2023 RWC Buildup, Squads, Fixtures 'etc'

The lopsided draw definitely went against Ireland, but that is a world rugby seeding issue. What I found odd prior to the NZ v Ireland match. It was not just confidence that the ex Irish players and Irish media spoke with. It veered towards cockiness, NZ were being dismissed. The advert with Donal Lenihan assuming that Ireland would go past the QF and beyond. All a bit presumptuous.

It was almost assumed. I get the no1 in the world narrative all those games unbeaten but is knock out sport anything can happen.

NZ have great pedigree and pride. They didn't do anything fancy it seemed to me, just ground out the result, get the lead and defend like dogs. You can talk about the 'what if's' if Sexton was more accurate on his kicks or whatever.

Some will term it as 'choking' due to the level of expectation built up, but at least this time it was not losses to Argentina or Wales. It was New Zealand. Also there were no shock losses in the group like to Japan.

Ironically Ireland (in hindsight) might have been better off finishing their usual second in the group instead of facing a NZ with point to prove. To me Ireland did alright in this world cup. The best team in the world does not always win the knockout competitions like the World Cup - ironically New Zealand know that only too well.

This time Ireland just got beaten by the luck of the draw and the vagaries of sport. The only difference this time, the former Irish players and Irish media had started to get REAL notions.

Imagine being that someone who registers for this site so he can laugh at the Irish rugby team and it's supporters. Why would one bother. It takes a certain mentality to do that.

Heyho.

TBH and it would take more analysis but referee's in the tournament generally seemed to not bother about rule breaking in the lineout. Massively affected ours against NZ and SA who routinely infringed. I don't think it was an issue in our other games.

We'll see how England and Argentina cope when faced with teams of Ireland's quality.

That's the test.

We came up against one of the best and we lost out by 4 points. We'll see how much they win or lose by and then make a calm qualitative judgement.

We won't be on their forums trying to wind people up after making a total of 2 or 3 posts. That would just be ineffably sad and worrying if we did. What kind of person would do that

Is reading comprehension a problem for you? "Due to the draw it was always 50/50" does not equal blaming the draw, it acknowledges that with 4 very even sides a good performance from any of them could still result in defeat no matter when they met.

All the teams who had success in disrupting Irelands line out cut off the space by closing the gap. Scotland tried but it was policed.

Scotlands QF win was against Samoa.

Cannot look at this match it the context of previous defeats. The level they played at in the QF this year was their highest ever at this stage, even if they did not reach their full potential.

Which is funny, as Ireland knows better than nearly anyone else... there are no easy games against NZ.

I honestly don’t know anyone who thought that NZ was a foregone conclusion. Everyone was incredibly nervous and thought it was a tight game but we definitely had a chance. If anyone genuinely thought NZ posed no threat then they haven’t a breeze about rugby.

I did see a lot of “the worst NZ team in 30 years” posts alright, but these seem to be from people determined to stick the boot into the Ireland team and label them as bottlers.

Thanks, we are going to need it if we get to the final against New Zealand. Wont be the same game as pre-world cup Twickenham, thats for sure.

Just on this, and im not replying to you as such, I have done a bit of analysis this morning, only on Ireland and SA, because they were in the same pool playing the same opponents, and its the 2 teams I have an interest in.

The lack of depth have cost Ireland dearly. Coaches have no faith in the back up players. There are 10 players in the Ireland team who started each of the 5 games, with a further 5 players who played in each of the 5 games, either starting or off the bench. Thats 15 players who played each of the 5 games. Not to mention, 2 of those players (Aki and Keenan) played all 400 minutes. That is insane. There are also a further 4 players who averaged over 50 minutes per game each, 3 players with over 60 minutes average per game, and another 4 players with over 70 minutes per game average. And they were still performing at high levels until about the 60 minute mark against NZ, then you could tell it started getting to them.

Looking at the time played for each of your players across the 5 games, it is a testament to their talents/skills/spirit to have got within 5 points of a semi final, against a New Zealand team who were playing very well.

But it is also a failure of the coaches/system. They could have rested some of the players against the likes of Tonga and Romania. It is an absolute gut punch for the second string players to not even get a start against those teams, for coaches not to have faith in you to win even those games. And those are the players you have going forward, tough building to be done, to get the players to trust the coaches after not being trusted themselves.

Couldnt find a back up team to the current team, now you have to find a replacement first team and a back up team too. Tough times ahead I think, but I am happy to be proven wrong.

In contrast, I looked at the SA player stats thus far.

There is not a single player who started each of the 5 games. There are only 2 players who played in each of the 5 games (Kitshoff and Nche), either starting or from the bench. Kriel was selected for all 5 games, but 1 of those he wasnt used off the bench, so only played 4 games.

Only 2 players in the whole squad have played on average over 50 minutes average per game (Kriel and Willemse), if I average it across the whole 5 game tournament, not the games each player actually played.

Yes, Ireland do have a much smaller player base/talent pool to choose from, but each team brought 33 players to the tournament (fair enough we used 34 with Pollard, not used Am yet), and you need to rely on each of those 33 players. Maybe not all equally, but more equally than Ireland have done in this tournament.

This is the worst part for me, with Ireland losing. We wont have a chance to beat them. So even if we win the WC, we wont be able to say we beat all the top teams on the way to the WC.

We beat NZ recently, France, Scotland, hopefully England next (and we did less than a year ago), Italy, Wales, Australia, Argentina, just Ireland we havent beaten recently (last 12-18 months). Wouldve been an epic final.

I was actually leaning towards the weakest NZ team in years thing, but after about 15-20 mins of the game, I realised it was nonsense and I had seriously underestimated them. They played pretty much like all the top class All Black teams of the past.