Josh van der Flier on World Cup regret: 'You look back at every mistake you made'

Van der Flier is set for a return with Leinster this weekend against the Scarlets.

Josh van der Flier at Leinster Rugby Squad Training, UCD, Dublin 14/11/2023

Josh van der Flier can’t lie. It’s been difficult. The Leinster openside is the only man to have played all 80 minutes of Ireland’s last two World Cup quarter-final defeats to the All Blacks and this latest one was far, far worse.

Tokyo in 2019 was a punishing loss, a 32-point evisceration that was, if anything, worse than the scoreboard suggests. But that made it, somehow, the easier of the two to accept given the deficit and the paucity of the team’s form through that calendar year.