Ireland u20 2017-2018

[ronk]

Is Martin Johnson in for next year?

[Ruckedtobits]

The biggest frustration is they could have beaten both France and South Africa but showed no consistency during either game and a defence which was a shambles.

BTW, just watched Fr v SA, which the French won by 46-29 but went from 43-5 to 43-29 with the worse shambles of a 2nd half where SA had 81% possession!
Given how close the Aussies ran NZ, this tournament could be won by any of the last four. A prop to look out for in the future was No 17 for S Africa who put Daniel Brennan in his pocket and also scored 2 or 3 tries (Tschwangi). France also had an extraordinary THP - Bamba - who they substituted at about 55 mins (with Brennan on ).

Georgia are becoming a force at each level and will continue the hunt for a 6N place.

[hugonaut]

There may have been more poorly coached teams in the history of irish national representative rugby in the professional era, but I'm struggling to remember one.

Ah, they're a bit better than the Peter Malone coached U20s. Tom Tierney's women's team didn't look too hot at the world cup either

After which he was, bizarrely, appointed defense coach for the u20s, until he got the toe end before the tournament

Also, the forwards coach has never coached before professionally. Which is just what you need to develop elite level players!

The IRFU should be begging James Blaney to take this job.

[Ruckedtobits]

Yes, that's the sort of guy who's proved his ability at AIL and deserves a shot at a Representative side. Former Pro player who done the hard yards and has taken a Terenure Squad, largely without Academy players, right up to the top of the AIL.

[Oldschool]

A little unfair to POC maybe but guest appearances from ex-players is not the way to be going.
Sitting by Nellie is not the way to coach players.
The U20 players need coaches with experience.

[sunshiner1]

I'd give McNamara another season before letting him go. He's had a good track record up to this point.

[ronk]

A little unfair to POC maybe but guest appearances from ex-players is not the way to be going.
Sitting by Nellie is not the way to coach players.
The U20 players need coaches with experience.

Unfair on the players to have a coach who's not giving 100% and is building a CV by having his name attached to jobs.

Given what happened in the Munster academy, theres no way he'd be promoted if it weren't for his playing reputation.

Ex-players can be handed chances, but they have to be hungry to do the job they have now.

[Dave Cahill]

I'd give McNamara another season before letting him go. He's had a good track record up to this point.

Thats fair enough, I'd agree, but he has to be supported with a team of coaches selected for their coaching ability and not political appointments

[LeRouxIsPHat]

I only saw the last ten minutes or so of the game last night and would largely agree with a lot of what has been said and was thinking along similar lines after it, but thinking about it a bit more I would have a lot of sympathy with the coaches because of the injuries.

Our set piece was a big weakness but we were missing a full front row, O'Sullivan, and Masterson. Then we were missing Curtis who was the brains of the back line and the drop in quality to Hume was pretty big.

In fairness to POC (I assume) and the players, the restarts were a disaster in the 6N but improved hugely.

I'm not saying the coaches couldn't have done better, but it must have been tough without all those players and many of the replacements just weren't good enough. I'd imagine we'd have got more out of the front rowers that we did have if they had got more rest.

[R-Dog]

Didnt see any of the games but wondering who stood out for people?

Any of them real contenders to be pushing for national honours in a year or two like Ryan/Porter/Jordan or even challenging for a regular provincial start like Deegan ?

[Dave Cahill]

Doris was outstanding in each game - he could play for Leinster tomorrow.

[ronk]

He played for us a little over a month ago.

[dropkick]

Didnt see any of the games but wondering who stood out for people?

Any of them real contenders to be pushing for national honours in a year or two like Ryan/Porter/Jordan or even challenging for a regular provincial start like Deegan ?

I thought Hugh O'Sullivan, Tommy O'Brien, Barron, Dunne and Cormac Daly were good. Dean wasn't bad either and Hall had one or two moments.
In fairness to Duggan and Aungier, they've played nearly every minute of the tourament so far and thats my biggest criticism of the coaches.


The players who could be pushing for national honours in a few years in my opinion would be Doris, Jack O'Sullivan, Hugh O'Sullivan, Dunne, James French and Kelleher.
There are others who I certainly wouldn't be writing off like Tommy O'Brien, Harry Byrne, Cormac Daly, Agnew, Michael Silvester, Barron, O'Toole, Aungier etc. They've all potential and players improve and mature at different rates.


Doris stood out and could be a world cup bolter yet. Schmidt promoted Stockdale, Ryan, Porter and Larmour quickly so you never know. He's the only one who I can see rising rapidly through the ranks especially now that Ireland have such a strong squad these days.

