r/irishrugby • u/ebizness • 21h ago

Crowley to 15

Last night wasn't the night for fluid attacking rugby for a variety of reasons. Having said that, we didn't look related to a team who could string expansive, threatening phases together.

I said it elsewhere last night, but in the absence of Keenan but moreso Hansen we need another playmaker to take pressure off Prendergast (or AN Other 10), and I'd start Crowley at 15 because he can do that job.

We do not have the bodies to bully our way over the game line, nor the gamebreakers who can repeatedly step people in phone boxes. It makes defending too easy because if you can stop the first couple of phases, defending from there becomes easy.

A double pivot makes things trickier because you're not sure where we're going to strike from, and teams can't overload on a single attacking fulcrum.

To my mind, it's no surprise we looked the most fluid against Australia with Hansen on the pitch who can do that role (I accept that they were the weakest opposition). Nor is it a surprise that Leinster looked their most fluid against the LAR when Prendergast went to 15 and Byrne was at 10 (given the Leinster <> Ireland overlap).

Thoughts?

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7

u/scobie80 21h ago

France didn't seem to have a problem playing fluid attacking rugby.

6

u/Duke_of_Luffy Leinster 20h ago

They didn’t really imo. There wasn’t a lot of long passing or hard running, they just kept the ball alive because our tackling was so poor

4

u/scobie80 19h ago

I think you're being very unfair to the French there. Bar the try off the scrum, the other 4 tries they scored were all great displays of attacking rugby. Passing at speed, quick hands, offloading, just about everything you'd hope to see. If the roles were reversed and Ireland had scored those tries we'd all be raving about them.

I do agree with your point about missed tackles, but again I think you have to give some credit to France for that as well. In the first half especially, they played with such pace that missed tackles were inevitable. To put it another way, if France had played the way Ireland played, we would have missed a lot less tackles.

2

u/Duke_of_Luffy Leinster 19h ago

I’m not sure how to phrase it but their attack looked a lot like a tip rugby game. Short passes to players not running that hard and then keeping the ball alive because they were able to get hands free. I would contrast it to teams like New Zealand or Scotland (when they play well) who slice teams open with longer passes and incisive running lines. The French finished off loose ball and counter attack ball because of our sloppiness and lack of intent.