It’s all over.
And in the end, I was glad of the finality of it. There can be no “ifs”. No “buts”. No “maybes”. Ireland just weren’t good enough. There was a base level of excellence that we needed to reach to trouble the All Blacks in this quarter-final and we didn’t come anywhere close.
Rugby World Cup 2019 has been a failure.
There are no positives to take.
There are no “work ons”.
It’s all… over.
But let’s punch the bruise for a bit.
***
My biggest problem with this performance and the accompanying result is that I know that the players are better than they showed here. But now nobody will believe them.
Life is unfair that way. Sport is downright cruel, that way.
But that’s what happens when the Biggest of Big Moments arrives and you don’t shape up. This was an opportunity for this Irish side to create history and, instead, they became history. Just another quarter-final exit. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad but the gulf between the two sides was such that there’s nothing to be taken from the manner of the loss.
Ireland lost this game in the first half. To beat the All Blacks we needed to do two things – flawless management of our possession and perfect decision making for how and where we handed the ball back to the All Blacks. We did this perfectly in 2018.
Let’s have a look at different segments of the first half, and assess them as individual components of the game.
Opening 10 Minutes
Ireland chose to attack expansively off a Q2 scrum inside the first two minutes. Here was the position and intent.
We used Stockdale coming back in from the blindside to draw up the All Blacks midfield while Murray drew Read and Savea away from the openside with his decoy line. Henshaw’s line off Stockdale had to draw up Mo’unga – it did – as Sexton came onto the pass. All this action would serve to narrow the wide All Blacks defence and create a positive angle for Earls to attack Bridge off a cross-field kick.
All the pieces worked as they were supposed to. The target was Barrett’s positioning and relative depth in the backfield on scrum set-piece defensive sets when the opposition is deep in their half.
The idea was brave and the intent was to put the game to the All Blacks from early on. It built on some of the kicking plays we’ve tried earlier in the tournament with Earls as the target – against Japan and Russia in particular – and was a handy bounce away from working out better.
When New Zealand reset, I thought we transitioned to defence extremely well and our first hit after the ruck recycled planted the All Blacks on their 10m line.
This is all good so far.
From here, we’d have looked to pressure the All Blacks into an exit but instead, they went back to an attack that won’t have been a huge surprise to us – a kick at the edge off a centre-field ruck.
You can see Kearney’s frustration right at the end of the GIF. The All Blacks went after the space in behind our edge press and Kearney couldn’t keep this in play and possibly hurt the All Blacks on a counter-transition that would have attacked their heavier forwards who had reset to the midfield after the previous scrum.
Ireland had the lineout though, so we’d have been happy enough with the possession advance to our 10m line from just outside our 22. Off the lineout, we retained possession but lost it on the next phase when a narrow carry from Stander was called as a maul by Nigel Owens.
He reasoned that “it was a maul lads,” – this was after it had gone to ground – because there were “three men in”. Owens didn’t call “maul” as Stander entered contact but if it was a maul, I think Ireland might wonder why a penalty wasn’t awarded for Whitelock and Read collapsing it.
But this wasn’t a crucial call. It gave the All Blacks a decent attacking scrum that they used to target our defensive positioning off a Q3 scrum. Kearney was defending the edge while Earls was taking the position directly behind the scrum.
We lost this one in the lights and let the ball bounce. Mo’unga’s kick was accurate and went after the spot where Earls’ and Kearney’s responsibility would overlap. Sure, Mo’unga’s kick (five seconds in the air) is outstanding but Earls work under the high ball wasn’t decisive enough for me.
That gave New Zealand dynamic possession outside the Irish 22 and they earned a kickable penalty a phase or two later from a Stockdale slapdown.
5′: 3-0 All Blacks
Not the ideal start but we’d have backed ourselves to go right back up the field after the restart and begin to get our attacking work into the game.
