Rugby Union

[DeeTillEhDeh]

7 minutes ago, John Lambies Doos said:

Our two substitute props were dreadful.  Re. The hooker,  Turner wasn't great but I'd stick with him. I'd have Cherry in the mix too. Brown is mince at this level

Getting shoved by 3 props in the first scrum after the subs was ominous.

I also thought we were way too slow at the breakdown - often our player was isolated in the tackle making it easier for Mack Hansen.

What a recruitment he is for them.

I thought our best 2 players were Tuipulotu and Schoeman - once he was gone was has very few driving runs.

 

Edited March 12, 2023 by DeeTillEhDeh

[Virtual Insanity]

Thought Jones and Dempsey were good too and White continues to justify his selection.

[Binos]

1 hour ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

The big worry is that our substitutions made it less of a contest.

We started the game with two sets of brothers 

Tells it's own story

Again the table isn't lying and we've fulled ourselves that we're capable of trophies 

Or i have anyway 

 

[flyingscot]

Ireland were much better than us second half. Missed a ball carrier that Dempsey managed first 40 but tired.

At least we kept them from the bonus point...  

[aDONisSheep]

I don't get all the doom and gloom.  Ireland are an exceptional team at the moment.  They are an absolute force up front, imagine being able to replace Doris with Conan, it's terrifying.  I watched France simply blast England off the ball, time and again.

We gave both of them a proper game.

Third best in the six nations is probably about right, but bear in mind that, that's behind what I believe to be the two best teams in the world.

We are at a point where no-one can take us lightly, and we haven't been able to say that for a long, long time!

I love this squad, and yesterday has only shown, that we need to improve, not re-build.

Yours

aDONis 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

1 hour ago, aDONisSheep said:

I don't get all the doom and gloom.  Ireland are an exceptional team at the moment.  They are an absolute force up front, imagine being able to replace Doris with Conan, it's terrifying.  I watched France simply blast England off the ball, time and again.

We gave both of them a proper game.

Third best in the six nations is probably about right, but bear in mind that, that's behind what I believe to be the two best teams in the world.

We are at a point where no-one can take us lightly, and we haven't been able to say that for a long, long time!

I love this squad, and yesterday has only shown, that we need to improve, not re-build.

Yours

aDONis 

I largely agree with this, I think important to note while it's unlikely all of them will make it, there's no reason to doubt that the vast majority of those players out there yesterday can still be playing for Scotland at the next World Cup, so while I have found the last two games depressing it's not as if this whole group is done forever. Potentially new coaching team, keep bringing in new players and youngsters, and we can maintain this level I'd suspect. 

Good piece imo by Tom English today Six Nations 2023: Scotland v Ireland analysis - BBC Sport. On the fundamentals he's right, we're very good but we just don't have the experience of winning in this team. Even France winning their first in ages last year has a team full of guys who have won European titles, as well as a simply ludicrous player base. We're still paying the price for the balls up we made of professionalism, continued poor development by the SRU, the years when our playing pool was genuinely awful, and a failure by Townsend to get his team up for a couple of eminently winnable championships mid WC cycle (2021 particularly stands out). What depresses me is I don't see any sign that this equation really changes any time in the short to medium term.

As an aside I was shouting for Richie for captain as much as anyone, but getting marched back twice in two games for mouthing off as captain just isn't nearly good enough. 

[EvilScotsman]

3 minutes ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

As an aside I was shouting for Richie for captain as much as anyone, but getting marched back twice in two games for mouthing off as captain just isn't nearly good enough. 

I'm pretty sure the first one was Finn, unless there was a third time which I missed.

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

1 minute ago, EvilScotsman said:

I'm pretty sure the first one was Finn, unless there was a third time which I missed.

Think there was one in the France game as well that T.E references in his article. I couldn't remember it off the top of my head though 

[AngusTheBull]

2 hours ago, aDONisSheep said:

I don't get all the doom and gloom.  Ireland are an exceptional team at the moment.  They are an absolute force up front, imagine being able to replace Doris with Conan, it's terrifying.  I watched France simply blast England off the ball, time and again.

We gave both of them a proper game.

Third best in the six nations is probably about right, but bear in mind that, that's behind what I believe to be the two best teams in the world.

We are at a point where no-one can take us lightly, and we haven't been able to say that for a long, long time!

I love this squad, and yesterday has only shown, that we need to improve, not re-build.

Yours

aDONis 

I think that’s fair. Ireland are the best team in the world for a reason and their depth is genuinely scary. We more than competed up to the point at which we changed our front rows. They can bring on the likes of Healy and Kelleher, we brought on Bhatti, Brown and Berghan, none of whom I think would even make the wider Irish squad.

I still think Ireland would have won, but if Duhan (who had a bit of a mare) pops a pass during his break and we go in at HT ahead then it’s a completely different game.

[AngusTheBull]

Lots of rumours today that Finn is out of the Italy game.
 

Haven’t seen enough of Healy recently to comment on how he’d be but if Hogg is also out then you’d imagine he’d be starting. Kinghorn has had a pretty decent tournament at FB imo but we can’t really be starting him at ten.

[Savage Henry]

1 hour ago, AngusTheBull said:

Lots of rumours today that Finn is out of the Italy game.
 

Haven’t seen enough of Healy recently to comment on how he’d be but if Hogg is also out then you’d imagine he’d be starting. Kinghorn has had a pretty decent tournament at FB imo but we can’t really be starting him at ten.

