Six Nations 2024: 'Marseille massacre!' - solid Ireland crush 14-man France in series opener

All fair comments Henry. Definitely the conveyor belt is healthy (is there a big 12?) It's just a matter of when he starts to phase out the old dogs (Hansen is still pretty young.) Individually they aren't that old but there are a heck of a lot of them! It'll be an interesting judgement call and we'll see whether he gets it right. As you say, no immediate need to worry.

To be honest I think Ireland are bringing through enough new players. Crowley at 10 had his first 6 nations start, Joe McCarthy and Calvin Nash also had their first 6 nations start. These are as good as debuts. Three very green young players in any match day squad particularly one away to France is pretty good. I doubt NZ would give rugby championship debuts to more than three guys away to SA for example. There are only a few key players in the squad with no chance of making the next world cup and they are POM, Aki and Healy. POM is a backrow forward and Ireland will have absolutely no problem replacing him. I could name about three young players that could slot in. Baird, Conners, Penny, Timoney, Deegan, Coombes, Prendergast are all very experienced already and Ireland under 20s back row Brian Gleeson may well have over taken them all by the time the next RWC comes, he is very promising. Backrow is an area of strength for Ireland. No concerns there. Aki and centre wont be an issue either, Henshaw and Ringrose will be there and Frawley and Osbourne are very good options too both have squad exposure. The only real concern is prop, Healy will be hard to replace. There doesnt seem to be many coming through to replace Bealham and Healy. However, Ireland’s bench v France was one of the strongest ever fielded and the under 20s keep winning. Im not concerned about the conveyor belt. Finally to add the spine of the team is all quite young: 2 Sheehan (25) 8 Doris (25) 9 JGP (31), Casey (24) 10 Crowley (24) 15 Keenan (27)

Think if the tacklers must tackle lower that the attacker will be able to get their hands free to offload in the tackle and there will be no reason to go so low into contact.

My reason for saying it is that for some it might be too instinctive to aim high, in ways that can wrong. The majority can learn and we are seeing that change.

I would say that that implies it's not possible for existing players to learn as a group

Could well be right. 10 15 years maybe

Some astute observations on Eddie’s failures, especially considering that England had three wins and three runners up finishes in consecutive World U20s 2013-18. All that talent yet… (as I wrote in an article last year) “Astonishingly, despite all the Under 20 success, it’s questionable whether a single player debuting after 2017 has since established themselves in the team by playing consistently at a top test level. And even young world class stars from the 2019 tournament like Itoje and Curry have gone backwards.” https://www.theroar.com.au/2023/07/21/did-eddie-jones-squander-or-empower-englands-golden-generation-what-will-happen-for-australia/ The good news for Schmidt is that plenty of young players have been blooded, he “just” needs to pick the right ones. He certainly isn’t overburdened by too many oldies, so as you say he won’t have to worry about the cycle. And he can’t do worse than Eddie, surely.

One aspect of your example that I didn't touch on is trying to keep the balance of experience and youth. One of Eddie's strokes of madness was jettisoning all the experienced players at once. When push came to shove there weren't enough calm heads, nor was there any established cohesion. Forwards work in packs, they know their roles and know how to supplement each other. Matlock and Botha. Matlock didn't need a super high work rate nor to be overtly physical as he knew the Bakkies would be smashing rucks and muscling up. Botha didn't need to think at set piece, just trust what Victor told him to do. When you don't account for this at the selection table then you get imbalanced teams. Teams that might be too old to work hard enough, teams that might be too inexperienced to do their roles well enough, teams that don't trust or know each other well enough to defend as a unit or have the instinctual understanding of what each other is going to do next so that you can complement it. Another area where Schmidt is going to have the very good, very lucky or probably both. Can we borrow Wayne Smith for 4 years please? One area that I kind of touched on is that coaches can get it wrong. Choosing the wrong philoshophy for your pack can be like throwing the wrong choice in rock paper scissors. Choose too big a pack and they can be run around or worn out. Choose too small a pack and they will be muscled out of the game. Choose too many link player and not enough gain line benders and ruck smashers and you'll go backwards until you turn the ball over. Choose too many big boys and you'll be outworked and beaten to the ball. Too few and you'll be mauled and scrummed out of the game. Eddie got it wrong with England this cycle and then also Australia this cycle. South Africa got it right in 2007. How the referees are interpreting the rules at the time can dictate wins or losses that might have gone a different way 4 years earlier. Turns out it's a hard gig. Schmidt has to work out what the Lions will bring, then what the World Cup will bring, what the refereeing will look like, then what he actually has to build a team with. Once he has a vision for that he has to work with the super rugby teams to get them to work with him in developing the right players with the right skills, physical atributes, fitness and mentality, then prevent them for getting demoralised by losing to the kiwis again and again. Once he has those players for the tests against Wales he has to pick the right balance, build cohesion and trust, both in each other and the gameplan. Then he just has to worry about them getting injured or signing overseas. And try and win a couple of matches. Oh yeah and he has to train a new generation of coaches to be ready to take over before the anti-Kiwi crowd decide to white ant him. I don't think worrying about the World Cup cycle is going to be front and centre for him any time soon.

It might take a generation of players to be coached under the new tackle techniques...

