We need to talk about Sexton...

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Has he lost his bottle? As I watched the last few minutes of the Heineken cup I was wondering why the hell Leinster were trying to use possession rugby to score 2 tries in 4 minutes from their own 22. It's not like the Sarries defence had looked likely to give up an 80m score from just going through the phases, let alone 2. So it clearly needed someone to take a chance. Last year, Sexton was absolutely a man who knew when to do that. This year for Ireland and for Leinster it doesn't appear that he does.

So he's clearly going to continue to start for Ireland but Joe if you're listening please can we consider letting someone else occasionally get time and finish games?

[SerjeantWildgoose]

Dead right. I nominate Ian Keitley.

[Eugene Wrayburn]

Dead right. I nominate Ian Keitley.

Jaysus!

[BBD]

spot on, many the time when Keitley was playing youd hear people shouting he was finishing soon

[Digby]

How many games has Sexton actually played this season? It can't be many, and he keeps coming back cold after seemingly weeks out into supposed big games. Added to which both Ireland and Leinster have had success on the gainline so it's not surprise most of their structures are then reliant on it, the bigger question is what changes now they're not getting success in that area?

[Eugene Wrayburn]

How many games has Sexton actually played this season? It can't be many, and he keeps coming back cold after seemingly weeks out into supposed big games. Added to which both Ireland and Leinster have had success on the gainline so it's not surprise most of their structures are then reliant on it, the bigger question is what changes now they're not getting success in that area?

I think you are right that coming back from injury is one of the issues. Though in the past he has come back near his best as he gets older that's less and less likely.

They used to have ways of getting around it the loop is partly designed to generate go-forward out wide without needing too much heavy lifting. He also used to use a better range of kicks - remember against France last year when we were getting battered on the gainline as the game closed and he produced a sublime crossfield kick (to my near coronary) which generated a bit of an advance and disorganised the defence.

[Digby]

How many games has Sexton actually played this season? It can't be many, and he keeps coming back cold after seemingly weeks out into supposed big games. Added to which both Ireland and Leinster have had success on the gainline so it's not surprise most of their structures are then reliant on it, the bigger question is what changes now they're not getting success in that area?

I think you are right that coming back from injury is one of the issues. Though in the past he has come back near his best as he gets older that's less and less likely.

They used to have ways of getting around it the loop is partly designed to generate go-forward out wide without needing too much heavy lifting. He also used to use a better range of kicks - remember against France last year when we were getting battered on the gainline as the game closed and he produced a sublime crossfield kick (to my near coronary) which generated a bit of an advance and disorganised the defence.

Even the loop works better with quick ball, and that takes someone winning contact rather than continually going backwards.

One thing they do need to address are the handling skills, Schmidt might reasonably suspect they're not drilling as hard on such basics as he had them grind out. It wasn't bad on the handling front, but there were some chances that better hands could have seen progressed further, and that they can work on whereas becoming more powerful is tricky

[Eugene Wrayburn]

How many games has Sexton actually played this season? It can't be many, and he keeps coming back cold after seemingly weeks out into supposed big games. Added to which both Ireland and Leinster have had success on the gainline so it's not surprise most of their structures are then reliant on it, the bigger question is what changes now they're not getting success in that area?

I think you are right that coming back from injury is one of the issues. Though in the past he has come back near his best as he gets older that's less and less likely.

They used to have ways of getting around it the loop is partly designed to generate go-forward out wide without needing too much heavy lifting. He also used to use a better range of kicks - remember against France last year when we were getting battered on the gainline as the game closed and he produced a sublime crossfield kick (to my near coronary) which generated a bit of an advance and disorganised the defence.

Even the loop works better with quick ball, and that takes someone winning contact rather than continually going backwards.

One thing they do need to address are the handling skills, Schmidt might reasonably suspect they're not drilling as hard on such basics as he had them grind out. It wasn't bad on the handling front, but there were some chances that better hands could have seen progressed further, and that they can work on whereas becoming more powerful is tricky

Everything is better with quick ball!

I think you're right about the drilling. It might be a function of both Sexton and Henshaw being out for considerable periods of time but it wasn't just there. I guess it's something that they will have plenty of time to do in camp before the RWC.

[Digby]

Without quick ball it's much harder to execute any loop, partly Sarries are so fast coming up (albeit probably starting too far forwards too) but also they're more easily able to get to Sexton after one intervention and knock him back and even tackle him to stop him getting second involvements, England and Wales did the same before, and it is much easier to take him out of the loop than guess which variant he'll run.