Balls.ie Rugby Nerds Panel: Making Sense Of The Loss To The Springboks

Leinster fan Andy McGeady

Good

• The first half. Playing against a South African team using more than a few softening up tactics against certain members of the Irish team, Ireland kept their heads admirably and took the points when they were offered.
• Mike McCarthy. The Connacht man demonstrated power, athleticism and aggression and comfortably outshone the much-hyped Eben Etzebeth.
• Simon Zebo.  Never looked entirely comfortable in his positioning leading to him hitting the line far too deep on occasion. However, it's one cap out of position for a player who's still at the start of his international career. So while Rob Kearney won't have felt intimidated by Zebo's performance the Munsterman didn't rule himself out of future starts in the position.
• Conor Murray wasn't awful. His kicking continued to be ill-judged and he simply must be trained to remove his step before releasing the pass, at least on occasion. However, his play on Saturday demonstrated a level of general urgency that had been missing for some time. Reddan or Marshall would still have been better options for a team selected to play a quick game, but Murray didn't let himself down.

Bad

• Second half leadership. After the Springboks had come out firing in the second half, Ireland looked distinctly rattled. The final fifteen minutes of the game badly needed somebody to give the Irish team a sense of calmness and direction but that did not happen. Instead when Ireland got their hands on the ball there was phase after futile phase without any real danger of breaching the green line in front of them. This played into the South Africans' hands, who patiently soaked up pressure and committed minimal men to the breakdown until they saw an Irish player stray too far away from his support then pouncing upon him with immediate and wonderful aggression. Jamie Heaslip took the yellow card for an Irish maul that was being frogmarched towards its own line; that ten minutes off the field should have given him the opportunity to see what was going on from afar and try to fix it. The captain's armband for a team without O'Driscoll, Best or O'Connell is still definitely up for grabs.
• Andrew Trimble. Big and strong he may be but there is a lack of soundness in Trimble's overall game that can be exposed against strong opposition. It was so on Saturday. Trimble's efforts under any sort of kick are becoming difficult to watch.
• Ronan O'Gara. Kicking the ball away in that manner when the clock was dead… If that had been Paddy Jackson, Ian Madigan or Ian Keatley the offending player would have been immediately slated as a cocky young buck who should be given a bollocking afterwards by the senior squad members for doing something so monumentally ill-judged.

Munster fan Ronan Murphy

The Good

• The selection. Declan Kidney had a few difficult decisions to make and they all worked well for Ireland. The second rows were immense (especially Mike McCarthy), Conor Murray's service was quick, Keith Earls was Ireland's most potent attacker and Simon Zebo barely put a foot wrong at 15.
• The scrum.  Ireland's scrum more than held its own until Mike Ross began to tire. Reservations about Michael Bents elevation to test player will persist but when he introduced himself to new teammate Heinke van der Merwe by shunting him backwards, he earned himself some affection in Lansdowne.
• The new faces. Five of the starting 15 had less than 10 caps and four players earned their first Irish cap. All of them stood up to the most physically demanding team in world rugby.

The Bad

• The lineout: It was always going to be a challenge with a new hooker and new lock combination, all of whom play for different provinces. And so it proved, with Ireland losing three on their own throw and finding it difficult to get clean ball.
• Protecting the lead: Ireland have let leads slip in several important games in 2012. Against Wales, France, New Zealand and now South Africa, Ireland have put themselves into wining positions (or drawing positions anyway) only to let them slip away. Saturday was the clinched game of two halves. Ireland won the first half 12-3 and lost the second 13-0.
• The attack: Ireland are desperately missing an attack coach. The shuffling of the coaching pack for the month was a half measure and failed to seriously address the problem. With a few minutes remaining, Ireland executed a set play with a couple of skip passes designed to get Simon Zebo into space. Zebo got around the corner beyond his marker but in the tackle and the effort to free his hands to pass, he knocked on. Then, Ireland ran the same play again...TWICE. South Africa read it and Ireland got nowhere. We have the players, they are being ill-served.

