"I started a joke, that started the whole world ......" | Ireland v New Zealand.

They don't mean nothing they just have to be put in context.

Olympians are judged on how they perform once every 4 years, if Paul O'Donovan, Fintan McCarthy , Katie Taylor etc hadn't won gold medals in the Olympics despite winning all the competitions they compete in they'd probably view their own careers as incomplete and the media would aswell. Why are we not not allowed to judge the Irish Rugby team by the same high standards we judge Olympians?

Winning the 6 nations is great, but the summer and November internationals are pretty much money making ventures simple as that, nice to win them but you can't really read a whole amount into them because not everyone has the same motivation and preparation when they play in them.

I was asked for a scoreline prediction on Friday. . . . . I said 29-24 to New Zealand (honestly folks).

It was obvious NZ were going to score tries against us - I felt they were going to score at least two over the 80 minutes, maybe more.

What knocked us back though was them racing into a 13-0 lead within 20 minutes (whilst playing exceptional rugby and really putting it up to us)....I don't think we ever fully recovered.

What defined the game was.

Jordan's try.

Ireland's awful set piece.

NZ's superior breakdown work.

Ireland were inferior at every basic skill.

NT hawking the idea that Ireland are still a better side then NZ this afternoon. Lol! Such Delusion! 'if the teams had to play again today, I'd fancy ireland to win'.

I've nothing against this team at all, but the noise and delusion surrounding it and spun by the media, especially those based in D4, is nuts. I'd matters too, because once sh1t like this keeps being repeated, it eventually feeds into the support and a little into players (to a certain extent), really do the team a huge disservice.

I'm gutted like everybody else but I look at things from a different perspective that the all or nothing brigade. I value every achievement. I remember the joy I felt when we win the grand slam. I remember how proud I was when they beat New Zealand who were world no.1 at the time. I remember how delighted I was when they became no. 1 in the world which was an incredible achievement.

There's good days and bad days when you are fully invested in a team. This was a bad day and I've looked for reasons when it happened and posted my thoughts above.

World rugby need to come up with better organisation of the tournament. Every pool should have the highest seeds playing each other on the same weekend.

Quinny, Wally, Axel are all ahead of him. Willie Duggan and Slatts just to name a few.

What’s your definition of choked, I’m trying very hard to see how they did so last night. Jonnies missed penalty perhaps. Can’t see much else.

It's analysis and conclusions based solely on the teams performance. Even if they won last night they still would have performed well below what they are capable of. But that would have been glossed over obviously.

You seriously think Ireland played to their potential last night?

That they hadn't played much better recently? That they were not capable of playing any better than they did? That they didn't make mistakes they don't normally make?

Because underperforming when the pressure is on is choking, and anybody who says Ireland performed to their best last night is a goddamn liar.

Its not about playing below your best, its about playing below your best when it really matters.

The greats get called clutch, because they get the job done when it matters.

This wasn't clutch by Ireland, it was the other thing.

I don’t have an exact definition (I’m sure there is one - a friend used to have a psychology babble one about performance being affected by extraneous factors) but I would class it as performance levels dropping due to psychological pressure.

Did you watch any scrums or lineouts? They were dismantled in both. Someone posted that Ireland haven’t led in a QF in 30 years. If it wasn’t an ongoing trend you could say the first 20 minutes last night was an aberration, but history shows a mental fragility in Irish teams on the biggest stage. Until they get some sort of ‘gimme QF in a WC I can’t see that changing any time soon unfortunately.

They didn’t perform to their best, we all agree, but not because they choked. That’s a label used when you don’t understand the demands of the game especially in a tournament setting.

We could talk about game time, rotation and fatigue, too much off time drinking wine and riding bikes, but choking, will you stop 😂.

That’s your opinion. It’s not a fact.

Very few teams perform at their best in any game. Take soccer. Man U won the CL in 1999. Well below their best. Liverpool in 2005. Below their best particularly first half. Chelsea 2012, below their best. Liverpool 2019. Below their best. None of those teams are chokers. In fact, United in 1999 particularly are the opposite of chokers.

At that level, no team performs “at their best” because you have the best in the world on the other side of the fence stopping you from doing so.

So New Zealand didn't perform at their best last night?