RWC - Wallabies v Ireland - 17th September 2011

[thedubs]

If anyone wants to see what SOB's form was like in the HC heres an extended video with non of that music shite thats on other video's. Handy if you havent caught much of the games up north this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox24cJMUZdc&feature=feedu

 

[Riptide]

This forum is full of drama queens at the moment. With all due respect to the Irish, they are in terrible form. Predicting an "insanely close" game, or even a loss as some are doing here, is pure self-indulgence. The Wallabies should win this one comfortably to have any realistic claim to winning the seven straight they need to win the tournament. If an out of form Ireland is genuinely problematic, then we'll get knocked out by the first team we meet in the knockouts, who will likely be a far more serious proposition than this Ireland team is.

Ireland are a poor team when not playing with confidence, or form. When confident and in-form, Ireland that can be a decent side who still cannot beat anyone of note away from home. The Wallabies are much more than just a decent side.

I just had a mate who is attending the game tell me that it's coming down hard. Rain will be an equalizer, and will slow the game down so the Irish will be more competitive in certain areas of the field. It will bring their good kicking game more to the fore, but that would be stronger still if O'Gara was in the team (I expect we will see O'Gara quite early in this contest if Aus get ahead early).

 

[Riptide]

Although Ireland dont have a specialist 7, its worth remembering Irelands centre pairing of BOD and D'arcy are an additional set of flankers in essense. If they get the chance they'll turn it in an instance and will have the likes of Earls, Heaslip, Bowe and O'Brien waiting to hit the open australian flanks.

Heaslip is also a turnover machine. One of the reasons why Jennings isnt a complete necessary in the team, Heaslip almost fulfills the groundhog work too of the 7 jersey.

Also don't forget with Irelands "maul-turnover" tactic, Australian ball is no given in their own rucks with or without Pocock.

Turnover machine? Heaslip is barely fulfilling his function as a Test No.8 of late. He snags the occasional ball but no more so that Samo, Higginbotham, Read or a slew of other Test No.8s I could mention.

 

[Riptide]

Question to the Irish on this thread. I feel that you're contribution and comments have been well-argued for the most part but I'm not getting this SOB thing. Yes, he is a fine player but so many posts seem to smack of desperately seeking acknowledgement that he is the most fabulous player ever. You gush in the hopes that Australia will jump up and proclaim "Wow, O'Brien is sooo good!" Why?

Let him prove himself in the test arena in a big game against top quality opposition first. We haven't seen that yet.

 

[thedubs]

Turnover machine? Heaslip is barely fulfilling his function as a Test No.8 of late. He snags the occasional ball but no more so that Samo, Higginbotham, Read or a slew of other Test No.8s I could mention.

Heaslip's been bad in what games? 2 of the warm ups and the USA? Yeah - thats hardly a concern. The guys been the standout 8 of the last year, nominated for European player of the year, being a turnover machine and a typical forward like leader in the pack. I dont rate a players form from warm ups after justing coming out of an off season. Heaslip thrives in high intensity games, I expect him to be one of the players of the match.

 

[thedubs]

Question to the Irish on this thread. I feel that you're contribution and comments have been well-argued for the most part but I'm not getting this SOB thing. Yes, he is a fine player but so many posts seem to smack of desperately seeking acknowledgement that he is the most fabulous player ever. You gush in the hopes that Australia will jump up and proclaim "Wow, O'Brien is sooo good!" Why?

Let him prove himself in the test arena in a big game against top quality opposition first. We haven't seen that yet.

I posted the link there about him previously as down south hardly anybody will know who he is outside of the the harder rugby fans. He's only emerged this season. You find the same stuff on other rugby forums. On another board I use - 606V2 - has thousands of fans on it - every nationality brings in a bit of info from their team to make a database on the forums almost. Unless you dedicate your life to rugby, you wont know who the hot players are in each hemisphere, each country or each league, depending on how dedicated you are again.

 

[BarneySF]

From Eddie J at RugbyGold today: "Certainly, a Wallabies team with Smith at No.8 and Giteau at No.12 would be far stronger than the team playing tonight."

Grasping much? Is there still any remorse over a no Gits backline? Agree that Smith would be a more than handy replacement for DP as opposed to a bland Mcalman, but I'd be edgy if he was starting at no.8. Christ, it harks back to those days when Eddie played both Smith and Waugh at the same time which never failed to underwhelm.

 

[François]

Should be a one way affair for the wallabies. Ireland lost all of its prep games, they are an old team that has, it seems, lost its confidence. They don't have the attacking weapons to really threaten the back line, and I doubt a 33 year old BOD starved of opportunities (their forward will be dominated at the breakdown) will cause much trouble to the brick wall that is the McCabe-Fainga combo. Meanwhile Cooper, O'Connor and Genia will tear them apart.

