"There's nothing heroic about Ireland’s World Cup failure" - The Times

Chivito550

It probably won't be very popular, but hard to argue with the points made in this article, particularly the comparisons to how other sportspeople (particularly our Olympians) would be treated if they came up short of their potential.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/irishnews/sport/article4591362.ece?shareToken=aa5ebdb6c7ead62b57e4758890000ea0

Utopia Parkway

Knew who that article would be from before I even clicked on it.

thebaz

lazy headline making journalism :-

This wasn’t the “Fields of Athenry” ringing around Gdansk as a ramshackle group were 4-0 down to perhaps the best international team to ever play the game. This was far more embarrassing; this was our hugely talented rugby team collapsing




p.s. Hang on this was our rugby team minus its spine (5 key players)

CatFromHue

This isn’t about kicking a group when they are down

I'm fairly sure it is.

I don't remember much celebration on Sunday or Monday but alot more actually interesting debate, say on Off The Ball with Jackman and EOS, about why it went wrong and how we can get better.

I regularly feel like the soccer team and our track and field Olympians are given way too much stick and this journalist seems to be of the opinion that this is how we should treat our athletes, when of course it's complete bollix.

Just cos we aren't abusing our rugby team doesn't mean we aren't disappointed or are celebrating a loss.

Marketing still says that this is a rugby country, maybe it’s about time we stopped believing the hype.

About 40K people went to see Leinster, Munster, Ulster, and Connacht play in Week 3 of the weakened Pro12 this season, maybe someone needs to look at the attendance numbers before making such statements

duffman13

Utopia Parkway wrote: »

Knew who that article would be from before I even clicked on it.

Some valid points, the game was a capitulation from Ireland. I think semi finals was what was needed for this tournament to be deemed a success.

Ireland were missing key players however we still shouldn't be lauding a quarter final team as heroic when it was what was expected.

awec

I actually agree with some of what is said.

m@cc@

duffman13 wrote: »

Ireland were missing key players however we still shouldn't be lauding a quarter final team as heroic when it was what was expected.

Bingo! How can our team be described as 'heroic' or us be 'proud' of them when they achieved the bare minimum?

molloyjh

That’s eight World Cups now and still no semi-final. And while early editions can be treated as a mediocre team simply not being good enough, that can’t be the case here. Instead, just like 2011, this was a massive choke. The lack of intensity for the opening try, the lack of tackling for the second try, forwards covering pace players out wide, the kicking game — all these elements showed a mental collapse much greater than the physical issues borne of a lack of depth.

You see now this is total crap. A mental collapse? Bollix. It was all down to missing key players and not having the depth to cope. It was not a mental collapse. A collapse suggests there was a height there for the players who were on the pitch that they somehow didn't reach on the day. That's just simply not the case.

Was the overall result a failure? Yes. That doesn't mean we should get the knives out or the cheap digs in on a group of players and coaches who gave their all. It means we should review dispassionately what happened and why. Once we identify that we should take steps to rectify the issue. And it's pretty damn clear to me that the issue is quality in depth.

The idea that they choked a second time having come back into the game is also nonsense. We didn't have another gear left in us and Argentina did.

The whole article is yet another example of someone wanting to have a go, but without any form of constructive comment or suggestion in the entire piece.

irishbucsfan

Wait, who is calling the Irish team "heroic" exactly? You can't just lift a quote out of the Simpsons and pretend it's being used elsewhere.

techdiver

I also agree to an extent.

If we don't question why this mediocrity keeps happening at World Cups, we are doomed to repeat the same tame exit every 4 years.

We can't hide behind injuries. Wales had more injuries and they gave a better account of themselves in a tougher group and against arguably a tougher quarter final opponent (to be confirmed after the semi final of course).

Utopia Parkway

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Wait, who is calling the Irish team "heroic" exactly? You can't just lift a quote out of the Simpsons and pretend it's being used elsewhere.

I don''t know. I haven't seen anyone describe them as heroic but if one person said it on twitter it's probably enough for the author of that story.

There has undoubtably been a certain amount of undisguised glee from a small section of the Irish sports media since Sunday. A section that just hates rugby and hates that it has become more popular and has appealed to a wider audience over the past 15 years or so in Ireland. You could probably easily name off about 4 or 5 journalists in particular.

CatFromHue

techdiver wrote: »

I also agree to an extent.

If we don't question why this mediocrity keeps happening at World Cups, we are doomed to repeat the same tame exit every 4 years.

We can't hide behind injuries. Wales had more injuries and they gave a better account of themselves in a tougher group and against arguably a tougher quarter final opponent (to be confirmed after the semi final of course).

There's been plenty of question and analysis just not on the headlines on the Irish Independent's website.

molloyjh

techdiver wrote: »

I also agree to an extent.

If we don't question why this mediocrity keeps happening at World Cups, we are doomed to repeat the same tame exit every 4 years.

