Rugby world cup post mortem

Well this is not true at all

The SH team always have the benefit of having a Rugby Championship prior to the World Cup, the NH teams are trying to get themselves up to speed at the start of the season.

Switch around to have the competition after the 6 nations when the NH teams are battled hardened and see what the results are like then.

Done a stint in new Zealand before, if new Zealand were number 1 ranked team and went out at quarter finals there'd be no kiwis calling them heroic. A third of the team n the manager would be sent to pasture.

Two razor thin defeats for Ireland and France. Both could easily have gone the other way. Just the reality of high level sport with teams of a similar standard. All on the day.

Because Lowe has always been a liability and is not as a good player as what some people make him out to be. That was disgraceful what he did at that moment resulting in a NZ try.

No bother,I will cheer our own, you can boo away, enjoy

IMHO NZ were not there for the taking. They're a class side despite indifferent form under Ian Foster. Their back row was world class vs Ireland and they had prepared thoroughly for this match. They deserved to win.

The SH team try to win all these games, sorry but it is nonsense to think that countries are not trying to win games between World Cup.

The SA and NZ teams are made up of experienced international players. They also have a captive audience in their country with rugby been the number 1 sport, every top star in that country will play rugby if possible. Then if rugby doesn't work out they move onto other sports.

We are already treating the World Cup as a goal but we also need to keep the lights on. Both NZ and SA are desperate to get into the 6 nations. If they had a yearly competition like the 6 nations would they be so worried about the World Cup? no they wouldn't. As they only have the World Cup they put a huge focus on it.

Did you see the side of the draw for Argentina?

Ireland has maybe 10% of the population playing rugby and we have a Grand Slam won, u20 6 nations and u20 into the World Cup finals. We need to continue to develop young players, touch more young players and get them playing. That's the only way forward. If we had the depth of options like NZ and SA would we improve? of course we would!!

Also a global calendar would be intersting to see how good NZ and SA are if they played all the teams at the same time, they are battled hardened after playing in rugby championship etc. We played all our players to try get them up to speed and just missed out. If this was at end of 6 nations with the Ireland team humming would they have won? no idea but it would be interesting to see. The SH of course will fight the global calendar.

This is more negative rubbish from somebody who doesn't seem to know how it works.

I think looking at the France v South Africa match last night....Ireland wouldnt have been able to live with the intensity brought from either of those teams....but we should have been able to deal with NZ....got to a final...and gave a good account of ourselves.....

Instead..the same old story...knockout game of rugby- we get knocked out....

The world cup has been a failure for Ireland.

2 seems high to me.

It's a good job they owe us nothing, because that is what they delivered.

Those that embrace failure sicken my hole to be honest, they revel in it, proud to get a pat on the back for being good losers.

Ireland underperformed when it mattered. And it will keep happening as long as that sort of culture is tolerated.

Regardless, Ireland need to do what they needed to do every other time this happened, stop focusing on the micky mouse cups and start building for the big boys trophy. Imagine if one of the out half's had been given big 6 nations games to develop in? But no, had to be Sexton starting all the time.

They won't do it though. It will be exactly the same next time because people are too craven to call this result what it really was.

if you think the irish rugby players embrace failure then im not sure what you have been watching at international and provincial level for the last decade. Its fine margins unfortunately.

Sexton at 38 is still streets ahead of anyone else at 10, do you think a different outhalf would have won us that game?