Ireland v Italy, Stadio Olimpico, Rome, Saturday 2:15, Mike Adamson to ref.

First topic message reminder :


Ireland
Six changes to the Ireland team. Sexton is out with injury/rested. Aki, Byrne, Casey, Kelleher, Henderson and Conan come in.

1. Andrew Porter (Leinster/UCD) 50 caps
2. Ronan Kelleher (Leinster/Lansdowne) 19 caps
3. Finlay Bealham (Connacht/Buccaneers) 29 caps
4. Iain Henderson (Ulster/Academy) 70 caps
5. James Ryan (Leinster/UCD) 50 caps (c)
6. Caelan Doris (Leinster/St Mary’s College) 25 caps
7. Josh van der Flier (Leinster/UCD) 47 caps
8. Jack Conan (Leinster/Old Belvedere) 35
15. Hugo Keenan (Leinster/UCD) 27 caps
14. Mack Hansen (Connacht/Corinthians) 11 caps
13. Garry Ringrose (Leinster/UCD) 49 caps
12. Bundee Aki (Connacht/Galwegians) 43 caps
11. James Lowe (Leinster) 17 caps
10. Ross Byrne (Leinster/UCD) 16 caps
9. Craig Casey (Munster/Shannon) 9 caps


Replacements: 16. Dan Sheehan (Leinster/Lansdowne) 14 caps, 17. Dave Kilcoyne (Munster/UL Bohemians) 50 caps, 18. Tom O’Toole (Ulster/Ballynahinch) 6 caps, 19. Ryan Baird (Leinster/Dublin University) 8 caps, 20. Peter O’Mahony (Munster/Cork Constitution) 91 caps, 21. Conor Murray (Munster/Garryowen) 102 caps, 22. Jack Crowley (Munster/Cork Constitution) 2 caps, 23. Stuart McCloskey (Ulster/Bangor) 11 caps


Italy
Italy welcome Garbisi back at 10.

1 Danilo Fischetti
2 Giacomo Nicotera
3 Simone Ferrari
4 Niccolò Cannone
5 Federico Ruzza
6 Sebastian Negri
7 Michele Lamaro (Captain)
8 Lorenzo Cannone
9 Stephen Varney
10 Paolo Garbisi
11 Pierre Bruno
12 Tommaso Menoncello
13 Juan Ignacio Brex
14 Edoardo Padovani
15 Ange Capuozzo

Replacements: 16 Luca Bigi, 17 Federico Zani, 18 Marco Riccioni, 19 Edoardo Iachizzi, 20 Giovanni Pettinelli, 21 Alessandro Fusco, 22 Luca Morisi, 23 Tommaso Allan

McCloskey should be having a ten minute sit down for that. Just a penalty is ridiculous. Swinging arm to the face, always upright.

Porter penalised, what’s he doing now

formerly known as Sam wrote:McCloskey should be having a ten minute sit down for that. Just a penalty is ridiculous. Swinging arm to the face, always upright.

Ireland do seem to be getting the rub of the green on these decisions ...

Starting to get a little nervous about this...

That's knocked on surely?

Aki trying to getvthe refs attention to say it wasn't a try and Hansen tells him to be quiet. Really poor there.

Heaf wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:McCloskey should be having a ten minute sit down for that. Just a penalty is ridiculous. Swinging arm to the face, always upright.

Ireland do seem to be getting the rub of the green on these decisions ...

Completely missed that due to interskip issues, what happened?

Arguably, Aki never loses that.

mikey_dragon wrote:Arguably, Aki never loses that.

He knew. Its why he was trying to own up.

eirebilly_01 wrote:

Heaf wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:McCloskey should be having a ten minute sit down for that. Just a penalty is ridiculous. Swinging arm to the face, always upright.

Ireland do seem to be getting the rub of the green on these decisions ...

Completely missed that due to interskip issues, what happened?

