https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM0dx0h2xsw It’s been more than 20 years since Jim Telfer delivered that speech, but the reason that it’s still enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up is that it doesn’t have any of the passionate shouting or roaring that usually characterise pre-match talks. Instead, the revered Scottish … Continue reading Everest (NZ)
When Ireland played Samoa in 2013, they ran out comfortable winners in the end, although the 40-9 scoreline didn’t reflect how scrappy Ireland’s performance was on the day until Cian Healy, Paul O’Connell and Seán O'Brien were brought off the bench to put the Pacific Islanders to the sword. It’s oddly fitting that it … Continue reading Litmus Test
Match statistics can often be misleading, and when you examine the figures from Ireland’s win over Russia, you would naturally assume that it was a completely dominant performance from Joe Schmidt’s side. They had 589 metres run compared to Russia’s 150, 16 line breaks to Russia’s 2 and 23 defenders beaten to Russia’s 11. … Continue reading Labour-Intensive
It was always going to be a tall order for Ireland to reach the same heights this year that they did in 2018, but there have been too many underperformances from them in 2019 for anyone’s liking. An underwhelming Six Nations was forgiven because the general consensus was that they had one eye on … Continue reading Drawing A Line In The Sand
