Yeah, same as last year
Yeah, same as last year
I realised I was dyslexic when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat
For the pre-season, I'd be hoping for improved skills and tactical awareness. Good players with high skill levels should be able to play any style of rugby, depending on conditions and areas of relative strength. Munster should be able to grind weaker teams down up front, run slower teams ragged, defend and play territory against stronger attacking sides and above all, take their chances when they're on offer. Obviously, the playing style should suit the strengths of the personnel, but the main thing is that players should have the skills and knowledge to execute different tactical plans. They should be able to do everything competently. Mauling, rucking, scrummaging, the lineout, tactical kicking, passing, playing wide, playing tight, counter-attacking etcetera. Then choose the strategy based on the conditions and opposition. I don't think it's controversial to say that Munster's passing and back-play needs work, so improvement there is the first order of business.
From what little I've seen of Penney's Canterbury, they were equally adept at running it wide and grinding the opposition down, albeit that they employed the former tactic more often. More of the same for Munster would suit me fine.
Save them from what exactly? The plague? The pox? The curse of Kidney? (that's the one that worries me).Originally Posted by sewa
Certainly not time to start writing off the season but i am a bit concerned that the one consistent theme in reports is that the scrum struggled. Maybe I was praying for a miracle but I hoped Kilcoyne and Archer would have been able to handle a pair of D2 props. Obviously we will learn a lot more from the Bristol and Not Not games.
Way way too early, and it'd have been little short of miraculous had we suddenly been able to dominate such players.
Much patience is needed,
Couldn't agree more. The cooling of jets may be in short supply over the next few months though I would worry.
I am the million man.
Whatever the weaknesses of D2 props it is rarely basic scrummaging. It is the other aspects of their game that generally have them moving up the ladder in France.
The value in Penney's remarks will be that aspiring players realise that there will be no free ride, they will get their chance and they have to perform otherwise they will look elsewhere. It's part of a learning exercise for Penney to quickly assess what the whole squad has. Likely he knows now that Holland and Deasy for example are simply not up to it. They have been free wheeling for a few seasons now, what is the point? They might have some hope to blossom in a different environment but they are average to poor. Deasy has his admirers but it's not incommon for players to be stars at a lower level and then unabale to step up.
well looka
what a load of codswallop! That sounds like caveman rugby. Those days are over the game has moved on!
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The usual match report
When their numbers dwindled from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect Hungry
https://picasaweb.google.com/1072450...eat=directlink
Photos and shaky video of the match, from some Stade Rochelais fans. Saw it on their forum.
Overly harsh/ridiculous criticism no? What has Holland done wrong, other than show that he's a versatile squad player who this season is very important to Munster when you consider POC, DOC and D Ryan will be missing large chunks and Dave Foley and Nagle are injured. I'll agree the jury is out on Deasy but I think he's got to pick a position either 10,12 or 15 and work hard at it. I'd imagine the players he was talking about not being up to it yet are the Cathal O Flahertys and Brian Hayess of the squad who have little to no senior experience or even that much B&I cup. I don't think Penney has decided some players will never be good enough just that they are currently not at the standard either skills wise or physically.
Watch what the Ospreys did in the Pro12 final and then tell us if grinding a team down with the pack is gone. Forward dominance wins games, has always won games, and will always win games. Chucking it around stupidly because of some perception that some points are less useful than others loses games.
Vorsprung durch Pfennig.
The notion that Penney deserves patience for a few games is, frankly, laughable. Schmidt took over a HEC winning side. Penney is taking over a side that has been dumped out of Europe at home for two successive seasons and given a hiding both times.
I'm not sure people have gotten their heads around how much work needs to be done. We haven't been this far off the pace of top European teams since the late 90's.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men" Edward R Murrow
"Little by little, we have been brought into the present condition in which we are able neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them." - Livy
Nonsense. I don't believe inference was made to willful abandonment or chucking it around stupidly. The days of winning a season by tucking the ball under your jumper are over. One can not look at an isolated incident, yet a lone a game between a team who had just won the most important competition in Europe only a short time before, and a team with nothing to show for their season.
