Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Some downright stupid comments from Damian de Allende to Rugbypass about SA's rivalry with Ireland. I dunno if they're doing this stuff to pump up the summer tour series, or what it is, but find some of his comments bizarre.

Talks about how Andy Farrell is English, so doesn't understand Irish history, and that impacts his ability to connect with the players.

He must have lived under a rock in his time in Ireland, because he also says he thinks Irish people aren't emotional and that impacts them in big moments.

He dramatically overplays the "hardship" angle the SA squad supposedly have too - unquestionably a couple of guys like Makazole Mapimpi the prime example came from nothing and are incredibly admirable, but huge swathes of them are Boer farmers who grew up with anyone's definition of privilege.

It's clear the media reaction after we beat them comfortably in 2017 still rankles them to a huge degree, and he obviously does have respect for some of the Irish players and aspects of our play, but some of his comments just show him to be incredibly uninformed IMO.

Jim Hamilton talks a lot of hypocritical shite too - constantly highlighting guys like James Lowe etc as not being Irish. He's an Englishman who played for Scotland, a team stuffed to the brim with imports.

The gushing praise in general for the Saffers and what they've achieved completely loses sight of how incredibly fortunate they've been along that journey:

In 2019, they lost their only meaningful pool game against NZ. They emerged from a group containing Italy, Namibia and Canada. Their path then to win the RWC saw them get past Japan, Wales (barely) and a spent English team.

In 2023 they lost their only meaningful pool game against us, and then robbed France in the QF with the benefit of an egregiously wrong late penalty (Kwagga Smith's midfield turnover), limped past a poor England side in the semis and then limped over the line 12-11 in the final against a NZ team who played 3/4 of the game with 14 men or less.

Obviously finals and tournaments are for winning, and history just remembers the victors, but the 2015 All Blacks they very much ain't.

Yeah, I think exactly the same, by far and away my most disliked team in world rugby (apart from England). Always had a soft spot growing up for the All Blacks, and always felt the exact opposite about the South Africans.

The game he mentions, from 2017, where we beat them 38-3 in the Aviva, and he says he felt disrespected by the Irish media afterwards for example, was an absolute and utter humiliation for them. It basically got Alister Coetzee sacked, and while they had some rotation that day, they still had a lot of quality on the field too including De Allende, Malcolm Marx, Tendai Mtawarira, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager, Siya Kolisi, PSDT, Bongi, Kitshoff, Pollard, Mostert etc.

Slating that team for getting hammered like that is absolutely fair game, and I imagine they took enormous grief from their own press for the exact same performance.