We had a few areas where we’d have backed ourselves to go after them – their fringe defence, for example. I spoke about this pre-game and Sexton went after it pretty early in an attempt to unbalance the All Blacks primary defensive line.
The All Blacks play with 12/13 in their primary defensive line so there is potential to get good ground by attacking the spaces inside the initial contact point. We did this a few times during the game but couldn’t take full advantage. Still, we made good ground on this instance and had a centre-field position to work with.
We lost this opportunity when Earls found himself in the “decision position” with an isolation to work with. Might this pass have gone earlier?
Yes – but I see what Earls was going for. If he managed to sit Bridge down at the edge and hold Lienert-Brown, a pass to Henshaw on the narrow crash would have put him through onto Barrett. Was Henshaw’s line a bit too narrow? Possibly. His line kept Lienert-Brown in the phase and took away the break option from Earls but still, Earls will be disappointed with his work in this instance. Goodhue made an excellent man and ball tackle that forced the ball free and set the All Blacks off down the field. Only a top class recovery from Larmour prevented a turnover try.
We earned a penalty off a lineout maul a few minutes later to plant us on the halfway line in an excellent attacking position. Another error.
Sam Cane is a big hitter, yes, but we can’t spill this kind of possession. This is our bread and butter for helping to build into our preferred game in this area of the field – a narrow hit up from our #12 – but we spilt the ball in contact.
From the resulting scrum, Ireland started losing gainline. The All Blacks put Savea at #8 in the scrum, gave him a solid launch and then attacked us right up the middle of the field. Look at these three carries.
Savea – gain line.
Read – gain line.
Moody – gain line.
All the carriers are running onto the ball, giving clean ball presentation, quickly recycling possession, and punching up narrow around the fringes – it’s so hard to defend when it’s done accurately. We started to make defensive errors as the phases developed.
Watch how we reload on this centre-field ruck;
Firstly – really efficient work from Read in the middle of the field. His top on to Taylor chops three Irish players out of the primary line but it also gives the All Blacks a dynamic fold point to attack. Look at how we’ve unbalanced ourselves on this phase;
This might look like a four on four, but this is actually a 4 on 2-1.
Smith’s pass cuts out Healy and Ryan at the ruck and creates an isolation for the Blacks to attack. We overfolded on the ruck – under pressure from the All Blacks line speed – and gave up edge space for the All Blacks to attack.
That let the All Blacks into our 22 with a big openside to work with. From there, they began chipping away at our defensive structure as they looked for another centre-field position.
Look at the width and depth that the All Blacks take on this pass. Look at the way that Laulala and Whitelock stall the Irish line speed by running interference lines ahead of Barrett.
That creates an opportunity for the All Blacks to draw out the Irish blitz so that they can be attacked in space.
Whitelock’s line held Henderson which created a workable space for Read who, once again, laid off a superb pass to Taylor for a big gain right into the middle of Ireland’s Q1 defence.
From there, I think we make another misread on the All Blacks as they go wide and deep again. For me, Murray has to be making a dominant tackle on Mo’unga in this position.
Instead, Mo’unga can stab the ball in at an angle on the edge and force Kearney into a poor exit. From that position, we’d lose a lot of close-range carries around the fringes that gave up the 5m position. Look at how Read’s tip on passing work on the previous phases earned him a close-range one on one with Best.
Stander had to cover the pass option to Savea so that gave Read an opportunity to dominate Best one on one and bring the All Blacks onto the Irish 5m line.
Keep an eye on Henderson on the following two phases;
Two overfolds. Sexton plugged the first one but Best – only up off the floor – couldn’t cover the space on the second and Smith had a try under the posts.
13′: 10-0
At this stage, the All Blacks had managed to make every subsequent Irish possession incredibly expensive. We were under pressure, we were down on the scoreboard and needed something to get us back into the game.
In the 16th minute, we earned a penalty around halfway but didn’t find touch. The All Blacks exited into our half, where we knocked on from the lineout. On the resulting scrum, the All Blacks sliced us up.
