The Silver Fern

What can I say except well done New Zealand.

My heart goes out to our wonderful Ireland team but they didn’t have enough against a simply superlative NZ team.

Congrats guys.

World rugby have announced that their contingency plan for the Japan Scotland game was to move the game 500 miles north to another stadium.
However Typhoon hagibis is over 600miles in diameter.

Scottish Rugby have just announced that they would walk 500 more....

Instead I picked Ireland to win by more than 5 at 25/1.

€650!

Ok - I've watched the game twice now - without interruption.

All I've got to say is:

What the fuck was Henshaw playing at trying to hit Cane's shoulder/head with his head whilst pirouetting on the spot?
Can Zebo not run fast enough without being caught by some two-bit arm-swinging Kiwi winger?
Sexton's tackle is a penalty try all day, every day, and I'm glad there are some journalists in Ireland who actually agree with me
Tadgh Furlong. Tadgh fucking Furlong! Did you see him move and fend those three players in a row?
Paddy Jackson coming on the pitch is like being handed a Morris Minor in the middle of an F1 duel.
Beauden Barrett. Beauden fucking Barrett! If NZ had 14 other players like him, they'd be a pretty good team.
Why has Dane Coles turned into a hothead? And a snarly one at that?
van der Flier is The Business. Good luck Seanie.
How come NZ didn't play those two lock fellas in the Chicago game, yiz would have been much better?
How the holy, motherfucking fuck of a fuck did Ireland go from scoring 5 tries to 0 tries? To finish such a game with three fucking penalties, and turned down some kicks, is a shitballs return.
It may just be me, but I'm getting sick and tired of every player under the sun rushing in to obscure the view everytime there's an attempted maul over the line. You can't bloody see a thing. Either you're in the maul from the start, or else fuck off out of the way and stop trying to stick a hand into the mess afterwards whilst claiming that you stopped the ball single-handedly and making sure the camera can't see a damn thing.

Tackles? What tackles?

I demand a third test. Cancel the Frogs immediately and get your asses back to Dublin - tell the Wallabies to wait till we've finished.

I'm legitimately celebrating Ireland's win. The rest of yiz can go do one.

Anyone got an aspirin?

Working this morning so missed the match.

It went as I predicted - congrats lads and all the best for the repeat.

@pukunui said in Hurricanes v B&I Lions:

@MiketheSnow

Throwing the ball away after penalties, diving off their feet at rucks, living offside, not rolling away from the tackled player, spear tackling defenders at the ruck, pulling back players off the ball.
Plenty of examples.

In fairness, I think the Lions might have been guilty of one or two of those as well.....

Cheers to everyone on here for all the congrats and good wishes.

Yiz are a decent bunch after all.

Well for today anyway.

@JC said in NZ Provincial Barbarians v B&I Lions (Whangarei, 3 June 2017):

The Walrus's take on it. Not much to argue with in general, but I didn't think Wyn Jones was all that good.

Alun Wyn Jones leads the charge as Lions stutter against Provincial Barbarians
Stephen Jones, Rugby Correspondent
June 3 2017, 12:01pm,
The Times

In short, the Lions forwards were disappointing in Whangarei. Up against a scratch combination, their lack of headway at a succession of five-yard scrums was poor - and they could make no dents in the efficient home line-out. Perhaps oddly, amongst all the new Lions desperate to stand out, it was the three-tour veteran Alun Wyn Jones who was the best Lion up front.

The Osprey lock was powerful at the breakdown. He was deft with his handling and clearly played a strong leadership role during the breaks in play. On the day he outshone his partner Iain Henderson, who faded after a bright start. Wyn Jones was hit by injury in the domestic season, never quite finding his best form, and so missed what was once a fighting chance of leading this tour party. Yesterday, he re-established himself - and without him it could have been really gory.

The Lions probably did not want to go to their bench as early as they did, but there was a little more drive in the loose and power in the scrum when Mako Vunipola and Tadhg Furlong arrived. Both men had appeared in major club finals as recently as last Saturday - one of the many lunacies of the tour set-up and its fixture list.

Who else, on this admittedly scant evidence, advanced their cause? Probably those who did not start or even appear. Certainly, the sight of Maro Itoje starting on Wednesday against the Blues will give everyone a lift, although the display of Wyn Jones this morning means that not even Itoje will walk into the Test team.

No team ever won a Test series without a great pack. The Lions will be praying that true power was masked by tiredness and unfamiliarity, rather than indicating a worrying weakness. The excuses run out rapidly on a tour of New Zealand.

Hmm. Vunipola and Furlong were not in club finals last Saturday. Their teams both exited the previous week in the semifinals. Good to see Jones has his finger on the pulse of European rugby.

Well that went all right.

Wonder how the Dublin game will go?

Commiserations New Zealand. Great game.

