It wasn't a poor performance in the way you're trying to portray it as. Both teams made errors. Aki's try was atrocious defending on NZ's part, as Jordan's try was for us. If Kelleher grounds the ball, we probably win the game. It was one of the hardest fought games in the history of the tournament. NZ were also absolutely shattered at the end.
post Match interviews were the pro says the score line doesn’t reflect how tough the dragons made it after thumping them by 40 should now be believed?
38 year old Sexton barely running at the end of a game where the ball was in play for 42 minutes due to pressure and not age/fatigue in a tournament where the average ball in play time was 34.18 is an interesting take.
Safe to say we are not going to agree on this topic. I was disappointed like everyone here that we couldn’t bring the trophy home but our feelings pale in comparison to the coaches and players who spent years building up to the tournament. I have no doubt they will assess what didn’t go their way and try to rectify it going on as they have over the last 4 years when things haven’t gone our way.
Also take any media soundbites from sports players with a pinch of salt. There is nothing to gain for them by going into any deep detail, only controversy and further questions.
The future is bright for Irish rugby.
Try to paint it anyway you like, not telling the truth means they are lying. Why do you think they are comfortable lying to supporters but somehow will be honest with themselves? Why would they do that?
You did deflect, what other teams did or how pressure affected them or not is completely irrelevant to our performance in the quarter final. Previously in this thread, someone put together some stats that showed we played in a different way than we have in the previous 2 years. We didn't play with freedom. Sexton was a mess by the time he took that kick, his legs were gone. This wasn't down to his age. This is what pressure does to some players, he was barely running for the last 10 minutes.
If you want to pretend that the poor performance wasn't down to the occasion getting to the players, then fair enough, work ahead. That's what has been happening every 4 years, we keep coding ourselves and then we're back to square one 4 years later. What's that they call repeating the same mistakes over and over again and expecting different results?
I didn’t call them liars. I said every sports person isn’t completely honest with the media. That’s pretty universal throughout sports. And life actually. It’s like telling your parents you’re grand when you’re stressed with work issues. Does that make me a liar?
I didn’t deflect anything. I said that I thought our lineout issues were a key failing all through the World Cup and cost us two scores and the game against NZ. It was also poor in every other game aside from Scotland who didn’t compete against us. Is that pressure (also evident against Romania and Tonga and the warm ups) or a system failure which we didn’t rectify?
Sexton missed a kick he should have got. Not every kick missed is a pressure issue. We played ‘tight’ but put together 37 phases at the end which got us 60 metres up the pitch. Do NZ deserve any credit in stiffing our attacking game?
‘We need to stop lying to ourselves and face up to the reality of it’ : are you referring to us on boards or the squad and management team itself?
There currently isn't an Ireland squad
Cool. Any comments from anyone actually still in the irish squad?
Where's your evidence that they have faced up to the issues of buckling under pressure? Calling them liars doesn't paint them in a good light.
Not every team who loses buckle under pressure but we clearly did, stop deflecting. We played really tight, not with the freedom that made us the best team in the world. We made basic errors, Sexton missed an easy kick and looked frozen under the pressure towards the end. We need to stop lying to ourselves and face up to the reality of it.
Oh my god not this absolute nonsense again.
Literally nobody has ever said that every team who does not win the World Cup is a failure. But sure keep making this stupid strawman argument instead of actually facing facts.
It's the way someone who hates rugby and the teams they ostensibly support would watch it alright.
I love this Highlander mentality that "there can be only one"
Every four years there's a competition to decide which team will not be labelled a failure for the following four years.
South Africa are the only "not failure" team to exist in rugby for the last 8 years, everyone else is a failure.
What a horrible way to watch any sport
Do you genuinely believe the lessons have just been brushed over by the players and coaching team? Where is the evidence for that? What is said in the media and what is said in camp are two very different things.
"We lost but we won"
Did South Africa buckle to the pressure against us in the group stages? Did NZ buckle to the pressure in the final? Does every team who loses a game buckle to the pressure?
The fact that they are a squad of players who have improved significantly as a team since they came together under Farrell and his coaching team in 2019 indicates to me that they are able to analyse weaknesses in their gameplan and performances, and improve them over time. One narrow defeat doesn’t change that for me.
I’m sure they’re a lot harder on themselves than we are as they wouldn’t be at that level of professions sports if they weren’t. And yes, I don’t think professional sports people are completely honest with the media.
What is your evidence that this group of players and management haven’t learned any lessons from the tournament?
Where's your evidence that the players and management have faced up to the issue of the occasion getting to them? You are saying they are all lying to the media and the public but think they're being honest with themselves in camp?
We played well below our best against New Zealand, we didn't play with freedom, some of the players clearly buckled under the pressure. That's why we lost.
