Ireland for you Moz

2012 6N Ireland

15 - Rob Kearney
14 - Tommy Bowe
13 - Brian O'Driscoll
12 - Gordon D'Arcy
11 - Andrew Trimble
10 - Jonathan Sexton
9 - Conor Murray
1 - Cian Healy
2 - Rory Best
3 - Mike Ross
4 - Donncha O'Callaghan
5 - Paul O'Connell
6 - Stephen Ferris
7 - Sean O'Brien
8 - Jamie Heaslip

 Ireland vs Baabaas - spot the difference

15. Keith Earls 14. Craig Gilroy 13. Darren Cave 12. Paddy Wallace 11. Simon Zebo 10. Ronan O'Gara 9. Conor Murray 1. Brett Wilkinson 2. Mike Sherry 3. Declan Fitzpatrick 4. Dan Tuohy 5. Donnacha Ryan 6. John Muldoon 7. Chris Henry 8. Peter O'Mahony

Just concede Moffie, do us a favour dont embarrass yourself any further please - even I am starting to feel for you

Unfortunately it seems the Irish coach never saw this as a match to lose, I quote:

'But Kidney had still expected to come out on top in the non-cap match.

"We are disappointed," said Kidney.

"The Barbarians were a lot better than they were on Sunday against England.

"They were well focused, it was a tough game  but we only went down to a penalty three minutes from the end. '

Not much mention of the Baabaas being a disgrace. when the coach agrees I guess it pretty much ends the debate. GS&M.

The reality is that Ireland would not have been much stronger were those missing players brought in. Even the mighty O'Driscoll has become something of a liability with his penchant for shooting out the line and being exploited an untalked about common weakness. Ireland are in sharp decline, the result was never going to be that far-fetched.

Of course week in, week out Sapp argues for throwing out the old Boks. But when Ireland do that, they apparently become so bad that losing to a Baabaas team, which is a "disgrace", is to be expected.

The fact of course is Ireland were following the Sapp prescription  in the absence of the Leinster players. They got whacked by a Baabaas team of oldies.

The point Moz is that Ireland for a start dont have nearly the depth of talent we do and that Irish second side was pretty damn average losing to a piss poor Baabaas side. My point is and always has been the fact that this Baabaas side was an insult to the Baabaas sides of the past.

Long gone are the days the Baabaas were a respectable side that were worthy opposition to test sides. Their results over the past 2 years is evidence of this. They are a waste of time and if they cant select a bunch of current international players to represent the Baabaas then they should just scrap the whole exercise. Do it properly or dont do it at all

Irelands biggest downfall is their inadequate loosies.

Sorry to say...

Heaslip is one of the best 8's in the game and Ferris is a hard nut

irish loose forwards are world class, its actually an area of strength for them. losing ferris who is one of my favourite players is a massive loss for ireland. he was prob the one player that ireland least wanted to lose.

its their tight 5 in particular the front row where there are big question marks and the All Blacks will seek ascendancy over the irish in that department.

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I have to say that I did breathe a small sigh of relief after watching that Irish performance. Thats not to say that I dont still see the Irish as a genuine threat because I really do have serious misgivings about the current crop of prospective All Blacks and their ability to cope with the pressure of having to maintain NZ's unblemished record against an intensely motivated Irish team. The Irish need only win 1 triffling, solitary match and they'll return home National Heros having attained the zenith, the apogee, the pinnacle of Irelands rugby aspirations. The result would be forever memorialised in permanent statues, civic plaques and theatrical plays. If anyone thinks I'm exaggerating how jubilantly an Irish win over the ABs would be received, just take a trip through Munster some day. The club sides win over the ABs in 1978 is still regarded as its greatest accomplishment, so much so that a 30th anniversary game between the AB's and Munster was played in 2008.

