Ireland v Argentina Q/F RWC 2015

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Watching the full highlights again and the Henshaw thing I spoke about earlier was even worse than I thought.

It's 17-20 and 48:14 on the clock.

He gets the ball inside the 22 with three players outside him and one defender in the line and the fullback covering across. Fitzgerald and Dave Kearney both run short lines either side of him but he holds on to it and offloads to Luke in the tackle who gets driven back. Ball spills out of the ruck and Jamie tries to clean it up but Argentina get over it again with a mammoth effort. They kick downfield and Dave catches and gives it to Rob who kicks ahead. Argentina win that, go through the phases and move the ball wide, leading to a penalty on 49:22.

I wish I could take a photo of it and fully expect Murray Kinsella to do so. He could have passed to Luke before contact and there was a good chance he'd have broken through. Or he could have played it wide earlier and just let the numbers work for us, or played it out the back when Dave held his man inside.

However, what it glaringly obvious to me now is that if he just pops to Dave before contact then he is 100% going in under the sticks. Both of the Argentinian defenders have been sat down, the fullback has gone too far wide, and Dave ran the perfect line. Nailed on 7 points and it was the easiest and most obvious thing for him to do in that situation.

I had kind of come to terms with being beaten by a much better side earlier but watching that...we blew it.

[Dave Cahill]

Remove all sharp objects and household chemicals from LRIPs vicinity

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Murray Kinsella makes me feel okay about being nerdy like that. I guarantee he'll write about it.

[Raydollard]

his was a truly shocking gutless performance against the worst of the southern hemisphere teams. Wales and Scotland's efforts put ours in context. Argentina appeared to have 3 or 4 more players on the pitch at all times. I cannot remember such an unremittingly abject performance from us for years.

[All Blacks nil]

Anyone see Jamie walking the dog at 5am this morning.

[wixfjord]

his was a truly shocking gutless performance against the worst of the southern hemisphere teams. Wales and Scotland's efforts put ours in context. Argentina appeared to have 3 or 4 more players on the pitch at all times. I cannot remember such an unremittingly abject performance from us for years.

What were your thoughts on Madigan's performance there Ray?

[simonokeeffe]

if we think we're going mental over the ref you should see what the Scottish ( pundits & ex players) are saying about Joubert!

getting criticised for everything from awarding penalties for offside to not going to TMO for the last penalty to not staying on the pitch afterwards to argue with the players

[LeinsterLeader]

if we think we're going mental over the ref you should see what the Scottish ( pundits & ex players) are saying about Joubert!

getting criticised for everything from awarding penalties for offside to not going to TMO for the last penalty to not staying on the pitch afterwards to argue with the players

I think this is the may gripe but my understanding is the ref has no remit to go to the TMO in this instance. Anyone confirm/deny?

[LeinsterLeader]

his was a truly shocking gutless performance against the worst of the southern hemisphere teams. Wales and Scotland's efforts put ours in context. Argentina appeared to have 3 or 4 more players on the pitch at all times. I cannot remember such an unremittingly abject performance from us for years.

What were your thoughts on Madigan's performance there Ray?

.....oh you are awful!

[simonokeeffe]

if we think we're going mental over the ref you should see what the Scottish ( pundits & ex players) are saying about Joubert!

getting criticised for everything from awarding penalties for offside to not going to TMO for the last penalty to not staying on the pitch afterwards to argue with the players

I think this is the may gripe but my understanding is the ref has no remit to go to the TMO in this instance. Anyone confirm/deny?

pretty sure he can only go for foul play or scoring of a try

plus not like Scotland werent given a load of kickable penalties in that game

seems odd that Ford and Gray started, know bans were overturned but whats the point in having to name a team 48 hours beforehand if you can change it for non medical/compassionate reasons?

[OTT]

Firstly, I have thought for months that we would take Argentina in this match (having believed we would win our group). Secondly, even after losing Payne, POC, POM, SOB and Sexton I still thought we could get over the line. My reasons for thinking this was that I had great faith in the way we go out and play the opposition and our ability to always be competitive.

