The Hurt Locker: Ireland v South Africa. Saturday 23rd September. Stade DeFrance

24-09-2023 8:29pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152117#Comment_121152117

Yeah ignoring now. Absolute bad faith nonsense

lbunnae · 24-09-2023 8:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152203#Comment_121152203

not bad faith nonsense. Every SINGLE person connected to that team will see a quarter final defeat as a failure.

Clegg · 24-09-2023 8:40pm

Wrong thread

Red Silurian · 24-09-2023 9:54pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121148364#Comment_121148364

Funny you should use that exact example as I think he probably would

phog · 24-09-2023 10:40pm

Some game, a game neither team deserved to lose, SA will rue not having a kicker. A hard physical game from both teams with zero cards or TMO interventions which is brilliant.

Ref had a good team too, very clear in what he wanted.

Aki deserved his motm award, he's our player of the tournament if giving it to a forward I think I'd have given it to POM, he was immense.

Next up Scotland, I think we'll see a few changes, maybe the subs starting and a few 3rd choice players getting a run from the bench.

From the QF on, it will be the same 23 til we exit the tournament

pickarooney · 24-09-2023 10:42pm

We need to beat Scotland. Best team available, end of story.

TRC10 · 24-09-2023 10:46pm

Yeah lads I think anyone who is expecting any unenforced rotation for Scotland bar Sheehan is living in cuckoo land.

AndyBoBandy · 24-09-2023 11:12pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152789#Comment_121152789

Yep.

maybe once the victory is assured, then sure empty the bench, but until that point is reached, it must be the strongest 15 available…

supermans ghost · 24-09-2023 11:13pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152007#Comment_121152007

What are you on about?

seriously Ireland have never made it past the Quarter finals of what is basically a 9/10 team tournament (on 2 occasions they did not even make the quarter finals) they are now the so called no 1 ranked team in the world going into this tournament and one of the favourites to win it. If they do not make it past the quarter final then that is an abject failure in my book.

Couldn’t be simpler.

Ash.J.Williams · 24-09-2023 11:15pm

If we did win would the ulster lads get OBE's?

gameoverdude · 24-09-2023 11:30pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152912#Comment_121152912

Naughty, Naughty. Very Naughty.

Actually they'll be claimed as a great English win by the media. 2 world cups.

supermans ghost · 24-09-2023 11:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121151986#Comment_121151986

Relax man, I must be killing your buzz by stating basic facts that are relative to Ireland’s abysmal performance at previous world cups.

Ireland are one of the favourites to win the tournament, they are ranked the No 1 team in the world (for what that’s worth) I’m sure the bookies factor it in when calculating odds, this is essentially a 10 country tournament, so if Ireland do not make it past the quarter final, it’s a massive failure. Simple as.

If ever that Roy Keane quote about lads going to a tournament for a laugh and a few pints, it applies to the Irish Rugby Team, it’s simply not good enough to get one big win in the group stage and then go home at the quarter final stage thinking “wasn’t that a great tournament, we did well” maybe you are happy with the win against South Africa yesterday and you had a few beers and got to sing a few bars of “de fields” but I for one will be regard it as a massive failure.

Frankly if you don’t see that, then I’d say you’re deluded in your thinking.

supermans ghost · 24-09-2023 11:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121151298#Comment_121151298

He’s 100% correct, nobody remembers or gives a sh*t about the group stages of the Rugby world cup, the real action starts at the quarter final stage, that’s when the real tournament starts.

Don’t get too caught up in anything Ireland achieve in the group stages, to do so is folly, did the same myself in 2015 after attending the French game in Cardiff, got all caught up in the hype and got tickets for both the quarter finals and semi finals, wound up sitting next to an equally deflated Scotsman at the semi final between Australia and Argentina at Twickenham. Lesson learned.

AbusesToilets · 25-09-2023 12:23am

Oh what's this, an overly critical (misspelled) username with a handful of posts, making reductive posts? What a breathe of fresh air

supermans ghost · 25-09-2023 2:25am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153078#Comment_121153078

Oh my, let’s call the grammar police, it’s a username for an anonymous message board, get a life dude. By the way you forgot to put a full stop after your last sentence.😀

More importantly, what does the number of posts an individual has have to do with the merits of the point they are making in a thread. Sounds to me like you are a boards snob.

Some of the posters on this thread are terribly thin skinned, can’t handle someone stating the obvious about the expectations of this Irish team at this World Cup. In fact I”ll up the ante, looking at the remaining teams and based on the performances of the other favourites to date, then, if Ireland don’t make it to the World Cup Final that’s a failure.