You can go looking for blame here, but in reality, I think this is just an excellent set-piece design with outstanding execution from Goodhue in the key position.
The accuracy of that pass to Reece made this try. Should Earls stay out on the cover? He’ll argue that the hinge in our 10/12/13 press forces him to match Barrett’s angled attack line and that comes from sluggish line speed from Henshaw.
At the point of the pass, does it look like it’s going to Barrett or Reece?
I suppose the key part is that it could be both. Ringrose exerts good pressure on Goodhue but Henshaw is out of position here, for me. If he’s in line with Sexton/Ringrose, it allows Earls to stand off Barrett’s pinch line.
Instead, Reece gets away around the corner and feeds Bridge for a huge linebreak. Earls managed to scrag Bridge before the line but the damage was done.
19′: 17-0
At this point, Ireland were in massive trouble. You don’t need me to tell you that but being 17 points down against the All Blacks in a World Cup quarter-final inside the first quarter is about as bad as it gets in this game. Almost every significant Irish mistake had been punished with a linebreak or a try and we were at the point where we needed something – anything – to get us onto the scoreboard.
We had been using an edge “pinch” move to try to take advantage of the All Blacks’ narrow primary defensive line. The forward on the decoy had to make contact with an All Black defender to allow the looped ball handler to find the outside man.
On both these little instances, you could say that we’re a little narrow ourselves – especially on the Sexton pass to Henshaw – but the theory was sound. The All Blacks defend narrowly on the primary defensive line so this kind of action can create space.
As the game ticked into the 30th minute, we had a lineout opportunity on halfway. Again, look at the action; we hit into centre-field and work to the edge through Murray to Sexton.
Was Kearney underrunning his line? Did Sexton take too much of an angle off the pass? Either way, when Sexton and Kearney came together, the ball spilt free, Mo’unga hacked it through for Barrett to dot down and that was that.
31′: 22-0
Shell-shocked. Every error ruthlessly punished. And staring down the barrel of a pumping. Our kicking game wasn’t working, we were dropping balls, we were playing absolutely everything through Sexton even when there were better, more obvious options staring us in the face.
The second half followed a similar pattern. Error, punishment, error punishment. We tried to go after the areas we’d targeted pre-game – pinch attacks at the edge, inside balls targeting the ruck point – but that all happened at 27-0 down. On 50 minutes, we were trying garryowen’s on phase 7 ball to try and find something, anything.
But the game was gone. The final score was 46-14 but we couldn’t complain if we’d been nilled. The All Blacks were clinical. The width and depth on their passing took away our line speed and created consistent isolations for their back three to attack.
Where did it all go wrong?
Everything went wrong. Everything we needed to do to compete with the All Blacks, we didn’t manage. A lot of energy has been focused on our gameplan post-defeat but no game plan can survive 18 turnovers against the All Blacks. You need to take every opportunity you have to build pressure. Playing mostly off #9 would have been fine – if we’d had the accuracy for it. Box kicking 6/7 times would have been fine – if we’d had a chase or better kicking. You pick a style that suits your players and then execute that plan as best as possible. There’s nothing wrong with narrow carrying if it’s building to something else.
Look at this carry from Stander.
It binds THREE All Blacks defenders and gives clean possession. Super stuff. Except we knocked on at the next phase and then gave away a penalty. No style can survive that.
Did the players freeze? I don’t know – I wasn’t there. Were they overcooked? Undercooked? Nobody on the outside can tell you with any certainty.
What I can tell you is that Ireland’s back three touched the ball 20 times combined. I can also tell you that the All Blacks back three touched the ball 85 times. Yes, Barrett had 47 of those possessions, as the second playmaker, but that still paints a picture of the All Blacks wingers working with 38 possessions between them, usually in space and usually with an angle to work with.
I can tell you Sexton had 35 possessions but our centres only had 24 possessions between them, compared to 48 in November 2018. Are we too dependent on Sexton as a creative force? Perhaps.
