The Silver Fern

@mooshld said in Ireland II:

We have lost one test this year and we have discipline issues? I don't recall anyone saying that is what caused the loss in Chicago so how is it an issue?

When discipline starts to cost us games then its an issue.

What I meant was how does the apparent one sided refereeing in the Dublin explain the penalty count in Chicago. But if you are coughing up over 3 times the number of penalties as the opposition as well as yellow cards and citings when the opposition are not then that is a pretty good indicator that there are discipline issues. Waiting until it costs you a game is basically waiting for the horse to bolt. And closing your eyes to it is every bit as biased as some of the whinging my countrymen have been doing as well.

@antipodean said in Ireland II:

@molloyjh said in Ireland II:

Ah now there are more level headed reactions in fairness:

Murray Kinsella  /  Nov 20, 2016

Analysis: Ireland's failure to convert costs them dearly against the All Blacks

Joe Schmidt’s men couldn’t turn their big chances into the tries they needed.

Murray Kinsella  /  Nov 19, 2016

Ireland left frustrated and tryless as All Blacks edge brutal battle in Dublin

Beauden Barrett was involved in all three of the Kiwi’s tries at the Aviva Stadium.

Rugby

Barrett-inspired defeat a missed opportunity for wasteful Ireland

Amid the all the darkness, Beauden Barrett's black magic won the match on Saturday.

I'd also point out that there cannot be any question that NZ have a discipline issue at the moment. 12-4 was the penalty count in Chicago. 14-4 in Dublin. 3 yellow cards across both Tests to 0. 2 citings to 0. And the citing commissioner apparently referred 12 incidents in the game on Saturday back to the teams. 11 of those to NZ. While I don't like the whinging and the moaning it's pretty clear there is a discipline issue there that can't be ignored.

The Test on the weekend was a one-sided joke from the refereeing. There should have been at least one yellow card for Ireland and Aaron Smith should never have been penalised. Ireland had carte blanche at the ruck and how you get a scrum for being the last man in defence knocking a pass down is beyond baffling.

So how does that explain Chicago? Was that a one sided joke as well? Given that both games had pretty consistent stats with regards discipline are you happy to just write that off? And how does the above comment not fit with the whinging description that Irish fans and media have been labelled with?

A lot of Irish fans and media have gone totally overboard (and quite frankly bat shit crazy at times) with what happened at the weekend, but I've also seen a corresponding extreme from a lot of NZ fans and media refusing to acknowledge that there are discipline issues. If the roles were reversed I'd be very focused on the penalty count issue for Ireland and desperately want to see an improvement. I wouldn't be looking to sweep it all under the rug and blame the opponents for daring to speak of it. The truth often tends to be in the middle somewhere. The 2 extremes that we're seeing (NZ are cheating bastards who always get away with it as opposed to the NZ are being victimised buy the ref and opposition) are equally unfair reactions to what went on in what was, all officiating issues aside, a superb contest.

@Milk well I've a lot of time for what he's trying to do here personally. I have to watch where I say that locally though...

Ah now there are more level headed reactions in fairness:

Murray Kinsella  /  Nov 20, 2016

Analysis: Ireland's failure to convert costs them dearly against the All Blacks

Joe Schmidt’s men couldn’t turn their big chances into the tries they needed.

Murray Kinsella  /  Nov 19, 2016

Ireland left frustrated and tryless as All Blacks edge brutal battle in Dublin

Beauden Barrett was involved in all three of the Kiwi’s tries at the Aviva Stadium.

Rugby

Barrett-inspired defeat a missed opportunity for wasteful Ireland

Amid the all the darkness, Beauden Barrett's black magic won the match on Saturday.

I'd also point out that there cannot be any question that NZ have a discipline issue at the moment. 12-4 was the penalty count in Chicago. 14-4 in Dublin. 3 yellow cards across both Tests to 0. 2 citings to 0. And the citing commissioner apparently referred 12 incidents in the game on Saturday back to the teams. 11 of those to NZ. While I don't like the whinging and the moaning it's pretty clear there is a discipline issue there that can't be ignored.

@Pot-Hale said in Ireland II:

@munstergreen said in Ireland II:

@Crucial said in Ireland II:

Fair call, my comment on that was directed to the numpties commenting under news articles.

I do fell that so much of this outcry is due to the influence of the live TV commentary though. I think it was the RTE one I had and it wouldn't have been a stretch for them to start accusing the ABs of carrying knives in their socks. The commentary was a disgrace and if anything regarding that game was pre-meditated it was those pillocks getting behind the mic and preaching about dirty play. Play up to your audience to some degree yes, but if the crowd at the game had been listening to them instead of folk at home you could easily accuse them of inciting a riot.

