We never really performed, admits frustrated Wallace

HIS first World Cup and, as he alluded to afterwards, possibly his last, was a disappointing affair admitted David Wallace.

One of Ireland’s players of last seasons’s Six Nations, the Munster flanker only produced fleeting glimpses of his undoubted talent over the past three weeks. But overall, he felt Ireland lacked any real momentum coming into this tournament.

“It’s been very difficult to say why we haven’t performed at this World Cup, when you compare the way we have played in the last couple of seasons,” said Wallace. “We had a lot of momentum coming off the back of last season but failed for whatever reason to get good performances under our belt coming into this World Cup. It never really clicked for us.

“We had great momentum last season; maybe if we played the World Cup then it would have been a different story.

“In the warm-up games we never really built up much momentum. The form wasn’t there and it crept into the World Cup. Maybe then there was a lack of confidence. I don’t know. Momentum was lost between last season and this.”

Wallace said it was always going to be a huge ask to score four tries against the Pumas.

“We went out with the mindset we were going to win the game and that seemed far more attainable. But in the back of our minds there was always the four tries. We did force the game a little bit too much and made too many mistakes in their half.”

He added: “There’s no getting away from that fact — we’re obviously very disappointed. We thought we could salvage something and qualify. But we knew it was going to be very difficult.

‘‘Argentina played very well. At one stage I thought we were going to turn the tide in the second half and maybe go and do it. But they played their game very well, and kept us pinned back in our own half and fed off our mistakes.”

He also fancies the Argentineans to cause a few more surprises before the end of this World Cup.

Said Wallace: “They’re going to be very hard to beat especially with the momentum they have. They would have been seen as third place in the group but came out and beat ourselves and France. They’ve huge momentum behind them and they’re going to be very hard to beat.”

He also admitted that he may possibly have played at his last World Cup. “If I made another one it’d be a surprise. It’s disappointing, my first one and not to progress any further is very disappointing.”