Ireland V Argies

[hi-jinks]

Deadset the Irish annoy me when it comes to rugby.
Their mentality stinks. The mentality of claiming "moral vistories" is too backward to comprehend, but that's how they are.
In their eyes, a loss to Aus or NZ by less than 10 points is as good as a win.


Any, this brings us to the game V Argentina.
The Irish have a habbit of losing to lesser teams.
Some will argue that the Argies are not a lesser team and have proved to be a hard test for the Irish.

If those Paddies don't watch out they could slip out of the top rankings.

I predict the Argies in a completely shithouse spectacle.
My advice - get your sleep and look up the result after.

 

[rugbywhisperer]

Are they playing??
It hadn't registered on the interest meter

 

[Lee Grant]

ROG had better step up his game from last week else the Pumas may smack them, even without Contepomi.

 

[Spook]

The Argies are quite weakened at the moment. Ireland just need to play to potential and they should win. They can't get drawn into a slug fest with the Argies.

 

[cyclopath]

Definitely not a game I'd pay to watch, I'm there with Jinks on that. Argentina can draw anyone down to their level of a bore-fest, and if Ireland get sucked into it, then they and their supporters get what they deserve. Ireland should have too much talent, especially if Thomo is to be believed, but I reckon it'll be close despite that. Ireland by a few.

 

[hi-jinks]

Well well well.
I have woken up with egg on my face. (there are worse things one could wake up with on their face).
In my defence, I fall asleep watching the 1 minute highlight package.

 

[Ash]

Well well well.
I have woken up with egg on my face. (there are worse things one could wake up with on their face).
In my defence, I fall asleep watching the 1 minute highlight package.

That's being generous. I feel asleep watching the replay in the mid-morning. Was awful.

 

[cyclopath]

There was a replay....zzzzzzzzzzzzzz ?

 

[Thomond78]

If you think that was bad - and it was - then you should have seen the France-Argentina game.

To Lee Grant for a second - this was what the ELVs were supposed to stop. Now do you see why I think the 22 ELV has to go? And why we need mauls back?

Anyhoo... It was gash to watch, but that's Argentina for you, a bigger, nastier, stronger and less adventurous Scotland. They're nasty bastards too, and the cheap shots started early and continued, including that fore-arm smash at the end on ROG that had no other aim but to injure him for the Clermont HEC games.

What did cheer me up was that after trying to run it, we realised that they had no interest in doing anything else but get fifteen behind the ball, kick it down there, pressurise an inexperienced ref into giving a penalty and repeat. So we returned the compliment, and did it better than they did. Being able to change the game-plan to the circumstances is a welcome development, believe me.

We also smashed the shit out of their pack. We won the collisions, over and over and over; on average, they'd lose three yards per phase of possession. We were well on top in the scrum and POC took four of their lineouts in the first twenty minutes, after which they resorted to the Kiwi standard ploy of the hooker standing more or less in line with their scrumhalf and throwing it straight but about two metres over to their side.

Still, this is a game that recently we would have lost. The forwards are playing well again, Ferris was excellent, and POC is on top form, David Wallace is okay and the backs will come right. All this without playing particularly brilliantly. A lot more cheerful heading into the 6N than I've been in a while.

 

[Spook]

You need the free kick sanctions!

What is the status of Wallace?

 

[Thomond78]

Soft tissue - basically, a bit whiplashy. Should be fine for the Clermont games.

Fla has to get a scan, while He Koro Tipoki looks like he may well be out for the Clermont games.

 

[Lee Grant]

T78

I don't think the 22 ELV has to go at all.

I think the IRB protocols are just as responsible for too much kicking as the 22 ELV.

I wrote in another thread that the protocols to stay on feet and not kill the ball has diminished the ability of ball carriers to protect the ball and thus they are hoofing it down the field more before they get pinged. Nothing to do with the ELVs.

The idea of the 22 ELV was to stop players being able to pass the ball back over the 22 and kick the ball out on the full and gain ground.

Under standard law they could and the game stopped whilst fatties lumbered over to the lineout and 40 seconds after the ball went into touch the rested players came to life again when the ball was finally thrown in. And if it was not straight, or another infringement happened, there was another delay. Thank God there are no numbers any more else there would have been more delays still.

Now that 40 seconds plus the infringement time is used kicking the ball back midfield and occasionally running the ball back. Often the ball won't be passed back over the 22 in the first place knowing about the 22 ELV, and play goes on.

Oftentimes there is a bit of aerial ping pong and you have to trade that off with the time that would be lost getting to and starting lineouts, then dealing with the subsequent infringements. We found in the S14 that as players tired there was less kicking and more running back with the ball - and players got more tired with the FK sanctions being used.

I can understand people liking the deliberate pace of rugby when the ball can be kicked out from the 22 on the full, having first being passed back, and ground being gained, and players walking over and having a rest. I really can.

I could also understand in my young days why people liked players being able to kick the ball out on the full from anywhere on the park, including from within the opponents 25 yard line, and ground could be gained. Old timers hated the law change which required that the ball had to be in their own 25 yard area before gaining ground with a kick out on the full, but life moved on.

But there is more to why there was a lot of kicking in the Argies game and it had nothing to do with laws. From the Pumas side of things, with Contepomi out and JMH pulling out at the last minute, they had no ball players in the backline and not much leadership.

Thus they played a very limited game and we all know what that means. There was never going to be any champagne rugby ELVs or protocols or no ELVs or protocols.

