Over and out

IT SEEMED fitting in a French-based tournament that the guillotine should finally fall on Ireland’s World Cup aspirations in the Parc Des Princes, a venue that has wreaked so much pain and havoc on a succession of Irish teams throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

There was a palpable air of sadness surrounding the Irish dressing room area in the hour after yesterday’s final pool game as the grim realisation struck home. Ireland are out before the big guns even begin to shift through the gears.

No doubt there will be copious reviews conducted from within the IRFU, the media, and the general public as rugby people everywhere attempt to rationalise the complete systems failure that has overtaken this Irish team in the past month.

Ireland will derive some slim satisfaction from finally playing somewhere near their potential yesterday as they carried the challenge to the Pumas right from the off. That said, one felt that the tactical approach adapted by Argentine coach Marcelo Loffreda was geared (or devised) to ensure that Ireland would not score the necessary four tries to give them any chance of advancing to the next stage. While Ireland succeeded in becoming the first team to breach the Argentine defence with tries from Brian O’Driscoll and Geordan Murphy it was never going to be enough.

Ireland’s tactical approach for this game was dictated two weeks ago by the failure to register a bonus point in victory against Georgia. When O’Driscoll forfeited an early kick at goal in favour of a line out in the corner the pattern was set.

On current form one feels that whatever task Argentina faced going into this game they were more than capable of achieving it. With eight squad survivors from the victory against Ireland in Lens in 1999 this is a team that has been long in the making. They are now at their peak and will cause problems not only for Scotland in the quarter final but for any of the Tri-Nations in the semis. The reaction on the faces of former All-Black World Cup winners Grant Fox and Alan Whetton to whom I spoke on the final whistle said it all. The Pumas are a force to be reckoned with.

The Irish performance in the opening quarter offered huge encouragement with the pack, in particular, throwing down the gauntlet to the much vaunted Puma eight. The line-out in particular produced far better quality ball than against France enabling Gordon Darcy and O’Driscoll to make early inroads. How fitting it was that O’Driscoll, playing a true captain’s part, was the one who offered the massive Irish support an opportunity to dream. His opening try was a fitting reward for his flair and industry in midfield when he was put into space from a trademark Ronan O’Gara pass.

The problem for Ireland was that every time they registered a score Argentina responded in kind. Their second try from Horacio Agulla was one of the tries of the tournament so far. How fitting that the chief architect should be their mercurial out-half Juan Martin Hernandez. While the aerial retreat off his own up-and-under was spectacular, his offload to the supporting Fernandez Lobbe was even more outrageous. It set up a series of inter-passing reminiscent of the French at their very best in this stadium in the mid eighties.

Despite a vastly superior performance from Ireland when they applied all the opening pressure, retreating to the dressing room eight points behind at the break was a killer blow.

Throughout the World Cup, Ireland’s work at the breakdown has been extremely poor. Under those circumstances facing the tournament’s ace poachers, they had no chance. In all Argentina manufactured 10 turnovers and the ability of Felipe Contepomi, Agustin Pichot, Ignacio Corleto and Hernandez to counter-attack from those opportunities ran Ireland ragged.

Tactically Marcelo Loffredo devised the perfect game plan. In Hernandez, he had the perfect executioner. Time and again, either from out-half or operating as an auxiliary full-back the Stade Francais genius kicked parallel to the touch landing the ball on the five-metre line. Such was the strength of Argentina’s chasing game that too many Irish players were isolated and forced into turnovers or the concession of penalties. When one considers that Hernandez was already rated the best full back in the world prior to this tournament, he has already progressed to such a stage where he rivals Dan Carter for the out-half of the tournament.

For Ireland the glory days of Croke Park are now but a distant memory and one wonders what the future holds for the team. Eddie O’Sullivan stayed loyal to a fault, starting only 19 different players, the lowest in the World Cup by a mile. It is sad to think with so many quality players on board who won’t survive to the next World Cup that they will now be remembered as the only Irish squad to fail to get out of their pool. For a team that travelled with high hopes of reaching the semifinal for the first time ever, the final ignominy occurred when they were forced to stay on the field for a period of 10 minutes after the game while Argentina did their lap of honour, in order to receive their participation medals from Dr Syd Miller.

They were followed soon after by an Argentinean squad who on this form could well receive another presentation from the IRB chairman in three weeks. The question at this stage is whether is will be gold, silver or bronze.

For the Irish returning home three weeks ahead of schedule, the Magners League and the painful post-mortem is all that awaits.