6N 2016: Ireland v Wales, 7 February

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IRELAND v WALES
7 February 2016
KO: 15:00 GMT
Aviva Stadium, Dublin

Live on RTE, ITV, FR2, DMAX, BBC(H)

Referee: Jérôme Garcès (France)
Touch judges: [tbc]
Television match official: [tbc]

A. Head to Head

123 Played 123
52 Won 67
4 Drawn 4
67 Lost 52
1,365 Points 1,461

B. Recent Form

29 August 2015
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
10 – 16 to Wales

8 August 2015
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
21 – 35 to Ireland

14 March 2015
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
23 – 16 to Wales

8 February 2014
Aviva Stadium, Dublin
26 – 3 to Ireland

2 February 2013
Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
22 – 30 to Ireland

C. Teams

IRELAND

S Zebo; A Trimble, J Payne, R Henshaw, K Earls; J Sexton, C Murray; J McGrath, R Best (capt), N White; D Toner, M McCarthy; CJ Stander, T O’Donnell, J Heaslip.

Replacements: S Cronin, J Cronin, T Furlong, D Ryan, R Ruddock, K Marmion, I Madigan, D Kearney.

WALES

G Anscombe; G North, J Davies, J Roberts, T James; D Biggar, G Davies; R Evans, S Baldwin, S Lee, L Charteris, A-W Jones, S Warburton (capt), J Tipuric, T Faletau.

Replacements: K Owens, G Jenkins, T Francis, B Davies, D Lydiate, L Williams, R Priestland, A Cuthbert

RubyGuby wrote:Both sets of fans seem disappointed so which set are deluding themselves (if any):

(1) The ones who think they blew a 13-0 lead after 15 minutes or
(2) The ones who for the last 65 minutes were 16-3 up and dominating the scrums only to lose the win to a brain fart by Lloyd Williams.

I'll now stand back and watch the reasoned debate unfold

Sorry thats not how I see the game at all. Ireland were in the ascendancy for the first 30 minutes, Wales came back and dominated for the next 20 or 30 minutes and then from that point on it was a complete stalemate.

Notch wrote:

SecretFly wrote:That's obviously coz Kiss wanted defence prioritised  

You can't be attacking as you're sitting back on defence duty...time and physics doesn't allow both to happen at the same time through an 80 minutes.  
Kiss's defensive mindset seems to have been concentrated on defence at it's most elementary...to defend you must stop the ball carrier and quickly assume defensive position again for the next defensive sequence.... repeat over and over and keep 'em owth!

But that requires a lot of energy and concentration on one aspect with players afraid to be caught out in high demand defensive duty..

Interesting that since Kiss took over at Ulster his philosophy has been attack, attack, attack and attack some more. Schmidt also prioritised attack when he was coaching at provincial level. I sound like a broken record at this point, but imagine if we had a summer Six Nations with coaches given lots of time to work with their squad in the build-up.

He's learning a new trade. God bless him in his efforts

RubyGuby wrote:Both sets of fans seem disappointed so which set are deluding themselves (if any):

(1) The ones who think they blew a 13-0 lead after 15 minutes or
(2) The ones who for the last 65 minutes were 16-3 up and dominating the scrums only to lose the win to a brain fart by Lloyd Williams.

I'll now stand back and watch the reasoned debate unfold

The Favourites lost a GS. The no hopers kept alive their slim hopes of three in a row.

Let the coin toss decide where the smiles are.

mikey_dragon wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:Jesus .Mike I'm irish and both teams could have been pinged off the park at ruck time. Holding on and hands in all over the place. Do calm down

Yeah probably. I just didn't happen to notice my team doing it that often . It is basically the Irish game plan and it used to work well for them.

I think getting away with whatever the ref let's you is everyone's game plan

carpet baboon wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

carpet baboon wrote:Jesus .Mike I'm irish and both teams could have been pinged off the park at ruck time. Holding on and hands in all over the place. Do calm down

Yeah probably. I just didn't happen to notice my team doing it that often . It is basically the Irish game plan and it used to work well for them.

I think getting away with whatever the ref let's you is everyone's game plan

Yeah, but more specifically I was alluding to the breakdown where Irish tactics are to slow it down whatever way they can. I thought too often they were holding onto our players on the ground and not rolling away. It reminded me of the pro12 when the officiating standard was lower than it is now. All teams will do it, but it seems ingrained into the provincial teams of Ireland, and they're also better than most teams at doing it.

