Great post Andrew! You beat me to the punch wrt Leamy, I had said to several
people during the game that he was outstanding and should have been awarded
MOM. That Goode got that award says much about English rugby at the present
time...........well that's their problem and they're welcome to it, painful
days ahead for England.

Tomas summed it up best with his Cup Final analogy, and you couldn't help
but scream your lungs out for them and admire the character that was
displayed. But make no mistake gentlemen, while the English forwards stepped
thing up from their previous outings, their backline creativity was no
better from the Scot and Fra games. Once the ball had gone out to their
backs I felt no need to worry at all, they ignored overlaps, ran back to
their pack, took wrong options and individually had some howlers. Their
halfbacks and wingers would improve neither the Leinster nor Munster squads.

For those of you that didn't want Wallace on this team, shame on you. For
those of you who wanted JOC on the bench, shame on you too. I had four major
issues with this squad selection. MOK, Murphy, Easterby & JOC..............
All four almost cost us the game yesterday. MOK was dire, we were screaming
for him to be replaced prior to Borthwick's try, yet he had to be exposed in
such a manner before our "crown waving" leader grew some balls, the fact
that Eddie actually made a non-injury substitution in the 53rd minute shows
how appalling MOK was playing. Play 5 games in the 6N perform well in one,
coach is happy.

Murphy continues to rack up huge figures in the ball carrying stats, yet
compared to the likes of Leamy who did most of his carries from the
launching pad of a retreating scrum, Murphy's seldom if ever get within 10m
of the gainline. When he does join the line he seems very worried about
where the hit might come from and THAT is the main reason for some of his
woeful passes when seemingly under no pressure, his coach calls them
offloads yet there isn't a member of the opposition within six feet of
him????

Easterby, for all his honest toil does not have the skill level or
athleticism to play the type of game we appear to pursue. He looks adequate
when the opposition are looking for contact, he will tackle all
day......but so too will the much vaunted Scottish backrow. If there was a
case for punting Foley, then Easterby should have gone long before.

JOC demonstrated why he is so well thought of in the English Premiership,
he would have been totally at home playing for England, slowing ball
illegally, coming in from the side and giving the opposition penalty kicks.
A typical headsdown player, all balls and kamikaze and no bloody vision at
all. His selection on the bench made us look fragile, his introduction when
Leamy got injured just about finished us. If we are to have a prayer on our
summer tour we must get all 4 backrow players in the squad correct, from the
correct balance of the starting trio, to the boy on the bench.

We also need another 3 front row players and pretty quickly too, if we take
a hammering like that again we may be able to survive for 55-65 mins but
against a team that has a real backline too we must be able to bring on a
prop & Hooker. Get well soon Frankie................Learn fast Bryan!

Myles



----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Jagoe" <andrew.jagoe@...>
To: <irishrugby@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 5:48 AM
Subject: [irishrugby] End of another 6N


> Now after the Twickenham turf has been watered by copious champagne and
> the Alaister Campbell-style spinning is slowly subsiding we can take
> stock of the season. Most of the teams were woeful most of the time.
> Ireland struggled to put away Italy, bottled up Scotland but couldn't
> score any points, overwhelmed a Welsh rabble but underwhelmed most
> spectators and pulled off the biggest heist in England since Tonbridge.
> We are left with a propping situation which is only equalled by
> Australia, an inability to deal with restarts from either direction, an
> unbalanced back-row, a one-dimensional scrum-half and a back line that
> cannot align itself and wants to crab laterally towards the stands at
> all costs. If anything we have not progressed, our continued success is
> because everyone else has regressed.
>
> The memories of yesterday are of the disputed tries and the post-match
> celebrations. I will forgive Dickinson the touchline debacle, it was a
> difficult call and he owes irish teams something. Leamy (best Irish
> player on the pitch) controlled the ball far better than it appeared at
> first and BOD may have been ahead of the kicker but then so was Fritz I
> suspect for the winning French try. What was disturbing was that Horgan
> was given a head start on Moody but was caught easily before the line.
> Easterby's sending off confirmed my suspicion that the copious work he
> does that goes unnoticed by us also goes unnoticed by the majority of
> the opposition. The resulting sole score during this ten minute period,
> JOC's indiscretion was courtesy of Whitehouse's usual standard of
> referreeing "ball out - tackle situation" then "coming in from the
> side".
>
> The post-match celebrations were most memorable for the somewhat
> strange sight of EOS wresting the salver from the team and spending a
> protracted period waving it at the Irish supporters. It summed up what
> I thought this campaign had been all about - the cementing of his
> position and his personal vindication. Michael asked some time ago what
> constituted success for Ireland, personally winning the triple crown
> and defeating the English at Twickenham no longer do it for me. Yes, it
> makes my life more enjoyable as I go to work with my England supporting
> colleagues but as a concept it has more to do with life pre1990 than
> 2006. When the triple crown concept was born there were four teams and
> it meant a grandslam. It continued to have some meaning in the true
> amateur days when I started watching. What I would like is at least one
> championship and a semifinal spot at the World Cup and that will
> necessitate turning over one or more from France, England, SA,
> Australia and New Zealand. We are probably no closer that goal than we
> were when Gatland was in charge.
>
> When Tomas and I amongst others seem hypercritical it is not because we
> are curmudgeonly or intemperate, rather we fear that moderate success
> attained by underachievement from the most talented squad in twenty
> years and possibly fifty will be used, as previously, to paper over the
> cracks and replace our red, white and blue (interestingly not green)
> spectacles with a rosier hue. The performance of the A team is a major
> cause for hope if not those of the underage teams. So if we all
> celebrate now well and good but lets not engage in the Indo style of
> criticism where individual player scores have 3 added to them because
> we have pulled off a victory. A medium-sized fish in a big pond is
> better than small but how much better to be big and this squad with two
> to three additions have the ability to pull off consistent victories
> against the big five and make it the big six. By the way I quite liked
> the carved lump of coal that was produced by a welsh miner, it seemed
> to sum up the true nature of the amateur triple crown when you could
> have the crap beaten out of you by any one of a postman, missionary,
> solicitor, doctor, optician, accountant or clergyman of any hue.
>
> Andrew
>
>
>
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