We can't hide behind injuries. Wales had more injuries and they gave a better account of themselves in a tougher group and against arguably a tougher quarter final opponent (to be confirmed after the semi final of course).

I can't agree with that at all. Wales beat a pretty poor English side and then butchered a golden opportunity to finally beat Australia when they had a 2 man advantage but still couldn't do it. Then they went out to a poor SA side. All while having a near full strength pack (their injuries were almost exclusively in the back line).

Ireland on the other hand won all their pool games and went out to an Argentinian side as good as we've probably ever seen while suffering injuries in almost every area of the starting XV.

We should be questioning what went wrong. But as I said it seems clear that what went wrong was that we didn't have the requisite quality in our back ups to take the game to an in form Argentinian side. Which is a totally different reason for going out this time. If anything I think we learned a lot of lessons from previous years. After all exactly what mistakes did we repeat?

wp_rathead

Weird article
No one said RWC was heroic - some maybe after the France game when POC, POM and Sexton all went off
I do hate the "chokers" concept as it insinuates that it was ours to win- Argentina had a better 23 and played better rugby

Think he just wanted to use the Simpsons quote

m@cc@

molloyjh wrote: »

I can't agree with that at all. Wales beat a pretty poor English side and then butchered a golden opportunity to finally beat Australia when they had a 2 man advantage but still couldn't do it. Then they went out to a poor SA side. All while having a near full strength pack (their injuries were almost exclusively in the back line).

Ireland on the other hand won all their pool games and went out to an Argentinian side as good as we've probably ever seen while suffering injuries in almost every area of the starting XV.

We should be questioning what went wrong. But as I said it seems clear that what went wrong was that we didn't have the requisite quality in our back ups to take the game to an in form Argentinian side. Which is a totally different reason for going out this time. If anything I think we learned a lot of lessons from previous years. After all exactly what mistakes did we repeat?

Ah now, come on. You can't seriously believe that Ireland's performances in the pool stages were greater?

I could as easily counter that the only only coherent half Ireland had in the whole WC was the second half against the poorest France team in living memory.

You've mentioned a poor SA side and an Argentine side the best we've seen. I still know which I'd rather face.

techdiver

molloyjh wrote: »

I can't agree with that at all. Wales beat a pretty poor English side and then butchered a golden opportunity to finally beat Australia when they had a 2 man advantage but still couldn't do it. Then they went out to a poor SA side. All while having a near full strength pack (their injuries were almost exclusively in the back line).

Ireland on the other hand won all their pool games and went out to an Argentinian side as good as we've probably ever seen while suffering injuries in almost every area of the starting XV.

We should be questioning what went wrong. But as I said it seems clear that what went wrong was that we didn't have the requisite quality in our back ups to take the game to an in form Argentinian side. Which is a totally different reason for going out this time. If anything I think we learned a lot of lessons from previous years. After all exactly what mistakes did we repeat?

In 2007 we were poor, but it looked worse than other years because the group was much tougher. I just don't think the squad was right this year either. Very poor performances in the warmups and nearly losing to a poor Italian side. The France game papered over the cracks, but it must be remembered that France were awful.

We always seem to peak at the wrong time i.e. between World Cups.

m@cc@

wp_rathead wrote: »

Think he just wanted to use the Simpsons quote

Team member: Hey, look! There's a big crowd to welcome us back even though we lost...

Moe: Hey, I'll give you something to cry about, you loser! You can't catch a football? Let's see if you can catch a rock!

awec

molloyjh wrote: »

I can't agree with that at all. Wales beat a pretty poor English side and then butchered a golden opportunity to finally beat Australia when they had a 2 man advantage but still couldn't do it. Then they went out to a poor SA side. All while having a near full strength pack (their injuries were almost exclusively in the back line).

Ireland on the other hand won all their pool games and went out to an Argentinian side as good as we've probably ever seen while suffering injuries in almost every area of the starting XV.

We should be questioning what went wrong. But as I said it seems clear that what went wrong was that we didn't have the requisite quality in our back ups to take the game to an in form Argentinian side. Which is a totally different reason for going out this time. If anything I think we learned a lot of lessons from previous years. After all exactly what mistakes did we repeat?

That poor England side gave us a beating in the warm ups.

Jawgap

The aim well have been to reach the final, but to get there you have to succeed in the semi and quarter finals - and to get a decent qf draw (or stand the best chance) we had to win our group - to win our group we had to beat France.

I don't think there was anything ad hoc about our preparations - if anything the team and squad were well prepared and clearly had a tournament plan, but it would have been ridiculous to have focused on a qf opponent at the expense of our main pool rival.

I also think it's emotive, sensationalism to describe lack of predicted or desired success as 'failure' - yes, we need to go away and re-evaluate, to a degree, how we play the game but we also need to be careful not to discard those bits that went well.

We were undone by a combination of factors, some of which were under our control, some were not.