From my european point of view, being familiar with the level or the Irish in the past year or so, I can honestly say that this is not the big crunch the media are trying to build up, in fact it's going to as easy as it can get against a team that sits at the 8th place in he IRB ranking. Even if it rains.

Of course, now I will come back and eat my words if I'm wrong ^^

 

[Joe Blow]

It would be very nice to have George Smith on the bench right now in place of McCalman.

Eddie is still carrying on with that line to justify his repeatedly failed 2 X openside experiment/theory.

 

[jay-c]

it shouldnt be underestimated the damage edie jones caused to the wallabies
our front row ha been the laughing stock of the world for about a decade > which we are only just starting to recover>>
as i remember smith played 8 a handleful of times and wasnt that impressive>> he'd be better pointing to the impact he had in that second half v wales on his last spring tour @7
but smith made the decision to leave > he didnt want to play 2nd fiddle to the cock>
giteaus inability to take charge in the samoan game where his leadership qualities were required showed hes not up to it>
eddie jones not only did his best to destroy the wallabies but he went on to help coach one of our biggest rivals to a wc win> i have no respect for the man

 

[thedubs]

Should be a one way affair for the wallabies. Ireland lost all of its prep games, they are an old team that has, it seems, lost its confidence. They don't have the attacking weapons to really threaten the back line, and I doubt a 33 year old BOD starved of opportunities (their forward will be dominated at the breakdown) will cause much trouble to the brick wall that is the McCabe-Fainga combo. Meanwhile Cooper, O'Connor and Genia will tear them apart.

From my european point of view, being familiar with the level or the Irish in the past year or so, I can honestly say that this is not the big crunch the media are trying to build up, in fact it's going to as easy as it can get against a team that sits at the 8th place in he IRB ranking. Even if it rains.

Of course, now I will come back and eat my words if I'm wrong ^^

Old team? True in some sense's. D'arcy Yep, BOD yep. BOD still despite age should be in any team for his vision. Most of our oldies are in the pack, and for forwards they are quite young still being aged around the 30 mark in the tight 5.

The flip side to your arguement and the european point of view is that Irish teams have dominated Europe, with nearly full Irish squads, in the HC for the past six years. They have the players to do well, dont let form give you an indication to a world cup game.

 

[BarneySF]

it shouldnt be underestimated the damage edie jones caused to the wallabies
our front row ha been the laughing stock of the world for about a decade > which we are only just starting to recover>>
as i remember smith played 8 a handleful of times and wasnt that impressive>> he'd be better pointing to the impact he had in that second half v wales on his last spring tour @7
but smith made the decision to leave > he didnt want to play 2nd fiddle to the cock>
giteaus inability to take charge in the samoan game where his leadership qualities were required showed hes not up to it>
eddie jones not only did his best to destroy the wallabies but he went on to help coach one of our biggest rivals to a wc win> i have no respect for the man

Towards the end there, Eddie singlehandedly made me stress about pretty much every Wallabies game I watched while he coached. He's also clearly reminding us to credit him for discovering Giteau from club rugby. Kudos to him for that I spose.

 

[potogold]

jeez some of these comments are setting australia up for a filthy fall. there is confidence and then theres bewildering statements.
its the same way ireland AND france underestimated argentina last time big style, fiji upset wales, france beat NZ, and yeah, a trodden on england beat a very good australia side.

i dont think people really realise that sh*t happens always at world cups, and i wouldnt be surprised at all if ireland won tomorrow. people refering to the warm up games prove they dont really know anything about the irish team.
1..a 1st scotland team beats a second 15 ireland team with a forward pass at the death, WOW
2.. a half strength team loses to france narrowly in france
3.. ok this was where the team was full strength in the loss to france
4.. the loss to england we were missing BOD, kearney, sean o brien....while wallace, bowe and ferris had their first games for months, and healy, heaslip wallace and ferris all went off in the first half. and people say england "outclassed" us and they win by 11 with our best players off the pitch.--AND IRELAND NEED THOSE PLAYERS

i actually kind of feel embarrassed that i had to spell all that out, clearly most people here are just looking at results,,,, but ireland are taking too much undeserved flak based on WARM UPS with 1 first choice team. the only match that matters based on form is the USA game. end of story. and they were terrible, true, however i wasnt blown away by australia either.

disregard them at your peril. ireland play best as underdogs :angryfire:, always have

 

[thedubs]

jeez some of these comments are setting australia up for a filthy fall. there is confidence and then theres bewildering statements.
its the same way ireland AND france underestimated argentina last time big style, fiji upset wales, france beat NZ, and yeah, a trodden on england beat a very good australia side.

