Same for every out half, especially younger ones. When the confidence dips they hold onto the ball too long. Too focused on finding a killer option every phase when they're better just playing the cards they've got and onto the next thing.
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Satisfactory imo? League isn't the same as a couple of years ago. Zeb and Dra still the worst teams but now they are bad within normal boundaries. Zebre's ceiling is a basically decent performance. We faced that today. Five points away at a mostly decent team with our team in ribbons. That's OK.
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2026 Six Nations I will never forget you 🥹
Beat them in 25 minutes at the 2019 WC. Smashed them in Murrayfield with JvdF throwing in line outs a couple of years ago. Today was world apart.
And Italy's phase play is definitely the worst part of their game
Most of the victories have been laughably straightforward. That was a tough match. Scotland were in it till very near the end. Yes, Ireland were clinical (as has been a trend, maybe 2024 excepted) but that doesn't mean the game wasn't hugely competitive. Genuinely I thought they were very good.
This was a live game until minute 72ish. Politely, that is nothing like usual.
A real Who Jones game today (not that Ringrose does shit in attack these days). However, overall though I thought Scotland were very good. Won't be much consolation to their fans but this is the best they've played in this fixture for years and years. Best Ireland performance since SA away though...
Out on his own today
Always makes me nervous because neither of those lads is built to defend on the hinge but Scotland have had no chance to exploit it since Bundee came on
Anyway, most of them have tendencies when they hold onto the ball:
Finn - run sideways and look for a pass
Sam P - hold the ball and hope the option for a 25m laser appears
Jack - get the legs moving, often switching to the other side of the breakdown
Jalibert - run sideways and look to chip
Creaking, not creaming...
Might sound weird, but I think the 2025 Ireland out half discourse (a living nightmare, a descent into the void, the end of all reason and humanity) has cooked people's general ability to assess out half play. Finn forcing it but his centres need to get better (they can).
He is but most fly halves do when the team is creaming around them. A ten holding onto the ball too long is a sign it's getting ragged all around them.
I guess that explains the official count being ten but I'm with you in thinking the non-blown ones should be recorded in stats somewhere.
Personally I would like details about total awarded, total blown, and a breakdown of passages with >1 pen being awarded. Maybe a heat map too...
Your clips are short (mercifully so, plus you're doing excellent work here so don't take any criticism from this question) so can I ask if all these penalties led to the whistle being blown? Or were some either made irrelevant by advantage and/or superseded by pens later in the passage?
Can you not respect a man who refuses to give in to temptation?
Menoncello is ridiculous, unbelievable
Your point still stands. A backline with quality at ten and a superstar like TM should overall look better. However, don't think the forwardsadd enough. Overall the attack lacks fluidity, it all looks a bit like what passed for top rugby when Quesada was still playing.
Big issue is the forwards. It's an awesome pack defensively but doesn't add enough with the ball. The style is very old school - forwards play tight, then the backs do some passing. Modern defences deal with that too easily.
I see the vision
That has definitely been an issue in the past, but not sure this is the best example because Stu has 26 caps, Aki 68 and Henshaw 84 (inc. a share at 13 and a couple at 15). I'd assume AF, and Schmidt before him, felt this position specifically was well covered (and I don't disagree).
...the psychodrama that is my decade plus as an Ulster season ticket holder a hell of a lot more bearable. Considering both quality and number of appearances, he's maybe Ulster's best ever player. A guy with talent for 80+ plus international caps but who mostly just turned out for us instead.
...had no wrong answer for a decade or so.
It's unfortunate for Stu that he was the default third option but the other two kept doing the business (as did SMcC when he did get a chance) so I'm not even criticising the choices that were made. If nothing else, the way this all shook out has made...
I'm going to disagree with Neil here, he's more or less always been like this. If he'd been consistently picked ahead of Aki or Henshaw that would have looked like the right decision - in the same way that those guys getting picked also looked like the right decision. The Irish 12 shirt has...
Congratualtions to the Irish Times for going against the trend where clickbait is killing journalsm. It deserves every success.
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