The ref has been praised for the low penalty count and the ball in play time. But, I thought his failure to police the mauls was what led to the almost stalemate situation, that large parts of the match seemed to be, because neither side could get the ball away from the rucks fast enough. I didn't think this was helped on the Welsh side by GD being slow to get the ball away.

From where I sit the ref was completely consistent but he allowed the team who took the ball into contact longer to get it away that some refs would thus I thought there should have been more turnovers given. HOwever he was consistent and that is all you can ask.

Garcès had a decent game I thought. He allowed the game to flow more than he usually does and that led to a number of things missed, a number of things from both sides so all's fair

I thought he was good and fair for both sides. However, him letting the game flow and not blowing up all of the times: isn't that a bit Nigel Owens-esque, and therefore frowned upon on these boards? Nigel seems to be vilified for letting things go for the sake of an open and flowing game.

And no, I'm not just 'sticking up for Nigel 'cos he's welsh'. You buggers.

Griff wrote:I thought he was good and fair for both sides. However, him letting the game flow and not blowing up all of the times: isn't that a bit Nigel Owens-esque, and therefore frowned upon on these boards? Nigel seems to be vilified for letting things go for the sake of an open and flowing game.

And no, I'm not just 'sticking up for Nigel 'cos he's welsh'. You buggers.

Swings and Roundabouts Griff Swings and Roundabouts

For me he was consistent. Which is all I ask

I'd have preferred Nigel. Nigel is de bestest.....

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Here for a limited run only, Laurie. Tickets still available for the really good seats and reasonably priced!

SecretFly wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Here for a limited run only, Laurie.  Tickets still available for the really good seats and reasonably priced!

Count me in, I'll get mine online.

SecretFly wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Here for a limited run only, Laurie.  Tickets still available for the really good seats and reasonably priced!

Thank feck for that!

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Good to see him back? Was he even gone??    ... [/quote]

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

SecretFly wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Here for a limited run only, Laurie.  Tickets still available for the really good seats and reasonably priced!

Thank feck for that!

Premium rate behind-the-pillar ticket for you Luckless.....

rodders wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Good to see him back? Was he even gone??    ...

[/quote]

I know...I know! My presence radiates ,long after I'm gone.... Magnetism I don't flaunt it though.......

SecretFly wrote:

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

SecretFly wrote:

aucklandlaurie wrote:

SecretFly wrote:I'd have preferred Nigel.  Nigel is de bestest.....

Good to see you back Fly, I enjoy posts with a bit of misschiff in them.

Here for a limited run only, Laurie.  Tickets still available for the really good seats and reasonably priced!

Thank feck for that!

Premium rate behind-the-pillar ticket for you Luckless.....

Ah, my usual spot!

only just came on here since the game.....

Thought we were going to get blown away when we went 13-0 down, we had been poor but were much improved the moment Biggar went off (to be fair he took the knock in the first play).

Positives
Rob Evans - just cemented himself as no.1 for me, solid display all round and did very well in the scrum.
Faletau - Havent seen him play with that stability in a while.
Roberts - dont need to say any more
Scrum - very strong, got the push on after the first few and didnt ever look back

Negative
Tipuric - pretty anonymous for me, I'm a huge fan and always keep an eye out, I was disappointed.
Davies - first game at this intensity in a long time, hasnt played much recently? it showed, his lack of speed getting the ball away from the breakdown was so frustating.
Tom James - showed nothing in attack, although I'd take him over Cuthbert everyday of the week right now.
Biggar - daaaaayum
Welsh kick chase - DID WE EVEN CHASE ANY OF OUR LONG KICKS AT ANY SORT OF PACE EVEN ONCE?! DSFHJ(I"$£TL<

Other bits:
Earls tip tackles - possible yellow (never a red), both were penaltys at least (going by the wording of the law).
Breakdown - was a complete mess imo, both sides could complain about a number of things but overall it evened out into chaos.
Taking chances - Wales left 9 very kickable points out on the field, something we're not known for doing. We managed to create some 2 on 1s in the wide channels pretty early but somehow managed to end up with forwards taking the ball and knocking on. Our attacking philospophy is to create mismatches, but not derisory ones surely.

Obivously very wales based, Im welsh.

