Ireland lost out 38-24 to New Zealand in yesterday’s 3rd/4th place play off having led 12-7 at the break and scoring two break away tries after soaking up large amounts of New Zealand pressure throughout the opening half.
Unfortunately for Ireland New Zealand had a man sin binned early in the 2nd half and that seemed to drive them to up the gears and in the middle of the 2nd half they just went into another gear and that burst eventually saw Ireland’s resistance break and even though Ireland did score two late well deserved tries they were well beaten.
Probably the amount of injuries picked up had an adverse effect on the squad for the semi-final last Sunday and the play off yesterday. Ireland stuck to the game plan and have played an open style which they are suited to playing.
Up front has been an achilles heel for this squad. Even after the big win on day 1 against Italy, the Italians caused issues in the scrum that were seen in evidence over the following 3 weeks. Yes two of those front rows will be back next year barring injury as they were also with the Ireland under 19s this year and it was a steep learning curve for them but it will stand to them I have no doubt.
Players like Jack Murphy, Brian Gleeson, Evan O Connell even though the latter was ruled out of the last two games through an ankle injury look destined for long senior careers even at this early juncture. Several others like Hugh Gavin, William De Klerk and Ben O Connor will be with their respective provinces next season. Hugh Gavin will be in the Connacht senior set up once has had his break and will join up for pre season.
Yes the result yesterday will sting in the short term but it will also be character building interesting to note how many of this year’s under 20 squad will be in a senior green shirt in the next few years like James Ryan, Jacob Stockdale from the class of 2016.
Ireland were overpowered in the past two games and even though they played an open brand of rugby that saw them score plenty of tries, the notes and bolts of forward play has let them down and they have been physically beaten up by the England pack and yesterday by New Zealand now in saying that and in particular against New Zealand, they can count themselves unlucky on occasion at scrum time.
But overall, it will be a tough review for the Irish forwards when they get to review the tournament as a whole. Many questions have been asked in recent times about our supposed lack of quality front row players coming through to challenge the established order. From next season Irish provinces will be not allowed to go into the market for Non Irish qualified front row players.
Are we back in 2012 again, It would appear so, what has happened over the past 12 years. Where is the evidence of all the hard work and due diligence to bring through good quality front rows and make sure the bad days of the like of 2012 are long forgotten.
The IRFU did appoint John Fogarty as national scrum coach but he quickly went up the ranks to Leinster scrum coach and is now looking after the Irish senior men’s forwards as scrum coach. There are a few good young props in the system at this moment though and they will need to see game time at provincial level, guys like Ronan Fox and George Hadden in Munster with Joe Mc Carthy’s younger brother Paddy in the Leinster set up along with Tom Clarkson. You have Sammy Wilson up in Ulster with Jordan Duggan in Connacht.
I am sure I have missed many players but let’s hope the work at IRFU level has begun to try and address the apparent lack of quality props at the top end of the game. Rabah Slimani has come into Leinster on a 1 year deal and that was most likely worked on pre this most recent IRFU dictate from David Humphreys.
It will be fascinating to see if a province needs to bring in an emergency player will they be allowed to look to NIQ players or will Mr Humphreys do what his predecessor did and that was move certain players around the country from one province to another…..