Six Nations 2015

[jphil99]

Dr Roberts should indeed be taking a breather - also if we do want to look a little more adventurous in midfield Scott Williams is more than worthy of a start.
I'd have started Tips over Lydiate too.

I agree with you. The only logic i think Gatland hasn't started Scott and Tips is because he will want to bring pace to the game later on when hopefully the italians will get tired and better chance of racking up the tries.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

France v England:

France: 15 Scott Spedding, 14 Yoann Huget, 13 Gaël Fickou, 12 Maxime Mermoz, 11 Noa Nakaitaci, 10 Jules Plisson, 9 Sébastian Tillous-Borde, 8 Loann Goujon, 7 Bernard le Roux, 6 Thierry Dusautoir (c), 5 Yoann Maestri, 4 Alexandre Flanquart, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Guilhem Guirado, 1 Vincent Debaty.
Replacements: 16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Rabah Slimani, 18 Uini Atonio, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Damien Chouly, 21 Rory Kockott, 22 Rémi Talès, 23 Mathieu Bastareaud.

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3551_37931,00.html

England: 15 Mike Brown, 14 Anthony Watson, 13 Jonathan Joseph, 12 Luther Burrell, 11 Jack Nowell, 10 George Ford, 9 Ben Youngs, 8 Billy Vunipola, 7 Chris Robshaw (c), 6 James Haskell, 5 Courtney Lawes, 4 Geoff Parling,, 3 Dan Cole, 2 Dylan Hartley, 1 Joe Marler
Replacements: 16 Tom Youngs, 17 Mako Vunipola, 18 Kieron Brookes, 19 Nick Easter, 20 Tom Wood, 21 Richard Wigglesworth, 22 Danny Cipriani, 23 Billy Twelvetrees

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3551_37948,00.html

England by not enough to deny Ireland back-to-back titles.......... or by 30, could go either way

 

[Cardiffblue]

France v England:

England by not enough to deny Ireland back-to-back titles....could go either way

This

 

[Cardiffblue]

Tim Cymru v Yr Eidal

Leigh Halfpenny (Toulon); George North (Northampton Saints), Jonathan Davies (ASM Clermont Auvergne), Jamie Roberts (Racing Metro), Liam Williams (Scarlets), Dan Biggar (Ospreys), Rhys Webb (Ospreys); Rob Evans (Scarlets), Scott Baldwin (Ospreys), Aaron Jarvis (Ospreys), Luke Charteris (Racing Metro), Alun Wyn Jones (Ospreys), Dan Lydiate (Ospreys), Sam Warburton (Cardiff Blues, CAPT), Taulupe Faletau (Newport Gwent Dragons).
Replacements: Ken Owens (Scarlets), Rhys Gill (Saracens), Scott Andrews (Cardiff Blues), Jake Ball (Scarlets), Justin Tipuric (Ospreys), Gareth Davies (Scarlets), Rhys Priestland (Scarlets), Scott Williams (Scarlets).

So we're not going to see any change in game plan. I'd have liked to see anscombe on the bench. And I just noticed spikey has gone

 

[Cardiffblue]

Heard parisse is out. An even huger loss for them than Samson for us.

 

[the plastic paddy]

Parisse out. Wales looking better by the hour.

 

[Cardiffblue]

This is a good analysis I think
http://www.the42.ie/analysis-ireland-attack-joe-schmidt-1997763-Mar2015/

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Scotland: 15 Stuart Hogg, 14 Tommy Seymour, 13 Mark Bennett, 12 Matt Scott, 11 Dougie Fife, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Greig Laidlaw (c), 8 David Denton, 7 Blair Cowan, 6 Adam Ashe, 5 Jonny Gray, 4 Jim Hamilton, 3 Euan Murray, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Ryan Grant
Replacements: 16 Fraser Brown, 17 Alasdair Dickinson, 18 Geoff Cross, 19 Tim Swinson, 20 Rob Harley, 21 Sam Hidalgo-Clyne, 22 Greig Tonks, 23 Tim Visser

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3551_38003,00.html

Ireland: 15 Rob Kearney, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Jared Payne, 12 Robbie Henshaw, 11 Luke Fitzgerald, 10 Jonathan Sexton, 9 Conor Murray, 8 Jamie Heaslip, 7 Sean O'Brien, 6 Peter O'Mahony, 5 Paul O'Connell (c), 4 Devin Toner, 3 Mike Ross, 2 Rory Best, 1 Cian Healy
Replacements: 16 Sean Cronin, 17 Jack McGrath, 18 Martin Moore, 19 Iain Henderson, 20 Jordi Murphy, 21 Eoin Reddan, 22 Ian Madigan, 23 Felix Jones

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3551_38068,00.html

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Heard parisse is out. An even huger loss for them than Samson for us.