Not many people might know this, but Ireland has had 4 tours of Australia - 1967, 1979, 1994, 1999. The first two were old-style tours involving matches against club teams as well as one or two test matches against the Wallabies. Both sides have won two tours and lost two. Tour Number 5 begins on 3 June 2018 and it promises to settle a few scores, move the ledger in favour of one, and probably create a few bragging and bagging rights along the way.

Whilst Ireland's history - home and away - against South Africa and New Zealand is littered with one failure after another in the amateur days, surprisingly their record against Australia is pockmarked with wins at home and on the road, albeit matches were held less frequently in BSE - Baggy Shorts Era. Australia won the first two tests in 1927 and 1947 in Landsdowne Road in Dublin, and then on the Aussie's tour of Britain, Ireland and France in 1958, Ireland got their first test win on the board. And over the next 20 years, the teams met 7 times, with Ireland winning six of them, including the only test in Sydney as part of their 6-game 1967 tour of Australia.

Ireland's last two away wins in Australia were those in the famous 1979 tour when the Irish team had their most successful winning patch, playing 8 games, including two tests, and lost just once against local club, Sydney.

Ollie Campbell, Mike Gibson, Terry Kennedy, Paul McNaughton (Greystones), Tony Ward, Willie Duggan, Moss Keane, Fergus Slattery were some of the more well-known names on that tour, with Campbell getting the headlines when he replaced Tony Ward at the starting 10, and helped win the day. Across the two tests, Ireland scored 36 points (when tries were worth 4), Campbell kicked 28 of them bringing his total to 60 points for the tour. He was named player of the tour. Ward, by his own admission in his autobiography, never played as well again and laid blame squarely at the manager and coach’s door for how they handled it. Campbell returned home the hero of the hour by helping to claim the first individual tour victory by a northern team in the Southern Hemisphere. (France had won 8 out of 9 matches but drawn the first test on a tour in 1972.)

He and the team were cheered to the rafters. Ireland won the Five Nations in 1982, shared it with France in 1983 and won outright again in 1985. And then the curtain came down. And the roof started to fall in.

Two further 2-test tours against Australia followed in 1994 and 1999 - this time Ireland lost all the test matches. And won only a few mid-week games too - 2 from 8 in 1994 and just 1 in 1999 . Those two tours formed part of probably the lowest period in Irish rugby when Ireland played 11 tests against Australia, 8 vs NZ and 6 vs South Africa between 1980 and 2002 - they lost every test game. Despite their successes in early 1980s, their record in that period against Five/Six Nations opponents was not much better - 3 wins from 24 against France, 7 from 24 vs both England and Scotland, and even losing 3 from 8 against Italy.

From 2002 onwards, the fortunes of the Irish provinces and test side changed - first under Eddie O'Sullivan, winning tests again against Australia and for the first time against South Africa as well as moving up from being regular wooden spooners in the 90's to competing at the top in the new Six Nations until finally achieving a Grand Slam in 2009 with Declan Kidney.

Now, it’s the turn of Joe Schmidt to bring the Ireland squad down-under for a three-test series in June. Expectations are high with Ireland’s recent win record against the Wallabies, 3-2 in the last five matches, with two wins at home, and one in NZ at the RWC. Their losses include one in Brisbane 22-15 in June 2010, the last time Wallaby fans saw Ireland on Australian soil. On that day, newcomer, Johnny Sexton, kicked all of Ireland’s 15 points in the first half, going in at the break down 16-15. But the Declan Kidney-coached team, off the back of a 97 point shellacking from the All Blacks and NZ Maori, and down a few key players, couldn’t overtake the Wallabies as Giteau notched another couple of penalties to finish them off.

Eight years on from Brisbane, both teams are in different places and ranking. Cheika is hoping to fashion a team that can compete and win in the Rugby Championship. He needs a decent scalp on his belt going into that battle. Schmidt has the 6N in his back pocket and a team that is beginning to hum nicely with a mix of old heads and young hearts running a new 12-match streak.

England, Scotland & Wales have all announced squads with development and player rest on their minds as coaches seek to add depth to their squads for RWC 2019. Irish pundits and fans have been making similar noises querying whether players such as Sexton, Murray, Furlong, Stander should rest up on their summer hols and let the younger Turks get more time and experience. Schmidt has faced this before, through injury rather than choice, when he brought a relatively raw squad to South Africa and gave much needed game time to some new faces including Jackson, Furlong, Henderson, Roux, Stander, and Marmion.

So should Schmidt now choose to do the same in Oz? He'll want to win the series, but he needs to give more time to the newbies.

Schmidt issued his touring squad for the Australia tour this week.