• ,Saturday's match is the sort of game that young, inexperienced sides lose. When picking my ideal starting XV last week; I spoke of what I felt was a need for Kidney to keep the faith with as many of his experienced leaders as possible, but ultimately that wasn't possible due to the injuries. While not making excuses, this was the difference. When chasing the game in the last twenty minutes, you never felt that you were looking at a side who believed they would win - the effort was there, no doubt, but not the confidence often seen when our provinces have needed Heineken Cup wins in recent years. This was also seen during the game's two yellow cards - clinical South Africa scored ten points when Ireland were down to 14 men, whereas we never had that same cutting edge after Pieterson was off the park for the Springboks. You'd expect this to improve for Ireland over time, but probably not for our next serious outing against the Pumas, making today's news about Paul O'Connell all the more worrying.
•  Making O'Connell's absence somewhat tolerable however, was the brilliant performance of Mike McCarthy. I said last week that I'd have started Donncha O'Callaghan - for his leadership skills, by the way - but boy was I wrong. Being parochial, it was a very proud day to be a Connacht fan and hopefully his man of the match performance will spark a change in attitude towards ourselves among the Irish management. In late September, Connacht beat Leinster 34-6 in the Sportsground and while McCarthy was the only Western-based player to line out at the Aviva, five of the Blues who played some part that night won a cap on Saturday. It's a one-off example, and an extreme one admittedly, but hopefully more of our lads will get their deserved look-in going forward.
•  With Ireland now facing into a must-win game with Argentina, who were clinical against the Welsh in Cardiff, this weekend's effective off-week is just what we need. Fiji at Thomond Park will allow for experimentation, in tactics and in personnel, and hopefully that's something we will see. It also provides the more-important opportunity for work on the training ground to draw up a Pumas-specific game plan. With the Pool stage draw coming up in a few weeks, it's a plan which may save Ireland's World Cup so let's hope the right decisions are made away from the public's glare in the next ten days.

The Good

• There’s a lot of ashes and sackcloth being worn on the internet comment boards, but in reality this was a solid performance from a seriously disrupted Ireland side. No team could hope to be unaffected by the loss of their greatest ever player, greatest ever forward, most-capped hooker and the last two European players of the year, not to mention Stephen Ferris! I know South Africa were far from full strength, but whatever Heynecke Meyer says, any team that can bring on Heinke van der Merwe as their 3rd choice loosehead is not short on depth. There were some very encouraging individual performances, most notably Zebo, McCarthy, Strauss, Healy, Henry and POM.
• Simon Zebo. Although we didn’t see him rising salmon-like to pluck garryowens from the heavens, his positional play was sound, his catching was safe and his long-distance kicking would have had Bill McClaren in raptures. He also linked well with Tommy Bowe in attack, running some very nice lines. It pains me to say it as a fully paid-up member of the Andrew Trimble fan club, but when Bob’s back recovers, he will probably have to make way for the Cork flyer.
• Michael Bent. From his short cameo, it seems that he can really play. He looked technically very sound and strong in the scrum, shoring it up after Mike Ross had been monstered by his Leinster colleague twice in a row. He also carried well. I look forward to seeing more of him against the Fijians next week.
• Mike McCarthy. He was simply immense. Against possibly the most abrasive front five in world rugby, he didn’t give an inch. In fact, he routinely punched holes in the Springbok defence and tackled heroically. One tackle on Eben Etzebeth in particular was monstrous and merits a repeat viewing. Although the man-of-the-match should really have gone to Pienaar, McCarthy was certainly our best player, which if you read my team selection last week, you will know came as no surprise to me.

The Bad

• The attack. No tries, indeed not even a sniff of one, tells its own story. Given the quality of the players at their disposal, this is a shocking return for Kidney and Kiss. It seemed to me that, compared to the peerless All Blacks, our running was too lateral and we were often looking to go outside defenders, with no one straightening the line to check the Boks’ drift defence. It’s fortuitous that they have an opportunity to work on their patterns at Thomond Park next weekend, because they will have to be much better against the Pumas who comfortably repelled the much-vaunted Welsh attack (lots of early Lions selections looking a little silly now). Against the Fijians, I’d like Sexton to play with Reddan or Marshall to see what happens when he gets a swift service.
• Keith Earls. Sorry to my Munster friends, but despite making good ground in heavy traffic and defending securely, Earls still doesn’t look like a 13. Distribution is vital in this key position if he is to put his back three into space and it just didn’t happen. For evidence, look no further than the shocking pass to no one when there was a two on one and compare it with the handling of the All-Blacks forwards and you’ll see what I mean. He’d probably still be in my starting XV, but on the wing, although I admit that would make it hard to accommodate Zebo, unless Bowe moves to outside centre.
• Kidney's tactics. Pleasingly, Ireland didn’t mess around in their own 22 and kicked very well out of defence. However, some of the kicking when we were further up the field was odd to say the least. Murray kicked the ball away, without giving his chasers an earthly of challenging, on more than one occasion. In the second half, the otherwise magnificent Sexton did something similar when attempting a crossfield kick to Tommy Bowe. And then, to cap it all, Hooky’s special favourite (and preferred captain --- Ed.) kicks the ball away when in possession on the last play of the game. I suspect there will have been some stern words at the video review this morning.

The Ugly

• Wayne Barnes incessant condescending tone to the players. Granted some merited it, he made more correct calls than not and did a decent job at the scrum, but he really gets under my skin.
• JP Pietersen’s shocker on Chris Henry. When under the cosh the Boks always resort to thuggery – plus ça change.
• Etzebeth’s Right Hook on Mike McCarthy. Right under the touch judge’s nose in the build up to Pienaar’s try. Although he was provoked, I thought that sort of thing was still illegal