Emerging Ireland to tour SA

[OTT]

Another nice try, great little rubber from Crowley.

[riocard911]

Gorgeous dink thru by Crowley touched down by Shane Daly under the posts. 7-42 62 mins.

[wixfjord]

Crowley has it on a string.

[Dave Cahill]

Crowley having a great game

[Dexter]

Interesting to hear the SA commentators perspective.
Much better than the overly negative stuff you hear from our own.

[OTT]

Another try, I think the Griquas have packed up shop.

[riocard911]

Pick and jam try for Deegan after Crowley kick had pinned the Griquas back in the corner. 7-47, 55 mins.

[wixfjord]

Salanoa is some freak of an athlete.

If he could scrum he'd be a proper option for Munster & Ireland.

[riocard911]

Salanoa is some freak of an athlete.

If he could scrum he'd be a proper option for Munster & Ireland.

Looks like he needs to work on his passing too...

[LeinsterLeader]

I know you can only play what's in front of you but the performance has to be tempered by the opposition. They have been really poor. How many times have they had the ball stripped in the tackle?

[riocard911]

Another Nash try at the death after IRL run the Griquas ragged. 7-54, 79 mins.

[FLIP]

Salanoa is some freak of an athlete.

If he could scrum he'd be a proper option for Munster & Ireland.

Looks like he needs to work on his passing too...

Scrum looks better than his passing. If only he stayed at the province where his key skills would have been developed..

[wixfjord]

Hard to know how to rate some of these performances given the opposition, but Crowley, McCarthy, Ahern are the big winners from today imo.

Big drop down from Doak to McDonald.

[riocard911]

FT: 7-54. Some defensive shift by IRL too; they kept the Griquas pointless in the second half!

[riocard911]

Hard to know how to rate some of these performances given the opposition, but Crowley, McCarthy, Ahern are the big winners from today imo.

Big drop down from Doak to McDonald.

Deegan had a great game too, IMO.

[Ruckedtobits]

In a game where we had a minority of possession and territory and conceded 14 penalties against 9 for the Griquas, the scoreline certainly illustrates how good Irish teams have become at taking their chances and denying them to others.

Lots of players played well and few played badly. Griquas probably aren't used to playing against teams that react as quickly as Ireland. Certainly SA commentators were very complementary about Irish skills.

Our line-out was almost exemplary, although Barron's throwing was 3 levels below that of Tom Stewart. Both LHPs did well but Clarkson had a tough time at scrum in first half. Salanoa's passing was terrible although he has excellent open-country speed. Ahern, McCarthy & Deeny all indicated that we won't be short of international 2nd Rows. Back--rows were all excellent and McCann & Deegan are close to the top level.

Doak & Crowley looked straight off the Senior international conveyor belt. McDonald grew into the game and will be there or there abouts. Flannery has a way to go yet. Moore & Osborne played well together and both looked comfortable. Wingers all looked threatening and good defenders. Daly had an excellent game at full back.

A worthwhile exercise and a good performance.

[allezlesverres]

That pretty much illustrates how pointless this tour is. That was an embarrassing result for whomever thought this tour was a good idea. Baloucoune, Doak, McCann, Izuchuckwu and Deegan should all have been going hell for leather in the huge interpro in Belfast tonight rather than playing an exhibition match against a cobbled together team in SA. It wasn't even the Griquas first XV for goodness sake. The idea that we would learn something about some fringe players has been blown out of the water. No one can say we learned more from that game about those players abilities than we would have learned watching him go up against a team of full fat Irish (and B&I) internationals.

[LeRouxIsPHat]

That pretty much illustrates how pointless this tour is. That was an embarrassing result for whomever thought this tour was a good idea. Baloucoune, Doak, McCann, Izuchuckwu and Deegan should all have been going hell for leather in the huge interpro in Belfast tonight rather than playing an exhibition match against a cobbled together team in SA. It wasn't even the Griquas first XV for goodness sake. The idea that we would learn something about some fringe players has been blown out of the water. No one can say we learned more from that game about those players abilities than we would have learned watching him go up against a team of full fat Irish (and B&I) internationals.

I haven’t watched it yet so can’t comment on the quality of the game but why are you only looking at it from that one angle? It could be useful in terms of getting players to learn systems and for the coaches to know more about them. Might even be something simple as someone they have marked as a World Cup bolter turns up late to a couple of meetings or has two beers on a night when they’re allowed one and they scratch their name off the list. There are certainly good reasons to be against the tour but it’s far from pointless.

[jezzer]

Interesting to hear the SA commentators perspective.
Much better than the overly negative stuff you hear from our own.

Absolutely. The co-commentator guy "fudge" (?) was really insightful and unbiased.

[ronk]

Probably the most important lesson to be learnt from the last tour is that it's not about how the tour starts. It's about how it improves and its legacy.

I think today showed up the differences in the provinces. Internation level masks it because top players know how to play for Ireland. But this is a scratch team.

There was some good play and we were able to punish them for mistakes. There was some very uneven play too.

As I said above it's early days, I'd like to see more of Nash and Crowley, I think Daly was exposed a bit and should work on a few things.