Italy: 15 Luke McLean, 14 Leonardo Sarto, 13 Luca Morisi, 12 Andrea Masi, 11 Giovambattista Venditti, 10 Kelly Haimona, 9 Edoardo Gori, 8 Samuela Vunisa, 7 Mauro Bergamasco, 6 Francesco Minto, 5 Joshua Furno, 4 George Fabio Biagi, 3 Martin Castrogiovanni, 2 Leonardo Ghiraldini, 1 Michele Rizzo.
Replacements: 16 Andrea Manici, 17 Alberto De Marchi, 18 Dario Chistolini, 19 Quintin Geldenhuys, 20 Robert Barbieri, 21 Guglielmo Palazzani, 22 Luciano Orquera, 23 Enrico Bacchin.

http://www.planetrugby.com/story/0,25883,3551_38061,00.html

 

[the plastic paddy]

Zebo dropped. Ridiculous decision from Schmidt. Surprised Schmidt didn't go the whole hog and drop POM and Murray. The super bloo media seems to think the Munster players were responsible for the uber bottle in Cardiff, no great surprise. Thank God sling it to the 'fat c**t' Reddan hasn't been drafted in. Rob Kearney is obviously covered in Teflon.

 

[mxyzptlk]

This is a good analysis I think
http://www.the42.ie/analysis-ireland-attack-joe-schmidt-1997763-Mar2015/

That was about the best analysis of the game so far.

Ireland's brought Luke Fitzgerald in for Zebo, and Cian Healy is getting a start with McGrath coming off the bench. Fitz alone suggests JS is looking for more attack. Zebo's been pretty solid in defense, but he's not breaking any lines. (But neither is Kearney, and Bowe's only come close a few times.) Healy may be better as a starter than off the bench, but McGrath is really staking a claim on loosehead -- it's good to see some depth there.

Sexton and Murray didn't just not play up to the standard needed to beat Wales, they didn't pay up to their own standards -- but neither did most of the starters, hence the penalties and handling errors in the first 20 minutes. Good teams don't forgive those slips. I'm really curious when the accuracy will come back into play; after reading Kinsella's piece, it's pretty clear that Ireland beat themselves on a lot of those plays before Wales did, and they beat themselves through bad timing and handling errors. And they were still that close. Thing is, come the World Cup, it won't get any easier.

Another thing that's frustrating is the way the Irish forwards are getting the ball flat at a stand-still, never really building up any speed when they hit the line. There seems to be two sides to that -- the Welsh defensive line speed, and the creeping offside line. If you watch Kinsella's clips of the Welsh defensive stand, there are a number of times when a Welsh blitz runner tackles an Irish runner almost where they get the ball, and those blitz runners start their blitzes well ahead of the last foot of the last defender in the ruck. In one, Barnes is on the Irish side of the ruck, and Faletau is standing almost in front of Barnes before the ball has come out of the ruck, starting his blitz maybe two meters offside -- and Barnes just watches him run by.

The less said about the final maul and scrum the better.

But that doesn't excuse a poor Irish performance. At this point they seem too welded to a structure and not ready to adapt their play to the flow of the game. If there is no offside line and their forwards are getting sacked as soon as they get the ball, they need to adapt their running angles, try to get an extra pass or two off before running, and maybe using an offload or two. The backs need to be more vocal, and the forwards need to be aware that they have backs to get the ball to when they're not punching holes through the defense. Watching that part of the game, I kept thinking if it were the All Blacks or Australia not getting through that red wall, they would have found their backs a lot sooner, and would have pulled the wall apart before running at the line.

 

[Strewthcobber]

Those Irish lineouts that are in that analysis that get thrown right out the back, where does the receiver start?

Is he at half, right at the back?

