Ireland - Wales Tactics

How Ireland will win...

1. Parity in the Scrum.
2. First half ROG to kick to the corners and pressurise the Welsh Lineout.
3. Irish forwards to boss the breakdown and Welsh backrow dominated
4. Second half Ferris/SOB to punch holes in the Welsh OH channel.
5. Irish defence stands up.

How Wales will win.

1. Dominance in the Scrum.
2. Parity in lineout.
3. Warburton...and rest of Welsh backrow gain parity in the physical stuff.
4. ROG has a bad kicking day and allows the Welsh back 3 return with interest.
5. Broken game with Welsh backs on fire...

Key Players....

Ireland - ROG, BackRow.

Wales - Priestland (if he plays), Warburton.

put another one on

6. Wales put a forward in the 10 channel to tackle the Irish backrow, preferably AWJ.

Glas a du wrote:put another one on

6. Wales put a forward in the 10 channel to tackle the Irish backrow, preferably AWJ.

Dont think Charteris has missed many either Glas, I'd love to see our 4&5 helping out there, letting 6&7 get on with their respective jobs.

Is the prefrence to have Jones or Priestland play?

hook for me and no jones

Preistland will play

Also, ive heard that Halfpenny is at FB with Hook on the bench (no SJ)

Is that informed speculation, wales606? It's quite a brave call to put LH at fullback, if so.

That's what they said on the news today that there will be no place for SJ

think the best defence will win this game, but they are both as tight as a gnats chuff!

Expect the Welsh to move the ball away from the breakdown quickly and drag the heavier irish forwards around.

Expect the Irish to flood the breakdown area to slow welsh ball down.

ROG will kick to the corners and try and force a loose return from North or Shane (if he starts) or pressurise the Welsh lineout. The Welsh will kick long and try and force the irish to counter from deep.

Wales will move the ball to the centres use Jamie or JD on a crash ball and th look to offload or reset and spread the ball wide. Welsh rely far more upon a high tempo game.

Irish will try to strangle us, using the forwards to carry around the fringes and drive the ball upfield whilst O Gara will keep the clock ticking over and only release it to the midfield if there are gaps in teh welsh defensive line.

Wales will go for front of the line safe ball whilst Ireland will have nmore dynamic off the top ball. O Brien will cause havoc carrying.

Roberts and Faletau to target the 10 channel, Georgie to come on an inside charge at that as well.

midfield battle is intriguing but i do expect BOD and Darcy to run into a brick wall and visa versa. It may take an inspired substitution to change things there.

Welsh should be on top in the scrum esp if Best is injured.

There is so little between these teams it really is a shame this isnt the semi final. How the bench is used is going to be key going into the final quarter. Wales have a couple of rookies in Burns and Lloyd Williams. However we will have a wealth of experience with Wellies, Ryan Gethin/James, Hook, Shane, Halfpenny, Bradley all of whom could be benched.

When Wales get on a confident roll they are very difficult to stop, playing with 14 men against fiji to "test" the defence tells me how much belief there is in this squad. Wales by 5

BlueNote wrote:Is that informed speculation, wales606? It's quite a brave call to put LH at fullback, if so.

Its a reliable rumour

We needed Halfpenny for his long range kicking or Hook for his place kicking so Byrne would be unlikely anyway. Obviously the coaches are going to rely on Preistland for kicking in the Irish half.

Priestland deserves to be selected he has played well since he was stuck in the deep end during the first warm up game.

Glas a du wrote:put another one on

6. Wales put a forward in the 10 channel to tackle the Irish backrow, preferably AWJ.

That could work both way as I reckon we will see Jenkins Faletau North and Roberts running straight at ROG from the off.

looks at first sight even, but in fact Ireland were pretty dismal v Italy in the first half [have just run it again] so how much did Italy leave behind when having to fight all the way v USA a few days before. As Ireland of course dominated the 2nd half. So for me it will be Welsh defense and hope for a breakaway try 1st half and attack 2nd half with younger legs....Wales by 12

" Ireland were pretty dismal v Italy in the first half [have just run it again"

I thought the same thing - but no one else mentions this - so thought it was just me dreaming things up.

