Sexton wasn't key to anything in the last 10 minutes, he just shovelled the ball to a nearby player. He offered nothing in attack, the defense didn't need to watch him, they knew if he received he'd pass. It made their defense much easier.
Well we also would have expected a drop off without sexton, and I think we managed that pretty well for the most part. In that context, I don't think it's useful to see it as a decline.
We can only beat what was put in front of us. England beat us this year, but last year they were down to 14 for a lot of that game and it made the difference.
The main thing I'd like to see us do now, is work on what we do in situations where we can't get into our phase-play rhythm. England last year, England this year, SA in the WC group and some parts of the QF (though not all of it) felt kind of similar. I'm not sure we really overcame it in any of them.
This idea that Crowley could have come on and changed things up ignores what transpired. It's a supposition based on a fantasy.
You have no more of an idea of what could have transpired if Crowley came on that anyone else. (Personally, I think he could have made a difference; not 'would' but 'could').
The irony here is that declaring he would have made no difference is no more based in reality that anyone declaring he would have won us the game.
Getting 60m up the pitch into the 22 of NZ is absolutely no mean feat and there is no way you do it while carrying a passenger at 10. He had obviously lost a chunk of athleticism at that point, but he was still directing the attack and choosing the correct options from the runners available to him which is a skill in and of itself. The point is that we did manage to get into the 22 and ultimately we lost out because of a pretty abysmal attempt at a ruck clearance by McCarthy.
I agree Crowley might have made a difference, but you'd swear that Ireland were completely ineffective based on what you read at times.
as likely as POM captaining us in 2027 aged 38.....
Putting aside your usual red biased hyperbole, that's an obviously nonsense statement. If sexton was just shoveling the ball on, we wouldn't have had the organization to go 60ms down the pitch. Who do you feel was marshalling the attack at that stage, if not sexton?
I swear folks didn't even watch the qf with some of the takes that come out on here
The game was lost because of a defensive breakdown for Jordan's try and Kelleher butchering a walk over maul.
Yeah, Kelleher lost his head completely. Five minutes earlier, Murray gave away a brain-dead penalty that meant we needed a try, not a 3-pointer, in the closing stages. Going 13-0 down before we even broke sweat didn't help either like.
Crowley might have done something to win it, he might have done nothing, he might have done something very bad and completely put it out of our reach. Who knows, does it matter at this point?
as great as gaining all that territory was, in reality ireland never really looked like scoring and probably only got as close as they did as they needed a try and not just a three-pointer. whether or not crowley would have made a difference is debatable - he probably would have provided more of a threat himself but maybe having a player with sexton's experience was more important at that stage despite how tired he was
We'll never know😎
But we do know we had a fairly god championship and we know exactly how teams are going to try to pick us apart as both England and NZ have done fairly successfully. Forwards win games. England and France will be much better teams come next season, Italy too hopefully so 3 in a row will be a much tougher prospect than this year has been. I expect Ireland will have to improve a lot to maintain our reasonable claim on being in the top few teams in the world. Great position to be in heading to SA in the Summer.
I'll repeat (as an Irish rugby fan) Sexton wasn't key to us getting up the field. He was close to being a passenger on the team from about the 70th minute.
He was a 38 year old 80 mins into an increadibly intense game id be surprised if he wasnt lagging
Your opinion, which I would posit reflects your personal biases. My biased opinion says he was key to us moving down the field, just as he was key doing the same in Paris when he nailed the drop.
For the record, if we're bringing up past performances, your biased opinion previously suggested POM didn't have a good game vs NZ in 2018.
It works both ways...
And Doris knocked-on, and the lineout mis-fired etc. There were lots of contributing things.
But the majority of that stuff (knock-on, penalties, ruck inaccuracies) isn't in the coaches control once the players cross the line. The substitutions are. This is why the non-substitution of Sexton for Crowley gets brought up more often.
Mmmmm, not really.
Unless you're claiming that every poster here is biased because they support a province as well as Ireland
It's pretty clear, we're talking about a 37 yo, who was clearly wrecked for the last 10 mins & being left on the field while we had a sub to play in that very position.
Who those players were are irrelevant to me.
Everyone was wrecked at that stage, stop painting Sexton as some outlier in that regard. Farrell clearly valued his composure, experience and tactical acumen to engineer a score at that point. Crowley doesn't have that, him being fresher was less valuable in that scenario.
Except he nailed a drop goal in a league semi final just a couple of months previous...
Those are totally on the same level of intensity
Sexton wasn't an outlier. But Sexton was the only one we had a replacement for.
Farrell clearly did value his composure experience etc. But Farrell isn't infallible either. That Farrell favoured it doesn't mean it was de facto the right decision.
Equally, it's pretty reasonable to suggest Crowley would've brought a stronger running threat. That would've been valuable in that scenario.
We'll never know. But writing it off as "supposition based on a fantasy" isn't remotely close to the truth.
Perhaps, we didn't struggle to go down the field with the running threats we had. A poor clear out from McCarthy cost us at the end, not a failure to run faster
And if you stuck to that rationale, you'd never risk a young player...
No, that's a straw man. In that specific situation, Farrell made a judgement call based on the facts and players at hand.
But an ability to take it to the line might've gotten us further down the field... that's not the "fantasy" you want to paint it as.
And just as possibly, Crowley could have made a poor choice, going for an option that wasn't on and lose possession. Things we have seen him do a number of times this 6Ns, in less intense situations.
That's what cost us in the end. It doesn't mean what happened before that couldn't have been different... and again, that suggestion isn't "fantasy".
Crowley could have made a poor choice
Yep, he absolutely could have. That's the difference between my position and yours; your post below clearly suggests that he would have made no difference at all. Which is more of a fantasy than the posts you're criticising.
I've mentioned Sexton in a reply to another poster, he was talking about Beirne being wrecked, we had an unused sub for Sexton, we used Beirne's sub for another player.
Hmmmm so it's intensity now, not the other requirements. Your rationale would beg the question that it doesn't matter who was on the bench as no other ten had ever played in a World Cup quarter final apart from Sexton so couldn't be trusted. A few months later he's lead us to a Six Nations playing every minute
Sexton was a passenger in those last minutes, it was very evident. Some other players showed signed of fatigue, Tadhg Beirne took a ball completely static at one point. But Sexton hadn't been flinging himself into rucks for 70 minutes, he was a 38 year old who was gassed.
For whatever reason Farrell didn't make the call, we'll never know if it would have made a difference obviously... but I do wonder how many of us here at the time were honestly roaring at the TV or thinking to ourselves about making the change.
but I do wonder how many of us here at the time were honestly roaring at the TV or thinking to ourselves about making the change
Read the match thread, have a look back at Twitter timeline around the 70-80th minute of the match, loads of people saying get Sexton off that he was out on his feet.
There's no one rewriting history here, no one saying Sexton was the only one wrecked either, what I'm saying is we had a sub for Sexton that went unused. And that's a huge "what if" for me.
Having a fresh forward in that situation was more valuable than an out half who could run faster.
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