[sunshiner1]

by Dave Cahill » June 8th, 2018, 10:20 am

sunshiner1 wrote:
I'd give McNamara another season before letting him go. He's had a good track record up to this point.


Thats fair enough, I'd agree, but he has to be supported with a team of coaches selected for their coaching ability and not political appointments

+1 For a rookie coach like him he should have experienced lieutenants around him. Rookies helping rookies is not a good system.

[Ruckedtobits]

Wow. That's some disaster against the Scots going down by 29-45. Need to win the next one to give next Season's group a World Cup to compete in. So much for Nucifora's experiment in abandoning the U.20 interpros. Not a good reflection on the coaching team either.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

Just watched it quickly, what a mess.

Why oh why did we continue to throw the ball to the back of the lineout when we kept f%~king it up and the Scots got so much joy from it? I defended the coaches a bit last week because of the players that were missing having a direct impact on our weak points but the order should have been given to stop throwing to the back.

We were cruising until HOS decided to take an age to clear a ball in our 22 and we got turned over and conceded a score. We seemed to be pointlessly setting up a couple of rucks when we just needed to clear it before the pressure came on, could see it coming a mile off.

Our defence out wide was piss poor although a lot of problems were off turnover ball to be fair to them. There were so many handling errors as well, just seemed to kill any momentum we had and often it wasn't even under any pressure.

I thought Byrne was very good and wouldn't have taken him off. Maybe he was tired but I'd have put Dean in at 12. I saw more from Dean in this tournament than in the previous 18 months (his two touchline conversions after the ref debacle were superb) but still don't see him making it with Leinster, certainly not at ten. I think he'd have a better chance at 12 though and really don't see why he wasn't tried there given our issues in the centre. Silvester really came into it as the game went on but that just emphasised how poor our attacking plan was because we seemed to be reduced to just letting him run sideways until he found some space. I still don't think he's a fullback, always looks hesitant and nervy but reckon he'd be far better on the wing. Just on the attacking point, how come we weren't getting Doris on the ball? It was as if the coaches had packed up and gone home.

We didn't deserve to win but thought the ref was appalling and the incident with the TMO was nothing short of a disgrace. For those who didn't see it, he blew the whistle as Dean kicked a touchline conversion because the TMO wanted to check a hit to the face on TOB as he dotted down for his try. It should have been obvious to the officials in the first place so no idea why there was a delay. Then they both agreed that it was a yellow card for the Scottish number 8...and then didn't actually act on it, never seen anything like it. There was also a maul early on where two Scottish players came in from the side to disrupt us and the ref watched them do it and gave them both the chance to get out of there. Then later an Irish player entered a maul from the side and we were penalised immediately.

[paddyor]

Play Japan in the relegation battle.

[A16]

I have to say, the structure of this tournament is really terrible. The games are so close together that it must have seriously negative effects on the young players bodies. Ireland will have played 5 games throughout the course of this competition, and those games are spaced out over 19 days. They had 3 days to recover from the first two matches, and 4 days for recovery from the next two. When you consider that many players have featured in every one of the games, and most likely will play the final one, it gives a really bad impression to the tournament. It’s particularly demanding for key forwards like Doris and Dunne, who are probably exhausted now. This coupled with the threat of relegation, and the pressure on teams to succeed, creates a very bad situation for the players. I don’t know whether or not it will have any long term significant impact on their careers, but I can’t imagine it’s doing any good. It’s not exactly an ideal platform for developing young rugby players anyway, that’s for sure.

[dropkick]

I have to say, the structure of this tournament is really terrible. The games are so close together that it must have seriously negative effects on the young players bodies. Ireland will have played 5 games throughout the course of this competition, and those games are spaced out over 19 days. They had 3 days to recover from the first two matches, and 4 days for recovery from the next two. When you consider that many players have featured in every one of the games, and most likely will play the final one, it gives a really bad impression to the tournament. It’s particularly demanding for key forwards like Doris and Dunne, who are probably exhausted now.

The player management has been shocking and the coaches have a lot of questions to answer. Duggan, Barron, Dunne and Doris have started every game and not only that but they've played at least 70 minutes per game. Aungier started the first 3 games. Tommy O'Brien is another who has started every game.


I watched all the matches. They looked good against France and even could have won it in the end, they faded away against SA after being the better team for most of the game. They looked like they were running on fumes against Georgia in the first few minutes which I commented on. No surprise to see the Scots score 6 tries.


You have to rotate in this type of tournament. There should be rules against starting players more than 3 games in a row.

[neill_m]

2019 Cup to be played in Argentina. Will Ireland be there?