How big is this match against Australia?

dizzler

How big do you think this match against australia is??
if we win will it be talked about for years to come like the grand slam?
i know its only one match but but if we can turn our current form into a display similar to how we played against england this year and come out with a win then i think it time for us all to get REALLY excited about the rest of the WC.

Cannot wait for 9.30am tomorrow.

It's as "BIG" as any other group match. Yet far more difficult than any other group match.

With 2 more games to play after it before a QF game, I think that a performance is the most important thing we need to see tomorrow.

CatFromHue

In rugby terms for Ireland and for Oz who ever wins will be in a great position to get a quarter final against the second place team in the Wales/SA group. The winner of that game plays the winner of QF2 which is more than likely one of Eng, Arg, and Fra. Assuming the Kiwis beat Fra.

The loser of tomorrows game will more than likely have to play SA in the quarters and NZ in the semi.

So whoever wins tomorrow has in theory a far easier root to the final.

It's hard to know if we win tomorrow will it be talked about for years but I still agonise over the foot or so that Humphrey's kick went wide on 2003!

Essentially the US were good and all but tomorrow is big boy stuff.

wrmwit

MASSIVE!

Ireland are not expected to win this game from the day the draw was made. Ireland are due one hell of a performance and I hope it'll come tomorrow. I have a good feeling about this one!

I have never been so excited about the thoughts of getting up early on a Saturday morning!

wrmwit

Plus....a losing bonus point wouldn't be too bad. It would make up for the one Ireland missed out against USA. With USA beating Russia yesterday, bonus points could be a factor if Ireland become second or not.

buck65

In the scheme of things it really isn't as big as the Italian match, when we beat Italy we'll feel satisfied to make the quarters and we'll moan about losing to a poor S Africa for a while and generally feel we did okay considering.
Sure what more could we expect? We're Irish after all. Losing with honour is what this team does well.

onlyrocknroll

If we win we should* top the group.

If we top the group we'll most probably face Wales or Samoa in the quarter finals, then England or France in the semis. And given France's mental fragility against England, we could get the easier of these two. These are all teams that we we can realistically hope to beat.

If we lose we should* finish second in the group and we'll probably face South Africa in the quarters, and if we manage that we'll get New Zealand in the semis, considerably more difficult if not nearing impossible.

So this match is huge in that it could potentially be the key to a great WC for us.


* This is all contingent on us beating Italy. Lets not get too cocky too soon.

CatFromHue

buck65 wrote: »

In the scheme of things it really isn't as big as the Italian match, when we beat Italy we'll feel satisfied to make the quarters and we'll moan about losing to a poor S Africa for a while and generally feel we did okay considering.
Sure what more could we expect? We're Irish after all. Losing with honour is what this team does well.

We've beaten Italy consistently for the last 10 years and are strong favourites for that game. Mr Hook has put it in peoples mind that we are going to lose to the Italians as we have no scrum. How did the scrum go again in the 6 Nations? Didn't we win that game against Italy?

Tomorrow is completely different game. They are favourites, 4/1 seemingly, but we can if we get our act together we can beat them.

Your last sentence makes me feel ashamed and angry to be associated with you.

flynninio

just been to an irish pub in london for half day drink and people are genuinely startin to feel somethin special can happen. kidney has the team i believe he wanted to play all along and i think the team will be mostly happy with this selection bar one or debatables.

alles les vert.

buck65

Cat Fom Hue

You're not associated with me. And you didn't read my post properly. Nowhere did I say we wouldn't beat Italy, actually I said when we beat Italy. And get over yourself have you watch this ****ing team in the past 2 seasons?
This respect and fear of the Aussies is ridiculous. Didn't we draw with these guys recently? Typical Northern hemisphere adulation of all things Southern, Sometimes you have to admire England and #Martin Johnson, those guys feel they can beat anyone and they are a far worse team individually than us - but watch them go further than us again as usual.
Too many guys on the Irish team treading water atm. Earls, Darcy, O Callaghan should be on the bench at best.

onlyrocknroll

CatFromHue wrote: »

We've beaten Italy consistently for the last 10 years and are strong favourites for that game. Mr Hook has put it in peoples mind that we are going to lose to the Italians as we have no scrum. How did the scrum go again in the 6 Nations? Didn't we win that game against Italy?

Tomorrow is completely different game. They are favourites, 4/1 seemingly, but we can if we get our act together we can beat them.

Your last sentence makes me feel ashamed and angry to be associated with you.

Yeah but lets give a little context though, Italy were painfully close to beating us this year and they beat France. We're favourites but disregarding history in favour of current form; there's a bigger gap between us and Australia than there is between Italy and us.