Unfortuanetly due to commitments such as parenting, I was unable to catch the second half.

So did Ireland play that well or not?

I didnt think they were dismal but executed some things poorly that maybe a better side would have punished.

Are Wales good enough to punish those mistakes if made again well I surely hope so.

The way Wales are playing they are capable of punishing the mistakes. Mentally they seem different too, a more ruthless streak since the SA game.

I thought Ireland looked good in the second half against Italy. I didn't see the first half though..

You have to grind Italy down in the first half. They're a physical side and a tough nut to crack early on. The score at half time in the Italy Australia match was 6-6. The score at half time in the Italy Ireland match was 9-6. And at that stage we had a perfectly legitimate try disallowed by Kaplan too.

But in the second half both Ireland and Australia started to get tries and won comfortably. I think it was a very professional and clinical performance from Ireland. There were a few small errors in the first half. But we don't want to peak and play the perfect game just yet do we.

only worry for me is that Wales haven't used a plan 'B' yet when plan 'A' isn't working. We have mostly carried on regardless, (games pre. rwc)sticking with the plan even if it was obvious it needed changing.

Big game for decision makers on the field to stand up and change things, have this team been given the green light by the coaches to do this?
this is what they will need to do if it starts to come apart . biggest test of all for the young captain.

gavstar wrote:only worry for me is that Wales haven't used a plan 'B' yet when plan 'A' isn't working. We have mostly carried on regardless, (games pre. rwc)sticking with the plan even if it was obvious it needed changing.

Big game for decision makers on the field to stand up and change things, have this team been given the green light by the coaches to do this?
this is what they will need to do if it starts to come apart . biggest test of all for the young captain.

If Wales need a plan B against Ireland then we will lose.

We need to enforce our plan A on the game.

Playing Plan B to match Irelands Plan A will not end well.

Well let's hope Ireland don't resort to Plan B or we are truly fecked

Ireland dismal against Italy in the first half...might be something there..but we never looked in danger and the disallowed try would have made a big difference. Still for 15 mins at the start of the second we blew Italy off the pitch.

Italy looked TERRIBLE in the 2nd half though. Indiscipline and just all round low skills and uselessness.

So, Ireland were dismal in the first half and Italy looked terrible in the second half!

Maybe Italy were terrible but what's your point? We beat them by 30 and were denied two tries by the ref and TMO. It was professional job and the game was over before the 60th minute.

Anyhoo. Talkin about Plan A's and Plan B's etc. Will Ireland's greater experience mean they will be able to react better if things are going pear shaped? We have POC in the pack, ROG at 10 and BOD in the backs.

In the Italy match we saw Healy getting riled at scrum time. ROG jogged over to him and quietly told him to calm down. POC is obviously an inspiring pack leader. He's roaring at them when they need a bollicking and if they do well he's first over to pat them on the backs and encourage them. We saw BOD having a word with Sexton when he lost his kicking boots. Just little simple examples. But it all helps over 80 minutes. Wise heads who've seen it all before. You can't buy or train experience and leadership like that. It's learned over many tests.

Warburton looks like he'll be a great captain. But will he really be able to have more influence on the game than what is essentially three old general's in the Irish team? And they're not being carried in a team just for their experience and leadership. BOD is playing well and POC and ROG are actually in the form of their careers. If it's a tight game you'd have to favour the Irish.

Enough momentum up front to give the backs more space. Ireland might possibly sneak the physicality battle through the forwards but there are a couple of one-on-one's that'll be interesting to say the least if we can release the backs well enough, North v Earls, Roberts v D'Arcy and Anyone v ROG to name a few.

Even if it comes to the packs slugging away at each other I have much more confidence in ours than on previous occasions. Geth and Adam didn't play last time and we won, together with this back row and three very competitive locks they're showing more leadership and steel than ever before.

I'd still say a midfield battle would be in our favour as opposed to defending on our own line for too long.

call me old fashioned, but my heart sank a smidgen when steven jones wasnt on the bench , PLEASE don't get injured rhys priestland, and mikey keep your cool !!

Mike phillips will be fine,if he gets out of hand he will be sorted out by another bouncer i.e. Sean O'Brien,Ferris etc.