IRELAND…22
ARGENTINA…19
Dermot Morgan – Live At The Olympia – April 16th 1994:
“People’s walks tell an awful lot about them. At Lansdowne Road, the main sports stadium in the country after the Gaelic football and hurling headquarters at Croke Park, you have two different types of walks as both the soccer and rugby internationals are played there.
Of course, the main difference between the two, the soccer team tend to win the games”!
That hasn’t aged too well, depending on your perspective. In the interim, barring the few years we were blessed to have Martin O’Neill and Roy Keane guiding our soccer fortunes, our standing in the ground based game have gone to pot.
Conversely, there are those who, on paper at least, considered ours to be the best rugby union team in the world. Such a view is bullsh*t of course. Purely on the basis that, in each World Cup Ireland have partaken, they have done nothing other than flop.
Between that fact, and the paucity of the impression made by Irish teams in ‘club’ rugby of late, surely somebody in a posiion of influence has noticed and noted the need for a reality check.
If they hadn’t prior to Friday last, surely the wake up call delivered yet again by Argentina had all the sublty of a sledge hammer. Now, you’d have thought running in three tries – by a back, a forward and a half back – whilst at the same time keeping your own line entact would’ve constituted a faultless shift.
To a certain extent you’d be right too. Where that theory falls apart, though, is the concession of 13 penalties – making it double that in two matches – the shipping of two yellow cards and the failure to score at all after half time.
Perhaps the most frustrating and/or worrying aspect of being in even slightly choppy waters is that Stevie Wonder could’ve seen it coming. At the highest level of competitive sport – certainly in terms of being in a management role – you cannot double job.
How often have you seen it where a manager declares they will depart their current role at the end of campaign before the season in question had even begun and the bovine food leavings begin to hit the fan.
Thus, maybe it would have prudent for Andy Farrell to step down in the wake of our latest World Cup disaster. Because, with the greatest respect in the world to all concerned, the ‘interim’ set up currently incoming feels like trying to block a gap in a hedge with a sticking plaster.
For reference, just note how much the ar*e fell out of the Welsh operation when Warren Gatland firstly partially departed their scene when, like Farrell, also preparing the Lions for a tour and then altogether.
But then, having said all of the above, there were plenty of entries worthy of the credit column too. Most notably the further burgeoning of Joe McCarthy and – though the following might seem an odd inclusion – Andrew Porter.
At my own expense I will plead ignorance as to the difference between loosehead and tighthead prop, and which one Porter is, but, which ever it may be, he must surely be the best in his position on the planet.
There was a time you could say the same about several of the Irish team but it feels like a while ago now. Though there are options.
Throughout the field in fact, but particularly in the half backs. Where, in my humble opinion, there’s little or nothing between Jamieson Gibson-Park and Craig Casey in the battle for control of the No. 9 jersey. If anything, I would contend that Casey gives quicker, cleaner ball off the base of scrums than the incumbent.
Then, of course, there’s the trouble at No. 10. In the sense that, whomever inherited the jersey from Johnny Sexton was going to be on a hiding to nothing. However, it’s hardly ideal that before Jack Crowley has had time to settle into the role, Sam Prendergast is already being pushed forward to replace him.
To be clear, I’ve nothing against the young and can see the talent and potential dripping off the 21-year-old, but it would be contended that Crowley has most certainly done nothing wrong to merit dropping.
Between the first half display and every inch of positivity which can be rung out of the other factors mentioned, the patchy performance will have patched over some of the cracks. For now.
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