RICHIE MURPHY FELT his Ireland team showed incredible determination to beat Fiji and qualify for the World Rugby U20 Championship semi-finals in the wake of Greig Oliver’s tragic death.
On Monday, it was confirmed that Oliver – the father of Ireland U20 scrumhalf Jack and Munster Rugby’s Elite Performance Officer – passed away after a freak paragliding accident in Cape Town. The news hit the travelling contingent hard, and at one point, they wondered whether they would be able to face Fiji in the must-win clash in Stellenbosch.
On the day, however, the players lifted themselves to score seven tries in an emphatic 47-27 victory. With that result, Murphy’s charges have finished the pool stage of the tournament unbeaten, and have qualified for the semi-finals.
In the immediate aftermath of the win in Stellenbosch, Murphy admitted that the coaches and players were still hurting.
“Greig was a great man, a friend of mine, and obviously Jack’s dad,” the Ireland U20 coach told The42.
So it’s an incredibly tough time. Last night, we weren’t even sure whether we would go ahead with this game.
“So yeah, it’s a really strange day. I thought the guys did an incredible job. You could see how we were affected, though. Our accuracy was not where it would normally be.”
The semi-finals will be staged on Sunday. It is yet to be decided, however, whether Jack Oliver will remain with the squad during this difficult time.
“We have no plans yet, so we don’t know what’s going to happen. We’ll see,” said Murphy.
“He wanted to come to the game today – he’s here with the boys, and the boys are looking after him as best they can.”
Eleven changes were made ahead of the clash against Fiji. The tragic death of Oliver served as a further challenge leading up to the game. With all that in mind, Murphy did not expect a flawless performance.
“We had a lot of rotation in our group this week. For any coach, you want to be able to rotate your players while keeping the level of performance high.
The heart and determination and resilience of the group shone through. We’re going into a semi-final now, and we’ll have to be a lot more accurate.
“We’re delighted to be through to the semis, this is what we came for,” Murphy added. “If we have to play France [the form team of this year’s tournament], then so be it. We’ve had a great rivalry with them over the years, and although we know how good they are, they won’t want to play us either.”
Ireland’s attack certainly fired on a sunny day in Stellenbosch, with the boys in green scoring seven tries and nearly 50 points. They conceded five tries at the other end, though, and the defence will be a work-on ahead of the playoffs.
“We know how dangerous Fiji can be. We would have liked to have played them in the rain – as we’ve experienced that weather in recent games – but we got them on a dry, sunny day,” Murphy said.
“It’s a little bit of that [the wholesale changes impacting on the Ireland defence] and a little bit of the guys coming out of the system – maybe trying to make too much of an impression.
“Our strength is our team work, our ability to work together as a unit, and from time to time we went away from that today. We’ll have to stick to the task in the playoffs.”
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