Rugby world cup post mortem

No, there isn't an actual award for best fans. 🙄

Mucho gracias!

We marched down the field despite Sexton, not because of what he did. He shipped the ball on every time (bar the dodgy chip)

Do you think Crowley wouldn't have been able to do anything that Sexton did in the last 10-15?

You keep missing the point.

For the 3rd time (today) the reason Sexton in being mentioned, is (a) he's 38 and was visible wrecked and (b) we had a replacement for him on the bench.

Sexton marshalled no one in those phases, anyone that watched it can see that, he receives the ball, he passes the ball and that's it, offered nothing in attack, NZ defence didn't have to concern themselves with him. There's a few hairy moments, not just from him where the wrong player got the ball and we were lucky not to be turned over earlier in the sequence.

The game was lost in the first 20 mins

Too much energy spent trying to overturn that

4 years of good play, 20 mins of bad play

They were never scoring a try at the end

One mistake Game over, gives the defense so much energy

They should have grounded that tru

We played 15 v 14 for 20 minutes and never once led in the game, yet, we thought with tired legs we'd clinch it.

Clearly you don't understand what it means to marshall people. It's not leading the charge into contact, it's about organizing folks, directing the attack, which Sexton absolutely did. You want to hang the loss on Farrell not taking off Sexton, despite the evidence that the team managed to execute a 30+ phase attack at the death. Sexton didn't need to be a running threat, in the same way he didn't need to be in Paris when he made the drop to win the Slam. We engineered an overlap that Ringrose blew, we forced NZ into their 22 where Barnes made a questionable call against us.

Your argument slamming Sexton falls down in the face of what happened on the pitch.

People really are getting their knickers in a twist. I don't see anyone slamming Sexton or blaming him, he was wrecked and the argument is that Farrell should have replaced him. If we could see it he could see it and NZ certain could see it. Interestingly in the final Foster rolled the dice and brought both Smith and Mo'unga off, while Smith had been one of their best players in the match. Instead of that Farrell selected Hansen to start which was a mistake as he barely showed up off his wing before he went down with the same injury, and then left Sexton on who was struggling. Farrell has plenty of credit in the bank but too many people are becoming fundamentalists about this. We lost the match, if different decisions had been made we may have won.

How high are Leinster fans on Cormac Foley, he looked pretty tidy against Sharks.

I'm not pinning the loss on anyone, I'm arguing that Farrell should have tried the one thing he had left to try, a fresh pair of legs, an outhalf for an outhalf.

Read the thread when we had 10-15 minutes left, posters saying Sexton was out of his feet.

Fwiw, pointing a finger, isn't really marshalling a team, certainly not when comparing it to what we know Sexton can do.

He was ineffective & no threat to NZ defence.

This is sad in the extreme.

Just because posters say he 'was out on his feet' doesn't make it so.

The team were moving forward in the phase. To say that wasn't pressuring NZ is rubbish. You could see it plainly.

What they were playing for was to get to the line or to win a penalty and maul over the lineout. That you could also see.

Farrell would have been happy with the forward movement and I think that set of experienced players was the right one for that situation. I could see them make it to the line if they kept going.

I didn't see the fact that a young inexperienced player would fail to make a fairly routine clearout nor Wayne Barnes ignore a fairly blatant no release.

The sad thing is that had it played out differently there wouldn't be a word about Sexton and he'd have gone on to play in the semi and final if we'd won.

The knives are out though.

So you are telling us that a 38 year old player who is on one of the most draining positions on the field was as fresh as a daisy. You would want to watch the last twenty minutes of the match. I guarantee you the tracker on his back would tell the publisher xact same story. He was waddling from ruck to ruck if he got involved in a ruck he struggled to get back into position afterwards. As he could not make loop runs or get involved in second phases of a line break NZ did not need to mark him. Either could he risk making a line break as the ball wound be ripped off him.

On Crowley's inexperience he has ten caps, he has won a URC final where he scored the winning drop goal. He is well capable of making line breaks as he plays center at times for Munster. He should have been put on for the final 10-15 minutes. Wait a few years until a player or coach involved writes a book. Neither Farrell or Sexton will ever admit it but leaving him.on the field was the wrong decision.

NZ were relatively happy to allow us march up into their 22 knowing a penalty was not enough to lose.

Getting 30 metres from 50 metres to the 22 is relatively easy. The final 22 is where most attacks fail.

JOB was extremely influential in that attack, turning up repeatedly on both sides of the pitch and injecting pace where others were tiring.

Sexton tried his best, but he was wrecked at that point his movement was slow and laboured. He was miles from his best and Farrell made a big mistake in leaving him on the pitch for the final 20 minutes

Ah stop, watch those phases again. He is not remotely near what he normally offers in attack. He's literally shovelling the ball onto the next player, any player.

If the goal was to get the ball as far forward as possible, and then strike or win a penalty/lineout, and I think it was, then that is exactly how you would do it.

Controlled, disciplined play with no risks until the time was right.

Try see it from a different perspective because they do exist.

Don't know why you persist with this line, get Sexton out of your head.

I and others, including posters during the game (before the result was known) are/were saying we had a tired 38yo outhalf on the field and we had an outhalf on the bench. They should have been swapped.

Take that up with the posters saying he was **** Btw, he was dead on his feet. Watch him after the rucks he got involved in, slowly getting back into position.

I'm saying he wasn't up the standard we needed rom an outhalf, that he was out on his feet and as we had a sub on the bench, that a substitution should have been made.

A substitution could have been made* No guarantee that it would have been anymore successful. Personally I don't think an energetic Crowley would be a decisive factor, given the overall exhaustion of the whole team. Unless you think Crowley would have singlehandedly cut through the NZ defense to score a wonder solo try, he'd still be relying on the rest of the team to execute. It would still have been Beirne falling over into contact, still be Ringrose ignoring an overlap, still be McCarthy messing up a clear out. Providing of course that he was as capable as Sexton at organizing an attack to get into the NZ 22, which is debatable.

What did he do that was pivotal? I didn't see him make any decisions or any movement whatsoever. I think he at most to 2 steps before passing each time.

Nobody is slating him by the way, people are saying he was too tired to be as effective as he normally can be. Thats not slating the player, in fact its not slating anyone, its saying that the decision should have been taken by the coach to put on fresh legs at that stage.