Ireland v Italy Six Nations Round 3 Sun 27th Feb

Ireland v Italy

Aviva Stadium, Dublin

Sunday 27th Feb, kick off 3:00pm

Ireland team

the usual suspects
Lowry; Hansen, Ringrose, Henshaw, Lowe; Carbery, Gibson-Park; Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, Beirne, Baird; O'Mahony, van der Flier, Doris

Replacements: Herring, Kilcoyne, Bealham, Treadwell, Conan, Casey, Sexton, Hume.

Italy team

the less usual suspects
Padovani; Bruno, Brex, Marin, Ioane; Garbisi, Varney; Fischetti, Lucchesi, Ceccarelli, Cannone, Ruzza, Pettinelli, Lamaro (capt), Halafihi.

Replacements: Faiva, Nemer, Pasquali, Sisi, Zuliani, Steyn, Fusco, Zanon.

It feels like a no win situation. Not a real no win, 5 points are expected for Ireland, but that is why it is a no win.  5 points is expected as a minimum, but how many tries will be needed for it to be more than a "meh, well it was only Italy" situation?  No disrespect to Italy but that is where things seem to be. If they get 2 tries they will have done better than Wales ( ).

Personally I think Farrell should go full developmental, there are few enough other opportunities before the RWC, but that isn't going to happen.

Views?

I am looking forward to this game, but Ugo Monyah said on one of the rugby blogs why are Italy games a;ways on a Sunday?

I do not think Ireland will loose this game.
But i do hope Italy push them hard.

Sunday is considered the family day in Italy and a lot of their sport is on Sundays, maybe the games fit into it that way and that's why they are mostly on Sundays?

Rumours that Carberry will start, Conway and Ryan carrying injuries. Perhaps we will see more changes than first thought. Team should be out tomorrow.

A Baloucoune/Lowry/Lowe back 3 could be quite exciting, if a little light on experience. Wishful thinking I'm sure.

Ireland: Lowry; Hansen, Ringrose, Henshaw, Lowe; Carbery, Gibson-Park; Porter, Sheehan, Furlong, Beirne, Baird; O'Mahony, van der Flier, Doris.

Replacements: Herring, Kilcoyne, Bealham, Treadwell, Conan, Casey, Sexton, Hume.

Italy: Padovani; Bruno, Brex, Marin, Ioane; Garbisi, Varney; Fischetti, Lucchesi, Ceccarelli, Cannone, Ruzza, Pettinelli, Lamaro (capt), Halafihi.

Replacements: Faiva, Nemer, Pasquali, Sisi, Zuliani, Steyn, Fusco, Zanon.

Lowry gets his first start for Ireland

Lowry and Lowe in so 2 out of 3 ain't bad as a large American once said

Pleased Treadwell has made the bench, as well as Hume, Casey & Kilcoyne. I can understand why O'Mahoney starts and is captain even if as a radical I would prefer Timoney getting the experience and a Tadhg (Furlong or Beirne) getting the captaincy (nailed on starters).

Sadly ignorant of the Italy team and replacements. Have they gone 6-2 on the bench?

According to some of the pundits. Matt Dawson being one of them. France and Ireland are way a head of the rest of the 6natioins.

I do believe that Italy scored 12  points against France.
England kept Italy to nil points.

So If Italy score points against Ireland.

Then that would make England a better team than Ireland and France. right.

Jesus.

No 7&1/2 wrote:Jesus.

Yes my child.

Thats a real shame and a harsh call. Italy were playing really well too.

Well that's the rest of the game ruined but could see a red coming for that ...

This law is stupid.

Always a red in today's game.

Sounds like it's a nightmare for Italy with their starting hooker injured, and their replacement hooker sent off. It's a farce.

There is a new tactic in rigby, run straight at a defender and brace yourself for contaxt lowering your body position as not to bounce and lose momentum, chances are 50/50 he will hit you high enough for a red card.

Hells bells. 13 players for the rest of the game. They're knackered. Though the ref hasn't asked if there is another player who can play hooker. Surely a prop could have a go.

Anyone know wtf is going on? Game ruined

Old Man wrote:There is a new tactic in rigby, run straight at a defender and brace yourself for contaxt lowering your body position as not to bounce and lose momentum, chances are 50/50 he will hit you high enough for a red card.