i dont think people really realise that sh*t happens always at world cups, and i wouldnt be surprised at all if ireland won tomorrow. people refering to the warm up games prove they dont really know anything about the irish team.
1..a 1st scotland team beats a second 15 ireland team with a forward pass at the death, WOW
2.. a half strength team loses to france narrowly in france
3.. ok this was where the team was full strength in the loss to france
4.. the loss to england we were missing BOD, kearney, sean o brien....while wallace, bowe and ferris had their first games for months, and healy, heaslip wallace and ferris all went off in the first half. and people say england "outclassed" us and they win by 11 with our best players off the pitch.--AND IRELAND NEED THOSE PLAYERS

i actually kind of feel embarrassed that i had to spell all that out, clearly most people here are just looking at results,,,, but ireland are taking too much undeserved flak based on WARM UPS with 1 first choice team. the only match that matters based on form is the USA game. end of story. and they were terrible, true, however i wasnt blown away by australia either.

disregard them at your peril. ireland play best as underdogs :angryfire:, always have

:yay Well said. If Warm ups meant a diddle, why don't we bring up Australia's warm up before the tri-nations. Samoa wasnt it

Just as I dont think Samoa will pip the RWC 2011 from Australia's grasp, I dont think Irelands warm up games are the be all end all.

 

[Running Rugby]

I really hope Pocock plays today. His value against a big go forward dominated backrow is priceless. We need him today to slow the ball down or we will have a defensive line going backwards and this will give room to SOB and co to show their class. If he is out we must place much more focus on dominating and putting numbers into the tackle. Could be interesting

 

[François]

Agreed they've done very well in the HC.. although the few foreign players they did have played a pretty big role... remember Elsom !
And on a side note I think that the Magnus league is perhaps a bit less prestigious than say, the Premiership or the Top 14, and thus Irish provinces tend to place all their bets on the HC, when most French clubs would place the emphasis on the Top 14. (Only Toulouse regularly performs well in both competition at the same time).

That being said, I know BOD is pure class and on his day can be a danger to any team. But will he have the opportunities to do so ? Can the Irish front eight do the job ?

 

[thedubs]

Agreed they've done very well in the HC.. although the few foreign players they did have played a pretty big role... remember Elsom !
And on a side note I think that the Magnus league is perhaps a bit less prestigious than say, the Premiership or the Top 14, and thus Irish provinces tend to place all their bets on the HC, when most French clubs would place the emphasis on the Top 14. (Only Toulouse regularly performs well in both competition at the same time).

That being said, I know BOD is pure class and on his day can be a danger to any team. But will he have the opportunities to do so ? Can the Irish front eight do the job ?

Yeah you're right on the magners league, it'd be easier just to name it the Leinster, Munster, Ospreys and 9 other teams league! The other side to the arguement is saying that the irish teams go into the HC undercooked - A toulouse team gets to warm up against Clermonts, Toulons etc before their campaign starts!

Yeah but Toulouse are essentially France, they have two solid XV's - only reason they can compete on both fronts easily, they probably have a third one somewhere in the mix.

 

[Riptide]

Old team? True in some sense's. D'arcy Yep, BOD yep. BOD still despite age should be in any team for his vision. Most of our oldies are in the pack, and for forwards they are quite young still being aged around the 30 mark in the tight 5.

The flip side to your arguement and the european point of view is that Irish teams have dominated Europe, with nearly full Irish squads, in the HC for the past six years. They have the players to do well, dont let form give you an indication to a world cup game.

But when has Irish provincial success (with players rested to target the HEC while the English and French get flogged to compete in their more attritional domestic comps) ever translated to success in the Test arena? You have won one 6N championships (or 5Ns/4Ns) since 1950. One! Yes, Ireland has improved since the arrival of the pro era for sure, but they were pretty poor.

So what guide should we use to give us an indication of Ireland's success at World Cup games against top quality SH Test sides? Recent success against SH teams? Success playing away from Dublin? Even by IRN rankings, Ireland are an 8th ranked Test team.

The French poster is right; Ireland simply cannot manufacture scoring opportunities to threaten the top sides. BOD's game has been slipping for years although he is still a forceful presence. Ireland are certainly capable of a big performance but there are so few nowadays and even another one on the back of a string of lousy performances will not be enough to beat this Wallaby side.

 

[Riptide]

j

disregard them at your peril. ireland play best as underdogs :angryfire:, always have

Can you tell us the last time ireland beat anyone ranked higher than them away from home, or the last time they beat a SH team in the SH?

 

[Riptide]

I really hope Pocock plays today. His value against a big go forward dominated backrow is priceless. We need him today to slow the ball down or we will have a defensive line going backwards and this will give room to SOB and co to show their class. If he is out we must place much more focus on dominating and putting numbers into the tackle. Could be interesting

Ireland couldn't generate quick ball against the US, and now they have no genuine No.7 in their side. I'm not fretting about Pocock's absence.