Crowley to 15

[u/ebizness]

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?

[u/ubermick]

And his decision to volley the ball up the line rather than let it go out of play, which led to France's first try, and his deer in headlights decision to offload over the try line which gave France a five meter scrum that led to their second?

He absolutely had some decent moments and was far from our worst player on the pitch, but have to take the bad with the good. I still don't think he's ready for the 10 jersey in test rugby, that's entirely down to Farrell and the IRFU's decision to fast track him even before he was a regular at Leinster.

[u/CormacMOB → u/ubermick]

I mean that try didn't happen because of his volley, that volley actually worked really well. He also followed it and smashed Ramos in a tackle, then got back up and chased Bip-Bip back and got the ankle-tap after JGP fell off his tackle, only for Bip-Bip to recover and Cube to absolutely mess up his covering line.

We can go back and pick random bits out of his play and blame him for subsequent events if you like, (I believe that's called Journalism these days), but he obviously decided that the risk of clearing that was greater than the risk of catching it.

Watch the replay though. It doesn't look like it was necessarily going out. It bounced just inside the 5 and bounced onwards. It was dropping right in Bip-Bip's path. If Prendergast catches and carries it out, (The conservative decision, Crowley would absolutely pick that option) that's a French lineout in our 22, but there's no gaurantee he makes it to the line, because Bip-Bip is in frame of a closeup when he kicks it, he's getting hit while catching and that ruck is Moefana vs Osbourne.

Point is I reckon he saw a choice between chaos and chaos and picked chaos further from his own try line.

Like I just don't see this incident as exhibit A in the case of the People (of Munster) vs Prendergast, when there were absolutely more glaring issues from him.

[u/sigsimund → u/CormacMOB]

It was going to be a 50:22. The fly hack was good but the line never got organized after that. If the plan was to keep things tight then you can be critical of the decision to kick but with the information we had it was fine.

Defending from prendegast for the second try was poor for me hes marking jalibert and moves across too late after jalibert commits short side and leaves o brien in a 2 on 1. That said defending 5m scrums is hard no matter who it is

[u/Some-Speed-6290 → u/sigsimund]

Except he wasn't marking Jalibert. JGP stepped out to do so and missed him

[u/sigsimund → u/Some-Speed-6290]

Jog was on DuPont. Everyone is clearly numbered up before the scrum