Made really easy when the tackers technique is poor and they don't bend at the waist.

Well, that is this game over as a spectacle.

I'd be pretty p@ssed if I had payed top dollar for a ticket!

Stupid rule.

Game ruined

No 7&1/2 wrote:

Old Man wrote:There is a new tactic in rigby, run straight at a defender and brace yourself for contaxt lowering your body position as not to bounce and lose momentum, chances are 50/50 he will hit you high enough for a red card.

Made really easy when the tackers technique is poor and they don't bend at the waist.

Not much wrong with his technique there, and he did bend.

Shambles. A training run would be more exciting. I've seen enough.

Old Man wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

Old Man wrote:There is a new tactic in rigby, run straight at a defender and brace yourself for contaxt lowering your body position as not to bounce and lose momentum, chances are 50/50 he will hit you high enough for a red card.

Made really easy when the tackers technique is poor and they don't bend at the waist.

Not  much wrong with his technique there, and he did bend.

Hit the guy in the chin so quite a lot wrong. He's stood up and hitting up in the tackle. His own fault and he's completely stuffed his team.
If his technique means he can't complete a legal tackle he should have made a passive tackle going backwards at least that way they could mitigate a yellow.

Forcing the team to lose a player going to uncontested scrums isn't stupid. It stops teams who are getting mullered at scrum from having a couple of 'injured' hookers and allowing them to stop the problem. What is stupid is that they force a winger to come off and get prop on, it's uncontested so why do that.

It's unfortunate for this game with how it has turned out.

Old Man wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

Old Man wrote:There is a new tactic in rigby, run straight at a defender and brace yourself for contaxt lowering your body position as not to bounce and lose momentum, chances are 50/50 he will hit you high enough for a red card.

Made really easy when the tackers technique is poor and they don't bend at the waist.

Not  much wrong with his technique there, and he did bend.

How about learning to tackle. It's a red card, was a red card for years and will be going forward. The game is ruined but its the players fault.

Old Man wrote:

No 7&1/2 wrote:

Old Man wrote:There is a new tactic in rigby, run straight at a defender and brace yourself for contaxt lowering your body position as not to bounce and lose momentum, chances are 50/50 he will hit you high enough for a red card.

Made really easy when the tackers technique is poor and they don't bend at the waist.

Not  much wrong with his technique there, and he did bend.

I am routing for Italy, with my family heritage, but that was a red all day long OM, he was way to upright. Best case scenario for him was a YC, but that would have been lucky!

We will have to disagree on that. Rugby is a contact sport, if you want to eliminate evry possible scenario you might as well cancel rugby as a sport

I kind of feel like rooting for Italy too plus Ireland are playing really poorly. We need to mix it up a bit more. Maybe do a maul and draw some defenders in.

This has been very disjointed from Ireland.

These are professional players and they know the rules and the consequences of breaking them. If we don't get on top of the head injury issues, particularly in the pro game, then we won't be playing rugby in the future and none of us want that. Still plenty of contact in the game!

Italy seem a bit hard done by. The hooker get red carded, then they (Italy) go down to 13 men.

majesticimperialman wrote:Italy seem a bit hard done by. The hooker get red carded, then they (Italy)  go down to 13 men.

The rule was not necessarily designed to cover a scenario like that, but it is nevertheless not a bad rule and prevents teams gaming the scrum when getting stuffed as has happened in the past.

majesticimperialman wrote:Italy seem a bit hard done by. The hooker get red carded, then they (Italy)  go down to 13 men.

Agree, the rule should be adjusted. Its obvious in this scenario that Italy arent trying to get uncontested scrums. No team would take a red to get uncontested scrums so as it is the rule doesnt work and its not fair on Italy.

Jesus we are playing bad but credit to Italy they defend well too

Collapse2005 wrote:

majesticimperialman wrote:Italy seem a bit hard done by. The hooker get red carded, then they (Italy)  go down to 13 men.

Agree, the rule should be adjusted. Its obvious in this scenario that Italy arent trying to get uncontested scrums. No team would take a red to get uncontested scrums so as it is the rule doesnt work and its not fair on Italy.