Our reality was that we met a formidable opponent who got out of the tracks faster then us. As much as we have improved our depth we were still missing 1/3 of our starting team and that was telling, we talked all week in media and everywhere else about how great a leader and motivator POC is. A lot of us rate Sexton as up there with the top 2 or 3 10's in the world. We have acknowledged that while Payne might not have given us the attacking trust we wanted, defensively he has manned that difficult 13 channel brilliantly and there have been question marks about SOB and POM over the last few weeks because we know what sort of players they are when they are on top of their game and last week against France we saw what we knew they could be. So anyway obviously any one or two of these losses is big but combined it proved to be to much for us.

It seems obvious now that it was to much to lose so many but yet I still believed we could do it. We handed them a huge lead of 17 points before we started to chip back and on 59mins we missed a kick which would have brought us level. Ultimately when the game was on the line it really showed how much we were missing anyone of those players.

The devastated feeling of losing a game I believed we could win (my heart thought we could make a final) was sort of set aside by the thought that it was nice for once to have so much faith in a squad and management that I could actually be realistic about the expectations of my little country being in a semi final, even if that ultimately was not to be.

Sport is so amazing yet so cruel. Argies were brilliant, they played the game with great width and power. As a neutral I am sure they were awesome to watch. We gave it all we could and it was not enough. We are a very good team and usually we are more then the sum of our parts but yesterday we lost to a better team on the day (there are 7 or 8 Tier 1 teams who can win or lose against each other on any given day) . That's life, that's sport. We underachieved ultimately but only because we have been over achieving the last two years which has allowed our mindset to change. Thanks to POC and Joe and all the squad for giving me an amazing few weeks following this team, seeing them backed to the hilts on tv by the fans and getting to experience the atmosphere in person at the Romania game it has been a bloody great ride. Unfortunately only one team are gonna go home from this competition without regrets, that is sport.

[Flash Gordon]

if we think we're going mental over the ref you should see what the Scottish ( pundits & ex players) are saying about Joubert!

getting criticised for everything from awarding penalties for offside to not going to TMO for the last penalty to not staying on the pitch afterwards to argue with the players

I think this is the may gripe but my understanding is the ref has no remit to go to the TMO in this instance. Anyone confirm/deny?

pretty sure he can only go for foul play or scoring of a try

plus not like Scotland werent given a load of kickable penalties in that game

seems odd that Ford and Gray started, know bans were overturned but whats the point in having to name a team 48 hours beforehand if you can change it for non medical/compassionate reasons?

Isn't deliberate off side foul play? As an aside I was really surprised the TV panel didn't pick up on the debate at all after the game!

[Golf Man]

First off an absolute disaster - thought with sexton gone that we were in real trouble but didn't expect us to be that bad

Injuries obviously caused huge trouble for us - especially when they were such key players and positions

As always though this has to fall on the shoulders of the coach - he has absolutely deservedly got credit for the last couple of years, and now has to take his fair share of the blame. I do think he got a couple of things badly wrong yesterday

- Defensive approach -> where was the intensity at the breakdown? This drift defence just played into Argentinas hands and was compounded by some really bad individual errors by players who are picked for supposedly defensively sound

Attacking - just also blunt - we are set out with a limited gameplan and showed nothing in attack really (Fitzgeral;d excepted) - no Plan B again

Schmidts approach is the cause of his sy=uccess trhe last 2 years but also the cause of his downfall - his gameplan with Ireland hasn't really evolved - on occasions when we have come up against fired up teams we have realy struggled - England in 2014, Wales this year and haven't had the ability, wherewithal to do anything about it - is he just too much of a slave to his system - a system that ultimately is primarily dependent on no mistakes - the first two tries were well finished by Argentina, but the system and individual errors were desperate - we made it easy for them and then because we are so robotic we were never going to come backl from that - we were always goingt top have our purple patch but at the higher end you just can't give up 14 points like that in 10 minutes

He needs to loosen the shackles and take some risks - let players play

Dealing with 10/12/13 has been tough for him admittedly - Earls hadn't played internationally for 2 years and has limited exposure at the top level at 13, Henshaw for all his attributes is still very fresh and Madigan is well Madigan - not a controlling 10