.ak

Is the article complaining because the media aren't sticking the knife in and twisting it and making people's life hell? Because it happens elsewhere it should happen in this context also?

It's a sad world.

I agree about one thing - the lumping of SOB in with the injured players in the 'key players missing' narrative should stop.

Discipline is a thing, and it is something that great teams control - his absence was entirely self-inflicted and there's no 'hard luck' story there. If anything he was lucky to just get one match.

irishbucsfan

Deleted User wrote: »

I agree about one thing - the lumping of SOB in with the injured players in the 'key players missing' narrative should stop.

Discipline is a thing, and it is something that great teams control - his absence was entirely self-inflicted and there's no 'hard luck' story there. If anything he was lucky to just get one match.

It makes complete sense to lump him in with the others in the context of questioning why we struggled to win the Argentina match. IE, he is an important player who would have made a difference.

If you want to have a different conversation about how we to avoid missing those sorts of players in future then it's certainly valid to seperate him from the others.

There's certainly a valid case for lumping him in with the others, it just depends on the context.

ThisRegard

CatFromHue wrote: »

I don't remember much celebration on Sunday or Monday but alot more actually interesting debate, say on Off The Ball with Jackman and EOS, about why it went wrong and how we can get better.

Exactly. I don't recall too many declaring the team as being heroic in defeat, either through the media, both social and professional.

It reads like he wrote this on Sunday afternoon expecting a heroes welcome to be laid out for them, rather than the realistic appraisals that have done.

Overall it's a valid point (apart from the bull**** bottling it point that's made), but the guy seems to believe he's the first, and only one, to make that point.

NIMAN

If people are calling this WC campaign heroic, and I'm not sure if that's true or not, then I think it's slightly ott too.

Did we not go into this WC ranked 2nd in the world? And we got to the quarter finals, again! No better than we done before, and only real team we got the better of were France.

Sounds like other WC s, so I'd say no more heroic than previous years, many of which were called failures IIRC

ThisRegard

But are they? I saw a few people reply to players tweets saying they were heroic, but any decent analysis has been critical and honest.

Fr Tod Umptious

I'm not sure that many were labeling them as heroic on Monday but I also noticed a lack of real disappointment with them, which is certainly what we should be seeing after, as another poster put it, they came in ranked 2nd in the world and only got to a quarter final.

Maybe it's to do with the fact that rugby is just not that important, and the bandwagon were just as quick to unload on Sunday night as they were to join, and by Monday a hell of a lot of people just didn't care as much as they thought they should have.

sydthebeat

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

..... and the bandwagon were just as quick to unload on Sunday night as they were to join......

in a nut shell. .....

captbarnacles

I'm disappointed but not particularly surprised at what happened. Argentina are a very good team and we were missing too many of our best players.

molloyjh

m@cc@ wrote: »

Ah now, come on. You can't seriously believe that Ireland's performances in the pool stages were greater?

I could as easily counter that the only only coherent half Ireland had in the whole WC was the second half against the poorest France team in living memory.

You've mentioned a poor SA side and an Argentine side the best we've seen. I still know which I'd rather face.

I'm very serious. Wales were the poorer side in the game against England and only for England being incapable of finishing them off they would have lost that. Then against Australia they had a 2 man advantage and couldn't score.

I'm not saying Ireland were amazing in their pool, just that Wales weren't all that themselves.

Also Irelands pool performances in all games bar the Italy game were "coherent". We won those well and conceded very little.

Argentina right now would dish out a bit of a hiding to SA, who are improved since Japan but still not great.

techdiver wrote: »

In 2007 we were poor, but it looked worse than other years because the group was much tougher. I just don't think the squad was right this year either. Very poor performances in the warmups and nearly losing to a poor Italian side. The France game papered over the cracks, but it must be remembered that France were awful.

We always seem to peak at the wrong time i.e. between World Cups.

In 2007 we got our prep all wrong and went into the tournament all over the place. We didn't get a single good performance in the thing. In 2011 we went out against Wales with the wrong team and the wrong game plan (and if Drico is to be believed we had no real attacking game plan at all!). This year we were convincing in 3 of our 4 pool games and won the game that we struggled to get out of 2nd gear in. We ultimately lost the QF because of the personnel who were missing despite coming from behind quite well. It's apples and oranges.

awec wrote: »

That poor England side gave us a beating in the warm ups.

Really!? The warm-ups? The meaningless games that meant nothing to us other than to build up fitness? Haven't we been through that already?

Context awec. You can't form a sensible argument without it.

yourdeadwright

Got to the last 8 in a tournament that only 8 countries can be taken seriously in ,
Not much of an achievement, basically the bare minimum expected,

irishbucsfan

awec wrote: »

That poor England side gave us a beating in the warm ups.

Yeah. And France gave England a proper thumping as well, they were great that day. Probably a good indication of why they did so well in the tournament... Oh wait!