RUGBY:NOBODY DIED. It's only sport, and Ireland merely lost a game of rugby. But of all the games, it's hard to think of a defeat that has ever left team, management and supporters alike so utterly crestfallen. Paradise lost, and all that.
Next weekend, Wales will meet France, who are in the last four by dint of effectively playing one match, and New Zealand will host Australia at Eden Park after the All Blacks eventually subdued a magnificently resilient Argentina and the Wallabies pulled off an heroic defensive performance to somehow beat South Africa 11-9. Three of the four semi-finalists were pool runner-ups, leaving the All Blacks as the only unbeaten side. They’ll be good matches, but for Brian O’Driscoll and co, they will be hard matches to watch.
And if a generation including O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell, Donncha O’Callaghan, Gordon D’Arcy, Ronan O’Gara et al couldn’t reach a World Cup semi-final, you wonder which one will. When Warren Gatland was asked if he was happy Wales had pitted against their fellow Celts in the quarter-finals, he observed that yes, perhaps it was a better half of the draw to be drawn but then again, given Ireland had beaten the Wallabies, maybe Australia would have been an easier game.
Fair play to him, and maybe Ireland drew a short straw in being pitted against Wales rather than South Africa, for it reduced that element of fear that often serves this team so well. But Wales were excellent, had done their homework, executed it almost without error and, crucially, were ahead from the third minute for all but another six minutes of the match. The ebb and flow of psychic energy and all that.
Declan Kidney took no solace in the feel-good factor generated by the pool stages, and was particularly sad for the fans here and at home who had latched onto this opportunity.
“That just makes it harder,” he said in a moment of relatively quiet reflection about an hour and a half after the game in the bowels of Wellngton Regional Stadium. “You get a sense of how much people are feeding off it and you really want to go well for everybody. Not just yourselves but for everybody at home and all the support we had out here which was magnificent. That just makes the hurt all the greater when you’re trying to give somebody something.”
All the above Thirtysomethings will probably continue for a while more at Test level, starting with a vengeful Six Nations opener at home to Wales in February and concluding with a three-Test tour to New Zealand. No less than Kidney, Les Kiss and Gert Smal, all of them are also under international contracts for another two seasons, and this generation owe us nothing, but in World Cup terms Saturday’s defeat did mark the end of an era.
“Should I phone the Samaritans or what should I do with your questions,” he quipped as these thoughts were fired at him. “I don’t believe they do (owe us anything), but I’m especially disappointed for them because they’ll see it as their last chance. A lot of them will wear the green again but in terms of World Cups, they were more than anybody looking to try and finish off this World Cup on a high in terms of their career.”
The planning for 2015 in England can begin in earnest two years out.
Besides which, Ireland don’t have the playing pool to chuck the baby out with the bath water, and as proven by this Welsh team, largely remodelled since the start of pre-season, there’s no need to do so now anyway.
Aside from defying conventional wisdom and all previous evidence that an experienced team was a pre-requisite for the knockout stages of the World Cup, this was a tactical coup by Gatland and his think tank over his first Test employers as he used his familiarity with several players he has coached, be it with Ireland or the Lions, to good effect. Initially they exposed a soft outside edge to the Irish defence to good effect, and mixed up their attacking game as Jamie Roberts gave them plenty of go-forward up the middle.
Aside from predictably targeting Ronan O’Gara, they also didn’t expose Shane Williams to Tommy Bowe’s aerial threat by moving George North to the left wing. Gatland and Shaun Edwards had never coached Seán O’Brien, it is true, but they also identified and nullified Ireland’s primary ball carrier, along with Stephen Ferris, by chopping them down by the legs.
Kidney maintained they did not underestimate Wales. “No, they’re a good side. Battles with Warren have always been nip and tuck. We’ve had a few in the past. We’ve won a few, he’s won a few but it’s not about us, it’s the players on the day. They came up with a good game. Credit due to them for that. They picked their scores when they came their way.
“It was 7-0, then 7-3 when we took one under the posts. They defended well and then they got a penalty on the halfway line and it goes over on a windy day. That makes it 10-3, they’re nice and comfortable but we get back in and you think ‘happy days’. But the nuances are tiny when you’re discussing it afterwards. We know we coughed up the ball, missed a few tackles but that’s going to happen in every game. They got the momentum on the scoreboard and they did very well with it.”
There remains a core of players who should be around in four years’ time; one of the tournament’s big plusses, scrumhalf Conor Murray, being an obvious case in point. “We said all the time, we’d try and build a squad. The squad wasn’t just for this event. We have to have fellas coming through and the provinces are so important for guys coming through,” said Kidney. “We know where the challenges are and that lie ahead in making sure Ireland is as strong as possible and we need to feed off one another. We have an Irish set-up that has stood us well in the past and I’m sure it will stand us well in the future.”
Over the next four years, the set-up is going to receive its most searching test since the turn of the millennium.
