Ireland V England Saturday 2nd February 16.45.

[fitzy73]

Conway for 15 in the future, I think.

[tippete7trees]

2 things were key. It was crucial not to allow England a quick start..................2nd, when Healy scored we relaxed and we thought it was business as normal. We gave them confidence.

[Spiffy]

My view on player performance:
Good - Ryan, VDF, Stander
Avg - Healy, Furlong, Aki, Ringrose, Stockdale
Poor - Best, Toner, POM, Murray, Sexton, Earls, Henshaw

A tad hard on Ringrose who was possibly Ireland's best player today.
Also SOB looked sharper than Stander, though he was coming on with fresh legs after Stander had ground out a hard stint.

[AdolphusGrigson]

Really missed Leavy.

Only quibble was Ireland not taking penalty advantage when 4 points down, ref didnt go back for pen when Ireland didn't get any advantage.

Could have been a game changer.

But England outstanding....very difficult to take.

[kahalui]

I had high hopes of Henshaw at FB but the experiment misfired badly. Never mind the poor positioning, he really looked short of pace for this level.

My fear during the week was that Henshaw would lack the speed needed for FB at this level. Smith, McKensie, Folau, Hogg, Daly, Williams etc all have serious pace.

It'll be interesting to see who Joe starts next week, I'd imagine Kearney, but who knows at this stage.

[the plastic paddy]

Lessons learnt -
1 - Having a fullback with no positional sense destroys a team when the opposition have a decent kicking game (Leinster have struggled with Larmour at fullback against Toulouse away in the same way).
2 - Forwards need to f*cking get over the gainline.
3 - Conceding tries out in the wide channels happens even when the Kearney's aren't playing

We had more possession, territory, missed less tackles, beat more defenders, made the same amount of clean breaks, gave away less penalties, lost less lineouts and if not for 1 bad defensive read (Earls), 1 poor ball loss (Stockdale), a woeful positional game (Henshaw) we could have won playing extremely badly.

What complete and utter b’’’ocks.

[AdolphusGrigson]

Ireland seemed to kick to May rather than to Daly - who is suspect in the air and should have played territory in middle of 2nd half when England were making mistakes.

Not as good as we thought we were.

[Brenny]

They kicked way better than us, they defended kicks way better than us

[Corcíoch]

A tad hard on Ringrose who was possibly Ireland's best player today.
Also SOB looked sharper than Stander, though he was coming on with fresh legs after Stander had ground out a hard stint.

Ringrose was our best player today indeed.

[McCloud]

Beaten by the better team, more physical and very fast line speed which we had no answer to - which is worring......

[Joe Konys barmy army]

My view on player performance:
Good - Ryan, VDF, Stander
Avg - Healy, Furlong, Aki, Ringrose, Stockdale
Poor - Best, Toner, POM, Murray, Sexton, Earls, Henshaw

Ringrose was the best Irish player on the pitch by a country mile (I’m not sure what a country mile but it’s supposedly longer than a mile).

Suprisingly it was only when Lamour came on we had a back three player who could compete in the air. We should have a fullback start at 15 next week and I’d like to see Henshaw at 12.

[Reggie P]

Murray not back to his best yet,kept kicking to May, Englands best player.
Missed Leavy,missed Henderson . RoryBest Van Der Flier not really at the races.
Henshaw at times all at sea.
Bundee our best player today.

[The Last Stand]

Form backline for next week:

Cooney, Carbery
stockdale, Ringrose Aki Conway
Addison

[The Last Stand]

Zebo probably there also. And Haley would have been better than Henshaw too.

[JN.Allezdax.com]

Murray not back to his best yet,kept kicking to May, Englands best player.
Missed Leavy,missed Henderson . RoryBest Van Der Flier not really at the races.
Henshaw at times all at sea.
Bundee our best player today.

Do not agree, but I do not have the absolute truth: MotM for me was Henry Slade. Terrific in defense, class act on his first try and twice scorer. In such a form will be England a candidate for the Great Slam, and a real contender for the World Cp