Good post Mugs. Yes it's a matter of balance and it will require a lot of skill to get the generation transition right (see the John Hart part of my reply to Carnivean below.) For the sake of Ireland's psyche (and I speak from experience as a kiwi) it's vital that Ireland give itself the best possible chance to do well in 2027. The transition has to come sooner rather than later... and who knows we may see more new players introduced in July and November.

Good, considered reply, thank you. Lots of good points there. For another example, how about John Hart's All Blacks in 96/97? After a close loss in the '95 final, Hart had a brilliant two years winning everything but we went into the '99 RWC with a green, soft pack. We never really recovered until Mitchell Brought in a load of kids in '02-'03 which Henry, Hansen and Smith turned into World Beaters. Australia had the Bledisloe for about six years straight! Sorry I can't write more at the moment, early night tonight!

Fair enough. How long do we give it you reckon

I agree they are too reactive and it will probably end up, although an advantage in many respects, having the flexibility to change the laws at will might be their undoing, when they do nothing, or reverse direction. No doubt Hamish fancied himself as a challenger to PdV. Although I know several people who have known PdV a lifetime and cannot speak highly enough of him as a humble, generous and loyal friend. I hope Hamish has many friends who also think that highly of him. No doubt League glories in its own image of the toughest game on the planet. They have built so much wealth on the back of it, it will be a shame if they lose it all. They will have no meaningful defence to any claims by players.

Boxing and MMA both have really, really long gaps between fights and incredibly strong protocols around KOs and concussions. Rugby, NFL, AFL and League are all weekly matches. Boxing brains might suffer more intensely but are (meant to be) given far longer to recover. There's some evidence that it's the repeition that causes more long term damage. The NRL seems to be a hugely reactive organisation. There was an article recently about how they've tinkered with the rules 20 times in a handful of seasons or similar. Many of those are headlined by a strong starting position and then subsequently watered down due to media and insider backlash. They seem to be at the mercy of the games commentator during live matches and in their myriad analysis shows and print columns. A player might be rightfully (to our eyes) be marched for some thuggish "tackle" but there'll be an outcry from someone about how it wasn't as bad as someone else almost killling a man and getting pats on the back not a penalty. This will lead to endless pressure to give the latest offence more lenient treatment. Soon they're back to where they started. Their chairman seems to combine the worst traits of 2 men that RA was able to rid themselves of last year. Extreme arrogance and narcissism and no long term plan.

I would hesitate to take Eddie as an example on anything. He's just too different for normal patterns to apply. The bigger problem, I feel, with the England squad that lead to their lesser performance was that Eddie didn't actually develop them. The majority of the building of the squad and depth that lead to 2019 was done under the previous coaches. Eddie came in with a great set of resources to choose from and was able to motivate them to a good world cup. By the second cycle he was reaping the rewards of his negligence. While everyone else built around a new plan and developed their players to match, Eddie continued to throw spaghetti against the wall to see what stuck. I agree with Muglair that you don't need to blood players before they're ready just so they get a certain number of games in before the world cup. However I also agree with you that teams can't ignore it. There are choices that need to be made with sufficient time to test their effectiveness before the critical events. It was madness that selected our world cup squad this time around, throwing out the good for the new, and with no time for combinations or cohesion to form. Obviously the ideal is to have a fully formed, coherent team and then slowly rotate players in and out based on form and development plans. You can do that entirely ignoring the world cup cycle. NZ did exactly that in 2011, using their 4th best 10 to win the final due to the cohesion of the rest of the team. Australia aren't there yet but should strive to get there ASAP regagrdless of what events are coming up. Unfortunately getting there in a short period of time is going to rely on a lot of insight from the coaches and a large serving of luck. How do you pick and stick when half the incumbent team won't demand selection?

On your last point, I'm more optimistic. I think the message will get through to the point where you only have 2 categories of foul play: deliberate nonsense or mistakes. Right now I think we definitely have a 3rd category: negligent or reckless. When that 3rd category goes away I'll support a more lenient card system for sure.

Yep no issue with change being needed and what's required to achieve that. I do think there are ways to do it with less impact. I don't think we should be proceeding on the basis that players just need to learn and adjust and the issue will go away. I think it will continue to happen often enough (though likely reduced from this point), including pro levels below tests, as the humans continue to make mistakes

South Africa and Ireland are showing us that you can essentially avoid the risk of a card in test rugby at the moment, provided you build your systems, technique and mentality around it. Your point about the shared consequence is reasonable, but I share the view of many in the NH that it's part of the incentive on the players to not offend. By getting themselves carded they're letting them team mates down. I am a fan of the 20 minute card, with a different player being allowed to return to the field, but equally I can see the argument from the other side. They're trying to drive change and compromising doesn't achieve that.

A car situation doesn't ask you to push speed to the limit constantly then then take your licence if you go sightly over. They also dont create a consequence for all your work mates and those paying for your work. They allow others to step into your role if you do transgress to the point you're removed from the ability to reoffend Surely we should be aiming for a system that if someone pays attention to their technique they can essentially avoid all risk of a card? You essentially can while driving

It's hard to argue that there was no luck involved in 3 consecutive 1 point wins. But equally if chance was the major factor then they probably wouldn't have won them. They controlled what they could, especially in regards to how their techniques would fare against the way the game was refereed. There's definitely too many people on these pages that are very vocal about things that can't or won't change, about not accepting the rules as they currently are. Hopefully as enough people with influence within the game, coaches and players and administrators, change their ethos and public statements, then those posters will be forced to change and update.