Ireland Vs Italy

Ireland took on Italy yesterday in Donnybrook and were looking to get a second win in a championship that has seen a number of new caps included as Tom Tierney tries to add depth to a squad that is preparing for a home World Cup in 2017.

The game yesterday will be seen as a win but this is a game where Italy will think they had a golden chance to gain victory over a nervy Irish team that had a number of new faces sprinkled with some real experience.  New caps Kim Flood and Liz Burke were given a chance to impress. They were part of a team that were under real pressure from an Italian side who looked up for the game from minute one.

There inside centre Michela Sillari was a bright spark and she was ably assisted by a pack that was more than happy to carry ball and take on the Irish forwards. Italy owned the ball in the opening 20 minutes and took a deserved 3-0 lead through a Sillari penalty and they continued to have large amounts of possession but they were very unfortunate not to add to that 3-0 lead and as the 1^st half moved on and Ireland began to carry with more vigour and they also started to offload out of tackles which made things more difficult for Italy.

Ireland will know that they need to sharpen up in attack because every time the ball went beyond out half Nikki Caughey every move seemed to falter and barring the try from Paula Fitzpatrick which was the culmination of a driving maul. The other positives that coach Tom Tierney will take from the game were that there scrum and line out worked and this in turn created openings that the Irish back division just couldn’t take full advantage of.

This game will unfortunately not live long in the memory due to its stop start nature and both teams making errors that cost them as the game progressed. Ireland changed their half back pairing from Mary Healy and Nikki Caughey to Larissa Muldoon and Nora Stapleton and this change seemed to have the desired effect as Ireland even though they didn’t take their chance began to play with more  freedom and the offloading game that was there in the first half returned with Sophie Spence , Maz Reilly and Ciara Griffin all carrying to good effect. 

As I already mentioned the Irish set piece has not worked in this Championship but against Italy it all seemed to click and this solidity at the set piece was a refreshing change from the first three games were the set piece let Ireland down and probably cost them a win against England also not taking the chances that they create had an impact aswell.

Looking to the final game of the Championship next Sunday against Scotland , Ireland will want to win that game and finish on a high and make it three wins from 5 games. 14 new players have been blooded in the long term run up to the 2017 World Cup on home soil. Yes the Championship will not be won this year but if Ireland haved learned lessons from the three defeats against England last November and again in the Six Nations along with a defeat against France in The Stade Aime Giral this campaign will not have been in vain.

By

Cian Mc Gibney

14/03/2017

The Weekend That Was

The past weekend was as busy as any other on a sporting front that saw UFC kingpin Conor Mc Gregor go into battle against Nate Diaz with Diaz coming out on top with a submission win. I am not getting involved in this battle that has seen people down play his achievements or the camp that proclaims him as a world class athlete. He was beaten fair and square on Saturday evening and has taken his beating like any professional athlete should. He will go back to the drawing board and come back when he see’s fit. Miesha Tate defeated Holly Holm on the same bill and one thing that jumped out at me was the difference in pay for both the women and men. For the same event that puts all competitors in the same level of danger. It justs goes to show that things haven’t changed very much , equality in sport I very much think not..

Moving away from UFC , The Allianz National Football and Hurling League’s stepped up a gear with Kerry and Donegal going to war in Tralee yesterday along with Wexford teaching Kerry a harsh Hurling lesson earlier in the day. In the football although Kerry were winners on the day , the game will be remembered  for a number of skirmishes that broke out particularly in the opening 20 minutes. In that time Kerry had two men black carded and they also had Alan Fitzgerald red carded after he got into an altercation with Eamon Mc Gee that saw Mc Gee grab Fitzgerald by the hand and he allegedly  appeared to pull at the fingers of Alan Fitzgerald which caused him to strike out to try and free himself but this was seen by the match umpires who drew attention to the incident by bringing referee Eddie Kinsella in who subsequently sent Fitzgerald off and it saw Mc Gee go off to receive treatment for a mouth injury.

This was not the only incident in a game that was short on quality at times, the people at GAA HQ need to look into sorting out these incidents and coming down heavy on the offending players and counties. It was another game where the quality of the play came second to several incidents of Foul Play. I appeal to the GAA sort this out or will ruin the Championship this year….

With the 6 Nations on a break for a week , domestic action took centre stage with  the Pro 12 to the forefront of people’s minds. All 4 Irish teams picked up wins this weekend and Connacht in particular kept up there push for a Semi Final spot with a win over Edinburgh in Murrayfield. Munster , Leinster and Ulster also secured wins over the Dragons , Zebre and Ospreys.  Joe Schmidt has confirmed the 35 men who will hope to take on Italy and Scotland with Munster’s Jack O Donoghue called up along with Finlay Bealham.

