Shock Result? Ireland were simply the better team.

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It’s time to face the facts. Australia didn’t manage to lose their game against Ireland. They were simply beaten by a better team. And all the crying into Australian beer won’t change that simple fact.

The review of Australia’s performance following Saturday night’s match has been full of what went wrong for Australia, the lack of performance from players, the absence of clear thinking under pressure, the inability at scrum time to control matters, the absence of Pocock and Moore.

Much of the analysis points to deficits that were a once-off set of circumstances, an occasion when the otherwise mediocre, mad Irish pulled off an unlikely victory. It was a perfect storm – never to be repeated. The underlying implication was that if Australia were to play Ireland again next week with the same lineups, the result would be markedly different.

That would be a mistake.

Former Wallaby, Adam Freier, had probably the most honest appraisal of the match in an article he wrote – “Suck it up, we were outplayed and outsmarted” ran his headline. Except as you got into the detail of it, he focussed largely on what the Wallabies did wrong, rather than acknowledge what Ireland did right and executed positively.

Reflecting on the outcome, criticism from a number of quarters is couched in classic avoidance language with reasons trotted out by commentators that are as predictable as much as they are limited.

First up - northern-hemisphere style conditions was set as the context for the game – as if it had never rained in New Zealand before Saturday night. Had the Wallabies watched how Ireland underperformed in the rain against USA?

Of course, went another of the reasons, the Irish gameplan was classic Northern-hemisphere style negative rugby. As if Australia had never played against a side that sought to dominate at scrum and breakdown time and kicked penalties to win when defences were too good – on either side - to get anything else.

Ireland slowed the ball down and prevented Australia getting the ball to their backline and what they did get was slow and on the back foot. As if Australia had never encountered this context before when playing New Zealand or South Africa, let alone a 6 Nations team. If only we’d been allowed to play positive rugby goes the deluded thinking.

Playing with a ref who penalised them unfairly at scrum time and but for a couple of calls, Australia would and should have won it. When in reality, bar one brief period when Australia were hammering on the Irish line, they failed to get past a defence that had conceeded just three (legitimate) tries in the whole of the 6 Nations championship.

Instead, despite all the wise warnings from some within the Wallaby camp, Ireland’s warm-up form was used as a metric to place them firmly into the valiant, also ran category. The mix and match Irish teams that played and lost against Scotland, France and England whilst conceding 6 tries set the expectation for the Irish performance. The USA pool match was viewed equally risibly.

There were a lot of Australian players standing around after the match with a dazed look on their faces, particularly James Horwill, the recently-installed Wallaby captain. Next to him stood his predecessor, Rocky Elsom, whose face told a completely different story – one that began with “I told you so”.

Publicly, and no doubt privately on the training field and in the dressing room, Elsom had been warning about the dangers inherent in the Irish team. Not just in their ability to fire up for the big occasion, but also because they have some world-class players, beyond the fading and injured Brian O’Driscoll. And – whisper it - some of those players were possibly better than their Wallaby counterparts.

Nowhere was this more evident than in Elsom’s own department of the backrow. Even before Pocock had suffered an injury prior to the game, Elsom was talking publicly about the calibre of the players he had played with and against in Ireland – and how underrated they were.

The absence of Pocock was no doubt keenly felt, yet the Wallabies knew that Ireland hadn’t been able to travel with their primary specialist opensider, David Wallace. Unlike Australia, Ireland had another 7 specialist in their squad, Shane Jennings of Leinster, yet Kidney had selected a blindsider instead to fill the position – Sean O’Brien - the European Player of the Year in 2010/11.

What was probably not recognised by non-Irish commentators and fans was that if David Wallace had been able to travel and play yesterday, O’Brien would likely have been on the bench, with Stephen Ferris regarded as even better now that he’s recovered from injury. Alongside both of them was Jamie Heaslip, an Irish Lion No 8, nominated as IRB Player of the Year in 2009, and with a Grand Slam and two Heineken Cups under his belt.

McCalman, Elsom and Samo/Palu just didn’t and don’t match up – any day of the week.

In the second row, Horwill and Vickerman, were up against O’Connell and O’Callaghan. The most telling assessment of this comparison was to simply look at what Australia did for most of their lineouts yesterday. First they avoided them whenever possible, and when they did, they invariably threw to the front. Polata-Nau just made it a lottery, and his erratic throwing was well-known in advance.

