Ireland vs Scotland 6 Nations - Saturday 1st February 2020 - Match Thread

[Tramptastic]

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IRELAND V SCOTLAND

1st of February 2020 16:45 Kick off

Referee: Mathieu Raynal (France)
Assistant 1: Pascal Gauzere (France)
Assistant 2: Federico Anselmi (Argentina)
TMO: Glenn Newman (New Zealand)

Ireland: 15 Jordan Larmour, 14 Andrew Conway, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Bundee Aki, 11 Jacob Stockdale, 10 Jonathan Sexton (c), 9 Conor Murray, 8 Caelan Doris, 7 Josh van der Flier, 6 CJ Stander, 5 James Ryan, 4 Iain Henderson, 3 Tadhg Furlong, 2 Rob Herring, 1 Cian Healy
Replacements: 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Dave Kilcoyne, 18 Andrew Porter, 19 Devin Toner, 20 Peter O’Mahony, 21 John Cooney, 22 Ross Byrne, 23 Robbie Henshaw

Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg (c), 14 Sean Maitland, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Sam Johnson, 11 Blair Kinghorn, 10 Adam Hastings, 9 Ali Price, 8 Nick Haining, 7 Hamish Watson, 6 Jamie Ritchie, 5 Jonny Gray, 4 Scott Cummings, 3 Zander Fagerson, 2 Fraser Brown, 1 Rory Sutherland
Replacements: 16 Stuart McInally, 17 Allan Dell, 18 Simon Berghan, 19 Ben Toolis, 20 Cornell du Preez, 21 George Horne, 22 Rory Hutchinson, 23 Chris Harris

Perennial World Cup Quarter Finalists vs A Team With No Clear Strategy That Doesn't Currently Play To It's Strengths, Please Come Back Vern

Historical head to head data is useless as Scotland won for the 1st hundred years but Ireland have been dead good since the year 2000, except in 2010 at Croke Park which tells you Dan Parks is the finest rugby player Scotland has ever poached from Australia.

New head coach for Ireland in Farrell vs Townsend with new back room staff

Captain Sexton vs Captain Hogg - Eurgh, there's going to be so much moaning at the ref.

I'm looking forward to seeing a healthy amount of abuse in the thread below, please enjoy.

[rodders]

Agree on the discipline. I thought generally we lacked leadership.

That's not to pin it on Sexton but Best and Kearney were missed on that front. POM had a big influence when he came on.

I'd be tempted to bring in Earls for Conway for that reason.

[Collapse2005]

Could Sexton play with Cooney?

He's very different from the type of 9 he usually plays with!

Im sure they have played together at Leinster many times. Not gonna happen but Id nearly drop Sexton.

[thebandwagonsociety]

Farrell under pressure goes for the heads he know, got the result, but not the performance and there are a lot of areas to improve on.

For anyone interested in actual stats;
https://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/matchstats?gameId=295493&league=180659

Some notable items;

1. Making ground
Healy made 0 metres
Herring made 2 metres
Furlong made 7 metres
Henderson made 2 metres
Backrow had 38 metres (being Stander, POM, vdf and Doris for stat purposes). Ritchie had 39 metres on his own (Watson had 42 metres, Haining had 6)

Only Larmour (with 2) had more than one clean break between both teams

2. Defence
With Doris an early exit, only Larmour didn't miss a tackle for the Irish starters.
VDF missed 5 tackles
Aki missed 3
Henderson missed 2
Ryan missed 3
Stander missed 2
Virtually every other Irish player missed 1

3. The dark arts
Our backrow conceded 1 penalty (again taking the starting backrow and POM)
Scots backrow conceded 6 penalties
We're we soft, too honest, doesn't feel like we were very effective
Front rows were 3 penalties a piece

[bsando]

Farrell under pressure goes for the heads he know, got the result, but not the performance and there are a lot of areas to improve on.

For anyone interested in actual stats;
https://www.espn.co.uk/rugby/matchstats?gameId=295493&league=180659

Some notable items;

1. Making ground
Healy made 0 metres
Herring made 2 metres
Furlong made 7 metres
Henderson made 2 metres
Backrow had 38 metres (being Stander, POM, vdf and Doris for stat purposes).  Ritchie had 39 metres on his own (Watson had 42 metres, Haining had 6)

Only Larmour (with 2) had more than one clean break between both teams

2. Defence
With Doris an early exit, only Larmour didn't miss a tackle for the Irish starters.
VDF missed 5 tackles
Aki missed 3
Henderson missed 2
Ryan missed 3
Stander missed 2
Virtually every other Irish player missed 1

3. The dark arts
Our backrow conceded 1 penalty (again taking the starting backrow and POM)
Scots backrow conceded 6 penalties
We're we soft, too honest, doesn't feel like we were very effective
Front rows were 3 penalties a piece

Comparing those ESPN stats with the same fixture during the RWC is quite an interesting read.

Scotland were very passive in the RWC in the first half and went on to lose by a big margin. Yet they only conceded 6 penalties. On Saturday they were much more aggressive and up front and conceded 14 penalties overall, but kept the scoreline much more honest.

Scotland's backrow conceded 6 penalties (Watson 3, Ritchie 2, Haining 1) while Ireland's conceded 0.

Ireland had a 96% rucks won success rate in the RWC and 99% on Saturday vs Scotland 94% and 92%.

Despite Scotland improving a lot of other stats such as tackles and territory from the RWC stats, they lost lost the battle at the breakdown which proved very costly. Better discipline and a few turnovers themselves and they may be onto better results.

