"I started a joke, that started the whole world ......" | Ireland v New Zealand.

No they planned to peak for a quarter final whilst Ireland peaked in the group stages again,

Nobody said anything about petulant or toys except you. Consider that for a moment.

Andy Farrell strikes me as a very rational person, so to repeat myself, he may simply feel that England have a better shot at the ultimate goal than Ireland do.

Hardly a controversial thought to have.

Sounds clever and philosophical, but really is nonsense!!

You aren't even self aware enough to realise the implications of what you type. You came out with this:

In other words his good work was undone and the players were to blame for leaving it behind.

It is petulant, not to mention childish, to blame the players in a team sport that involves the skills of many including the coach. And Farrell wouldn't blame the players because he is a pro and is not childish & petulant.

He is entitled to go where he wants and he'll be given credit for what he has done here like Schmidt before him.

This would be a valid discussion if 2 posters weren't so intent on winning a fight that they invented.

You said:

Now you can't even own what you said in black and white.

They left 'it' behind them is blame in anybody's book.

Weasel words now trying to get people removed. Lovely.

Then you invent a notion that I never discussed underperforming. They didn't win, they underperformed for a variety of reasons and in a variety of positions. They also played incredibly well in a variety of positions and a variety of reasons. They are all there in my postings

Wrong

Yeah, I agree with this. We've had a few games in the past year where we weren't great but did enough to win. Scotland and England in the 6N come to mind, Samoa too. Here it was a bit of that and coming up against a team waiting in the long grass who were insanely highly motivated and with a coaching team who really did there homework on us. Managing to put Porter and the ref in the position they did on the scrum is just hat tip stuff. that's turning their own weakness into a strength. The line break by Mounga for Jordan's try was exquisite and one of those insights into opposition weakness/behaviour that Joe is known for, same could be said for the chips that BB and Savea recovered. I'm not sure we came with a tailored plan for them in the same way. We went out to play our game and didn't play it to the very best of our ability. Murray's crazy effort to wrap up Barrett and prevent him competing was just a brain fart of the highest order from one of our most experienced and normally composed players, Doris took his eye off a restart catch, thou it was a brilliantly placed kick and we were not positioned properly, and Johnny's mad chip ahead, all uncharacteristic errors. We were masters of our own downfall in that respect, we made a few mistakes while they didn't make as many.

I wouldn't argue with that except to add all the good stuff we did too and the huge resilience and hard work we showed to stay in it.

NZ prevailed on the day.

The characterising of our effort as bottling or running around like headless chickens is what I object to.

No way? Seriously?

No we are not a laughing stock, we just have a few people on a forum who like to pretend to everyone they know better and are high achievers who would never accept a defeat or anything short of a win in their lives (we all know they have). We lost but we left everything on the pitch, we just didn't click as well as we can probally because they may have actually been better.

Can't agree with this idea at all. What's your quantifiable basis for saying they didn't give their all? The players were absolutely shattered by the end. To say they didn't perform to a high level is just not accurate. We didn't capitalize on every scoring opportunity, but no team does. We got held up 3 times vs France in the 6Ns, but don't think anyone would claim we didn't perform to our potential.

We performed better than NZ imo. We broke their line more frequently, our defense styflied them consistently. If we had won, NZ would be lamenting their poor defense, their inability to stop our maul, and the failure of their playmakers to find a way through our defense. One meaty Barrett thigh is the difference.

Another poster changing what he said.

You said they were running around like headless chickens in the first quarter.

I see that has been refined now since it was pointed out to you that we repelled a 20 phase attack after 5 minutes.

If you know anything at all about rugby you will know headless chickens can't do that.

You saw or heard about a few mistakes and went to Exaggeration town on the express bus.

I don't think anyone disagrees with what you said but when you get a bunch of disengenious crap fliggers on this thread over the past 3 days, the basis of a genuine match review and discussion is lost.