Ireland flew out of the blocks, died down and were dogged but can be a lot better than that, missing faces showed their value! They'll be a lot better once some players return no doubt, Wales now need to find something other than Biggars kick chase to get us up the field (and we know its not going to be Lloyd Williams box kicks.....)

Overall I'd score the teams as 6/10 after ropund 1

and apologies for my terrible spelling there, rushed typing will never make you look intelligent.

Ireland tend to do worse against Lydiate plays. Glad it was Tipuruc as good as he is because Ireland didn't have much trouble with the Wales back row on Saturday in my opinion.

Teams are/were fairly even so probably a fair result. Don't buy this "it wasn't Irelands first team" crap. It was.

Comfort wrote:only just came on here since the game.....

Thought we were going to get blown away when we went 13-0 down, we had been poor but were much improved the moment Biggar went off (to be fair he took the knock in the first play).

Positives
Rob Evans - just cemented himself as no.1 for me, solid display all round and did very well in the scrum.
Faletau - Havent seen him play with that stability in a while.
Roberts - dont need to say any more
Scrum - very strong, got the push on after the first few and didnt ever look back

Negative
Tipuric - pretty anonymous for me, I'm a huge fan and always keep an eye out, I was disappointed.
Davies - first game at this intensity in a long time, hasnt played much recently? it showed, his lack of speed getting the ball away from the breakdown was so frustating.
Tom James - showed nothing in attack, although I'd take him over Cuthbert everyday of the week right now.
Biggar - daaaaayum
Welsh kick chase - DID WE EVEN CHASE ANY OF OUR LONG KICKS AT ANY SORT OF PACE EVEN ONCE?! DSFHJ(I"$£TL<

Other bits:
Earls tip tackles - possible yellow (never a red), both were penaltys at least (going by the wording of the law).
Breakdown - was a complete mess imo, both sides could complain about a number of things but overall it evened out into chaos.
Taking chances - Wales left 9 very kickable points out on the field, something we're not known for doing. We managed to create some 2 on 1s in the wide channels pretty early but somehow managed to end up with forwards taking the ball and knocking on. Our attacking philospophy is to create mismatches, but not derisory ones surely.

Obivously very wales based, Im welsh.

Ireland flew out of the blocks, died down and were dogged but can be a lot better than that, missing faces showed their value! They'll be a lot better once some players return no doubt, Wales now need to find something other than Biggars kick chase to get us up the field (and we know its not going to be Lloyd Williams box kicks.....)

Overall I'd score the teams as 6/10 after ropund 1

And no mention of Warburton - Maybe he did the hard yards but I thought he was anonymous

Warburton had a strange game. He looked as fresh as a daisy when being interviewed after the game and yet made all the correct gestures that it was a real heavy duty heavy breather contest.

Was too busy looking at Ireland to keep an eye on his full contribution.

Ireland may not have missed any kicks but on about the 55th minute we turned down a fairly easy penalty chance to go down the line. This was a mistake IMO.

I think Ireland also missed more attacking chances through missed passes and were slightly more incisive than Wales. Glad Barnes didn't ref though as it would have been a 6-12 point Wales win if he had and Earls would have received a yellow card. Garces is a much better fairer ref.

GunsGerms wrote:Ireland tend to do worse against Lydiate plays. Glad it was Tipuruc as good as he is because Ireland didn't have much trouble with the Wales back row on Saturday in my opinion.

Teams are/were fairly even so probably a fair result. Don't buy this "it wasn't Irelands first team" crap. It was.

We were quite clearly down to the bare bones in the tight five. That isn't "crap". It is also partly where we lost the game as the scrum was largely bullied where we would usually have the advantage.

Did anyone take a peak at the new rankings? After that weekend.... France jump to 2nd and Wales plunge to 10th.....

Rollercoaster ride!

SecretFly wrote:Did anyone take a peak at the new rankings?  After that weekend.... France jump to 2nd and Wales plunge to 10th.....  

Rollercoaster ride!

That's the women's rankings.

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:Ireland tend to do worse against Lydiate plays. Glad it was Tipuruc as good as he is because Ireland didn't have much trouble with the Wales back row on Saturday in my opinion.

Teams are/were fairly even so probably a fair result. Don't buy this "it wasn't Irelands first team" crap. It was.

We were quite clearly down to the bare bones in the tight five. That isn't "crap". It is also partly where we lost the game as the scrum was largely bullied where we would usually have the advantage.