In the race for the Premier League, Both Spurs and Arsenal slipped up to hand back control back to Leicester who now have a 5 point lead over there main rivals. The  Airtricity League came back on Friday night with Cork City beginning their quest to reclaim the league title from Dundalk with a 2-0 win over Bohemians.

Christina Mc Mahon from Co Monaghan will fight for a World Title in Mexico next Saturday night. She is Ireland’s only female Professional Boxer.  As You can see it has been a busy weekend and It will only get busier from here on in. I’ll be back next week with another Weekend that was…

By

Cian Mc Gibney

07/03/2016

Ireland Vs Italy

Ireland were beaten by 21-10 on Saturday by England at Twickenham and in the aftermath of that defeat much has been made of an incident between Mike Brown and Conor Murray where the English full back made contact with the eye area after trying to kick the ball free from the bottom of a ruck on the England line. People have called for Mike Brown to be cited for the incident but both he and coach Eddie Jones have come out and said that the referee and TMO dealt with the incident and there will no further action taken.

Moving to the game, England will be delighted with such a comprehensive win in Eddie Jones 1^st game at Twickenham. The English scrum and line out in particular went really well and dominated the early exchanges. The Irish scrum has improved since the opening two games against Wales and France with the return of Mike Ross proving crucial to the upturn in fortune for the scrum.

 Looking to his understudies’ one can see the reason that the loss of Martin Moore has had an effect even though his replacement at national and provincial level Tadgh Furlong has done a great job when called upon and he can also feel aggrieved at being dropped in favour of Nathan White. White spent his early years in Ireland with Leinster where he was understudy to Mike Ross who himself had just arrived home from time with Harlequins.

Furlong has proven at Provincial level that he is a quality tighthead and that when called upon he has done a great job filling in for Ross or Moore. With Martin Moore moving to Wasps for three years which I should mention should not be the end of his International career for the duration of his time in England.

Looking at the performance on Saturday, Ireland for the third game in succession were creating chances but failing to take any of the chances that they did create. This has become a real issue for the team. The driving maul that was a real weapon in John Plumtree’s time in charge of the Irish forwards has become a real problem with Ireland now kicking for the corner with no guarantee of retaining possession and scoring from the chances that are created.

Ireland played with a new sense of adventure on Saturday with a new centre partnership in the form of Stuart Mc Closkey and Robbie Henshaw , a glimpse of the future maybe ?? Add to that the introduction of Josh Van Der Flier and Ultan Dillane and we are beginning to see the slow addition of new talent with an eye to Japan in 2019. Other players that are in and around the squad like Finlay Bealham , Tadgh Furlong , Josh Van Der Flier and Gary Ringrose to name four new players that have either been in the Ireland squad or training squad in recent weeks.

One of the issues in the Ireland squad is the make up of the current squad that sees a number of inform players on the outside looking in namely Paddy Jackson and Matt Healy. With the Six Nations title now lost and two games against Scotland and Italy maybe it is time to blood more young talent and with three tests against South Africa this June Ireland will want to have more new players to choose from….

The 23 I would select for the Italy game would be :

15 Jared Payne

14 Keith Earls

13 Robbie Henshaw

12 Stuart Mc Closkey

11 Craig Gilroy

10 Jonathan Sexton

9 Conor Murray

8 Jamie Heaslip

7 Josh Van Der Flier

6 CJ Stander

5 Donnacha Ryan

4 Ultan Dillane

3 Tadgh Furlong

2 Sean Cronin

1 Jack Mc Grath

-

16 Richardt Struass

17 James Cronin

18 Mike Ross

19 Dave Foley

20 Tommy O Donnell

21 Kieran Marmion

22 Paddy Jackson

23 Matt Healy

By

Cian Mc Gibney

29/02/2016

Wales Vs France, A win for Brute Force

Last night France faced Wales at the newly named Principality Stadium that had its roof open due to a technical fault. This game turned into a game not for the purist who likes running exciting rugby and also illustrated why the Northern Hemisphere is so far behind the Southern Hemisphere in terms of quality rugby. This game was built around rugged defences and sheer brute force.

Also factor in that most of the France 23 played for their clubs last weekend whereas all of the home based Welsh players had the weekend off outside of the replacements that Warren Gatland deemed needing game time.

