Proud Crowley says Ireland on journey, but no guarantees about destination

Push past the glass half-full takes and Ireland’s two recent defeats against the southern hemisphere giants bear a worrying resemblance to the tough days of yesteryear.

Ireland’s Jack Crowley prevents a try from South Africa’s Canan Moodie. Pic: ©INPHO/Gary Carr

So, here’s where Ireland are at now. No longer the top-ranked team in the world. Not even close. No longer a side that routinely betters the acknowledged giants of the world game.

Ireland are now a side that is back absorbing learnings, and lots of them.

Saturday’s loss to South Africa was the team’s third straight reversal against one of the game’s behemoths, following on from the limp defeat to the All Blacks in Chicago and the comprehensive defeat to France in Dublin in the last Six Nations.

All three were double-digit losses.

Ireland could mount an argument in opposition to any suggestion of slide. There was the big win at home to England in this year’s Six Nations, and the pair of three-point victories over Argentina and Australia this time last year.

There is also the W against a wobbling Wallaby side two weekends ago but the caveat to be stressed about the opposition there could be partnered by the distinctly unimpressive displays that actually claimed those two successes in the last November window.

All told, Ireland’s last signature win was in Durban two summers ago when Ciaran Frawley dropped that late goal, and it seems like a long time since they destroyed France in Marseille off the back of respective World Cup quarter-final exits.

So, here we are, back at the learnings stage. As Jack Crowley explained.

“With the broader lens, [this] was one that showed the true fight of this group. Immediate results are what we want, we want to win. There's no question about that, and I'm not going past that, but to be part of a group that is down to 12 men and stands tall, and you see when your back's against the wall what this group has, and they didn't budge…

“They did not budge, and that's something to be unbelievably proud of, to be a part of the fight. Right now it hurts. It hurts the group. The lads are unbelievably [hurt] now, the lads are beaten, but in the longer term we're going in the right direction. There's going to be learnings from this, and we'll take them, and we'll be better.” 

Crowley's was just one voice in a common chorus.

Andy Farrell spoke of his pride at how Ireland had stood up to what his Munster out-half agreed had been a “chaotic” game, Jamison Gibson-Park compared it to the Murrayfield game in 2023 when they were so decimated by injuries.

All this is fair and understandable. You take comfort where you can, and all, but push past the glass half-full takes and Ireland’s two recent defeats against the two southern hemisphere giants bear a worrying resemblance to the tough days of yesteryear.

What was the All Black loss if not a once-familiar image of an imperfect Irish team putting it up to the Kiwis for an hour before falling off a cliff and making too many walks back under their posts? How many times in the past did we see the Boks steamroll us at Lansdowne Road?

Crowley talked about how this team is on a “journey”. That’s more clear now than it was before they lined out at Soldier Field. This is a team whose peak on that summer tour to New Zealand in the summer of 2022 is receding further into the distance.

There isn’t any guarantee that they can return to those heights. What probably passed us by at the time – as it always does in the moment – is that Farrell was head of a generational group and that a country of this size doesn’t get that in perpetuity.

The Ireland head coach on Saturday night made another call for players further down the ledger to put up their hands for Test honours because too few of the regulars nearing and pushing through their 30s have felt enough heat from below.

This game was a microcosm of where the group as it stands is at.

On the one hand there were the frustrating errors, in this instance an indiscipline that coughed up 18 penalties and five cards. On the other there was the sheer stubbornness and grit to stop this loss from degenerating into outright rout.

Crowley’s contribution encapsulated both. His obstruction on Cobus Reiach at a Bok ruck before half-time was, in his own words, “silly” and terribly costly. His defence in the backfield after the break, when chasing down two kicks into the 22, was heroic.

Whatever its shortcomings and its stutters, this team lacks no fight.

“It’s your job in that moment in the backfield, but there was a number of moments that those boys in the forwards were down to six up front. The amount of scrums they had to do, the defence they showed on our line to get a penalty, Cian Prendergast getting the penalty.

“That's what I'm playing for, that's what all the lads are playing for, is to make each other look good. To me, the boys up front, the fight that they showed, it's everything.” 

Not everything, maybe, but a foundation to work on.