Front row – Healy, Best, Ross versus Kepu, TPN and Alexander. It wasn’t exactly a state secret that Ireland’s scrum had improved – who could have missed it. The emergence of Ross and Healy as a propping partnership for Leinster and Ireland had done wonders for their respective teams. Healy, in particular, in the loose had tormented pack play and was a choke-tackle specialist at test level.

Greg Growden in one of his articles for the Sydney Morning Herald, said that Ireland had prevented Australia’s rolling and driving mauls moving forward by holding the Australian player up. James Horwill also was quoted as saying: “With the maul, Ireland used the philosophy of getting on the ball and using the laws to their advantage. When it's called a maul, once it collapses the defensive team gets the feed in the scrum.”

If this quote is accurate, then the Wallaby captain failed to understand a key tactic of the Irish and the actual Law in question. There was no driving maul. The Australian player was tackled, held up ('choked") by two Irish players and prevented from going to ground or moving forward. As other Australian players gathered in the tackle, it became a maul, and as Ireland had successfully argued with the use of their tactic 12 months ago with the IRB referees panel, if the ball doesn’t emerge, then a scrum must be called and the put-in awarded to the defending team. It doesn’t require for the maul to be collapsed, just the passage of sufficient time and ensuring the maul is not moving forward. Australia should have picked up on this as Irish players were consistently saying to the ref: “It’s a maul, it’s a maul.” whilst the players were on their feet.

Behind the scrum, Australia should have had an advantage with their half-back combination. Except, as had been flagged well in advance, stop Genia, and you halt the whole Wallaby backline. Genia simply hadn’t reckoned on how good the Irish backrow was until he found himself being picked up by Ferris and firmly carried back 10 metres and dumped unceremoniously by the Ulsterman at one point in the match.

Cooper was transfixed. The level of indecision on his face when he got the ball and had Ferris and O’Brien tearing at him was palpable. When he got the ball in open space from stupid kicking from Ireland, he ran back once and nearly penetrated the Irish defence. He didn’t learn from this, and ended up attempting to chip kick and re-gather and was swallowed up greedily by the Irish pack or Irish back defenders. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide for the Reds playmaker.

Australian Player of the Season, Kurtley Beale, had a similar experience despite brilliantly claiming a high kick from Kearney at the beginning of the match.

Out wide, the record-breaking partnership of O’Driscoll and Darcy was hardly troubled when in fact it was the one clear weak spot in the Irish defence. McCabe and Fainga’a are just not in the same class and barely troubled the injured O’Driscoll and out of form Darcy.

In O’Connor, Beale and Ashley-Cooper lay Australia’s best hopes of gaining advantage and getting across the try-line. Kearney, Bowe and Earls all had question marks about their form coming into the match. Kearney ended up matching his counterpart, and Bowe and Earls were lively enough. Except for the fact that he was taking the place-kicks, you wondered if O’Connor was even on the pitch, he was so invisible, except for his chase down of Bowe.

Overall, Ireland had the better, more committed, more experienced, and more intelligent 22 out on the pitch. In the pack, 1 through to 8, there was simply no contest. At scrum, at lineout, and at the breakdown and ball-carrying. It wasn’t all one-way traffic, but Australia lost 16 turnovers to Ireland’s 9. And a good number of them came from Ireland’s well-flagged use of the choke tackle.

This was no 10-man victory for a negative-style northern hemisphere team. Ireland played a 15-man game with the same intensity, commitment and pace as Australia were used to playing. And Ireland were able to mix and match their attacking play to be more adventurous when it suited.

One moment in the second half captured that. About 60 minutes in, with Ireland in the lead, they were defending resolutely on their 5m line on their put-in. The scrum held firm, and instead of the ball going back to O’Gara to fire to safety of touch, Heaslip picked and ran inside his own 22. The ball fired left out the backline, and Australia first line of defence was caught napping, as Bowe streaked in open space down the wing and kicked ahead. An unlucky ricochet off the covering Beale’s legs prevented a certain try. But Ireland had a lineout on the halfway line. A positive outcome to a piece of positive play. Just one of many in what was a fascinating game.