Its also well known that the Paddys have  shown (with unnerving regularity) an uncanny ability to produce the goods in spite of overwhelming odds against them. Do I really need to remind our SA'n bloggers of Irelands penchant for SANZAR scalps or has the collective amnesia of SA's plutzing fanboys conveniently repressed the Boks lonely win from the last 4 games against the tenacious leprechauns

 Moreover, whilst some of Ausfailures bitter and "one-eyed" supporters might like to blame Bryce Lawrence for the Wobblies RWC loss to the irksome Irish, impartial "stereoscopic" scrutiny of the match footage clearly shows how cleverly the Irish dominated the Wobbly forwards at the set pieces in addition to successfully tying up Wobbly runners in the maul ,forcing innumerable turn overs and claiming possession for themselves.  The arrogant expectations of the entire Wobbly squad was best illustrated by Qualudes no look pass whilst the Wobblies were hot on attack and mere metres from the Irish line.  That one pass summed up the whole Wobbly ethos, their self entitled and arrogant philosophy where they had convinced themselves that they could beat the hard working, toiling Irish with some flash in the pan, smoke and mirror theatrics. Hehehe!

Anyways, the point I want to make is that the Irish are not to be underestimated regrdless of how poorly they may have played in the matches leading up to their NZ tour. Unlike the Aussies and Saffas, the Irish will find a lot of support for their team here in NZ (I went to the Kingslander after the Irish beat the Wobblies and had a few drinks with some of the Irish supporters. There were heaps of them). They are a hard working, honest, no nonsense  team with a tough work ethic. They wont leave anything on the field when they play the ABs. None of their players will shirk their duties and everyone of them will be trying to piece together at least 1, just 1, only 1 match winning performance against the All Black juggernaut. 

I think this years Irish team could rewrite the History books and clinch a long awaited victory over the "World Champion"  All Blacks. I dont think they'll win the series but they dont need to. In many respects, I think the ABs unblemished record is a noose around the players necks. I hate to say it but the sooner they get that monkey off their back,  and lose a game,  the sooner they can move on, unfettered by the chains of historical expectations.

Some perspective Nuke.

2004: Ireland won via a try directly from the actions of an idiot ref. He told Smit to talk to his players and pointed towards them. Smit called them round and whilst their backs were turned told O'Gara to carry on. Didn't even blow his whistle. To Bakkies credit he nearly brought him down but it was an impossible position to contend with.

2006: Jake rested the vast majority of his big name players for this game. That lineup consisted of 15.Fortuin, 14.Jaco Pretorius, 13.Habana, 12.Jean, 11.Frans, 10.Pretorius, 09.Januarie, 8.Spies, 7.Smith, 6.Rossouw, 5.Albert, 4.Ackerman, 3.CJ, 2.Smit, 1.Sephaka. Only five first choice players in the match 22.

2009: Peter the idiot blew this match by over playing his first choice players and for very, very bad bench usage. Our lineout was attacked by the genius of Gert yet our scrum was monstering the Irish. It not only kept us in the game, it allowed us to wear the Irish gradually down. Until Peter brought on Bismarck. Our scrum collapsed and so with the game. A vital tactical error, and unfortunately a common trend for him.

2010: Bok physically maul the Irish until Lambie comes into the fray. Almost blows the game.

There, that's the reality. Irish still not what you want to make them out to be. Australia have had a very poor away record throughout the 00s so that's puts into perspective their results against Ireland. Not so much Irish quality as the Aussies being poor travellers up North.
 

@nukefreekiwi,

i dont agree about the irish even winning one test. i admit that theirs a chance as nothing is set in stone, but there are many factors that count against the irish.
the irish are battle hardened from the 6nats, their players have confidence following success at club level and the barbarians game let kidney polish a few rough edges and test sharpen the rugby mind a bit.
mean while the TriNat teams have had the shortest turnaround between sprugby and their first test of the season in the last 3 years, this is a tremndous advantage to the irish, but NZ have got a few things rolling for them like,,,

the first test being in eden park, a place where the All Blacks are undefeated in the professionla era, add this to the psychological advatage that we have with our undefeated streak against ireland and this is one mental obstacle too many for the boys in green to handle.

losing ferris and oconner is a massive loss, especially ferris. IMO ferris was the one player who ireland least wanted to lose.
their frontrow also has big questionmarks, especiallywith the injury cloud that healy is under. wondering why tom cort wasnt picked? he would have done a great job of replacing him should the need arise. but the irish have no one of note to replace healy if he doesnt make it, and that added to ferris and oconnel exclusions, is the straw to break the irish camels back.

the first test will be close, but hansen is relying on veterans and banking on their experience to get us through. the next two tests will be a lot more comfortable as the ABs start to gel more in training and with onfield combos having the international cobwebs hopefully cleared.