Hands up, in the midst of all our gloating at the English media's reaction to Sunday comprehensive win, we missed this wonderful little nugget. There has been a lot written about Ireland's victory over England in the last few days to the extent that some of that is bound to slip under the radar.
Set your indignation machine to stun once again because the Guardian's player ratings from the weekend have gotten us in a tizzy.
While the likes of Robbie Henshaw and Johnny Sexton are 'recognised' with ratings of 8, some of Ireland's other top performers weren't seen quite as favourably. And just to prove that weren't not being completely biased we should point out that the Times were a little more commending of the Irish effort.
We're not sure why the ratings appear to be so low, but here are the Irish players we thought should have been higher. (It must be said that the comments attributed to the Guardian are not the entire comment given, just the main gist)
Rob Kearney - 6
Nothing flash, but he made plenty of ground running back English kicks and committed precious few mistakes.
A minimum 7 surely. He did his job very effectively and as says above made plenty of ground. The Times gave him an 8.
Tommy Bowe - 5
Is not getting involved as much as he used to.
Not at his flying best but the discipline and team effort showed is being woefully overlooked.
Jared Payne - 5
Nothing much in the way of defining interventions.
Nonsense, too much to be expecting him to be O'Driscoll. His best performance in an Ireland jersey.
Conor Murray - 6
A lot of his kicking a little long too.
Billed as Jeremy Guscott's player of the week, which may have been a little hyperbolic, but is much closer to the truth than a standard rating of six. Murray's kicking was central to Ireland's gameplan, and recovering five of his seventeen kicks represents a more than adequate performance.
Mike Ross - 6
A solid afternoon’s work.
Pre-game England's scrum was touted as a huge point of strength, and Mike Ross would not be able to cope with Joe Marler after coming off worse against the loosehead prop when they met in the Champions Cup. That Ireland didn't lose a scrum until Ross came off, and even won penalties off them, speaks volumes for Ross' performance.
Devin Toner - 5
No real impression made in the loose.
Stealing lineouts, making big tackles and securing dodgy rucks apparently mean nothing in the coalface of the second row anymore. As an example of how much was missed with this rating, the Times agreed with our rating of an eight.
Jordi Murphy - 6
Good afternoon’s work, winning a couple of key turnovers and making dents in English defence.
Ireland were without Jamie Heaslip, and then Sean O'Brien, and neither were particularly missed thanks in a large part to Murphy's performance. Easily worth more than six.
Just as an aside, Billy Vunipola and Dan Cole were England's best performers (at seven) according to the Guardian with Burrell, Atwood, Kruis and Marler all each getting a six.
