreline into context. Let’s face it – the visitors had possession right at the very end and could have actually won it.

Now it wasn’t all bad. O’Gara was kicking at the right times, the backline were showing off a few new moves and seemed to be able to break the Italian line at will in the first half.

It’s just that whenever they did have the momentum they didn’t seem capable of turning it into points. They reminded me of Arsenal when Theirry Henry was playing for them in that they seemed to be going for the “pretty” scores rather than going the conventional route.

Well at least it worked once, ROG’s kick forward to the opposite winger was sublime, and what about Trimble’s offload to Girvan Dempsey (see touching down in pic thanks to www.bbc.co.uk)? If they could have played like that for 80 minutes then this blog post would be entirely different I can tell you.

But the try lulled us into a false sense of security and it seemed a series of scores would follow. Then all of a sudden we realised that there were only 5 minutes to go and we were only winning by five measly points!!!

I have to say that I was amused to see that O’Sullivan finished the match with the team I felt should have started it, though it was a bit unfair of the punters in Sinnott’s to cheer the arrival of Stringer since Reddan played his socks off and surely earned the number 9 jersey for Paris.

Sadly when it comes to picking teams, Eddie doesn’t seem to care about the world “should”. He SHOULD drop Rory Best for his below par lineout throws. He SHOULD drop John Hayes for giving away senseless penalties. But I can’t help feeling that when he picks his team for the match in Paris it’s going to be more of the same.

I wonder just how badly his charges have to play before he drops them? And with Wales now competitive, if we take this form through the rest of the tournament the only prize we’ll win is a kitchen implement used for mixing ingredients.

Bring. It. On.

Time to consign my Leinster jerseys and t-shirts to the wardrobe, and with it the various flags that adorn the upstairs window and my car.

With the exception of a scheduled match with the Scarlets and a possible re-scheduled one with Glasgow, the Magners League and Heineken Cup take back seats as the highlight of the European rugby calendar, which curiously takes place smack bang in the middle of the season, kicks off at Croke Park a week from Saturday.

So I guess it’s only proper to tweak the aul’ blog as well to show I’m willing to put my blatant Leinster bias to one side for a few weeks.  WELL…maybe I won’t be able to help myself favouring the BODs and the Heaslips ahead of the O’Leary’s and the O’Connells, but sure that’s all part and parcel, isn’t it?

And you can be sure I’ll be posting my thoughts on a regular basis throughout the campaign, which for me will culminate in a stag weekend in Limerick for the final weekend of matches.  Too much to hope for a second successive Grand Slam to be on the line by then?

As always, the order of play has a part to play in the progress of the tournament, so here’s all the details on the extremely unlikely off-chance that you haven’t already cleared your schedule…

Saturday, 06 February 2010

Ireland v Italy, 14:30

England v Wales, 17:00

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Sunday, 07 February 2010

Scotland v France, 15:00

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Saturday, 13 February 2010

Wales v Scotland, 14:00

France v Ireland, 16:30

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Sunday, 14 February 2010

Italy v England, 14:30

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Friday, 26 February 2010

Wales v France, 20:00

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Saturday, 27 February 2010

Italy v Scotland, 13:30

England v Ireland, 16:00

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Saturday, 13 March 2010

Ireland v Wales, 14:30

Scotland v England, 17:00

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Sunday, 14 March 2010

France v Italy, 14:30

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Saturday, 20 March 2010

Wales v Italy, 14:30

Ireland v Scotland, 17:00

France v England, 19:45

LettinOn Irish-11 Leinster-11

FOLLY MALONE

Events at Twickenham proved one thing for sure…to get the luck of the Irish, it’s not enough to merely call yourself Irish.

Poor Chris Malone just had one of those games.  And let’s be honest, we’ve all had them playing sports one time or other.   When no matter how many different ways you look back over it and try to find alternative summaries, you always come back to the simple truth : “If it weren’t for me, we’d be in the last 8”.

Leinster for their part played like a team who wanted to do the bare minimum for fear of injuring any of their 6 Nations stars, and they succeeded in that.  With the exception of Gordon d’Arcy finding some world-class lines, we seemed happy to hold on to possession when we had it without breaking too much sweat.

The “home” team, however, seemed to have their gameplan just right, and set about “out-Leinstering Leinster” from the start, keeping it tight throughout doing their best to thwart us whenever they could.

And their lineout prowess was just as impressive as it had been in the RDS in October, consigning Bernard Jackman to the bench before halftime.

Now call me a biased Leinster fan all you want, and that’d be ok because I definitely am one, but it really did seem that Nigel Owens was giving every 50-50 call to the home side, particularly in the second half, when he and his touch judge missed Mapusua being well in front of the kicker at one stage, and also there was a suspicion of a forward pass right before Malone’s try.

But despite the fact that he got all 11 of his side’s points, Chris Malone will always be remembered for the 17 points – 1 inexplicable conversion, 2 penalties and 3 dropgoals [the fourth miss was only after a loss of sanity by Rob Kearney following the third one] – he failed to get, and you can be sure that right now it REALLY sucks to be a LettinOn Irish fan.

I mean…when the draw was made for this competition and the Irish were drawn with the reigning champions, had a time traveller appeared and told their supporters 3 facts…(a) Leinster won’t beat you, (b) They’ll still win the group AND get a home quarterfinal, and (c) You won’t qualify for ANY form of European quarterfinal, they’d have found that pretty hard to believe, wouldn’t they?

But that’s precisely what happened, and once again it was an almost perfect weekend for the four proud provinces of Ireland, with only poor Ulster being cruelly denied a playoff spot of any description.

And now we know the makeup of the semifinals as well, it seems that all roads to Paris lie through French clubs for our Irish representatives, definitely for Leinster anyway.

Well for sure it won’t be easy, but I’m comforted by one thing…the French clubs will be less likely to play with the approach the Guinness Premiership sides have used against us, and when we’re allowed to play our game, we’re always in the contest. 

But of course as happens every year in the ludicrous stop-start format of the European rugby season, we can’t even begin to analyse the quarterfinals properly until we assess the walking wounded from the Six Nations campaign.

So all we can do right now is ditch our provincial flags, unite under the compromise-IRFU-designed one and cheer Declan Kidney’s men towards a second successive Grand Slam!  Bring it on!