You can be sure the coaches will have studied what went wrong and look to rectify that. The line out for one was a relative disaster for us all tournament and led to one of their tries in the first half after we lost an attacking line out around halfway and again in the second half where we got cut open defensively on first phase ball. They’re the margins at the top level.
Ireland had a great past few years, some great victories and a grand slam. Amazing but we all said the real test was the World Cup. We entered it as the best team in the world and we failed at the quarter final stage, again. It wasn't just losing the quarter final that was the issue, it was losing it because the pressure got to the players. Unfortunately, this has been brushed over and lessons can't be learned that way. This means that we'll likely face the same issues at the next World Cup.
You don’t subscribe to the ‘a good team wins when playing poorly’ school of thought which all successful teams exhibit?
Does the C in your username stand for contrary?
I was critical of a terrible performance. How on earth is that sh*tting on the team? I maintain that losing that game would have been better for us in the long run.
But this is the problem with Irish rugby fans. Unless you're a cheerleader and never criticise the team, you're miserable and negative and don't even enjoy rugby.
There's plenty of evidence of you sh*tting on the team. This took me all of 5 seconds to find, after the Oz game in the AI's. We went on to win a Grand Slam 4 months later.
I'd actually rather we lost that. I think we needed it. Another utter dogsh*t performance and the win will just lull us into a false sense of security.
Our attack has been figured out. Fact. How Farrell's tenure as Ireland coach will be judged, will depend on how he adapts over the next 9 months.
I mean when they excommunicated a collective competency that elsewhere brought about a Grand Slam (first in five years), a Heineken Cup (first in six years) and a URC title (first major silverware in 12 years), all because they over-reacted to a short-term setback.
Most of the above accomplishments can also be classified as "so far".
I don't understand all the absolute guff about Sexton's statement. The Irish GOAT is allowed a slightly saccharine moment when considering his career and the WC campaign. It doesn't reflect his or the teams game or campaign mentality.
Irelands disappointing WC record thus far does not diminish one iota the enjoyment and pride I felt during our 3 recent Grand Slams and the cherry on top was the series win in New Zealand.Would I give up any of them for a world Cup Semi final ,no chance.I don't think the absolutist attitude that if we don't succeed at World cup every other achievement is devalued is valid.We are not a world power despite the current rankings and for us to win or get to Semis we need a bit of luck.and we certainly would have knocked off a semi by now if our draws had been as favourable as Wales and England's have been in the past.
You mean when they sacked their failing coach, and hired a better coach who won back to back 6Ns and got them to a World Cup final, while the coach they sacked continued on failing with his new team?
I for one am fuming Ireland didn't take a leaf out of England's book in 2015 and immediately sack the entire team.
What have those absolute failures been up to lately, anyway? Catt, Rowntree and the fella from the North, what's it, Lanny Stewart are something. They certainly haven't been making era-defining contributions to the game, at various levels, for a close rival nation, that's for darn sure.
I’d separate out the performances from the coverage though. It’s significant that Ireland played very well throughout this WC, as well as we’d played over the previous 12 months or close to it. That’s an excellent foundation for the next few years. Coverage is 80/20 garbage to insightful.
And there's the company......
Irish rugby media is mostly sycophantic vacuous fluff so it's not really surprising. I think journos are just too afraid to be properly critical in case they lose access to their inside men.
When the captain of the team came home and made a social media post about how they won anyway because everyone had a great time, despite actually losing, it is perhaps unsurprising why we yet again failed to burst the bubble of failure that encapsulates us at every World Cup.
So long as this sort of garbage is gobbled up nothing will really change.
Ireland have the same number of 6N championships since 2012 as Wales, 4 each. In that period Wales have been to a WC semi. I’ve been thrilled with Irelands success over those years but no one would say Wales are a top team while many on here seem to think we are. Rankings aside top teams consistently perform at the World Cup. An no mistake, our record against the heavy weights is excellent outside the wc but honestly those results just prove we could do it when it counts, not that we can.
When results are good you'll be here to **** all over it
You have absolutely zero evidence that this is the case. But it's much easier to make this claim (as it currently can't be disproven) than to actually address my points or acknowledge that Ireland have underachieved and are subject to very little scrutiny from fans and media. One could even say it's cowardly, but I won't do that. If one day, Ireland actually do achieve a good result at a World Cup, you'll realise you were very wrong in the assertion that I'll "sh*t all over it".
What's the point in engaging with you? When results are good you'll be here to **** all over it and tell everyone it doesn't matter. And when results go badly you'll be here to say I told you so.
![Photo of [Deleted User]](https://wd.vanillicon.com/v2/dd23f423fe14831a2a84d9f17c825ecc.svg)