Yeah RTE are no better. The lads in the studio were far more balanced but the commentary team are never good. The squeaky voiced fecker Rule Nugent forces me to turn the sound off 3 minutes into every game and the woman interviewing Hansen afterwards was a disgrace.

Like I said, sports media is something we are uniquely bad at in this country.

Eh I call bullshit on that. There are plenty of good sports journalists operating in Ireland across a number of sports. Just because you're getting embarrassed by the actions of a few eejits (on a par with plenty of other countries) doesn't mean you have to go to the other extreme and throw everyone under the bus.

As for public comments sections, well everyone's got an opinion. Just like me in this one.

Plenty is pushing it. There are a few though. Murray Kinsella in the 42 gets a lot of love from rugby fans, and rightly so, but there are others that are decent. Sadly the clickbait sites like balls.ie are getting a lot of attention from this.

@Crucial
"also a complete failure to recognise the betterment of Irish rugby under a NZ coach and Australian development manager."

There are certain people who don't like Joe in Ireland, generally related to provincial rivalries. Most of us love the guy. Especially those of us from Leinster. That he's a genuinely nice bloke as well only adds to it.

There are a lot of people who don't like Nucifora though. Again, predominantly provincially motivated. He's playing a long game in Irish rugby and a lot of people don't look past this week/month/season. They want their teams to win now, regardless of what that means for them or Ireland in 5-10 years time. Sadly I think a lot of the work he's doing will only come to fruition when he's gone and he won't get the credit, but I hear he's a thick neck on him so won't be losing any sleep over that.

Hey all, another Paddy in giving his 2 cents!

It may be worth following up on what munstergreen said. We do certainly have issues with the media, but in many respects they just reflect the country too. Rugby is our 4th most popular sport and while there are a lot of people who love the game and are relatively knowledgeable about it there are also a whole heap of people who only watch the internationals. So they might see a sum total of about 6 or 7 games a year generally. The level of interest isn't that high from large portions of the population, and so the level of knowledge isn't either. Also, you get your impressions of the fans themselves from the Internet and the Internet is the home of outrage, hyperbole and polarisation!

All that said I do think Peyper is a poor referee, and he wasn't at all helped by his TMO. I have't watched it back yet but I'm sure both sides will have a list of grievances with the officials. At the end of the day NZ brought a level of intensity from the very start that was incredibly impressive. Ireland managed to live with it for the most part, but to win games you have to do more than that. We never really settled into the game in the first half. Losing Stander from the back row meant SOB had to play 80, which he maybe wasn't quite ready for. Then losing our 10 and 12 hurt too. Jackson is a good player, but he's no Sexton. And his form at the moment is a bit below what we'd expect from him. Ringrose is an outside centre who has only ever played against Canada and was forced to play inside centre against you guys. He can be good with that little bit of extra space but he was limited at 12.

In the second half the defensive effort from NZ was exceptional, but in the first half I do think there was a period during the Smith sin binning where Peyper could have been more forceful. Read was pinged at a scrum by the posts for breaking his bind and going after the ball while the Irish scrum was going forward. It was a gamble from him that paid off. He could have seen yellow under a different ref but obviously he felt better to risk the 3 than the 7 (something pretty much every pro team will do). Peyper let him away with it, but what really annoyed me was that Ireland did too. We had you guys under pressure in your 22 and you had conceded a good few penalties. We should have been going for the jugular there. Instead we went for 3 points, which still left us 2 scores behind. For me that's where the game was won and lost. In Chicago we made you pay for the 1 yellow you got. In Dublin we didn't. You guys were happy to concede 3 pointers in your 22 because you were scoring 7 pointers yourselves. That's not a moan or a complaint, it's a norm in pro rugby. It was up to us to punish you and we didn't.

Our execution at times let us down (Jacksons kick to Smith directly leading into the 3rd try for example), but you don't beat NZ by staying in touch with them. You beat them by getting out in front and staying there. We saw in 2013 how that very nearly worked for us and we saw in Chicago that it did work for us. Moving away from that attitude made it impossible for us to get back into it. We tried manfully, and I'm actually pretty happy with how our pack performed, but 25 mins in, after that scrum, we showed our hand. And that was that we weren't going to be ruthless enough.

Congrats on the win and apologies for the whinging and moaning. NZ deserved that win and Ireland didn't.