Looking at the game , it was like two teams that were given 30 sledge hammers and told to go out a slog away for 80 minutes to see who would come out on top. Yes some wonderful Wales defending kept France at bay until the 77^th minute. But the now famous Welsh tactic that has been christened “ Warrenball” was in full flow last night where both Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies were up to the usual tricks running hard lines against the French defence.

Yes this tactic worked last night against France but down the road against sides like New Zealand , Argentina , South Africa and Australia this tactic will come unstuck again like it did on their Summer tour of South Africa and also against the same opposition in the 2015 World Cup.

France were no better than Wales , with one off runners giving scrum half Maxime Machenaud no real choice but to keep the ball with the forwards. France only looked dangerous on the counter attack and that didn’t happen as often as they would have liked.  Guy Noves has made some changes h it up the middle to this French team but I still feel that they are a long way behind most of the top sides in the World.

Wales will delighted to have won such a tight game but there game plan needs to evolve beyond crash up the middle and work from that. They along with the other sides in the 6 Nations need to move away from the Hell, Fire and Brimstone approach that has long been associated with the 6 Nations.

The bonus point system needs to be brought in ASAP, and this may just entice teams into attacking more and also it would in my opinion stop teams from just using the sledge hammer approach. If any of the 6 Nations sides wish to close the gap on the teams from the Rugby Championship they need to embrace a more attacking approach.

There are a number of laws being trialled in the Super Rugby Competition that if successful will be introduced next season in the Northern Hemisphere. Some laws will improve the speckle that is Rugby Union. Most of the issues surround the scrum and one of the new laws being trialled will see a scrum even if it collapses continue and this will see the game speed up as there will be less resets.

Back to the 6 Nations, Wales will be delighted they won last night and are on course to reclaim the 6 Nations crown they last won in 2013. France will just have to regroup and prepare as best they can for their final two fixtures.

Wales will feel they can push on from there victory last night and win another 6 Nations title under Warren Gatland. After last night’s game I just wonder will we ever see another Northern Hemisphere World Cup winner , Barring England in 2003 , no other Northern Hemisphere side has won the games biggest prize. On last night’s evidence, if the teams up in this hemisphere don’t buck up their ideas , the Rugby Championship sides will kick further and further clear.

Super Rugby kicked off yesterday and there were some wonderful tries scored by all the teams in Round one and that’s the key word Try because the 6 Nations sides seem to have forgotten how to create tries in open play. It has nothing to do with weather as New Zealand and other sides like Australia and Argentina have proved there are more than one to skin a cat….

By

Cian Mc Gibney

27/02/2016

Boxing

The sport of boxing has always had a tough reputation be it at professional or amateur level. I have been at two boxing events run by two Kerry clubs in the last 12 months, Trojan Boxing Club in May 2015 and Tralee Boxing Club in February 2016. Both events were exceptional in the way they were run and also the quality of each fight. This of course is down to the quality of the boxers and also the coaches that nurture that love of boxing in the first place.

I have always had an interest in boxing and the training aspect has always fascinated me. Looking at the work that both Pro’s and Amateur’s put in to prepare for fight is a sight to behold and after spending an hour last week in the presence of one of America’s best female amateur boxers Queen Underwood I got a small insight into the world of a dedicated boxer who puts hours into her training regime to put her at the top of her game.

She will now head to the Pro game and having spent time with her and also watching her performance last Saturday, I have no doubt that she will give the Professional game a real go. Katie Taylor of course needs no introduction, multiple medal winner at National, European, World and Olympic level. She is a true champion. She won her first fight in 2016 in Mallow the previous evening and headed to Tralee to the Brandon to see could she defeat Queen Underwood one final time before her amateur career came to a close at the end of the 4 rounds in Tralee. She did exactly that with a commanding victory.

At the end of each round Katie Taylor would let off a flurry of punches that anyone would find difficult to stop and this was again in evidence on Saturday and this lead her to victory. She now turns her attention to qualifying for the Rio Olympics. After her 1^st two fights 2016 I have no doubt that she will give the qualifying her best shot and we will see her in Brazil later this year.

Having spent an hour last week in the company of all at the Tralee Boxing Club, I got an insight into the workings of club and how they run things. I am grateful to Tommy and Noel Kelliher for giving me the access to Queen Underwood as she prepared to face Katie Taylor last Saturday. Thanks also to the younger members of the club who made me so welcome and club chairman Bryan O Sullivan who took time out of his busy training regime to speak with me also.

Boxing as I said at the beginning has got a reputation of being tough and not that well-liked by the majority of people but I hope to try and change that perception. What boxing teaches you is discipline, desire, passion, honour, respect.  

By

Cian Mc Gibney

23/02/2016