This has all the makings of an Italy win, doesn’t it?   Hopefully Italy play like they did first half against Ireland and butcher everything.

I’d be surprised if it wasn’t Maitland  at 15 and Kinghorn at 10, knowing Townsend.

[honestly united]

I think 3rd in the 6 nations is about where we are at, and likely the 5th best team in the world, which seems ludicrous given we were 3rd seed in our WC pool and likely wont make it out the group stages. At the moment we are significantly ahead of both England and Wales and I wouldnt be suprised if there are further record scores in Dublin and Paris next weekend.

Again though I thought the difference was mental rather than physical / skill wise (other than the lineout) against Ireland. We play a very different game to Ireland but intensity wise we match up for 50 minutes, the difference I thought was that that is Irelands levels every week, but we were having to push ourselves to match, however when Kelleher went off I thought there was a noticeable drop from Scotland. To me it looked like we thought that they've lost their hooker, we have an advantage and subconcious or not slightly took the foot off the pedal, dropped the intensity slightly - whereas Ireland upped it to compensate - and once that happened we just couldnt get going again. A bit like in football as how often when a player is sent off the team with 10 men up there game, where the 11 struggle to do anything.

Its an improvement as all too often we roll over to Ireland, so at least we stood up to them for 50 minutes this time.

We do have decent strength in depth in the squad at the moment, however to truly compete we need to have a complete overhaul of the age grade pathways so we are developing many more players and not just hoping a few come through topped up with any southern hemisphere player that has a scottish relative we can find

 

[flyingscot]

7 minutes ago, honestly united said:

To me it looked like we thought that they've lost their hooker, we have an advantage and subconcious or not slightly took the foot off the pedal, dropped the intensity slightly - whereas Ireland upped it to compensate - and once that happened we just couldnt get going again. A bit like in football as how often when a player is sent off the team with 10 men up there game, where the 11 struggle to do anything

I just felt we tired to be honest and we lost territory though mistakes which weren't happening first half rather than foot off the gas and replacements didn't have the same impact. We missed someone to carry hard. 

Ireland are a right good squad - it's such a great talent level throughout. 

[honestly united]

2 minutes ago, flyingscot said:

I just felt we tired to be honest and we lost territory though mistakes which weren't happening first half rather than foot off the gas and replacements didn't have the same impact. We missed someone to carry hard. 

Ireland are a right good squad - it's such a great talent level throughout. 

To be fair it could have been, I just thought both sides werent at the same intensity as the first half for the first 10 minutes. It might just have been Healy and Gibson park coming on gave Ireland the spark

[flyingscot]

39 minutes ago, honestly united said:

To be fair it could have been, I just thought both sides werent at the same intensity as the first half for the first 10 minutes. It might just have been Healy and Gibson park coming on gave Ireland the spark

JGP definitely changed things. 

If it takes you so long to get a tall guy to the front of the lineout to make it hard for the flanker to throw in the ball you don't deserve anything. 

[AngusTheBull]

1 hour ago, Savage Henry said:

This has all the makings of an Italy win, doesn’t it?   Hopefully Italy play like they did first half against Ireland and butcher everything.

I’d be surprised if it wasn’t Maitland  at 15 and Kinghorn at 10, knowing Townsend.

Guess we’re going to find out…

 

19 minutes ago, flyingscot said:

JGP definitely changed things. 

If it takes you so long to get a tall guy to the front of the lineout to make it hard for the flanker to throw in the ball you don't deserve anything. 

Whilst I think we would have reacted had Gilchrist or Gray been on the park, that’s not an excuse for the rest of them and you’re fully correct. Other teams missing their line out leaders wouldn’t make the same mistakes we did.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

4 hours ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said:

I largely agree with this, I think important to note while it's unlikely all of them will make it, there's no reason to doubt that the vast majority of those players out there yesterday can still be playing for Scotland at the next World Cup, so while I have found the last two games depressing it's not as if this whole group is done forever. Potentially new coaching team, keep bringing in new players and youngsters, and we can maintain this level I'd suspect. 

Good piece imo by Tom English today Six Nations 2023: Scotland v Ireland analysis - BBC Sport. On the fundamentals he's right, we're very good but we just don't have the experience of winning in this team. Even France winning their first in ages last year has a team full of guys who have won European titles, as well as a simply ludicrous player base. We're still paying the price for the balls up we made of professionalism, continued poor development by the SRU, the years when our playing pool was genuinely awful, and a failure by Townsend to get his team up for a couple of eminently winnable championships mid WC cycle (2021 particularly stands out). What depresses me is I don't see any sign that this equation really changes any time in the short to medium term.

As an aside I was shouting for Richie for captain as much as anyone, but getting marched back twice in two games for mouthing off as captain just isn't nearly good enough. 

Sexton was in the ref's face constantly - would like to the reason why Ritchie was treated differently.

Perhaps it's how the complaint were phrased rather than the act of complaining.

[Savage Henry]

I’ve genuinely never heard of Charlie Savala. 

[Honest_Man#1]

Quite interesting reading neutral fans views of the referee. A lot of people suggesting he was poor in our favour for a lot of decisions. Must just be a lot of people who don’t know the rules.

[come on shire]

It's a blow to lose Hogg and Russell for the final game. Controversial opinion time but I'm not feeling Hogg's on the pedestal we put him on anymore but Russell's a loss.

Having said that we should still have the quality to get 5 points vs Italy at home.

I've just jinxed it, haven't I?