Josh van der Flier: 'I wouldn't say this defines us'

End of an era? Van der Flier wasn’t ready to see it that way.

END OF THE ROAD: Ireland’s Josh van der Flier with his brother Johann after the game

A weird time. The club season is only now clearing its throat and yet the sense of finality after Ireland’s World Cup exit on Saturday night is all pervasive.

It’s hard for anyone to contemplate URC appointments or a crack at Europe with their provinces. Even the Six Nations feels a case of too little too soon. The wounds are too raw, the feelings of sporting grief all encompassing.

But there will be a tomorrow. And a next day and another after that. The show will have to go on at some point and, while Johnny Sexton and Keith Earls are done now, the majority of those players left numb at Saint-Denis this weekend will pick up this baton again.

So, end of an era? Josh van der Flier wasn’t ready to see it that way.

“I wouldn’t say that now. Certainly Johnny and Earlsy [are] finishing up but the one thing that Andy [Farrell] said was this doesn’t define us as a group or as people or a team. We’ve got world-class backroom staff, players, coaches and we’ve done a lot of really good stuff over the last few years.

“I suppose it’s the nature of sport, you get tight games in knockout stages and today it didn’t go our way. I wouldn’t say it defines us now. The end of a World Cup cycle is always a tough way to end things but I suppose we’ll be back.”

 There’s no denying entry to the emotions and disappointment is first in that queue. This Ireland team had one goal here in France. It didn’t involve an exit two weeks prior to the last match but here they are, no further along than any Irish team before them.

Van der Flier found himself contemplating the same sliding door moments as everyone else. That driving maul 71 minutes in, when Rónan Kelleher got held up for the line, got a mention but there were a bundle of “big moments” skirting through his mind.

New Zealand ultimately delivered on more of them.

Hurt isn’t measurable, not by any scientific instrument, but this has to rank as the most painful of the eight quarter-final exits Ireland have suffered going back to the first in 1987. It was certainly very different to the exit at the hands of the same opponents in Japan.

“Four years ago it wasn’t as heartbreaking at the end because it was a bit more of a convincing win [for New Zealand] but this year anyway, in everyone’s head, in my head certainly, was I couldn’t see anything other than being here for another two weeks.

“The confidence we had coming into this week, with the winning streak we’d had… We’d known we’d beaten pretty much everyone over the last couple of years and we felt if we turned up and performed well that would be enough. Yeah, it makes it more disappointing.” 

Four months this group spent together, plotting a course that was supposed to find a final berth at the end of October. As endings go this seems especially brutal. Premature. The next few weeks will be particularly grim.

More than a few of them will give the semi-finals and the decider a wide berth. Others will be drawn inexorably to them, almost in spite of themselves. And while time off will be the priority, there will come the day soon enough when thoughts need to turn back to the 9-5.

Van der Flier’s Leinster get their URC bid off the ground against Glasgow Warriors in Scotstoun next Sunday and, while the thoughts of domestic chores will be little comfort now, they will eventually play a huge role in the recovery.

At some point, the emails and the WhatsApps will start to land from the national team again and they will report back in at Abbotstown and notice the absence of Sexton and Keith Earls and team manager Mick Kearney and they will get on with getting on.

“Yeah, one of the strengths of the group has been that when some of the key players haven't been there, when people have been injured or out, there has been rotation, last minute injuries, all these kind of things, we’ve managed to pull through and put in performances.

“As well as that, the depth that we have there now is pretty impressive, the lads waiting at home potentially hoping to be called out, unbelievably top-quality players who didn't get a chance to get out here. There's people like that behind the scenes who will be itching to take their places.”