If Wales....

I thought a couple of calls could have been kinder to you. Bradley Davies should have been sent off, and the ref called a couple of other little things wrong. Thought you'd beat us today. Still, thought it was a better game than the France - Italy match.

MonDieu-

In-fairness i dont blame the ref. Ref's miss things and thats just life.

But Wales went in to this game missing 5 or six starting player, and lost warnurton and one of the wingers cant remember which (cuthburth ?) at half time.

neither tema deserve much from us regarding the overall quality of the game BUT wales deserved to win it. Ireland (my team) were awful.

All the BS before the game about revenge and so on was just that. BS.

You can duduce from my tone im a little pee'd off.

Because seriously, wales were against the wall with injuries, and we were full strength and we got beat fair and square and the scary thing is that it was plain to see that if they had a full strength team they would have hammered us.

I suspected if Wales could get any ball at all, then Jamies Roberts, JJV Davies (anyone know what the middle initials stand for?) and George North would cause the Irish defence problems. They do for most teams, but Ireland's midfield is normally quite isolated (I mean the backs have a lot of ground to cover) and you cant give those big lads any gaps at all to aim for (JJV or North were my choices for man of the match. JJV really impresses me with his solid carrying and more importantly how frequently he gets on the outside and beats the defence - a new Shanklin?).

So why couldn't Ireland's team of experienced stars keep hold of the ball when Wales' lineout was creaky at best. What was up with Sexton's bombs? He was saved a couple of times by Kearney's excellent chasing and regathering/pressuring, otherwise he could have looked really foolish. I have to say his part in the Bowe try was masterfully done though.

Gecko i think its a confidence thing. Sexton in a green jersey doesn't seem to have it. He didn't play particularly bad tho. he moved the ball well when we had it (which was rare) And he defended well.

Ireland did not go into this game with anything new though. we had the same patterns as the world cup and our midfield were under powered against those monster in the welsh back line.

Thats not to say we could not have won, but we did not have the game plan to win.

The game plan was get the ball to the back row. get to O'Brian and Heaslip and Ferris, and hope they spark something.

Thats a game plan full of neat piles of brown stuff.

Its like this. we don't have the players in the backline to compete on a physical level with wales. so we need to do something else. we need to be better through the hands, speed, accuracy etc etc.

Like leinster. THey are relativly small compared to other teams but they are the best passing team in europe and they cyt teams up with so many variations.

Ireland have one mentality. Score from first phase ball. and when we fail to do that we don't score.

Mismanaged is the only conclusion

well, those annoying ulster pundits were proved right. ferris is certainly a match winner !