From Donny Mahoney
To: Gavin Grace, Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Ronan Murphy,
So as Gerry Thornley reminded us on Monday, four years ago, Ireland and Argentina met in Croker with surprisingly similar stakes. The result? A pretty definitive Ireland win that assured Ireland's World Cup group status with Oz and Italy. Four years later, pretty much everything has changed. I don't think I'm alone in sensing a tremendous foreboding around this fixture this time. The media seems to be fixated with a lack of 'confidence' in Ireland's performances over the last six months, and hammering Fiji won't have done much to improve that. It could be a squad shorn of its biggest leaders, it could be the waning influence of the increasingly lame duck Declan Kidney, but nearly two weeks out, it's still hard to come to grip with the rudderless second 40 minutes against the Springboks.
Beating Argentina will require a certain mentality, and I'm wondering if you think we possess that at the moment. Also where are the weaknesses in the Argentinian team that we can exploit?
From: Gavin Grace
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Ronan Murphy, Donny Mahoney
You know what nerds, this period in Irish rugby reminds me of when I first got into the game in the mid-1990s. Things aren't as desperate now, but as was the case then we seem to be facing into an era when key players are passed their best and are nearing, or have arrived at the end of the road while the youngsters aren't quite ready to take up the baton. I've no doubt that we'll compete well at the 2015 World Cup, and we've talent lined up for beyond that, but right now we are in a fallow period.
The difference from when King Eric was a soon-to-be-replaced out-half to now, when he is a soon-to-leave-us-but-with-no-hard-feelings head coach is the provincial system. Even our youngsters, like Gilroy and Jackson and O'Brien and McFadden and Ryan and O'Mahony have won big games in the Heineken Cup. They have proven match temperament - we just haven't seen it while they all wear green. So do we have the mentality needed to win a do-or-die match with the Argies? Absolutely. I'd just like to see it for once.
From: Ronan Murphy
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
I do agree that most, if not all, of the Irish team that will take the field on Saturday have experienced wins in important HCup games and have the mental fortitude to see out a tight, competitive game. Indeed within the last 12 months we've had Ulster in Thomond, Munster's double over Northampton, Connacht beating Harlequins and of course Leinster retaining that title. My worry would be that those wins featured many of the leaders that this team is shorn of now, for one reason or another; Leinster had O'Driscoll, Munster had O'Connell and O'Gara, Ulster had Best and Ferris (and Muller). It's incredibly bad luck to lose those calibre of player and their leadership all at once and it didn't tell in the effort or skill on show against the South Africa, but when they fell behind they didn't seem to know how to get themselves back into the game. We've had these totems to turn to at provincial and national level and they simple weren't there two weeks ago.
I don't doubt that the players have the mental strength to get through a do-or-die clash but there is a sense that this group hasn't done it yet on their own, hasn't owned a big win. The current Irish set-up has plenty of other problems and issues, but a win on Saturday could really give the younger players something to grab onto and build on.
From: Paddy Logan
To: Andy McGeady, Ronan Murphy, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
I agree with Ronan but, whilst I admit it is far from ideal for an important showdown with our perennial bogey team, it is an opportunity for Ireland's 'middle management' to step up. Ireland have played at the intensity we would wish to see twice in the last 2 years: against England in the 2010 6N and in the magnificent defeat of the Wallabies in Auckland last October. Of the likely starting XV, Healy, Ross, Heaslip, Sexton, D'Arcy Earls and Bowe started in both, whilst Trimble started against England. He was joined on the bench for the Australia match by O"Gara and Cronin and Ryan, whilst O'Callaghan started in both. So there is no shortage of experienced players who know how to do the business. We know that Heaslip and Sexton are quality leaders at provincial level, I see know reason why they can't replicate that for Ireland.
