Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

Only likely way I'd see us losing is if a game devolves into a penalty fest against England. Penalty, kick to the corner, maul. Repeat. Massive defensive effort, with a ref letting them live offside. They kept themselves in the match last year until the death, with a very limited gameplan. Hopefully the experience of dealing with SA and France's defensive approach will stand us in good stead .

Why are we spending so much time slamming something as choking that hasn’t yet happened and probably won’t happen? We’re the top dogs in rugby right now. We’ve beaten everyone worth talking about in the last 12 months. We are primed for a GS. We have given two fingers to the memory of 2019. And yet we’ve pages and pages of moaning about what it means if we don’t get the most we can possibly get from this tournament.

We can lose the GS and not choke on the way. It is possible. But it’s unlikely. We can lose the GS and choke on the way. Given how this squad have been talking that’s also massively unlikely. At the end of the day it’s better to wait until there is disappointment before putting any label on it. No point in worrying about it until then as it may not happen.

As for the RWC, the top 5 teams in the world are all on the same side of the draw. 3 of them (2 + Scotland) will go out in the pools and/or QF. It would be disappointing, but it would be disappointing for any of them. We’re nothing unusual there. Lest we forget, our route to a final is:

Romania - Tonga - South Africa - Scotland - France/New Zealand - England/Australia

Its mental. If anyone on our side of the draw win the thing they’ll probably have earned it more than anyone else ever has. Seriously quality sides will lose out in the QFs and we aren’t any more or less immune to that as anyone else. In fact I’d argue we’re already on the back foot given our schedule. We can’t manage our squad in the same way that the others can. So that’s an interesting element to it as it is. Again, let’s wait and see what happens. There’s no point putting labels on something we haven’t seen or contextualised yet. And let’s enjoy where we are now without turning it into something else.

given the quality of the coming opposition, anything other than a clean sweep in the 6N would be choking. i dont see england improving as much as they would need to in the short space of time left to get to a competitive level with ireland, coupled with the fact that the game is in dublin on st patricks weekend its should be a win for this irish team. not a walkover by any means, but a win. scotland are flattering to deceive yet again but i dont see anything but an ireland win in that game. maybe a close one, but a win nonetheless. italy are very beatable even in rome

before the start of the tournament, expecting a grand slam would have been over the top but given the performances in the first two games, with one being against arguably the strongest opposition in the competition, a grand slam should be the minimum for this team. being a world cup year, meeting this expectation is even more important

the rwc itself is a different story, especially given the nature of irelands draw. add to this the probability that england, france, NZ and probably aus are all going to be in a better place than they have been up to now, doing well wont be an easy task.

Good to see the first reply missed the point entirely.

No, you absolutely missed the point. Which was, why the f* are we talking about this at all given how good things are. Do we just need to find a way to turn good things into misery? If, and I don’t believe it will happen, we fail to win the GS then there’ll be loads of time to talk about this stuff after. Why are we even talking about it at all now when it hasn’t happened and doesn’t look likely? Can we not just be happy with the nice thing that we have?

Gonna fire this theory out there:

Losing is a lot harder to take if you didn't believe that you deserved to be on top in the first place. Or more specifically in the case of Irish rugby, that we were only on top due to moments of individual brilliance, a favourable schedule, getting the "intensity" right, and so on. "Goddamit, that was our one chance and we blew it!"

But those factors simply are not the roots of our successes any more. Irish rugby is not just in a purple patch, it's in a newfound state characterised by healthy finances, integrated pro-club (province) and national setup, enviable player production, and innovativeness within an expanding cohort of homegrown coaches.

When we lose again, whenever it is, it will be a time for maturity. To tip our hats to the victors, and, most importantly, to be confident that we'll be back to fight another day very soon.

What we probably need to see from the team now is how we deal with a situation where we go 10 points down early in a game. Our success has always been about building an early lead and pinning back the opposition from that point on.

What I'd like to see now is how the team cope with a bad start to a game, because it's going to happen sooner or later. If we go 7 or 10 behind at Murrayfield and come back to win well it would make a big statement and put to bed a lot of comments like the ones in the last few pages of this thread, which I think come about from a fear that maybe we're not actually quite as strong as our results in the last year suggest we are.

"shure they'll do their best but who knows" is pretty pathetic to me.

Did anyone actually say that though?

Think we'd all be extremely disappointed if we don't win the GS but there's a huge difference between saying "we should have won it" and "we didn't win it so the rest of it is meaningless and they're a bunch of chokers"

Bang on

I get that. And I think we should absolutely be bullish about where we stand. We shouldn’t be shying away from that. Personally I’d rather focus on where we are right now. In a great place with potentially great things to come. I’m looking forward to seeing where we go and I’ll worry about judging that (good or bad) once we get there. In the meantime I’m going to enjoy the ride.

We are worrying about it now because it’s a rest week. How many more sleeps?