AND JUST LIKE that, it’s over.
Grim. Gutting. Sport.
A few days removed from Paris and, for me, the worst part of it is that Ireland could win every game for the next four years, and we’re still going to hear that they can’t win a World Cup quarter-final.
It’s unbelievably frustrating.
Something like a Grand Slam should always feel meaningful but, unfortunately, the longer the wait for a World Cup semi-final goes on, the more weight will be apportioned to breaking that specific barrier — and the more anything achieved in the intervening years will be taken with a pinch of salt.
And to think, Rónan Kelleher got held up over the line in the dying minutes. Had Ireland scored there, we’d be having a polar-opposite conversation. The difference between our greatest-ever rugby victory and four years of lingering question marks was a couple of inches.
That might seem like a loser’s excuse. To be clear, you couldn’t even say it was especially unlucky: it was an astonishing piece of defence by Jordie Barrett rather than dumb luck which denied Ireland. But God… it was just so close.
As were all of the quarter-finals, in the end.
That Argentina knocked out Wales and South Africa took out France will add to the southern hemisphere’s perception that they still ‘own’ the northern hemisphere when it truly matters.
That feeling will be only increased by the fact that France beat New Zealand and Ireland beat South Africa in the pool stages, but it will ultimately be New Zealand and South Africa who play semi-finals at Ireland and France’s expense.
In reality, this World Cup has proved little other than the fact that there is virtually nothing between the world’s top four teams, and the way the draw fell meant that the dream was always going to end prematurely for two of them.
Think back to the outpourings of emotion from both New Zealand and South Africa when the final whistle sounded in their respective quarter-finals. Those were borderline World Cup-final celebrations, so much more passionate than you would typically see of those teams at this stage of the competition. That’ll tell you just how much they respected their opponents.
Zooming in on the Ireland game, I expected them to face a monumental challenge but my own respect for this New Zealand team still grew.
I thought the All Blacks’ back row, in particular, was absolutely immense. Shannon Frizell was good but Ardie Savea and Sam Cane were next-level.
I was stunned by the number of turnovers conceded by Ireland and by the amount of unbelievably uncharacteristic work by Andy Farrell’s side at the breakdown.
What has partly made Ireland such a great team is their ruck speed and, in order to generate quick ruck ball, people have to be in the right positions at all times.
When I played, we had a term for a player who would support the ball-carrier and clear out an attacking ruck: he’d be known as a ‘bullet’.
So, ideally, on your own ball, you’d have a bullet to the left-hand side of your ball-carrier and another to the right, and if you were under severe pressure at the breakdown, you might even use a third bullet to secure possession in a ruck.
It was striking throughout Saturday’s game how often Ireland’s bullets were either really late or totally missing.
That’s pressure.
Flip that for a second, and what has made Ireland so good defensively is that they’re so quick into that space — so the opposition’s bullets need to be incredibly sharp.
New Zealand’s duly were. They minimised Ireland’s access to All Black ball, keeping them to only a couple of turnovers on the ground across the whole game.
Ireland have dominated that space against every other top team in world rugby over the last 18 months, including South Africa whose power they overcame with accuracy and speed at the breakdown in the pool.
New Zealand — whose pack was questioned coming into the tournament — flipped the script and won that battle with Ireland on both sides of the ball.
It’s one of the beauties of rugby: no matter how good the opposition, there’s always a weakness; there’s always a way.
Credit to Ian Foster, Joe Schmidt and the full Kiwi coaching staff because the All Blacks did their homework on Ireland to a greater extent than any team we’ve seen — and they were able to find a few chinks in our armour.
They identified chip space behind Ireland’s frontline and put a couple of beautiful dinks in behind that brought them a lot of joy, including the first try by Leicester Fainga’anuku.
To identify that space is one thing. To have the balls and skill to execute and exploit it is another thing altogether.
One of my big keys last week was to not allow New Zealand to run in a try from nowhere. They got two tries like that.
And while it’s so rare that you would see Ireland make the kind of defensive mistakes that led to Will Jordan’s try from the Richie Mo’unga break, you also just have to tip the cap to New Zealand for a score like that. That’s just what they do. It’s why they remain such a compelling rugby team.
I’m still hugely proud of our boys. They have set a new level for themselves over the last two years.
Before they begin to build upon it, there will be a changing of the guard. Keith Earls has confirmed his retirement and the international futures of some of their more senior players, like Peter O’Mahony, is uncertain.
Of course, Ireland will also lose their captain, their talisman, their 10.
Whenever I played with Johnny Sexton, I always thought I was going to win.
He just gave you that belief, no matter who you were playing against.
Johnny knew how to run a group, how to drive us as players. If something was poor, he’d call it out. But what people might not have seen is that he really knew how to celebrate the good things.
There’s a perception of Johnny that he’s cranky — and over the 80 minutes that you folks might see on a weekend, that would be correct! But for the rest of the week, he was also an absolute gentleman who knew how to bring people along with him.
And he really grew in that role, as a leader, in the last few years in particular. He learned how to trust people, and to not try to do it all himself. The whole Ireland team loved him.
Johnny’s absence will leave a leadership vaccuum and we’re going to need the next generation to fill that void. The likes of James Ryan, Garry Ringrose, Caelan Doris and others can be the Johnnies of the future.
And even though it feels like a dark day as we say goodbye to one of our greats, I’m still so optimistic about that future.
Ireland still have the core of a great team, and with plenty of young players from across the provinces knocking on the door. There’s still an amazing environment for players to develop, for new leaders to emerge. And there are plenty of bright days ahead for Irish rugby fans.
It’s just gutting that this weekend won’t be among them…
The show will go on without us — and without its show-runner. Instead of Ireland and France, it will be New Zealand and South Africa who enter their semi-finals as relatively heavy favourites against Argentina and England respectively.
But I have a feeling both games are going to be closer than people think.
While all four quarter-finals went to the wire, New Zealand and South Africa in particular had to go to dark places in order to make it this far.
It required every ounce of energy and instinct they possessed in order to beat Ireland and France, and those wins yielded a greater emotional high than what would have been experienced by Argentina or England.
That level of physical and emotional intensity is exceptionally difficult to recreate week to week, and it typically leads to a bit of a dip.
On Friday, New Zealand face an Argentina side who might still be in the process of incrementally building their World Cup momentum.
The Pumas opened their campaign with such a stinking performance against England that everyone basically dismissed them. But they limped on and, when push came to shove against Japan in their must-win pool closer, they produced. Against Wales in their quarter-final, they did so again with an even better performance.
The man at their helm, Michael Cheika, is the only man in rugby history to have won both a European Cup and a Super Rugby title as a head coach. He steered an average Australia team to the World Cup final in 2015. He’s made for knockout rugby and maybe his Pumas are the same. I still think they have another gear in them.
But I also believe that New Zealand will still have a gear too many.
Equally, I see South Africa winning the second semi on Saturday — but I have a feeling England will do themselves justice.
Steve Borthwick’s side are going to play really simple rugby. They’re going to be super-physical. They’re going to be written off to the point that there’ll be no pressure on them. And as we saw in the Ireland game, it only takes one or two things — the bounce of a ball, a fine margin here or there — for the picture to change completely.
It’s mad to think that England are both the last remaining unbeaten team in the tournament and the sole northern-hemisphere representative in the last four.
But the final, realistically, will be another clash between the two traditional giants from the south.
Who will win the Rugby World Cup? (Odds courtesy of BoyleSports)
Poll Results:
BoyleSports Rugby Bet Builder has never been easier. Choose Wisely with our selection of pre-made Bet Builders, or create your own from our wide range of markets for every single match in the Rugby World Cup.