Let's get the yellow card thing in perspective. DOC was involved in a
scuffle with White at a time when the English pack was bullying the Irish
pack. Yes he might have been carded but I think this was one of the good
decisions made by chitehouse who recognized that there was more than one
sinner. To yellow card would have been harsh, to red card would have been
ridiculous - but it could have happened. The first thing Thompson did when
he came on was try to disrupt the Irish scrum with illegal tactics. His
'Captain Pop-up' imitation would have had some here screaming for Hayes'
head if it had been he who was doing it. Flannery reacted to him and again
Whitehouse dealt with it properly. Ireland's pack performance in the scrums
and tight exchanges had become quite subdued; England was bullying them. DOC
and Flannery were instrumental in 'warning-off' England from that approach.
I agree that DOC needs to be careful but MOK had to come off. He was
shagged, out on his feet and becoming increasingly ineffective by that
time.Donal if you get the chance to re-watch the game watch the number of
errors he was making in the 2nd half, and look at how he made no effort on
the English try even though he was close enough to do something. He should
have gone sooner.
To be honest I am very surprised that MOD is not at least a replacement and
I think DOC has been selected for Ireland and for Munster on the same basis
as MOK for Ireland - reputation.My view says MOD on the field, DOC on the
bench.
Murphy and BOD have combined to give us several lost opportunities this
year, and were it not for reputation and some tremendous defensive work a
case could be made for dropping BOD to the bench. His leadership is
questionable and he should never have let Stringer take that tap penalty.
BOTH players need to re-examine that one.
The card on Easterby was utter nonsense
Wallace and Leamy were outstanding, so too POC, Flannery, Horgan. Above faux
pas apart Stringer was excellent also. ROG should have been subbed, even if
only to change the pattern for Ireland and taking off Trimble instead of
Murphy was highly questionable. Dempsey was immediately apparent as a better
option than Murphy when he came on. Humpty is past his sell-by date but if
he's good enough for the bench then he could and should be used. I wonder
what he and Reddan think after 400 and 395 minutes of bench time
respectively this season?
There are so many thing I want to say but I think Andrew and Myles have
covered most of it. Ireland will discover how good they are and what they
really need to work on when they go to the SH in June. Hopefully several of
the rising stars (Heaslip, Dowling, Jennings, et al) will be give some
chances there; my guess is that they will merely make up the numbers for
training sessions.
BTW Donal, while I agree with much of what you have said I see very little
evidence of transition. If dropping Corrigan, Byrne and Foley equates to
transition I'd say two of those were long overdue, their apparent
replacements (Horan and Sheahan I mean) already well embedded in the squad.
The third was simply a strange and premature choice which may work out to
have been a very good one. Flannery became the option for hooker because of
his performances for Munster. He and Trimble essentially replaced injured
incumbents (Sheahan would have been selected and so would Hickie, IMHO
again)
Richard






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