Capauozo does him on the outside McCloskey is upright and makes a desperate lunge. Contact is arm to the face and requires treatment. There's enough force in the arm to take the fullback off balance and allow McCloskey to grab hold. Mitigation is that the Italian fullback lowers his height a bit.

I never seen the McCloskey incident, but have noticed ireland get away with some seatbelt tackles. Just thought it was worth a mention…

eirebilly_01 wrote:

Heaf wrote:

formerly known as Sam wrote:McCloskey should be having a ten minute sit down for that. Just a penalty is ridiculous. Swinging arm to the face, always upright.

Ireland do seem to be getting the rub of the green on these decisions ...

Completely missed that due to interskip issues, what happened?

Pen for high tackle given but missed the smack across the face with the arm which should probably have been reviewed for YC

Cheers for the update lads

Why did they kick that?

Italy are really good, they are making Ireland look a bit ordinary...

This Italy didn't turn up v England, might have been a more interesting game if they had.

Italy should back themselves to beat Wales.

Great game this though that try should put it to bed.

Pierre Bruno has been electric as have Capuozzo and Garbisi as usual.

The Cannone brothers emerging alongside the brilliant Lamaro has really changed the Italy pack.

For Ireland I think Baird is such a terrific second row. Nuts that he's comfortably 4th choice when all are fit.

I’m still a bit annoyed that Varney isn’t playing for Wales. He was good again today.

Ireland deserve winners today. but full credit to Italy really made Ireland sweat at times.

Ireland with the TBP win which is great but I felt Italy were well worth the LBP. Such an entertaining side.

I really do hope that we do not see Aki playing for Ireland again. Decent and honest man but just not up to this level for me.

Glad to get the win in the end. Can someone please explain why Hansen got the Player of the Match? He was fine and there were no real standouts on the Ireland side for me, but Doris or Van Der Flier were more deserving in my opinion.

king_carlos wrote:Great game this though that try should put it to bed.

Pierre Bruno has been electric as have Capuozzo and Garbisi as usual.

The Cannone brothers emerging alongside the brilliant Lamaro has really changed the Italy pack.

For Ireland I think Baird is such a terrific second row. Nuts that he's comfortably 4th choice when all are fit.

He doesn't have the "grunt" to be an international starter in the 2nd row. It's something he has admitted himself and he's working on it. He's been very good for Leinster in the 6 shirt this year and is a great impact sub in both positions.

mikey_dragon wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:Not a great performance from Ireland so far, entertaining match though.

Not great from Craig Casey either. Come on collapse, let’s see you bleat on about it like you did Liam Williams.

Looked like Casey actually hurt himself. Williams was just acting.

Too much Guinness for you collapse. Not just right now, I’m talking about your whole adult life!

mikey_dragon wrote:Too much Guinness for you collapse. Not just right now, I’m talking about your whole adult life!

Im a teetotaler Mikey

Collapse2005 wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Too much Guinness for you collapse. Not just right now, I’m talking about your whole adult life!

Im a teetotaler Mikey

Leave it brother, don't get drawn in

Ah yeah I know, Mikey is harmless enough though.

eirebilly_01 wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Too much Guinness for you collapse. Not just right now, I’m talking about your whole adult life!

Im a teetotaler Mikey

Leave it brother, don't get drawn in

You think it’s okay to bleat on about Liam Williams, but not Casey? Williams was taken out. Casey was much worse and the incident didn’t even warrant a penalty.

mikey_dragon wrote:

eirebilly_01 wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:Too much Guinness for you collapse. Not just right now, I’m talking about your whole adult life!

Im a teetotaler Mikey

Leave it brother, don't get drawn in

You think it’s okay to bleat on about Liam Williams, but not Casey? Williams was taken out. Casey was much worse and the incident didn’t even warrant a penalty.

But Mikey, you have to remember that Liam Williams has a face everyone wants to slap

Third to Sexton, who is second to Farrell in the slapable face department though.

