The IRISH RUGBY thread

[JPGJOHNNYG]

The football team certainly does put things into perspective. I know people say we should not celebrate failure but we just witnessed a great Irish rugby team beat South Africa, hammer Scotland and just be pipped at the post by the All Blacks in a World Cup. They have been playing unbelievable rugby for the past couple of years. Then we look at our football team and lets be honest its a sad joke.
Could you imagine an Irish football team getting to a World Cup only to lose out at knockout stages, it literally would be beyond our wildest dreams given our recent history.

You are comparing apples with oranges though. They are 2 completely different sports.
One has a global following with any number of professional international teams. How many professional international rugby teams are there?
 The fact that Ireland can't get past the last 8 is damning, and that they needed Kiwis to even get that far. But until people wake up and realise they are failing on the biggest stage over and over and stop heaping bucketloads of superlatives on them then nothing will change.
Football fans are not shy of calling a spade a spade when it comes to the team or management.

The last line is nonsense. For some bizarre reason many fans and most of the Irish football journalists have been backing Kenny as if he was the second coming. Any rational person would have seen it was going horribly wrong very very early on. Some here have taken about 2 yrs extra for it all to finally sink in.

[Armagh18]

The football team certainly does put things into perspective. I know people say we should not celebrate failure but we just witnessed a great Irish rugby team beat South Africa, hammer Scotland and just be pipped at the post by the All Blacks in a World Cup. They have been playing unbelievable rugby for the past couple of years. Then we look at our football team and lets be honest its a sad joke.
Could you imagine an Irish football team getting to a World Cup only to lose out at knockout stages, it literally would be beyond our wildest dreams given our recent history.

You are comparing apples with oranges though. They are 2 completely different sports.
One has a global following with any number of professional international teams. How many professional international rugby teams are there?
 The fact that Ireland can't get past the last 8 is damning, and that they needed Kiwis to even get that far. But until people wake up and realise they are failing on the biggest stage over and over and stop heaping bucketloads of superlatives on them then nothing will change.
Football fans are not shy of calling a spade a spade when it comes to the team or management.

We're also a country with a tiny population who have at least 3 other sports vastly more popular than rugby. It's a real shame we couldn't get to a semi final at least with this team but we'll get there eventually. Kiwis live and breathe rugby.

[imtommygunn]

This year was different. The last number of years have been a capitulation - this was not. The draw was horrendous - Argentina and England are in the semis and we are very clearly better than either.

[markl121]

The football team certainly does put things into perspective. I know people say we should not celebrate failure but we just witnessed a great Irish rugby team beat South Africa, hammer Scotland and just be pipped at the post by the All Blacks in a World Cup. They have been playing unbelievable rugby for the past couple of years. Then we look at our football team and lets be honest its a sad joke.
Could you imagine an Irish football team getting to a World Cup only to lose out at knockout stages, it literally would be beyond our wildest dreams given our recent history.

You are comparing apples with oranges though. They are 2 completely different sports.
One has a global following with any number of professional international teams. How many professional international rugby teams are there?
 The fact that Ireland can't get past the last 8 is damning, and that they needed Kiwis to even get that far. But until people wake up and realise they are failing on the biggest stage over and over and stop heaping bucketloads of superlatives on them then nothing will change.
Football fans are not shy of calling a spade a spade when it comes to the team or management.

The last line is nonsense. For some bizarre reason many fans and most of the Irish football journalists have been backing Kenny as if he was the second coming. Any rational person would have seen it was going horribly wrong very very early on. Some here have taken about 2 yrs extra for it all to finally sink in.

ah come on, anyone I know who follows the team have realised Kenny is nowhere near good enough. every result over the last few years and been texted around the WhatsApp groups "well is this the final straw?" its mad he has got so far.

[Look-Up!]

This year was different. The last number of years have been a capitulation - this was not. The draw was horrendous - Argentina and England are in the semis and we are very clearly better than either.

Have to agree with that. We were very poor last few WCs after going in with plenty of hype, but our bubbles were well and truly burst with little ceremony.

This year we put in 2 heroic performances against SA and NZ. Agonisingly close, 36 phases against NZ on our final play. That's a standard we were never at before. We were brilliant against Scotland too in what was a pressure game. Put the Scots in the English or Welsh groups and I think they'd be in a SF. France, best team in the world for me, are out after QF. They not too happy with ref over it. Very small margins but you cannot say we didn't perform. 

[seafoid]

There was one stage where Sexton had  the option of 3 points but went for the corner. He also missed a penalty. Either would have got us within a drop goal. Leaving it to the end at 4 points behind was just too much.
NZ were also lucky.

[Franko]

We played well, miles better than we ever have in any previous QF, but make no mistake, we underperformed in certain areas and positions compared to our current exceptional standards. The morons will of course bang on about it being a bottle job etc, and it certainly wasn't that. New Zealand were excellent, especially at the breakdown, but the game was there to be won. No point pretending otherwise.

Mistakes that we'd never make, panic setting in early etc. We can rue the opportunity that Jordie Barret saved all we want but equally Smith had a clean intercept and was gone other than for slipping. That came from JGP pushing things too much with 30 mins left in the game.

