Are-ireland-and-leinster-the-biggest-chokers-in-world-rugby ?

Dont be a silly billy

Oh great…this chokers/ bottlers bullsh1t all over again. If we say 'yes', will you go away with your myopic mis-assessment of high level sport. You have already identified there are two nations that are difficult to beat in this sport. NZs best performance in 4 years put us out of last WC….and then I guess they 'choked' afterwards cos they didn't win the tournament.

Mcilroy, Leinster and Ireland have won major tournaments. Have they some win rights we do not know?

"Yes, but it's the same type of style though, with the way they play," he (Burger) suggests. Its called playing rugby…something SA have turned their back on, admittedly with success. Hope it doesn't last, seriously ugly wins the last two WCs. Did the article address that?

Its part of the mind games for SA match, nothing more. Id take it as a compliment they feel the need to do this. Rassie is at his usual messing too

Oh right, so the sport is competed by a collection of chokers, except one non choker every 4 years (WC) and yearly (EC). That's a convenient assessment that wraps up the entirety of the events in those competitions. I am glad we are done with this assessment - I feared it had more depth and we would be here for at least another 6 or 7 minutes. Probably more convenient you restricted it to only the last 2 years for both!

. Losing is celebrated here

Well, Andy Farrell and the Ireland team are deeply unpopular among a certain cohort of Irish people so I don’t know about that.

I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m shocked that Schalk Burger is a bit a of a dick. Shocked, I tell you.

Its incredible how fragile so many South African ex-pro's are. They need to hammer home how unbothered they are by Ireland at every turn.

Sorry actually, please don't bother.

Is the only way for an underdog to win that the favourite must be a choker?

I played rugby for 22 years, won some big matches we had no right to and lost some matches where we expected to.

Were we chokers when teams turned up well and got one over us on the day? No.

Were our fancied opposition chokers when we beat them against the odds? No.

Sometimes it just your time, other times it's not.

yeah Leinster winning their first 4 finals gives a lot of breathing room compared to Clermont

Moving from the general to the specific, I'd argue that losing a final against a French team in Lansdowne Road after being 17-0 and 23-7 up certainly suggests to this keen Leinster supporter that some food may have got stuck in the team's collective throat last season.

However, the narrow loss in Marseilles in 2022 can't really be described as a choke and neither can the one in London last month.

Leinster are like the Patriots from 2007 to 2014. Comfortably the best team of that era overall, but have conspired to find new and improbable ways to lose knock out games. They'll come good again, just a pain in the balls watching great teams trip up repeatedly

15 competitive teams lol id say it isn’t even 8 prob more 6.cricket has more competitive nations too by the way.england,sa,West Indies,India,Pakistan,Sri Lanka,Australia,Nz, and every one of those teams could win a World Cup.

It seems very simple to me.

If (insert team name here) win, they are WINNERS !!

If (insert team name here) lose, they are CHOKERS !!

This system, easily available to all, allows fans, who commit a relatively tiny fraction of their lives compared to the commitment that players & coachs provide, to label teams & somehow feel better about themselves.

Simples.

I don't think Ireland are chokers, I think they have advantages during 6 Nations and Nov Internationals on player welfare and cohesiveness. When it comes to World Cups this advantage is negated by the long preparation other countries get over a full summer. In the main we have done a good job organising our resources. I will reserve judgement on Leinster until after the end of next season, if the current squad are lucky with injuries they should do the double with the addition of Barrett and RG. They do seem to tighten up in close games.

Just looked at the RC too. SA have 11 wooden spoons. 11! The highest number in the competition. They’ve only won the thing 4 times. NZ have won it 20 times! Ireland have won the same number of 6Ns titles in the last 10 years as SA have won RC titles ever.

So SA have a great record at RWCs but an incredibly poor record at senior level (club and international) in every other competition. So 4 times they’ve gotten themselves up for the big one and outside of those handful of months have failed to deliver any form of consistency or success of at all. And their clubs have been a downright failure. But somehow Irish teams are the chokers! Hahahaha!

Well, they do only have to beat teams who choked to win it, so it's pretty easy for them. Except 2019 and 2015 of course, NZ choked those years.