It's Italys fault that there is uncontested scrums though. They shouldn't get any benefit from it hence playing with 13.

One of the interesting things is I am starting to wonder how well Italy actually knows the rules.

If they had of said they had a prop capable of playing hooker they could have kept 14 people.  Now maybe they were being super honest and didn't have one and didn't want to take this risk or maybe they just don't understand the rules.

I've seen this before when Ulster played Zebre (i think) a few years ago, they couldn't field a hooker and the ref asked and they said they had no further hookers.  Once he told them they will lose a man there was a load of discussion and suddenly they did have a hooker, in the end the person who came on said he couldn't play hooker and the ref went uncontested.

But it certainly seems like they don't know the rules

You can’t take any analysis from this game now. I don’t care how professional you are, when you are 4 tries up against 13 men you simply take the intensity down a notch or two.

Why throw yourself into a maul or burst a lung getting into position when the game is won. That desire, the hunger, it just goes away when you don’t need the killer edge any more

Since Italy went down to 13 men it as become like a training run Ireland.
.

12 men eh.

Think they're quite lucky it's not a pen try.

Lol 12 men now. This is the worst game of rugby Ive ever seen.

Ireland have been garbage too.

12 Men against 15 this game is a joke.

Can’t wait for SA to replace Ireland in the 6N…

mikey_dragon wrote:Can’t wait for SA to replace Ireland in the 6N…

It was a poor Ireland display, devoid of anyone to steer the side correctly against a spirited 13 man side. That's where really good sides show the killer instinct and inflict cricket scores. That being said, England should have put a cricket score on a Welsh outfit who have sadly begun to reflect the ⁷form of their regions. The match was over as a contest when the red card was waved but Ireland seemed to switch off instead of taking advantage of the additional space. It's been a little deflating today to say the least but matches are only ruined by those who can't abide by the laws set, not by those who enforce them or abide by them.

Pete330v2 wrote:It was a poor Ireland display, devoid of anyone to steer the side correctly against a spirited 13 man side. That's where really good sides show the killer instinct and inflict cricket scores. That being said, England should have put a cricket score on a Welsh outfit who have sadly begun to reflect the ⁷form of their regions. The match was over as a contest when the red card was waved but Ireland seemed to switch off instead of taking advantage of the additional space. It's been a little deflating today to say the least but matches are only ruined by those who can't abide by the laws set, not by those who enforce them or abide by them.

Nah.

I have found the Irish backs frustrating to watch for a number of games now, and so decided to watch things from a different perspective on Sunday.

Probably my biggest observation was that Garry Ringrose threw his first pass of the game on 37 minutes after an advantage had been given...

I think the Irish backs were so intent on making an impression, that aside from the odd set-play or a breakup in play, the first receiver (except Carberry and Sexton) would nearly always take the ball into contact. The desire was to draw defenders in and recycle the ball quickly, but it just made Ireland's attack all too predictable, and when someone did decide to get a quick pass away or pop the ball up from the ground, the next player in was either too flat for flat-footed.

The backs only really excelled when the Irish forwards broke the gain line and the team looked to keep the ball alive.

Going back to my observation above, I think Ringrose is a good player, but himself and Henshaw hold onto the ball even more than BOD and D'Arcy did. And when the wingers do get the ball, they either have to do what they can with no one in support (where Lowe shines for me), or navigate the touchline with very little room.
Would be keen to know people's thoughts on this.

Other than for the purpose of protecting whichever player is given the job, I don't see why a team has to go down to thirteen when both hookers are off.

Italy could have brought a prop on and it would make no difference to the scum. Bring on a replacement and carry on with contested scrums, after all when was the last time a ball was fed in straight enough for the hooker to actually have to "hook" rather than the ball going straight to the feet of the second row?

They had the chance to bring someone on for contested scrums, they didn't put anyone forward. I have seen the ref specifically ask the coach before though to make sure.

The Ref asked the Italian coaching team whether they had a replacement front rower who could play the role of hooker. They said they didn't, obviously ignorant of the fact that that would reduce them to 13 or that nobody was capable of packing down at 2. It actually happened to Zebre a season or 2 ago so.