Ireland Team Talk XII: Farrell's First Fifteen

The difficulty of the match resulted in mistakes, it was the same for both teams but Ireland were slightly worse, New Zealand got a couple of easy scores due to lapses in defence that were well below the standards set in recent years. Staying in the fight to the end showed they didn’t bottle it, they definitely weren’t anywhere near their best, but every close game will be littered with small moments that could’ve changed the result.

I do wonder if they’d gone with a stronger back row would they have been better off, McCarthy and Henderson as locks, Beirne, O’Mahony, Doris or Beirne, Doris, Conan with O’Mahony off the bench might have been a better match for NZ. I thought Van der Flier had very little impact on the game, but would have to watch it again. Baird for some reason was left out, think he was worth a run.

4 Henderson, 5 McCarthy,

6 Beirne, 8 Conan, 7 Doris

19 Baird, 20 O’Mahony.

I think scoreboard pressure knocked us off plan. Usually we kick alot more and we should have maintained confidence in that.

I watched the game again and i really think that NZ identified that playing an even more pure version of our usual game plan could work against us. It kind of makes sense as their back 3 does have the capacity to win kicking battles against us which no other team has really done.

Then, in the actual game they put us under scoreboard pressure and instead of us trusting the normal plan we tried to keep the ball way too much.

I honestly think we are a clearly more talented team and that game was a bit of an aberration. But at the same time, they played so close to their peak and exploited every chance.

I think that's the thing, New Zealand just weren't very good. That's why it hurts so bad.

Couple of easy scores? Which other score was easy? And Aki beat the defender with a good side step and a strong carry close to their line where their defence was scrambling to cover space.

I wouldn’t really equate that with the system failure off the lineout that led to their try or for leaving acres of space on the wing for Savea to go over untouched.

The feeling after the game was Ireland dominated most of the game and had to work much harder to get points but NZ got a few sucker punches without having to do much. The penalty against Murray was a soft penalty too, Keenan claimed a magnificent high ball and Jordie Barrett threw himself down to make a meal of barely any contact I thought.

So if I’m reading this right we got some easy points due to lapses and NZ got easy points because Ireland choked?

I'd be concerned if players playing in any knock out game weren't nervous.

I'd say players get nervous before most matches. That's not what we're discussing. We're discussing a sub-optimal sporting performance delivered when under pressure. That describes Ireland against New Zealand.

You're uncomfortable with the term choking, that's fair enough. But you can look up any definition of the term and it means the same as affected by nerves. The Wikipedia definition for example:

'choking is the failure of a person, or persons, to act or behave as anticipated or expected'

This is what some pundits have described, some ex players have described, the stats and analysis of the game backs this up. They state that Ireland delivered a sub-optimal sporting performance when under pressure against New Zealand.

You're free to disagree with the pundits and the stats if you want and you can even disagree with the definition of choking if you want. It's a widely accepted definition though so you'll have a hard time changing it.

You're not arguing with anything I said, you're arguing with the definition of choking. You think it should be defined differently.

What pundit said that?