Rob Kearney – 7
Kicked well in the first half and almost had a sensational drop goal from 70 yards. Lively in the second half, but couldn’t keep his team in it.
Tommy Bowe – 7
Decent showing in the first half, alongside Earls, but his star plummeted in the second half with some poor handling.
Keith Earls – 8
Clever handling near the England line when he got caught short came to nothing. Two really good line breaks. Ireland’s best player.
Gordon D’Arcy – 2
Continued his decline as an international centre in the first half, he seemed to miss his Leinster team-mate Brian O’Driscoll more than anyone.
Andrew Trimble – 6
Frequent poor handling in the first half as he made wrong decision after wrong decision, particularly in his interplay with D’Arcy. Was reasonably strong in defence, for all that.
Jonathan Sexton – 4
Penalty attempts aside, he was totally outplayed by Owen Farrell.
Eoin Reddan – 4
Was lucky to stay on the pitch in the first half after sticking his leg inside the England scrum. Replaced by Tomás O’Leary in the second half.
Cian Healy – 5
Reasonable ball carrying but the pack was destroyed today, and he was as culpable as any.
Rory Best – 5
Great vision and execution in the first half to set Earls free but his line-out delivery wasn’t great. Shocking in the scrum, he was dominated by Dylan Hartley.
Mike Ross – 6
A blow for Ireland as Ross was forced off injured in the first half, to be replaced by Tom Court. Had performed reasonably up to that point.
Donncha O’Callaghan – 4
Again, an anonymous member of the Irish pack that was dominated at the breakdown.
Donnacha Ryan – 5
Stepped through a ruck to land a massive psychological blow in the first half, but was poor as part of misfiring defensive unit.
Stephen Ferris – 4
Couple of moments of indiscipline in defence and he saw little of the ball in attack, contributed little overall.
Sean O’Brien – 3
Still doesn’t look like a No7 – he’s fine with ball in hand but very poor on the ground. No different in this game.
Jamie Heaslip – 3
Continued a poor run of form that began in the run-up to last year’s World Cup.
Replacements:
Tom Court – 3
The weakest link in a poor Irish scrum.
Ronan O’Gara – No rating.
His most telling touch came with the last action of the game, putting Ireland out of its misery.
Tomás O’Leary – 3
Came on for Reddan with a view to adding stability and physicality. What he actually delivered were some very ropey passes.
Mike McCarthy – No rating.
Players should shut their mouths prior to such a high profile match, a bit of respect goes a long way. This is rugby, not soccer.
Sorry but Bowe was as poor as everyone else how you can say he was 3 points better than sexton who done nothing wrong with the limited backwards ball he got.
Earls defended really well but butchered that chance in the first half.
Both his line breaks show he’s a super winger but he can’t or won’t pass the ball, he was Ireland’s second best player And maybe a 6.5
Ryan was Ireland best player.
Best was shown up to be average and court is a joke.
Darcy and doc need to retire.
But the biggest problem is that we need a new coaching set up.
Coming into this competition doc and darcy have been dropped by their provences for Ryan and McFadden but still start for Ireland another joke
Why no rating for ROG and Mike McCarthy? I thought ROG came on around 60 mins? And there were plenty poorer performances in green today than him. An amateur showing by a Irish side that looked disinterested and tired. Anyone know how many knock-ons? What Kidney is thinking by persisting with Darcy and O’Leary I just don’t know.
An abysmal performance but let’s be honest, a hiding has been on the cards. Wales could and maybe should have hammered us in the first game. Poor ref decisions aside, they were by far the better team. The Irish management overlook form players. Mike McCarthy get’s called up ahead of Dan Tuohy, Isaac Boss overlooked in favour of O’Leary, Simon Zebo ignored, O’Brien kept at 7 to accomodate an out of form Heaslip with O’Mahony kept on the bench. D’arcy’s been in decline for 3 years now at least but persisted with while McFadden and Spence can’t get a look in. And, as has been the fear for some time, we have only 2 international class props. This was shown up badly today.
didnt rog come on at 50? otherwise yes wtf are darcy and doc doin in the squad?! they have been great but there are much better out there and they are over the hill now.
Awful performance from an Irish team on st Patrick’s day when the whole world was watching, no heart shameful showing, a few of then so called new era of rich boy socialite rugby players need a reality check… You know who you are. Concentrate on the sport and not the fame cause that was appalling stuff… Not worth paying to watch that crap and def not worth your big wages.
Well this was a depressing championship,Earls and Ryan were the only positives from this tournament,two replacements for BOD and POC, biggest disapointments have to be Heaslip and D’Arcy,and we still can’t trust Sexton to see out a tight game,thank god for the HC ,or else i could go mental…
Tom Court should have gone down injured. Uncontested scrums would have changed the entire match. England were v average. Italy nearly beat them. However at least they have blooded some players.
Thrashed by a very very poor and limited English team. Kidney transplant Required
It looks like Jamie Heaslip is maybe carrying a little too much weight, and Donncha Ryan not enough. DR is a bright hope for the future, but really not much else to get excited about. The usual suspects were dull-to-poor, time for GD and DC to retire gracefully.
P.s what did Court get his 3 points for?