CatFromHue

Your fatalistic view irritates me. Yes our form over the last 2 years has been patchy but we have on occasion got it together and played very well. I see no reason why we can't get it together tomorrow and really put it to the Aussies. If the players have your mindset they might as well just come home.

Assuming you're Irish, which considering this is an Irish forum is relatively safe assumption, and I'm Irish and the Ireland national team which we will both be supporting tomorrow is playing, I am in a way associated with you.

snotboogie

buck65 wrote: »

This respect and fear of the Aussies is ridiculous. Didn't we draw with these guys recently? Typical Northern hemisphere adulation of all things Southern, Sometimes you have to admire England and #Martin Johnson, those guys feel they can beat anyone and they are a far worse team individually than us - but watch them go further than us again as usual.

Can't argue with that. We have a terrible attitude when we are playing the bigger rugby nations (bar England)

irishbucsfan

If we lose it will be a failure in the "biggest game of these players' careers"

If we win it will just be a stepping stone to either an eventual defeat in the "biggest game of these players' careers" in the knockouts or even a highly incredible victory in the "biggest game of these players' careers" in the final.

It all depends. Hopefully it's not the "biggest game of these players' careers."

chickencurry02

Its time for this team to step up at this world cup.

The last 2 world cups were utter failures.

And personally I think one grand slam in the last 6 or 7 years was also a failure. In that time scotland were rubbish and england must have had their worse side ever. We should have won more grand slams and just the one was underachieving.

I think Italy are saving themselves for us and if we play like we have in the last few months it could be another bad world cup.

gosplan

The problem is that since we drew with Aus, we've gone backwards at an alarming rate and seem to have lost our spark, while they've beaten France by an all-time record score and won the tri-nations.

I think Ireland have it in them to step up and put in a solid performance but I'm not so sure that this Irish team at this point in time can really produce a great game of rugby, and if Aus play near their max, I fear the result won't have much to do with us.

If we win the set piece battle, defend like lions, keep the game low scoring, and Aus don't quite gel, we can win.

Kayless

basically tomorrow is our world cup as o'driscoll says "this game means everything"

Cypher_sounds

This game means everything really, if we could manage to win then we would gain massive confidence from the result and means we more than likely get Wales in the qf and the possibility of the semis would be very real.

theboss80

Deleted User wrote: »

It's as "BIG" as any other group match. Yet far more difficult than any other group match.

With 2 more games to play after it before a QF game, I think that a performance is the most important thing we need to see tomorrow.

Nope a win is tbh

Teferi

theboss80 wrote: »

Nope a win is tbh

I think you're right. These players will take an ugly win over a beautiful defeat.

GerM

CatFromHue wrote: »

How did the scrum go again in the 6 Nations? Didn't we win that game against Italy?

In fairness, CFH, the scrum was a disaster. They scrummaged illegally throughout and we failed to sort it out. We beat them but our failure to deal with them at the scrum almost cost us the game. There was a point where there was a series of resets on our line where a yellow card was very close that surely would have seen us lose. The gap between ourselves and Italy has narrowed.

I'd agree with others in relation to the importance of the result. It doesn't matter if we win 3-0 or lose 80-0. This it the WC. Performances mean bugger all. This is a results driven game and I don't care how we win. The match tomorrow is massive and the last couple of years are boiling down to a couple of games, one of which is tomorrow. Beating Australia is far more significant and important than beating anyone else in our group. Our aim going into the tournament was to reach a semi final. To do that we will need to beat a Tri-Nations side. The first opportunity is tomorrow.

theboss80

theboss80 wrote: »

Nope a win is tbh

a bad limp across the line victory leaves us still struggling to find form vs Russia which means we need to play full team. Which means we play Italy doing the same, and then we play QF having very little rotation or rest and after playing what I imagine will be two dogged games as preparation for a game against a dynamic welsh side, or a disciplined SA side.

If we don't get the engine started, the result tomorrow is a short term gain but won't help us out in terms of the overall competition hugely.

RonBo88

Tomorrow's game is huge, can't wait.

Cmon Ireland!!!

GerM

The tournament is short term, Emmet. It could all be over in 2 weeks. Any sort of win against the second best side in the world will provide us with as much if not more confidence and as big a boost than any sort of loss. Performances were needed in the warm ups. They should be shelved now and games taken as they come.

theboss80

100% correct GerM

Its a short tournament. A win will improve our chances of getting further than a QTR final. Even a limping win against Aus would do and with that I very much doubt we would play full team against Russia.