In the end, Ireland won, because they were the better team.

Had missed this article on green and gold rugby. Good call sully!

http://www.greenandgoldrugby.com/rwc-2011-australia-v-ireland-preview/

Ah well, Monday into work and can't say a happy day with all the flack I'm getting from the weekend's loss but hey, we were outplayed by Ireland in all areas, and lost. Congrats to the Irish.

Only good thing about Saturday was going to my local after the game, I watched the game at home, and having the 21 stone Irish landlord doing a jig round me, he was so happy. Made me happy tooin that at least the Wallabies made one Irish publician happy enough to dance in the bar!!! LOL!

But looking back objectively at the game, no doubt we were outmuscled. Not the 1st time the Wallabies have been outmuscled and when that happens it is likely we would lose. The Irish played with an intensisty I feel was missing from their game, but Saturday that was there in plenty, and passion.

A good wake up call for Deans, not that we need any more, and only thing I say is the route to the cup will now be very much harder, with likely both boks and kiwis in the path.

But how good would the wallabies feel if they do lift the cup having gone thru it the hardest way?

Congrats to the Irish for that win, and good luck for the rest of the cup for you, but not too much if we should meet up in the final.

Thanks OzT. What are the chances of an Oz Ireland final? Probably low but it would be very interesting.

OZT you are a gentleman

Leinsterbaby for feck sake please don't jinx us by talking about the final! Two more wins and we can start worrying about the QF but lets not lose the run of ourselves!

Low maybe but we can never be in a world cup and not expect to get to the final!! Well maybe expect is too strong a word, certainly hope with some convictions.... just we this tiem have decided to do it the hard way!! LOL!

I think your route will be via the usual 6Ns suspect, so you'll know your odds and foes well!!

Could be NZ - England, or just as easily Oz - Irish!!! Or maybe SA - Wales/Scotland???

Sorry to interrupt your civil conversation here, but as long as SA is the one team in the final, I really don't care who the other team s, my preference of course will be Namibia.

not japan????

OzT,
Of course Biltongbek does not want Japan. Our friend Biltongbek is afraid of Japan. Not to mention the US team, the Canadians or Georgia.............

Yep, and please don't mention Vanuatu or Finland, it will give me nightmares

Well back onto the game before.... from an aussie point of view

O'Connor is good for a nailed down spot, never mind the kicking but tackling is good too.

Quade may need to cut out those back door passes, 2 of which lost us the ball.

We haven't got the players to bosh up the centres and should stop that.

Play the game on the ground, kicking was woeful last Saturday. Play to the strengths, which are good running patterns and back up plays.

And biltiong, Finalnd would frighten anyone.... how does a coach set a game plan against the wraiths of Norse stories???

And now for me it's a bit of a silly season now, until the quarters... not much to get excited about, of course, assuming the bladdy Wallabies can win the rest of their games!!!!

roddersm wrote:OZT you are a gentleman

Leinsterbaby for feck sake please don't jinx us by talking about the final! Two more wins and we can start worrying about the QF but lets not lose the run of ourselves!

My predictions so far this year all at start of season:

Packers to win SuperBowl
Leinster win Hcup
Crusaiders super 14
Clongowes the Leinster senior cup
Ashton not to score post Italy match in 6nations
Ireland v NZ final
Ireland to beat Australia in the group stages.(though I did change my mind just before the game)

Most right so far.

How do you think Ireland will go against Italy?

Rob B wrote:How do you think Ireland will go against Italy?

They should win but they could lose. We have never lost to the Italians in the 6 nations. England being the only other team to have 100% record against them. I wouldn't be shocked if we lost but I think we should have enough.

It could turn out to be the toughest games of the group for Ireland. Plus we still have to play Russia which will be no walkover.

Rob B wrote:How do you think Ireland will go against Italy?

I would expect it will be a tough arm wrestle with us pulling off a narrow victory. Italy aren't the same force away from Rome but all our recent games with them have been tough, scrappy affair so I'd expect more of the same. They always give us problems in the set piece.

If we aren't switched on we could get upset here but Italy haven't beat us since 1999 so there's no reason to think they will now. We will need to front up though because they will be targetting this a their big game especially after almost beating us in the 6N.