That’s based on assuming they top their pool and beat NZ in the quarter final, they would more than likely be playing Wales in the semi final, those are all teams that on all known present form, Ireland would be expected to beat, of course players can get injured, but that happens every team. Can you handle that?

ersatz · 25-09-2023 3:07am

beating SA is a big deal for fans but (hopefully) for the coaches and players it’s just another group match on the way to bigger things. Doing a lap after beating the world champs is good form given the support that showed up. No doubt that support made a difference on the field, that’s valuable and worth the acknowledgement.

If Ireland don’t get past the quarters they’ll fail to get past the quarters again. It’s a failure. If the do get past the quarters there’s a fairly handy route to the final, losing to England or Wales would mean some sort of breakdown in our game or form because on paper we have the beating of those teams. SA, France and NZ are a different story. We don’t have a much better than 50/50 chance against those teams on any day and I’d say the match on Saturday was evidence of that. Very fine margins even though we played very well. We just didn’t get to play our preferred game because SA are almost flawless defensively. Fr and NZ aren't that, but they can create scores out of thin air and penetrate out defence occasionally. Not often but enough that if our attack isn’t 100% we can lose to them.

As a matter of fact not winning is failing to win. But it’s not always a strategic failure. SA lost on Saturday but I’d say they’ll feel ok about it because they may think they’ve learned how to beat us. Fir us getting past the quarters but losing in a final won’t be any great failure in a strategic sense, any more than Munster losing their first European final as some sort of strategic failure. Perhaps it makes victories later all the sweeter.

FrancieBrady · 25-09-2023 7:17am

If we win. we failed to lose.

Fupping failures!

typhoony · 25-09-2023 7:55am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152806#Comment_121152806

Sheehan,Murray,henshaw,mccarthy,Henderson,baird are all very much in contention to start against Scotland.

typhoony · 25-09-2023 7:59am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153179#Comment_121153179

The way the draw is our route to semi-final is much harder than in previous tournaments for that reason I would call it a blip on this team not a failure if we don't get to the semi-final, they've been outstanding over the last 18 months and that can never be taken away.

aloooof · 25-09-2023 8:57am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153014#Comment_121153014

You've entirely missed the point of my post.

It's absolutely fine if you want to make the argument that the group stage games mean nothing and it's all about the QF. But if you're making that argument after previously making a big deal about our poor form in the warm-ups (which is what TRC did)... then that's entirely inconsistent.

aloooof · 25-09-2023 9:25am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152972#Comment_121152972

Do you think we will win the QF?

25-09-2023 9:31am

So 7:1.

Gimmick or legitimate tactic?

For me it's a gimmick. South Africa didn't back their attack against us so tried to kick their points (including some very challenging long range kicks). That they went with such a forwards oriented game plan and didn't bring a reliable kicker is amazing to me. Yes Pollard is going to play against Tonga but therein lies the other problem. South Africa didn't back their attack against us, but they're bringing in an out half that is less of a play maker than the incumbent. My confidence really started to grow when I saw Faf stepping up to take that first long range kick. The first one was a mark of respect for Ireland's defence but the second one was drifting into 'not backing ourselves' territory, especially given it was so wayward.

I said in the intro that unless South Africa REALLY felt they had our number at lineout time the 7:1 split against a strong kicking team like Ireland didn't make much sense. South Africa really had our number at lineout time. Or we had our own number - am not entirely sure but if you told me we'd lose 5 of our own lineouts in the first half and nothing else I'd have presumed we lost the game.

Ryan was as critical at the breakdown as you would have expected, but I think some of the line out issues are with him. Not just in terms of calls, but either his jumping has deteriorated or the extra weight he's padded on has made it harder for the lifters - he's just not getting up as fast.

With a functioning lineout we'd have really hurt South Africa in that first half. We were moving them around nicely through phases and finding gaps - but we spent so much of the game recovering from line out failure that we couldn't impose ourselves as consistently as we're accustomed to.

That very nearly could have been another La Rochelle, and to be honest I think the experience of that game played into things here. Shortening the lineout and using that fast throw to POM at 2 or 4 seems very hard to counter but we kept good variation all the same.