That's right, you Welsh can't win anything at the moment

Unclear wrote:That's right, you Welsh can't win anything at the moment

We know! Can’t even get a ref decision to go our way like we used to.

Has there been any updates on the Injury situation. I wouldn't be at all confident going forward unless the glaring ommisions can make much needed returns. Ringrose is an obvious one we'll badly need but we're running out of TH options so Furlong's return couldn't happen soon enough. Scotland will be champing at the bit and raring to go, we need bodies back.

On the TH situation, who next up if Furlong's still missing ?  Salanoa ?

Update: I just got the answer as the 42 is reporting the returns of Furlong, Healy, Henshaw, JGP, Sexton and Ringrose. Nice

Yeah welcome news alright. We have had a good few injuries however, these days thats fairly standard. Think we did well under the circumstances v Italy and they were also very good but lets not forget we did botch a few tries and gifted them one. I think even with 7 injuries we were still the better side.

Collapse2005 wrote:Yeah welcome news alright. We have had a good few injuries however, these days thats fairly standard. Think we did well under the circumstances v Italy and they were also very good but lets not forget we did botch a few tries and gifted them one. I think even with 7 injuries we were still the better side.

What annoyed me about the Italian intercept try was the fact that at half time, 24-10 up and with the lineout the chance was there to leave it like that and go for the half time refreshments. But no, they had to carry on playing for some reason and all of a sudden we're going in 24-17 up which got the Italian tails up and reinforced their belief. The 2 botched tries were very sloppy indeed but all's forgiven now that it's monday and the table's looking good.

Now they've 2 weeks to work out how to stop Finn.

Im not that worried about Russell, if our pack dominates theirs we will win. Ireland v Scotland is effectively the trophy match for Ireland because if we win with a BP given points differences Ireland will be too far ahead of everyone else going into the last match. That is unless England hammer France but that is a bit improbable. Despite France's record in Twickenham I expect them to win that one and Ireland to get the win v Scotland without necessarily having it easy at all.

Pete330v2 wrote:

Collapse2005 wrote:Yeah welcome news alright. We have had a good few injuries however, these days thats fairly standard. Think we did well under the circumstances v Italy and they were also very good but lets not forget we did botch a few tries and gifted them one. I think even with 7 injuries we were still the better side.

What annoyed me about the Italian intercept try was the fact that at half time, 24-10 up and with the lineout the chance was there to leave it like that and go for the half time refreshments. But no, they had to carry on playing for some reason and all of a sudden we're going in 24-17 up which got the Italian tails up and reinforced their belief. The 2 botched tries were very sloppy indeed but all's forgiven now that it's monday and the table's looking good.

Now they've 2 weeks to work out how to stop Finn.

It looks to me that carrying on playing right up to and beyond "time" is a policy decision (or as the youth might say "a thing"). Schmidt seemed to start it. Get a score just before half time, and preferably just after as well, and it sets a tone as well as putting you 10 - 14 points up. On most occasions it has worked well for us, and so I can't really get too worked up.

Good to hear that the injury list seems to be shortening. I wasn't sure who would be the TH on the bench (does J Ryan play that side? I vaguely remember him being in squads in the past). I don't think we should rush Henshaw back, put him on the bench and give him 30 mins and probably the same for JGP. Ringrose hasn't been out long and could go straight back in. Sexton will do whatever he wants ....

I don't like it (see Henshaw and JGP above) but I think Furlong needs to come straight back in as we need to dominate the Scots pack from the start. So a Van der Flier/O'Mahony/Doris back row as well. Ryan paired with Henderson, Porter and either Sheehan or Kelleher whoever doesn't doesn't stub toe or whatever in training. That should do it.

Something I hadnt realised is that Ross Byrne has actually played more minutes of this years six nations than Jonny Sexton and we are still three wins from three. While I dont think Byrne is at Sexton's level it is comforting that we can do that and still get good results.