Use of the bench was poor as well => I didn't like the selection of Murphy initially but he needed to make changes earlier - hindsight is great and all that but having Cronin and Zebo on the bench would have been good yesterday

Argentina were very very good but we didn't show up - game was over after 13 mionutes, despite us getting back into it

[simonokeeffe]

foul play as in violent conduct/jiggery pokery

[jezzer]

First off an absolute disaster - thought with sexton gone that we were in real trouble but didn't expect us to be that bad

Injuries obviously caused huge trouble for us - especially when they were such key players and positions

As always though this has to fall on the shoulders of the coach - he has absolutely deservedly got credit for the last couple of years, and now has to take his fair share of the blame. I do think he got a couple of things badly wrong yesterday

- Defensive approach -> where was the intensity at the breakdown? This drift defence just played into Argentinas hands and was compounded by some really bad individual errors by players who are picked for supposedly defensively sound

Attacking - just also blunt - we are set out with a limited gameplan and showed nothing in attack really (Fitzgeral;d excepted) - no Plan B again

Schmidts approach is the cause of his sy=uccess trhe last 2 years but also the cause of his downfall - his gameplan with Ireland hasn't really evolved - on occasions when we have come up against fired up teams we have realy struggled - England in 2014, Wales this year and haven't had the ability, wherewithal to do anything about it - is he just too much of a slave to his system - a system that ultimately is primarily dependent on no mistakes - the first two tries were well finished by Argentina, but the system and individual errors were desperate - we made it easy for them and then because we are so robotic we were never going to come backl from that - we were always goingt top have our purple patch but at the higher end you just can't give up 14 points like that in 10 minutes

He needs to loosen the shackles and take some risks - let players play

Dealing with 10/12/13 has been tough for him admittedly - Earls hadn't played internationally for 2 years and has limited exposure at the top level at 13, Henshaw for all his attributes is still very fresh and Madigan is well Madigan - not a controlling 10

Use of the bench was poor as well => I didn't like the selection of Murphy initially but he needed to make changes earlier - hindsight is great and all that but having Cronin and Zebo on the bench would have been good yesterday

Argentina were very very good but we didn't show up - game was over after 13 mionutes, despite us getting back into it

Yup.

Argies brought an intensity and desire to the game that was higher than any other team in the QFs. I said before that these guys were a bunch of powerful athletes from one to 23 and they proved just how athletic they are. They blew us out of the game. We were physically humiliated. If you don't meet fire with fire up front, the result is the space and time that Argentina had to punish us out wide.

So, credit to them. It was a mammoth performance. We put one in against France and struggled to back it up with another. Let's see if they can (I kind of suspect they will actually).

Having gotten back into it, we made a number of brainless decisions, many of them from scrumhalf, which handed momentum back like a gift voucher admitting one to the semi-finals. And so here we are, out of it again, and again with very few complaints. Whatever about personnel, we tried to play exactly how I predicted we would and so did Argentina. Ambition and desire won out over conservatism and statistics and that's how it should be.

So many coaches in Ireland play not to lose. Joe came into Leinster, played to win and we thrived on positive rugby like no other team in Ireland ever did. After all, our physical makeup, culture and schools team pipeline would suggest to you that it's how we were bred to play.

Quite why in his last season with Leinster and subsequent seasons with Ireland Joe felt the need to take us all the way down the other end of the spectrum, I don't know. Winning 6Ns is really great, don't get me wrong, but the results over the weekend show how the world rankings are really just fooling European teams into believing they are close to their SH counterparts.

Leinster4Life goes a bit over the top on the subject, but he's right that we don't back ourselves to play like the SH teams, we reward players for conservatism rather than ambition and we don't practice skills that are already in our rugby DNA but get overwritten by box-kicks, one-outs and choke tackles.

[fourthirtythree]

Funnily enough, while all the focus is on the lack of attacking nous and intent I actually thought we weren't as bad in attack as we were in defence. We should have scored more bar some stupidity.

But our defence was never up to it.

I think there is a certain amount of people's pre-tournament gripes getting confimation bias. My contribution to that would be that I blame picking Dave Kearney ahead of Trimble. I didn't agree with it in the first place so...