But everything Schmidt has built in Ireland since he arrived has had Sexton as a focal point, first at Leinster, then at Ireland. Yet when it works, no one complains. It’s when it doesn’t work or, rather, when we can’t create the conditions that we need to make it work, we look like a side that has no business being out there against top teams.
This was one of those games, at the worst possible time.
Where do we go from here? Home, first.
Then we have to restructure how we play the game. We’ll have to answer questions. Like, for example, if we peaked in 2018 and what we’ve seen since has been a slow slide? Or if the loss of Dan Leavy critically changed what our “A” game looked like after the Six Nations? The biggest question is, as always, what comes next?
I think the aftermath of this defeat resets almost everyone back to zero. The only certainties going forward to 2023, barring injury, are Furlong at tighthead and James Ryan in the second row. Any Irish side will have O’Mahony and Stander involved for the next year or two at the very least – and they were one of the few lads who looked any way decent here, along with Ryan and maybe Beirne off the bench – but every other shirt is now up for debate.
Andy Farrell and Mike Catt will have a mandate to change up how Ireland look on a teamsheet and, more importantly, on the pitch. It can’t be a complete reset – the Six Nations is too important to our finances – but a reset is needed, in both style and perhaps in a lot of the personnel. In some regards, finding that new balance will be the ugliest part of the process but who knows, maybe the entire collective will be better in a less structured environment?
Sport isn’t fair. Rugby is cruel. Neither Schmidt or Best deserved to go out like this but life rarely allows us the exit we want from anything. Neither man has been tarnished by this loss. Best’s legs looked like they’d given out in the end but his heart never did. Schmidt, in particular, has helped raise Irish rugby to a level we couldn’t imagine before. This team has given us a Grand Slam, a win in South Africa, a tour win in Australia, two wins over the All Blacks, multiple big wins over Wales, France and England. Great days and great nights. Some would have you believe that only World Cups matter, but we know that isn’t true. Sure if it was, none of us would be here, after more World Cup quarter-final exits than I can remember. That isn’t to say that we can’t be better, or make the changes we think are necessary to improve for four years time, but some perspective is needed to.
We weren’t good enough yesterday. We slipped in 2019. But we’ll rebuild and go again, as England did in the aftermath of 2015. If we keep the provinces strong, back the talent we have in our system and take it one year at a time, we can improve. But for now, it’s hurt, recrimination and misery. A four-year tradition. It hurts, but it’s supposed to.
Thanks for the memories, Joe.
But on we go.
The Wally Ratings: New Zealand (N) Rugby World Cup Pool A
The Wally Ratings explainer page is here.
Players are rated based on their time on the pitch, if they were playing notably out of position, and on the overall curve of the team performance. DNP means the player did not feature and N/A means they weren’t on the pitch long enough to warrant a fair rating.
| Names | Rating |
|---|---|
| Cian Healy | ★★ |
| Rory Best | ★★ |
| Tadhg Furlong | ★★ |
| Iain Henderson | ★★ |
| James Ryan | ★★★ |
| Peter O'Mahony | ★★★ |
| Josh Van Der Flier | ★★ |
| CJ Stander | ★★★ |
| Conor Murray | ★★ |
| Johnny Sexton | ★★ |
| Jacob Stockdale | ★★ |
| Robbie Henshaw | ★★ |
| Garry Ringrose | ★★ |
| Keith Earls | ★★ |
| Rob Kearney | ★★ |
| Niall Scannell | ★★★ |
| Dave Kilcoyne | ★★★ |
| Andrew Porter | ★★★ |
| Tadhg Beirne | ★★★ |
| Rhys Ruddock | ★★★ |
| Luke McGrath | ★★★ |
| Joey Carbery | ★★★ |
| Jordan Larmour | ★★★ |
There’s much to cover in this game and I’ll be doing that in TRK Premium all week long with GIF and Video Articles.