These statements are almost the definition of a bottle job

When the real pressure came on, we fell apart, we panicked, we failed regularly to execute the basics, we made a string of unforced errors

Granted it wasn't the implosion of previous years, but it was still a bottle job

[Dag Dog]

The football team certainly does put things into perspective. I know people say we should not celebrate failure but we just witnessed a great Irish rugby team beat South Africa, hammer Scotland and just be pipped at the post by the All Blacks in a World Cup. They have been playing unbelievable rugby for the past couple of years. Then we look at our football team and lets be honest its a sad joke.
Could you imagine an Irish football team getting to a World Cup only to lose out at knockout stages, it literally would be beyond our wildest dreams given our recent history.

You are comparing apples with oranges though. They are 2 completely different sports.
One has a global following with any number of professional international teams. How many professional international rugby teams are there?
 The fact that Ireland can't get past the last 8 is damning, and that they needed Kiwis to even get that far. But until people wake up and realise they are failing on the biggest stage over and over and stop heaping bucketloads of superlatives on them then nothing will change.
Football fans are not shy of calling a spade a spade when it comes to the team or management.

The last line is nonsense. For some bizarre reason many fans and most of the Irish football journalists have been backing Kenny as if he was the second coming. Any rational person would have seen it was going horribly wrong very very early on. Some here have taken about 2 yrs extra for it all to finally sink in.

ah come on, anyone I know who follows the team have realised Kenny is nowhere near good enough. every result over the last few years and been texted around the WhatsApp groups "well is this the final straw?" its mad he has got so far.

Most journalists who write about the Irish national team are League of Ireland journos the rest of the time.
Kenny is seen as LOI gene pool manager and they don't want to put the knife into someone from that stable.

[seafoid]

We played well, miles better than we ever have in any previous QF, but make no mistake, we underperformed in certain areas and positions compared to our current exceptional standards. The morons will of course bang on about it being a bottle job etc, and it certainly wasn't that. New Zealand were excellent, especially at the breakdown, but the game was there to be won. No point pretending otherwise.

Mistakes that we'd never make, panic setting in early etc. We can rue the opportunity that Jordie Barret saved all we want but equally Smith had a clean intercept and was gone other than for slipping. That came from JGP pushing things too much with 30 mins left in the game.

These statements are almost the definition of a bottle job

When the real pressure came on, we fell apart, we panicked, we failed regularly to execute the basics, we made a string of unforced errors

Granted it wasn't the implosion of previous years, but it was still a bottle job

A bottle job would have meant no fight back, no Irish tries, no 30 phases at the end.
The match could have gone either way. The antithesis of a bottle job.

[Captain Scarlet]

I am in a few WhatsApp groups with lads who know more than me about rugby and I asked is it blasphemy to say anything bad about Sexton. He was not good on the day at all.
We were being ate alive in line-outs and we kicked for corners. He missed the kick and then that stupid chip to no one at a crucial time.
30 phases at the end of just shipping it to the man beisde you who is standing still isn't worth a shite.

As I keep saying, I was gutted but Christ you are allowed call out these things. Normally we would have done this. For the past two years we were getting that right.

Well we didn't because we were under pressure and there were some very silly mistakes. Botha from SA was on talking about Porter and not having to attack the scrum when he was getting pinged. Just settle a bit.

[burdizzo]

No, Sexton wasn't good. What was the wattsapp lads say re. the blasphemy question? Gerry Thornley gushing all over Sexton, as ever, in The Irish Times. Almost embarrassing. He also had a pop at the ref. - again, as usual - but I didn't think Barnes was bad.

I think both of France and SA would have beaten Ireland the way they played the following night.

[Franko]

We played well, miles better than we ever have in any previous QF, but make no mistake, we underperformed in certain areas and positions compared to our current exceptional standards. The morons will of course bang on about it being a bottle job etc, and it certainly wasn't that. New Zealand were excellent, especially at the breakdown, but the game was there to be won. No point pretending otherwise.

Mistakes that we'd never make, panic setting in early etc. We can rue the opportunity that Jordie Barret saved all we want but equally Smith had a clean intercept and was gone other than for slipping. That came from JGP pushing things too much with 30 mins left in the game.

These statements are almost the definition of a bottle job

When the real pressure came on, we fell apart, we panicked, we failed regularly to execute the basics, we made a string of unforced errors

Granted it wasn't the implosion of previous years, but it was still a bottle job

A bottle job would have meant no fight back, no Irish tries, no 30 phases at the end.
The match could have gone either way. The antithesis of a bottle job.

There are degrees of everything.

This was at the other end of the scale from the humiliations we have received in other years

But make no mistake - it's still on the scale

[JoG2]

Bottle job? A ridiculous take

[Franko]

Bottle job? A ridiculous take

A thoroughly evidenced point

[Armagh18]

You'd want to be seriously bitter to go to suxh serious lengths to explain why that was a bottle job. Sickening defeat against a country that doesn't do much else except chase sheep and play rugby. We'll get past a quarter final eventually.

Is it at a stage yet where there is a Mayo like curse on Irish rugby?