Our exits were much better today critically (Lowe and Sexton's line kicking have clearly gotten further work in the build up) but our kicking in general was as good as you would have hoped even when under pressure. Again - get the lineout working and we're getting so much more from those early exchanges, and South Africa didn't seem to kick a huge amount. They generally tried to hold onto possession so kicked when they had advantage or ran it in and that was fine with Ireland, got their back three nice and fatigued for the final 20 with no replacements to come on. We looked comfortable defending later in the second half despite the 'Bomb Squad'.

Sexton having the second most tackles is not hard to believe. They ran at him a good bit. But it's still hard to believe. 38.

Thought he played as well as I've ever seen him.

Ringrose had a very physical game. Bundee is unplayable. Back three are just an absolute joy to watch.

But it really was the pack - incredibly physical and hard game for the full 80. Lot of very tired and sore bodies today, no more so than Andrew Porter. All had moments, no one less than a 7 but on the day I have Ireland down generally as a 7/10.

We squandered good possession in the 22 and we're a clinical team, we would have converted some of that into points. We can be second best at the set piece but not to that extent and the coaches have been on notice of this for a good while now. If we fail to progress because of the lineout it would be a very foreseeable and disappointing failure.

Our general skill and fitness level is better than SA. Our basic structures in attack and defence are better than SA. We should be able to replicate that performance and beat them, but controllable variables like the lineout going wrong can change things rapidly.

Otherwise we look very, very good. We stood up physically and if either team at times looked like they were wilting a bit it was South Africa, particularly towards the end of the first half. I think we probed the fringes better but our attack wasn't as cohesive under the extreme pressure of SAs line speed. When you look at Hansen's score - Sexton had virtually no space or time to work the wrap and only just pulled it off.

Their game changes now if they go with Pollard. If things play out as predicted that France game will be very interesting presuming he starts.

From an Ireland POV I think we go and absolutely steamroll Scotland now. I think they'll go into the final round with a tall task and if we open up a score or two early on it very quickly becomes insurmountable. A statement win that as a blow out isn't overly taxing would be perfect before NZ.

FrancieBrady · 25-09-2023 9:44am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153562#Comment_121153562

That's the big disappointment about the game.

I was expecting us to score more freely and force SA to come at us.

The line-out malfunction when we were in great positions and had the intent to go for more than 3 was heartbreaking really,,,but fair fuchs to them for working out a way to still win it.

25-09-2023 10:43am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153610#Comment_121153610

Yeah it was frustrating but you could see how dejected SA were after the game. They threw the kitchen sink at us and even with our set piece well below par we still won. That has to be very concerning.

Something else occurred to me. I bet our kickers have been practicing kicking under the new clock system and I presume we've primarily been practicing how to drag the shite out of it when needed. Crowley kicked with literally 2 seconds to spare on Saturday, I wonder was that block down against Samoa the price we paid to get maximum return from late game delay tactics!

ionadnapokot · 25-09-2023 10:58am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121152782#Comment_121152782

I would say that SA didn't serve to win and Ireland didn't deserve to loose!

Yes Ireland got the rub of the green with the turnover at the end but over the 80mins they deserved it.

POM and Aki took Ireland out of the burning fire that was the opening 30mins.

I agree. I don't think Ireland need or should go with their strongest XV v Scot.

Baird and Henderson should definitely start.

Argument for Herring. Hindsight - he should have started this game even though they needed Kelleher in the scrum.

Dont Be at It · 25-09-2023 11:06am

I find it a hard game to assess, but there's very little between the teams. The game was almost defined by key failures by both teams rather than anything positive (ireland's try apart).

Had ireland's early lineouts close to the south african line not been such a shambles we could have been sitting on a 10 or 14 point early lead, which would have forced south africa to come out and play.

Conversely had south africa nailed their kicks they would have beaten us by a score or so.

Ireland showed unbelievable character (with a little bit of luck, which you need in 50 50 games anyway) to come away from their biggest territorial purple patch in the game with zero points and a lineout in disarray yet still grind out a win.

Looking forward - the nz game is so far from a gimme. We'd beat them in a mini series but in a one off game they could easily play above their recent form and beat us maybe one in three times. I tend to be a pessimist but Ireland's participation in rugby world cups will do that. 😅

Don't think I'd like to play south africa again.

Christy42 · 25-09-2023 11:11am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121153971#Comment_121153971

Definitely want to play SA again since it would be in the final!

We did fix the lineout as the game went on which is good. Obviously it cost us a lot early but thankfully SA repaid us with the missed kicks.

It feels unfortunate that Ireland only hit form in World Cups when we have a tough route to the semi finals. NZ are down but not out by any stretch and I am sure it will be a tough game.