Ireland Squad (Summer Tour 2018, Australia)

FORWARDS (18)
Rory Best (Banbridge/Ulster) Captain 111 caps
Tadhg Beirne (Scarlets) uncapped
Jack Conan (Old Belvedere/Leinster) 7 caps
Sean Cronin (St Mary's College/Leinster) 61 caps
Tadhg Furlong (Clontarf/Leinster) 23 caps
Cian Healy (Clontarf/Leinster) 78 caps
Iain Henderson (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 38 caps
Rob Herring (Ballynahinch/Ulster) 3 caps
Dan Leavy (UCD/Leinster) 9 caps
Jack McGrath (St Mary's College/Leinster) 47 caps
Jordi Murphy (Lansdowne/Leinster) 20 caps
Peter O'Mahony (Cork Constitution/Munster) 47 caps
Andrew Porter (UCD/Leinster) 7 caps
Quinn Roux (Galwegians/Connacht) 5 caps
James Ryan (UCD/Leinster) 8 caps
John Ryan (Cork Constitution/Munster) 13 caps
CJ Stander (Shannon/Munster) 23 caps
Devin Toner (Lansdowne/Leinster) 58 caps

BACKS (14)
Bundee Aki (Galwegians/Connacht) 7 caps
Ross Byrne (UCD/Leinster) uncapped
Joey Carbery (Clontarf/Leinster) 10 caps
Andrew Conway (Garryowen/Munster) 6 caps
John Cooney (Terenure College RFC/Ulster) 1 cap
Keith Earls (Young Munster/Munster) 67 caps
Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers/Leinster) 33 caps
Rob Kearney (UCD/Leinster) 83 caps
Jordan Larmour (St Mary's College/Leinster) 3 caps
Kieran Marmion (Corinthians/Connacht) 21 caps
Conor Murray (Garryowen/Munster) 64 caps
Garry Ringrose (UCD/Leinster) 13 caps
Johnny Sexton (St Mary's College/Leinster) 73 caps
Jacob Stockdale (Ballynahnch/Ulster) 9 caps

IRELAND SUMMER TOUR 2018 FIXTURES

Saturday 9th June, 2018
Australia v IRELAND
Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane, KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)

Saturday 16th June, 2018
Australia v IRELAND
AAMI Park, Melbourne, KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)

Saturday 23rd June, 2018
Australia v IRELAND
Allianz Park, Sydney KO 20.05 local (11.05 IRL)

Edit: updated some info since I first posted this for accuracy.

Commiserations lads. Tough result to swallow I know.

Whilst I don't generally agree with banning people, that conversation topic truly was a waste of time.

I'll be watching it. I'm in the NH.

So that's one person. Anyone else? 😎

@crucial said in Ireland Vs All Blacks:

Look. Tana and BOD have buried the hatchet and are sharing a laugh.

Next on Tana's list are @Kirwan and @Duluth

I see BOD only got him a glass of water while he gets himself a pint of the black nectar.

Cheap bastard.

@No-Quarter said in 18 ... next stop Cyprus ...:

@Billy-Tell said in 17 in a row ...:

Murray Kinsella  /  Oct 10, 2016

Why are the All Blacks so dominant? We travelled to New Zealand to find out

We launch a major multi-media series as Murray Kinsella journeys to the heart of a national obsession.

Awesome, will follow what they write. Some actual journalism on the ABs is pretty refreshing.

"Young Irish players now based in New Zealand helped us to appreciate the differences in the approach to rugby in the land of the long white cloud"

Fucking Kiwi poachers. I fucking knew it. All this time, they've been spoofing about taking PIs, when they were snatching Paddies.

Fucking knew that Brendan Barrett fella looked familiar. And yer man Ciaran Reid, though he probably wouldn't make the squad anyway, but still.....

the hoopla just gets better and funnier.

The Irish and New Zealand national airlines have now got in on the act - on Twitter of course.

I’d just like to say

Woo hoo.

3 6N championships in 5 years. We might actually be getting somewhere.

@Billy-Tell said in Ireland II:

@Pot-Hale said in Ireland II:

Well I haven't had a chance to watch the game yet and by the sounds of it, haven't missed much.

New Zealand won is the only relevant thing though.

Wonder how the Australia game will go.

Your pack was excellent, especially your backrow.

Your backs didn't really know what to do with the ball, the old chestnuts of Payne in the centres, and Trimble/Kearney in the back three will come into focus again.

I'm rapidly losing interest in the game though, the Irish media going to town with gifs, screenshots, clickbait etc, as if NZ was a bunch of criminals. The criminal element is Australia (many of Irish descent...)

I've learned to view most of the pre- and post-match commentary as just noise. And I don't think one particular country's media is any more hysterical than another when it comes to showing outrage via gifs/clickbait headlines, quotes, etc. As for ref-bashing - waste of time.

21-9 tells its own story. Ireland failed to score even a single try. Game over. Next time they need to do better. 1-1 from the series is a good outcome for the team - all told for a squad that is being slowly developed.

Congrats again to NZ. Wins are what counts at the end of the day.