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
Labour-Intensive
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
Drawing A Line In The Sand
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
Armageddon
Before going into the ins and outs of why Ireland lost today, Japan deserve enormous praise for pulling off an unthinkable win over a team who were ranked second in the world. Just like in 2015, they have lit up the tournament with a stunning victory, and the Tier 2 label is becoming less … Continue reading Armageddon