 

[Cardiffblue]

Zebo dropped. Ridiculous decision from Schmidt. Surprised Schmidt didn't go the whole hog and drop POM and Murray. The super bloo media seems to think the Munster players were responsible for the uber bottle in Cardiff, no great surprise. Thank God sling it to the 'fat c**t' Reddan hasn't been drafted in. Rob Kearney is obviously covered in Teflon.

Zebo wasn't great last week but he wasn't the cause of what went wrong. Stupid to blame the wing. Tbh I don't understand the reacting to loss. Ireland played pretty well.

 

[waiopehu oldboy]

Holy fuck we won!

Glad I kicked the optimism gnome out this week

Have you let him back in yet?

 

[Bardon]

If Fitzgerald had to come into the team I would have preferred that it was for Payne. Then Henshaw could move to his natural postion and Zebo and Bowe might have seen more of the ball in space.

I guess this indicates that Schmidt has decided the current centre partnership will be there at least for the RWC.

Zebo's very unlucky to be left out especially for a game where he was likely to shine.

 

[mxyzptlk]

Zebo wasn't great last week but he wasn't the cause of what went wrong. Stupid to blame the wing. Tbh I don't understand the reacting to loss. Ireland played pretty well.

I'm not sure Zebo is being blamed for the loss. At all. In fact I haven't heard that anywhere else. I have heard that Schmidt said Zebo has started the last 9 tests for Ireland and was showing some "signs of wear and tear," which they have full data on. Zebo's still in the squad, but is basically healing, he's not just dropped. (He said the same about Jack McGrath, which is why he's on the bench.) Besides, this allows Ireland to develop a bit more depth before the World Cup.

Both Zebo and Bowe have been very solid on defense, and for me, Zebo has been a stand-out (which may have resulted in the niggles he's showing in training). But one thing Ireland have had trouble with all tournament is their backs making breaks. Bowe has come closest, but they've not been playing any of the flash rugby they played last year.

Some of the talk in Ireland is about who could provide that spark, and it generally comes down to Luke Fitzgerald and Keith Earls. That's probably a close call, and looking back at each player's last four starts, the stats are pretty close. A few points of difference, though: Earls has one more try and over 100 meters more than Fitzgerald, but 111 of those meters came against Glasgow (who were down 23 of their starters, so make of that what you will), and he has one penalty in that time. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, beat more than twice as many defenders as Earls in his last four starts, made more tackles and missed fewer tackles, and had no penalties. Plus Fitzgerald is just a little bit bigger than Earls, which must be a factor at Test level.

From a coach's standpoint, Fitzgerald makes more tackles, misses fewer tackles, beats more defenders, and doesn't give up penalties -- which killed Ireland against Wales. Those factors probably tipped the balance in Fitzgerald's favor for a Test match. If they were on the same club side, who knows, they might switch back and forth because Earls makes more meters and has scored one more try than Fitzgerald in recent games.

 

[mxyzptlk]

As far as the data coaches and trainers can gather to test player fitness, what they can get these days is astounding. There was an episode of Horizon a while back (BBC) about how technology is affecting and changing athletic training performance, and some of it focused on the England 7s team and what they get off their GPS units. They found they could tell when an athlete was about to experience a muscle strain, or was even coming down with a bug, about a day or two before the athlete actually felt any issues. By taking that data into account, they were able to address problems before they presented, and limit their injuries much more effectively to get more out of the athletes in training and games.

That was a couple years ago, so it's safe to assume the tech and the data coaches and trainers get today has improved. So I don't think anyone should be surprised if some players are rested because they're showing some signs of wear and tear in training or in games, even if the athletes themselves insist they feel fine. In the end it comes down to what's best for the player and the team, not about who's writing what in which newspaper.

EDIT: Here's the England 7s clip from that Horizon episode.

 

[Cardiffblue]

Have you let him back in yet?

He tried sneaking back in when the team was selected. Sent him packing by showing him the recording of Wales vs orcland.

 

[Cardiffblue]

Just noticed we kick off at 11:30pm. Gonna be a long night.

 

[Cardiffblue]

I'll be doing a Team of the 6N tournament blog with fellow selectors Bardon and BabyBlueElephant.

If you have any thoughts about an "as it stands" 2015 6N team after four rounds to help the panel, give them here please.

And also just after R5.

Your thoughts could be handy in tie-breakers.

Thank you.
.

Lord bald has had a go at picking his xv

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ru...am-team-big-three-Six-Nations-contenders.html