About the mauls - most of us, but not all, agree here. As I've said many a time: the ELVs, especially the SANZAR ELVs, have taking stuff away from fatties and forced them to play a faster game. Therefore leave something in that they are good at.

 

[Thomond78]

Lee, it's not even that; a good maul from a lineout is positive play. It's attacking, and trying to score points, and trying to do something to win the game. And one of the things that drives me most spare about the way people - and I regret to say, mostly Australian people - have talked about the maul is that they've missed this point completely. FFS, it won you a world cup, back when you remembered this simple point. It makes space for backs and gets forwards out of the way. You should bloody love it! :angryfire:

And if they kick the ball out - how bad? You get the lineout. Attack the bastards off it. Suck them in to defend it. Make them commit, and then get it out to the backs in space.

Of course, that assumes you have a maul to do it.

Let it be noted I was initially in favour of the 22 ELV. But I've seen it have the same effect with and without the maul ELV, so it looks like this is just the effect of it. Pity, but there it is. There is also no question at all that the maul ELV makes that effect worse.

This aimless hoofing isn't positive play. It's just trying not to lose it. I refuse to consider that the ball is in play longer when it's in forty metres up in the air compared to using that same time that the ball spends in the air actually getting down there and trying to score a try. If you want to speed up the time it takes to take lineouts, get refs to crack down on delay; no objections here.

In fact, I'd recommend applying a cattle prod to Kevin Mealamu as a first, easy-fix, step to do just that. >

 

[Pfitzy]

FFS, it won you a world cup, back when you remembered this simple point. It makes space for backs and gets forwards out of the way. You should bloody love it! :angryfire:

As I've said a few dozen times Oirish: take the 5 second rule away and I'll love the maul again, because it will be a fair contest and not a perversion of the Laws.

 

[Thomond78]

There has to be some allowance, Nick; as you yourself know, you can be stopped on one side of a maul, but start it up again fast on the other side. Five seconds isn't unreasonable.

Now, if you actually applied the law in question, and made them use it by counting down from five the instant the re-started maul stopped, then we'd be laughing.

 

[Lee Grant]

Agree on the point of positive play of a maul from a lineout - you are right - it's not just giving the fatties back something - but we'll have to disagree on the 22 ELV.

I think that some Aussies who disagree on the maul are just doing so because we have never been good at using it or defending against it, and are giving the excuse of : "there's no contest for the ball if you can't get at it."

And talking about "It's just trying not to lose it" in reference to hoofing the ball downfield, there was nothing worse in that respect than the RWC final last year with its 90+ kicks from hand.

 

[Cutter]

Agree on the point of positive play of a maul from a lineout - you are right - it's not just giving the fatties back something - but we'll have to disagree on the 22 ELV.

I think that some Aussies who disagree on the maul are just doing so because we have never been good at using it or defending against it, and are giving the excuse of : "there's no contest for the ball if you can't get at it."

And talking about "It's just trying not to lose it" in reference to hoofing the ball downfield, there was nothing worse in that respect than the RWC final last year with its 90+ kicks from hand.

That was the game plan for Argentina, the Boks, the Poms and probably others during the RWC.

Thomo I'm not sold on the pulling down of mauls, but I think they can still be a useful weapon even if they can be pulled down. That is where we disagree. You think its maul armageddon.

 

[Thomond78]

Lee, I think that those Aussie who don't appreciate mauls are the worst know-nothings around. Because they don't appreciate that you were amongst the first to recognise just how much space a good maul could make for good backs.

The first test I ever saw was the 1984 Wobblies v. Ireland. And what I remember of that team, all the way up until 1992, was that there was a team that knew their jobs. They made sure their backs never, ever, had to face uncommitted forwards hanging around loose. And their favourite method of so doing was an outstanding maul.

Cutter, pulling down mauls just puts a premium on those who can kill a maul dead straight off. At a stage when the IRB want us to play the game without anyone off their feet, why hand the balance of the game into the hands of the likes of the Ball-Murderer McCaw?

I will repeat, just so no-one is under any misapprehensions; bring back mauling, and I think the no-numbers ELV will have delivered one of the best steps forward in years for rugby.

 

[Ash]

I tend to agree with Lee that the 22 ELV has little to do with the constant (mindless?) kicking we are seeing right now. A lot of the midfield kicks are coming from 30m, 40m, 50m out, which are unaffected by the 22 ELV.

Unless, of course, we would be seeing a replay of Argentina tactics in the World Cup: 15m passes back into the 22 to simply kick it out.

 

[Lee Grant]

Yeah, there were many instances in every game we have ever seen before the ELVs, where the ball was passed back deliberately for that purpose. What the 22 ELV has not been given credit for is taking that out of the equation so that often play goes on without a pass back and clearing kick - not always of course, but often.

Certainly the 22 is no longer the haven it was.

Agree that some of the kicking we have seen has been mindless, and also poorly executed. I can just see some of the AFL players watching all the rugby players kick the pill - different ball I know - and rolling their eyes. The elite kickers from hand like Jonnie, ROG and JMH are few.

The increased kicking because of the IRB protocols that deny the ball carrier being protected by team mates diving in, making hoofing downfield a higher percentage option, and because of the 22 ELV, should give rise to outside backs who are skilled at kicking from hand.

If these two elements prevail in rugby I wouldn't be surprised to see rugby talent scouts at the MCG.