It was our best team available. But stick Mike Ross or Marty Moore and Iain Henderson into that tight five and we'd be cooking on gas- seriously would make a huge difference. Backrow was also hit by injuries but I thought Stander and O'Donnell more than stood up to be counted so the depth held out there.

We managed to neutralise everything they threw at us in attack bar a pick and drive off a 5m scrum where they just got a platform that was irresistible, so I think those injuries proved as costly as we feared they would before the game.

Is it??? I was wondering how the hell that could happen... Glad that's sorted...All is right with the world again.

Everyone knows what 'first team' means. That wasn't Ireland's first team. It might prove to be close to a future Ireland first team but it wasn't on the day. Ireland's 'best' team is of course a subject up for debate at any time.

SecretFly wrote:Everyone knows what 'first team' means.  That wasn't Ireland's first team.  It might prove to be close to a future Ireland first team but it wasn't on the day.  Ireland's 'best' team is of course a subject up for debate at any time.

We know what first team means, but when is the last time you saw the 'first team' actually all out on the pitch together?

Notch wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Everyone knows what 'first team' means.  That wasn't Ireland's first team.  It might prove to be close to a future Ireland first team but it wasn't on the day.  Ireland's 'best' team is of course a subject up for debate at any time.

We know what first team means, but when is the last time you saw the 'first team' actually all out on the pitch together?

I thought considering the lads missing that was a decent team. Good depth there. The lads on only a few caps stood up very well. Tommy O looks a cracking player. And there's more to come. A lot of talented young lads not even in the squad.

Nice place to be.

Yeah it is, but I can't see us winning the championship this year. Beating France, Scotland and Italy is a must- winning at Twickenham will be really, really hard with the aforementioned problems in the tight five.

I don't really want to blame Priestland, but he should never have taken those drop goals on. They were both rushed and not off great set ups. Plus Ireland would have had time to play again, even if he had nailed the second.

Miffed as to why Aled Davies wasn't in the 23 when he seems to be playing more for Scarlets? Lydiate is also a cert next week. I assume Tipuric drops down to the bench again.

Was also pretty annoyed with us either trying to go wide too early, or when it was on we made a hash of things. Baldwin's drop was inexcusable, as were the couple of occasions we didn't give one more pass. There were a few times that we just aimlessly moved the ball along the line, hardly engaging defenders. What is the point in Cement Head mentioning Amos doesn't have great speed, when in reality a Welsh wing seldom gets to use it?

Fair play to Faletau for finishing his try. I wasn't too happy when he went for it, as I thought he'd messed it up.

Risca we're just mechanical and predictable behind and when we worked an overlap or space Liam Williams chose not to pass. Very poor performance across the back line what happened to North bursting through the centre it's all just I table and easy to defend against

Notch wrote:

Rory_Gallagher wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:Ireland tend to do worse against Lydiate plays. Glad it was Tipuruc as good as he is because Ireland didn't have much trouble with the Wales back row on Saturday in my opinion.

Teams are/were fairly even so probably a fair result. Don't buy this "it wasn't Irelands first team" crap. It was.

We were quite clearly down to the bare bones in the tight five. That isn't "crap". It is also partly where we lost the game as the scrum was largely bullied where we would usually have the advantage.

It was our best team available. But stick Mike Ross or Marty Moore and Iain Henderson into that tight five and we'd be cooking on gas- seriously would make a huge difference. Backrow was also hit by injuries but I thought Stander and O'Donnell more than stood up to be counted so the depth held out there.

We managed to neutralise everything they threw at us in attack bar a pick and drive off a 5m scrum where they just got a platform that was irresistible, so I think those injuries proved as costly as we feared they would before the game.

I'm not convinced that Ross, Moore or Henderson would have made that much difference. Our tight five didn't do that bad. Yes Wales were better but not that much better. We didn't lose any scrums against the head for example.

Notch wrote:

SecretFly wrote:Everyone knows what 'first team' means.  That wasn't Ireland's first team.  It might prove to be close to a future Ireland first team but it wasn't on the day.  Ireland's 'best' team is of course a subject up for debate at any time.

We know what first team means, but when is the last time you saw the 'first team' actually all out on the pitch together?

Exactly, there is no such thing as a first team. However, what we saw on Saturday is that Schmidt can mould a bunch of good internationals into a strong well organised unit that can compete with really good teams like Wales.

GunsGerms wrote:
I'm not convinced that Ross, Moore or Henderson would have made that much difference. Our tight five didn't do that bad. Yes Wales were better but not that much better. We didn't lose any scrums against the head for example.

