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Six Nations: England 30 Ireland 9

by

John McMurtry

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This one was hard to watch – and it’s still hard to write about a couple of days later. Ireland were taken apart at scrum time in a disappointing game with England dominating the second half to win 30 – 9 at Twickenham on Saturday evening.

It was one of the worst scrumming displays that I’ve witnessed, certainly at international level, with Ulster’s Tom Court and Leinster’s Mike Ross completely outclassed at tighthead and while Court may be the focus of attention for Ireland’s woes (primarily due to Court’s calamity being camera side in the second half, Ross was just as bad in the first, it just wasn’t as obvious) it has to be remembered that it takes eight players each side to form a scrum and the rest of the Irish pack don’t come out of those sorry affairs with much credit either.

What disappointed me most throughout the whole . . .

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2 responses to “Six Nations: England 30 Ireland 9”

  1. parky

    Ed: If the provinces have to put up with an irish qualified tighthead incapable of propping up the scrum but picked just so he can be developed as an international prop sometime round 2018 then you will likely see the Terraces empty long before that. As John Afoa has proved, a good tighthead is central to a teams ability to survive at the highest level.

    Ulster have suffered enough with duibious development of home grown players and coaches. IMHO, we have done more than our fair share over the years to the detriment of results.

    Reply
    1. John

      Yep much better for each of our provinces to pay in excess of £600K a season to overseas players than spending the money on improved coaching at schools and U20’s level. Indeed a scrummaging coach at senior level wouldn’t be a bad investment.

      There’s a happy medium Parky, keep Afoa and Pienaar and maybe Mullar but the other three are taking up development space in my opinion, good players that they are and I’m fully aware that they may well bring short term success this season.

      However, to me, it smacks of incapable coaches brought in on a shoestring who have not been able to develop the home grown talent so have tried to buy success in my opinion. Maybe the provinces should be forced to match every penny spent on foreign players with the same sum spent on schools and U20’s coaching and development.

      I wouldn’t worry about emptying the terraces, if supporters ego’s are that shallow then so be it. Compared to the revenue generated by the international game the crowds at Ravenhill are pretty meaningless.

      Reply

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