Argentina, whilst probably not as talented as the class of 2007, are probably better organised than they've ever been. Their pack is strong, but not monstrous like the Bokkes or the French. So size should not be the issue it was the weekend before last. But their maul is a real weapon so let's hope Ireland have been working on how to disrupt it and do a better job that they did at the start of the second half against South Africa. What is required is accuracy and intensity - something of which this Ireland team is more than capable. McCarthy was outstanding against South Africa, as he has been all season and I am really looking forward to watching him again. Healy's extraordinarily robust performance against South Africa must have put him in pole position for the Lions and POM can run through brick walls whilst turning water into wine (according to the FRM press release in the Indo Tuesday morning). We should be able to match the Pumas pack which will give our backs another chance to prove that Les Kiss can do it as an attack coach.
As for accuracy, Leinster have been doing it for fun for some time - if not quite so much this season: who can forget the epic victory over Clermont in the pool stages the season before last? Having had another fortnight to gel, one would hope that there will be fewer errors and that Zebo can hit the line as effectively as he did to set up Gilroy's second try against Fiji.
Talking of Gilroy, I would love to see the introduction of at least one of the tyros from last Saturday. Henderson and Gilroy really put their hands up. Henderson could really add some go forward as he seems to have the ability to ride the hit and make extra yards through judicious use of his surprisingly nimble feet. He is also this Irish squad's heftiest forward and that bulk could be invaluable. I'd love to see him start. Gilroy has many qualities, not least his star quality. Everyone loves to watch him because he is such an exciting runner and he really gets the crowd going. A team with Zebo, Bowe and Gilroy in the back three would be fantastic to watch.
Enough withering - there is plenty of evidence that this Ireland team is capable of an outstanding performance, the question is 'will they do it this Saturday'? This has the feel of another backs to the wall moment such as preceded our last two notable performances, so we could see a reprise. Let's hope so.
From: Andy McGeady
To: Paddy Logan, Ronan Murphy, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
In order to stir the pot a bit I'm going on a slightly different tack here.
Since August of 2011, Argentina has played 15 test matches against sides from either the Six Nations or the Rugby Championship. In the same time period, Ireland has played 16 such games.
Argentina's record: Won 4, Lost 10, Drawn 1
Ireland's record: Won 4, Lost 11, Drawn 1
Fairly even, you'll agree.
Let's have a look at how both teams have done in that time when playing away from their home crowd…
When playing away from Argentina, Los Pumas have scored an average of 14 points per game while conceding 23.
When playing away from Ireland, Kidney's men have scored an average of 13 points per game while conceding 23.
Fairly even. Startlingly so, in fact.
But that second stat overlooks the home advantage that Ireland will enjoy on Saturday. Ireland at home have a much happier points differential, scoring an average of 23 points per games to the opposition's 18. However, one must recognise that in this time Ireland's only two home wins have come against Scotland and Italy, the weakest of the Six Nations herd.
So what about games against teams in the top 8 of the world right now? To be clear, that's…
- New Zealand
- South Africa
- Australia
- France
- England
- ARGENTINA
- IRELAND
- Wales
Um… it's still fairly even. And considering the players without whom Ireland must line up this weekend, that's not good.
Ireland have played 12 such test matches to Argentina's 13.
Ireland have averaged 13 points scored to 25 against while Argentina have scored 15 while conceding 28.
But if you look at both teams' records away from their home grounds things switch around: Argentina have a 14-15 average scoreline to Ireland's 12-27.
That's really not a good sign.
Let's look at that home advantage again… in that time Ireland playing at home against top eight opposition have averaged 16-21. Not great, but better than the average of 14-25 that Argentina have offered since August 2011.
A little better.
Until you remember that those games were played by Irish teams with a quorum of Brian O'Driscoll, Paul O'Connell, Rory Best, Stephen Ferris, Sean O'Brien and Rob Kearney all reporting for duty.
What does all this mean? Well in one sense it's just a load of numbers. But. If these teams were both at full strength you'd give a three point edge to Ireland for home advantage and probably another point or two to take into account an O'Driscoll moment.
From: Paddy Logan
To: Andy McGeady, Ronan Murphy, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
Andy,
Great stats - I'm feeling totally out-nerded which I'm not sure is a good thing or a bad thing. The Irish record makes grim reading. It really is easy to forget how poorly they have performed amidst the euphoria of provincial success.
