Ireland a long way from the cloak of invincibility
It didn’t go unnoticed that the vast majority of Irish players put forward in the mixed zone after Saturday’s abysmal display against New Zealand were younger men and/or replacements. It was a thankless task after everything the team had been through.
Keith Earls did come through belatedly, and spoke as well as always about what had just happened and what must happen now, but here was a symbolic changing of the guard happening right in front of our eyes, even if that was far from the intention.
James Ryan was among the first out. A ridiculously talented lock whose name must already be in the frame to replace the retiring Rory Best as captain, Ryan will be the beating heart of this team going forward regardless of whether or not he has an armband on.
It’s not unrealistic to think that, all going well, the 23-year old could have at least another two cracks at a World Cup. For him and plenty of others this does not need to be a defining defeat. His list of accomplishments to- date suggest there is still plenty more to come.
“If you look back, we hadn’t beaten New Zealand and we’ve done that,” he said when asked to look back on the now completed Joe Schmidt era. “We hadn’t won a Grand Slam in a long time and we did that.
“The next stage is winning a knock-out game at a World Cup and I think there’s no reason we can’t if you look at this group. There are some young guys there, so I have full faith we will push on.”
Ireland are at an interesting juncture. Schmidt blooded a considerable amount of new players in the last four years as he strived to prevent a repeat of the 2015 World Cup exit when injuries and suspensions left the team so shorn for that quarter-final against Argentina.
More change is required now. Best is gone, Jonathan Sexton is 34, Rob Kearney’s long and glittering time in the jersey looks done and Keith Earls is 32.
Ten of the squad at this tournament are in their thirties and most of them are unlikely to be around when the global gig kicks off in France in 2023. The team that starts the first Six Nations game, against Scotland next February, will tell us a lot.
“If you look back to the last four years that I’ve been involved in the Irish set-up, the amount of history we’ve made and the incredible moments that we’ve had, there’s quite an experienced group now and obviously losing Rory is massive,” said Josh van der Flier. “He’s been an incredible leader and I can’t speak highly enough of him. But I think it’s a special group and it would be a shame if we don’t push on now.”
Farrell’s main job will be in rebuilding confidence which have fallen off a cliff since England destroyed them in Dublin last February.
Schmidt said weeks later that the team had been a little bit broken by the loss and they have yet to mend. It was an astonishing word to use at the time and the Kiwi’s admittance that Ireland needed a good start two days ago to inject some confidence into the side against the All Blacks was a stunning admission that the squad’s mental state was even more brittle than suspected.
It’s a long way from the cloak of near invincibility that the team once wore but David Kilcoyne says this is a time when the collective needs to stick together and ride out the roughest of the waves.
Obviously Andy is coming in now as head coach and we all have to rally together. We have a great squad there and we have to be incredibly tight. We gotta take this loss together and be there for each other.
Ireland came to Japan to make history but all they ended up doing was repeating it. The road back is a long one and there is the realisation, again, that nothing they do between now and France 2023 will satisfy the itch that has now become unbearable.
“You look at how much time and effort goes in to getting to a World Cup quarter-final and look back to pre-season, pre-season games, the pool stages and then this,” said Kilcoyne.
A lot like that is really gut-wrenching but... you’ve got to take the highs with the lows.”
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