Ireland vs France…. what can we learn

Both teams underperformed significantly last week. Ireland took the lead early, but for much of the game Wales were the more penetrative team, right up to the late yellow card. France likewise were up early and allowed Italy to get back in the game. Two disappointing performances from teams spoken of as WC winners.

As far as Ireland is concerned, their lack of real penetration off good ball has to be a concern. Likewise Wales’ ability to open up their defense. It was a low powered effort from Ireland, even though there were no obvious weaknesses.

France was pretty disappointing in the scrums where the half a man lighter Italian pack looked the stronger Unit. It’s hard to assess the non tight phase aspects, because Italy gave France so many handling gifts….but there was little evidence of the vaunted French ball handling. They looked flat, much as they had looked against the Boks.

So are either of these sides WC winners. Is it likely Ireland will beat the Boks in Paris. Not on last week’s showing. The French should make hay out of the box kick game plan Ireland seems to favor these days. If they can’t Ireland’s better discipline may prevail, but the real question is whether both these sides are the real deal.

Both Ireland and France have peaked to soon.

It's too early to say. The Boks have struggled to keep their heads above water the past two seasons, so opponents don't have to play well. They just have to weather the hail of penalties and defend assertively, not passively. The Boks like to run at passive defences, and can eek out a win if the opposition don't take their chances and buckle under the penalties. I still say, there isn't one great test side today. There hasn't been for a while. With England and New Zealand deteriorating since 2018, test rugby is looking in bad shape. The best team today would probably rank 5th ten years ago, maybe worse. 

The Boks bumbled against France. Very inaccurate. Against Ireland, they were not the better team. Not good advertisement for the game at top level. 

Wrong take Dave….we never lost because of reffing. We lost because we never had enough intensity out there. And the take away is not simply we can beat them….it’s how did we manage to lose to these two ordinary teams. Ireland was no better against the Boks vs against Wales and Wales looked more penetrative.

We need to improve a lot to get to the semis and Harrassmiss’ pursuing of his own hobby horses is a major distraction. 

Both teams were ahead of a tough game: facing each other.

IR was efficient in saving themselves as much as possible, a critical key point considering IR's main weakness is the lack of redundancy in squads.

The game was concluded quite fast and the rest was managed, considered the lead they had, and considering that humiliating (further) WA was pointless, it gave the end of the game.

FR's case was concerning as they went in with the same intents and got entangled in a battle, partly as they failed to read the ref's decisions and take them into account.

Rugby as a sport struggles to provide competition. The 6Ns is by far the best competition from a non calculating perspective.

That being stated, calculation happened. It is pointless to expect teams to play their heart out in any game they had better not to.

The main lesson to be drawn: IR is highly efficient in making easy encounters easy, FR not so much.

France was a mindset thing with Italy, they expected to win just by turning up.

For once Italy looked almost like a proper rugby team. Yes they couldn't handle Frances restarts to save their lives but they defended properly and didn't concede multiple tries from simple missed tackles like they normally do and they where probably thinking after that games "holy shit rugby is so much easier if they we don't give away a mountain of penalties.

France where not expecting Italy to be as strong as they where and will be much better next weekend and for sure their discipline will be way better. France always seem to have at least one off game in the 6 Nations.

Ireland v Wales its hard to read into Wales stronger second half. Really felt like Ireland had the game won after 30 minutes and just went through the motions for the rest of the game. Its bit like when New Zealand beat Ireland in the first test last summer, Ireland started strong, then got floored in a 15 minutes peroid before half time and where the better team in the second half, and I think that was more down to New Zealand taking the foot of the throat when they knew they had the game won, ditto with Ireland against Wales.

I'd make Ireland slight favorites against France simply down to the fact they are at home.

As for overall form and world cup potential, I'd be weary of reading into things too much after 1 game of the 6 nations.

I don't think there is a clear best team between the top 4 ranked teams.  They are all good sides, do they compare with the all time best sides, probably not but that's what we've got at the moment.

‘France always seem to have one off game in the 6 Nations’….therein  lies the problem. In a WC you typically have to play 5 good matches, with the other 2 against minnows.

Well South Africa proved in 2019 you can get away with 4 good matches and win.

True, but that usually makes 3 of the 5 harder. In our case it didn’t because incredibly Ireland lost to Japan. Which effectively gave us 3 hard matches one of which we lost.

Wales was harder than it ought to be, with the obstacles. The one good performance was against England. Not as physucally dominant as the 2018 EOYT, but we stalled their game, though there were some fine margins. They key was not to get behind on the scoreboard. This time we have Ireland, Scotland in our group, and will face New Zealand or France straight out of the group. Tonga are in our group, and are physical enough to cause injuries as well as be a bit of a handful. It's going to be a much harder route this time. 

NZ are shockingly bad at the moment.

Hansen stayed to long and had gone stale before the 2019 world cup.

And quite frankly Foster has just completely screwed with AB Rugby.

Now he is frustrated with the coaching process - For fuck sake - The whole of NZ is frustrated with his bullshit.

It is a bad situation in NZ concerning Foster and the useless Union.

The NZ rugby public have had it with both of them.

We cannot wait for Razor to get the job as NZ rugby requires a complete cleanout and reboot.

And if he does get the job - All Black rugby will move up several levels .............   

A younger coach would energize NZ rugby….I think ideally the coach should be in their forties.