Others are doing the same with Ryan (who got absolutely blasted out of it first couple of times he went into contact) not starting...

[Oldschoolsocks]

if we think we're going mental over the ref you should see what the Scottish ( pundits & ex players) are saying about Joubert!

getting criticised for everything from awarding penalties for offside to not going to TMO for the last penalty to not staying on the pitch afterwards to argue with the players
I think this is the may gripe but my understanding is the ref has no remit to go to the TMO in this instance. Anyone confirm/deny?

pretty sure he can only go for foul play or scoring of a try

plus not like Scotland werent given a load of kickable penalties in that game

seems odd that Ford and Gray started, know bans were overturned but whats the point in having to name a team 48 hours beforehand if you can change it for non medical/compassionate reasons?

EDIT: apologies if quotes are mismatched, can't embed more than 3 quotes, and tidying up on iPad is a mare


Isn't deliberate off side foul play? As an aside I was really surprised the TV panel didn't pick up on the debate at all after the game!

TV panel did deal with the last Australian penalty, it was a penalty, it didn't need a debate, the law is crystal clear on this, you're in front of a knock on and play the ball it's a penalty. Jennings dealt with it.

[Flash Gordon]

getting criticised for everything from awarding penalties for offside to not going to TMO for the last penalty to not staying on the pitch afterwards to argue with the players
I think this is the may gripe but my understanding is the ref has no remit to go to the TMO in this instance. Anyone

EDIT: apologies if quotes are mismatched, can't embed more than 3 quotes, and tidying up on iPad is a mare


Isn't deliberate off side foul play? As an aside I was really surprised the TV panel didn't pick up on the debate at all after the game!

TV panel did deal with the last Australian penalty, it was a penalty, it didn't need a debate, the law is crystal clear on this, you're in front of a knock on and play the ball it's a penalty. Jennings dealt with it.

Yes but the ball clearly came back from an Australian player.

[jezzer]

Funnily enough, while all the focus is on the lack of attacking nous and intent I actually thought we weren't as bad in attack as we were in defence. We should have scored more bar some stupidity.

But our defence was never up to it.

I think there is a certain amount of people's pre-tournament gripes getting confimation bias. My contribution to that would be that I blame picking Dave Kearney ahead of Trimble. I didn't agree with it in the first place so...

Others are doing the same with Ryan (who got absolutely blasted out of it first couple of times he went into contact) not starting...

I know what you're saying 433. But even when we were chasing the game - or at least once we got close to Argentina on the scoreboard - we began handing possession back to them in broken play. That was the very thing that punished us in the first half and we blindly got rid fo the ball when every fibre in their bodies should have told them we need to hang onto it and reestablish some control of the game. That impulse to hoof it away or to not look for the pass/offload in favour of going to ground (where the Argies killed us) is what I'm on about. We nearly worked ourselves into a inning position only to fall back on play-not-to-lose techniques.

[fourthirtythree]

Funnily enough, while all the focus is on the lack of attacking nous and intent I actually thought we weren't as bad in attack as we were in defence. We should have scored more bar some stupidity.

But our defence was never up to it.

I think there is a certain amount of people's pre-tournament gripes getting confimation bias. My contribution to that would be that I blame picking Dave Kearney ahead of Trimble. I didn't agree with it in the first place so...

Others are doing the same with Ryan (who got absolutely blasted out of it first couple of times he went into contact) not starting...

I know what you're saying 433. But even when we were chasing the game - or at least once we got close to Argentina on the scoreboard - we began handing possession back to them in broken play. That was the very thing that punished us in the first half and we blindly got rid fo the ball when every fibre in their bodies should have told them we need to hang onto it and reestablish some control of the game. That impulse to hoof it away or to not look for the pass/offload in favour of going to ground (where the Argies killed us) is what I'm on about. We nearly worked ourselves into a inning position only to fall back on play-not-to-lose techniques.

And I'm really not disagreeing with you. Or at least I may be in that post but I agree with your assessment overall, and did when you said much the same before the tournament. I'm just gripping at straws/wondering and our defence was shredded yesterday and you can't win sh*t when you get bossed like that. Even if you have the moves.

Which we just don't.