I wouldn't be quite quite as downbeat as you. Whilst there is no denying the Waikato debacle, it's an outlier in statistical terms and if it were removed, things would be more even, albeit still in favour of the Pumas by 4-5 points.
There's no doubt that at this juncture, the Argentinians are making better use of their talent than the Irish. I don't subscribe to the notion that Ireland doesn't have the players and should just accept that we are going to have to endure a return to '90s style results. There's plenty of talent as evidenced by the performances of the provinces, they just need to get it together in green (or black!!). Will they do it on Saturday? I hope so. If they don't, Kidney will, rightly, be under immense pressure to produce the goods in the spricng.
From: Ronan Murphy
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
I think Andy is staging a Nerd coup with those stats :-)
It does illustrate perfectly how evenly matched we are with the Argentines, along with the see-sawing of the results over the years. I think that evenness and the relative infrequency of the fixture has built up the rivalry and then throw in the significance of many of the games between Ireland and Argentina in the professional era (1999, 2003, 2007 World Cups. 2008 and now for rankings). Both countries always feel they should be winning these games.
Ireland need to concentrate on the start they made against South Africa. Our front five laid a decent foundation and we were pretty good value for the 9 point lead at half time. The disappointing thing was the inability to score during the 10min sin-binning and that's where the players mentality fell down a bit; not being able to ram home the advantage when they had it. Murray and Sexton kicked away some ball needlessly in what looked like pre-planned moves, rather than playing what was in front of them, a team short a man. Compare that to the way the Springboks cranked up the pressure on us.
Argentina won't be as hard a nut to crack as the Boks and with the indications that Gilroy is going to start on the wing, hopefully we'll see even more zip and freedom from the back three.
From: Gavin Grace
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Ronan Murphy, Donny Mahoney
But will we see that zip Ronan? We didn't see it two weeks ago when the lads who will play on Saturday lined out against South Africa. We made a great start that day on the scoreboard but not, I feel, in terms of performance. If the Boks were disciplined I don't think Ireland ever gain a foothold in that game - its not like we squandered many try chances.
We all agree, I'm sure, that an Ireland team which utilises our back three is what we want to see--- because there's talent out there. But a few flashes aside we haven't seen that for over a year. My question is why not, and what do we do Saturday to change that?
Well?
From: Ronan Murphy
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
Well that goes back to the question of mentality-does this team have the will to express itself? You would hope that young backs like Zebo and Gilroy will just go out and play the way we know they can.
I think you're being a little harsh on the Irish first half performance. The South African's conceded 11 penalties in the first 40, and some of that was poor discipline, but it was also due to Irish pressure. You don't get that many kickable chances by luck alone. If the forwards lay a similar platform against Argentina there's reason to be optimistic. After that it's up to the backs and we'll all be hoping to see something like the off-the-cuff stuff we saw in the first half in Paris in the Spring rather than the overly structured plays they've tended to revert to.
From: Paddy Logan
To: Andy McGeady, Ronan Murphy, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
Having endured an hour in conditions that a sardine would complain about, I was eventually able to re-watch the Wales Argentina game on the train home yesterday evening. My take on it now is that, whilst Argentina were well organised and scored two nice tries, Wales were poor and Argentina did not look that threatening for large parts of the game.
The Pumas seemed well organised and mauled effectively. Their tackling was exemplary and they dealt with North, Cuthbert and Roberts pretty well by going low. Particularly impressive was their ability to off-load in the tackle as demonstrated by Leguizamon's delightful slip to the excellent Lobbe who put Imhoff away for their first try. His finish was classy albeit abetted by some pretty ordinary defending by Lions 15 elect, Leigh Halfpenny. Their back division will be strengthened by the return of Hernandez although it seems likely that he will again start at full-back to accommodate the impressive Bordeaux fly-half, Sanchez whose ability to drop goals at will poses a real threat.
In the debit column, the Argentinian scrum was just shaded by the Welsh, who Samoa showed to be pretty ordinary. Much of their back play was lateral and easily repulsed. In defence, they employed the drift. Wales created a number of 2 man overlaps (numbers, numbers!! in slightly whiney Welsh accent) but just shipped the ball aimlessly without straightening to draw the defender. In defence, they committed the minimum number to the ruck, rarely more than 2. So how do I think Ireland should approach it?