Whilst it pains me to say it, the best rugby (i.e. the most likely to succeed) is played in the southern hemisphere. to be successful in rugby today, the game must be played at two hundred mph by people who are big (6ft plus and approaching 100kg (backs), 115-125Kg+ (forwards), strong and actually have handling skills.
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Laughable that we've to have patience or laughable that we should only be patient for a few games?
The problem with this world is there are too many snakes... and not enough Ladders!
I agree that a huge amount of work has to be done. But I also want to see progress.
For this season, I want us to become again a very difficult team to beat. I would like to see us get out of our HEC group and I would like to see some of our younger players develop. A coherent style of play needs to be developed - obviously a huge amount of skills work is needed, as is the conditioning to play at that level.
I don't think this is unreasonable.
Sort of both. I think he's got a 2/3 year job on his hands before we could be at a point where we'd be confident of going to France and getting wins. We're not even confident of winning key knock out games at home any more.
But the "show patience for a few games, look at Schmidt" line is sort of emerging as the consensus voice of reason. A few games isn't approaching showing patience given the trajectory of this team over the last couple of seasons.
Wins in our three home matches in the HEC this year would be a good start, and we'll see what happens on the road. In terms of other achievements, I'd like a functioning scrum, an option at tight head and a functional centre partnership.
Sad as it is, that's about the limit of my ambition for the season and if he delivers it he'll be doing fine by me.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men" Edward R Murrow
"Little by little, we have been brought into the present condition in which we are able neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them." - Livy
I'd like to see progress as well, but I think trajectory is an important notion here. The first thing that has to happen is to stop the slide. It's not like our opposition are standing still waiting for us to bounce back.
I don't think what you're asking is unreasonable, but it's a season's work in my view.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men" Edward R Murrow
"Little by little, we have been brought into the present condition in which we are able neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them." - Livy
Dead on. Like Aaron Cruden.
When things go wrong, blame McGahan
3rd in the Rabo and quarter-finalists in the Heineken cup is not an especially low base from which to build. The pack still win more than their fair share of possession; if that possession is used more productively, there could be immediate dividends.
Genia, and the Kiwi 9 they used this summer who looks smaller than strings.
The Kiwi and Aussie packs aren't exceptionally larger than the Irish one either.
I am the million man.
Or McCaw, or Pocock...
Vorsprung durch Pfennig.
And at junior level look at the Ireland U19s against the ORCs and the saffers.
Utter gob****tery. Why not play 15 yr olds or women against a team of men altogether? You can probably carry one maybe two less physical players (especially at 10 where the flanker is covering a la ROG) but rugby, when all is said and done is a contact sport: put a big guy vs. a little guy - 9 times out of 10 who will gain the most yards?
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By the way, wasn't the World Cup won by a try scored off a lineout move by a prop and a kicks...?
Vorsprung durch Pfennig.
Don't you mean a red card?
The axe that cuts the tree can easily forget, but the tree thats been cut will not forget.
So, like McCaw and Cruden, then...?Or Pocock and Berrick "Ow, my head" Barnes...?
Vorsprung durch Pfennig.
Like Warburton on Clerc - let it drop, Huwie.Don't you mean a red card?
Vorsprung durch Pfennig.
We win possession against average sides. When was the last time we won convincingly against a quality side in an important match? We mugged Saints and Scarlets last year.
In three years we've got Perp away, Saints away and the league final at home to point at as performances at the required level. That's not a particularly high base, either.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven into an age of unreason if we dig deep into our history and remember we are not descended from fearful men" Edward R Murrow
"Little by little, we have been brought into the present condition in which we are able neither to tolerate the evils from which we suffer, nor the remedies we need to cure them." - Livy
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