Well they'd need to do better!

Sure Wales try came directly from their scrum dominance and we conceded several scrum penalties. The line out went ok but we couldn't get the maul working at all, which was a big weapon a few years ago.

O'Connell is a massive loss and we really lack a player to lead the pack, which was obvious on Sunday. I think if he was there we'd have won that game.

The other players really weren't able to deal with the momentum shift to Wales and were just playing by numbers is my worry - not panicking is one thing but a lack of urgency and awareness that the game is slipping away is not good either. There was just too much hanging on by Ireland and no real attempt to change tactics or up the gears to change the flow of the game, which for 50 min was in Wales favor.

GunsGerms wrote:Ireland tend to do worse against Lydiate plays. Glad it was Tipuruc as good as he is because Ireland didn't have much trouble with the Wales back row on Saturday in my opinion.

Teams are/were fairly even so probably a fair result. Don't buy this "it wasn't Irelands first team" crap. It was.

Totally agree. I have yet to see the Tips/Warbs combo work effectively, sadly. Chopper and Warbs though can be devastating!

I have only just come back from beautiful Ireland, and I must say, that I am very frustrated with the Welsh performance, and the general consensus I got whilst talking to people over there was that Ireland threw the game away from a commanding position, and I have to admit I agree.

Every time a Welsh player had the ball, the remit was to run AT the oppositions defender, not around him, not passed him, but AT him. There were no pre-planned backs move, there was no inside shoulder running, there were no angles being made, just the same old bish bash bosh.

Have we not learned anything from the Australia game at the WC. I was sat in the stadium pulling my hair out, we would make 5 yards forward and go 10 yards backwards, Rob Howley is clueless.

All this talk about a more expansive tactic from Wales was just a load of bollox, I must say though, our forwards had the Irish forwards on toast, it's just our back play is so predictable, on contrast, players like Sexton and Earls were slipping passes and finding space all the time, Wales are not evolving with the times sadly.

LordDowlais wrote:Every time a Welsh player had the ball, the remit was to run AT the oppositions defender, not around him, not passed him, but AT him.

Nothing wrong with that, provided the player then passes once the tackler is committed. We hardly ever saw that, either. There's no use going wide if you pass so early, having committed no one, that the defence can drift.

Luckless Pedestrian wrote:

LordDowlais wrote:Every time a Welsh player had the ball, the remit was to run AT the oppositions defender, not around him, not passed him, but AT him.

Nothing wrong with that, provided the player then passes once the tackler is committed. We hardly ever saw that, either. There's no use going wide if you pass so early, having committed no one, that the defence can drift.

Exactly. I commented elsewhere that Wales were back to their famous 'drift attack'. Pass along the line far to early and then allow a drift defence to gang up on the winger. It's what you teach kids not to do! Draw the man, make him commit. Also Roberts, although having an awesome game, threw some monster miss-passes and cut out any overlaps we had. Good to see him passing though!

We need to run into space more often not just at the oncoming defender FFS - We need a world class backs coach not Howley

RubyGuby wrote:We need to run into space more often not just at the oncoming defender FFS - We need a world class backs coach not Howley

This 100%.

GunsGerms wrote:I'm not convinced that Ross, Moore or Henderson would have made that much difference. Our tight five didn't do that bad. Yes Wales were better but not that much better. We didn't lose any scrums against the head for example.

We managed to fix the scrum but there was a 10-minute period where it just creaked badly and they got, I think, 10 points in that period. In a game like this one, thats enough to cost you a win...

Maybe just having a bit more experience at tight head would have been enough.

Notch wrote:

GunsGerms wrote:I'm not convinced that Ross, Moore or Henderson would have made that much difference. Our tight five didn't do that bad. Yes Wales were better but not that much better. We didn't lose any scrums against the head for example.

We managed to fix the scrum but there was a 10-minute period where it just creaked badly and they got, I think, 10 points in that period. In a game like this one, thats enough to cost you a win...

Maybe just having a bit more experience at tight head would have been enough.

Then welsh wisdom prevailed and we took off the dominant scrum - it was a long trip and you want to give the others a run

That's true! But even before that we weren't being bullied as much as we were towards the end of that first half.

Notch wrote:That's true! But even before that we weren't being bullied as much as we were towards the end of that first half.

That's because we replace White with Furlong