First, we need our ball carriers to generate quicker ball than they managed against South Africa, which will be tough given the form of Lobbe and Leguizamon. Regrettably, I fear Henderson won't start, which is a shame because, in the absence of SOB and Super Stevie, he's the best at generating go forward ball. Heaslip will need a big game, as will Healy (yet again - what a player), Strauss and McCarthy. I'd like to see the backs run straighter - if they get too lateral or just ship the ball wide without committing the Argentine midfield, their drift defence will deal with us comfortably.
I understand that this is trite, egg-sucking advice for granny, but if you study the All Blacks, it's what they do. They are aggressive and efficient in the ruck generating quick ball and then their backs do pretty much what we were all taught at school - run hard at the defender's inside shoulder, commit them then give the pass. It's just that the New Zealanders do it better than anyone else. Last Saturday, the Irish backs ran some pretty nice lines, with Gilroy's first and second tries being pretty much text book. Admittedly the Fijian defence as woeful, but at least the patterns were good.
All in all, having re-visited the Argentine performance against Wales, I am more confident that Ireland can, and should, win. If Thorinho is right, and he usually is, then we are going to field a really exciting back 3 in Bowe, Gilroy and Zebo, and it would be fantastic to see them being put into a little space. We can but dream!
From: Ronan Murphy
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Gavin Grace, Donny Mahoney
I would have had similar impressions of the Wales/Argentina game on first viewing so its interesting to see your observations on re-watching it, Paddy.
Wales really were bad. They looked like a team that thought they just needed to turn up to win the game. In the space of few minutes both North and Cuthbert were tackled into touch. The Welsh gameplan was just to shovel it wide and watch their big men romp home. When that didn't work they looked short of ideas. As you say, the overpraised Halfpenny was shown up defensively again (I wonder would he be quite so lauded if Wales played a flyhalf who could kick goals or if Rob Kearney was fit).
The Argentinians most successful attacking weapon has been a really good offloading game with excellent supporting runners (Graham Henry's influence) and that's how they've been generating tries. Other than that I agree that they looked pretty lateral and didn't really threaten Wales. They scored a similar try against France. Having seen brief highlights of their game with France, it was interesting to see France (especially Clerc) find acres of space in behind the Argentina defence. A bit of variation in the Irish game and a dangerous back three should keep their defence honest.
Having just seen the team, I'm delighted that Craig Gilroy is getting his first cap.
From: Gavin Grace
To: Andy McGeady, Paddy Logan, Ronan Murphy, Donny Mahoney
The team in full:
15 - Simon Zebo (Cork Constitution/Munster/2)
14 - Tommy Bowe (Belfast Harlequins/Ulster/50)
13 - Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster/33)
12 - Gordon D'Arcy (Lansdowne/Leinster/70)
11 - Craig Gilroy (Dungannon/Ulster)*
10 - Jonathan Sexton (St.Mary's College/Leinster/33)
9 - Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster/13)
1 - Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster/34)
2 - Richardt Strauss (Old Wesley/Leinster/1)
3 - Mike Ross (Clontarf/Leinster/23)
4 - Donnacha Ryan (Shannon/Munster/22)
5 - Mike McCarthy (Buccaneers/Connacht/5)
6 - Peter O'Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster/8)
7 - Chris Henry (Malone/Ulster/3)
8 - Jamie Heaslip (Naas/Leinster/51) Captain
Replacements:
16 - Sean Cronin (St. Mary's College/Leinster/22)
17 - David Kilcoyne (UL Bohemians/Munster/1)
18 - Michael Bent (Leinster/1)
19 - Donncha O'Callaghan (Cork Constitution/Munster/89)
20 - Iain Henderson (Queens University/Ulster/1)
21 - Eoin Reddan (Lansdowne/Leinster/46)
22 - Ronan O'Gara (Cork Constitution/Munster/125)
23 - Fergus McFadden (Old Belvedere/Leinster/15)
Tried, trusted.... too cautious?