[The Great Aukster]

Ireland do look like they took a few causulties though, that might count against them for the next round at least. I would be surprised if either of the consussed players makes it back and not sure if Furlong was injured or just knackered?

Tight calfs apparently.

Happened due to having his arse handed to him by Sutherland!

Calfs?  Them's bullocks he's got strapped to his legs.

Ah... that explains why he likes loose shorts.

[SecretFly]

If the more relaxed environment created by Farrell and Catt means the players just roll up on Saturday with no game plan and get shunted around in the scrum and throw the ball around aimlessly then we can't get Joe back quick enough.  

The biggest worry for me is that Farrell seemed pleased with he performance. I think he deserves time but really that was as poor a start we could have without losing.

Yep, two of my biggest concerns also after admittedly just one game to analyse.  I don't mind a newer, less pressured environment, as players really were burned out by the ultra intensity of Schmidt's template.  Indeed, whenever Schmidt himself alluded to his own emotions in the latter part of his time, he too strongly inferred that he was burned out.  So it was a real issue that obviously took a toll on the team and coach in 2019.  But we certainly don't want to go all the way in the opposite direction either as you described well.  We do want to see an evidently coached side.  Farrell and crew do have a big job to do and need to quickly assert their 'new' way.

And I was struck too with the reaction of Farrell and players to the performance.  Sexton was positively chirpy as if Ireland had a wonderful day at the office.  It's natural that he would be feeling lifted that his first game as genuine Captain was a win but still, as a player who has spent most of his career with Leinster, he knows that performance was vintage nothing and nothing to aspire to repeating anytime soon.  
Farrell was bullish in saying Ireland deserved the victory.  They got the victory with a big thank you to a few inches of air between Hogg and a certain try.  They got the victory....that's all.  We'll take it too 'cause luck is luck, but that enthusiasm for a substandard performance is worrying.

And yet..... I think they did actively decide to defend slim gains (old school Shmidtactics) - I do think it was always their overall strategy for Scotland on the day.  And maybe that's why they were happy, a simple plan to contain angry Scotland in the first game worked - just.

Finally, I think people may have overlooked the fact that we just didn't lose Schmidt post-WC.  We also lost unsung hero Greg Feek.  Now what was that lad responsible for coaching?????  Hmmm.

[rodders]

Could Sexton play with Cooney?

He's very different from the type of 9 he usually plays with!

Im sure they have played together at Leinster many times. Not gonna happen but Id nearly drop Sexton.

Apparently they don't like each other?

[Guest]

Just saw the highlights on BBC's coverage today - reminded just how bad the ref was for both teams. Awful refereeing display!

Unfortunately yes. I was enjoying the game in the pub after Wales and wasn't paying forensic attention but I got the impression he was very poor.

[rodders]

And I was struck too with the reaction of Farrell and players to the performance.  Sexton was positively chirpy as if Ireland had a wonderful day at the office.  It's natural that he would be feeling lifted that his first game as genuine Captain was a win but still, as a player who has spent most of his career with Leinster, he knows that performance was vintage nothing and nothing to aspire to repeating anytime soon.  
Farrell was bullish in saying Ireland deserved the victory.  They got the victory with a big thank you to a few inches of air between Hogg and a certain try.  They got the victory....that's all.  We'll take it too 'cause luck is luck, but that enthusiasm for a substandard performance is worrying.

And yet..... I think they did actively decide to defend slim gains (old school Shmidtactics) - I do think it was always their overall strategy for Scotland on the day.  And maybe that's why they were happy, a simple plan to contain angry Scotland in the first game worked - just.

Finally, I think people may have overlooked the fact that we just didn't lose Schmidt post-WC.  We also lost unsung hero Greg Feek.  Now what was that lad responsible for coaching?????  Hmmm.

Good point regarding Feek. One thing about Schmidt's Ireland is that the scrum always functioned.

Re: Farrell, I believe what you see is what you get with him. There is no media spin, he seemed genuinely pleased with aspects of the performance which amazes me. As I saw written somewhere this morning if Schmidt was still there they would be dreading the Monday morning review as it would likely extend all day.

It's early days but already signs are that standards and expectations have dropped from the previous regime.

[Guest]

Well after all the buzz about what Farrell would bring to Ireland, what so many in the media and fans have lost sight of is what Schmidt brought - Consistency, clarity, set piece, work rate, structure, discipline, low error and penalty count - it wasn't always exciting and there was the occasional blip but if Saturday is a glimpse into the Farrell era then we are in big trouble.

Without disrespecting Scotland, who on paper are better than there recent results - for Ireland to scrape a win at home against a side we demolished up front a few months ago is extremely worrying - that Farrell and some of the players were happy about it is worse.

Arguably that is our easiest fixture this year, at home with Scotland minus Finn Russell and we needed heroic scrambling defense as well as howler from Hogg to get a win.  

Individually Stander, O'Mahoney, Henderson, VDF had great games - Herring did well and the try was well worked but all in that was very poor. The back 3 looked lost without Kearney and Murray surely needs to be dropped now for Cooney and McGrath. Healy had his worst game in years.

Fair play to Scotland, they played the better rugby and fronted up physically. Hopefully they can get a win next week.

For us I am really fearful now because Wales will batter us if we play like that again next week, never mind what France and England will do.

With the injuries I'm not sure Farrell can change a lot - I'd start Cooney at 9, presumably O'Mahoney and Jack McGrath will come in for Doris and Kilcoyne, Henshaw to 13.  Addison or Earls on to the bench.

This strikes me as a game that's a bit like England's against France. Your last game was a thumping to get knocked out of the world cup. That takes its toll emotionally and psychologically and now Ireland are back on the horse.

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