Can the Irish Overcome their Quarter Final Curse?

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The Irish backs are better skilled, smarter, and much more accurate. In the last WC, the Irish ran out of steam towards the end of 2018, and looked laboured throughout 2019. They are much more lively now. The All Blacks have the tools for the job though. It's just about who turns up. The English defeated New Zealand because they didn't have the power up front to challenge them at the source. With free flowing possession they were rampant. They were dangerous against is too, but we didn't allow them to get ahead early. It was a fine margin that allowed us to pull away. It's there for the taking for Ireland, but they are due a loss, and this is most likely to be it. A pity, as I'd like New Zealand sent home early. 

Wayne Barnes is the ref...gonna be interesting. ..

All black backs are superior to Ireland. 

The NZ pack has been better recently. 

NZ can win this one and I hope they do. 

Let's boot France and Ireland out of the World Cup and have an epic Southern Hemisphere final even if it means poor Deus having a total breakdown.

Imagine the worst coach ever and the team with a soft underbelly and glass jaw winning back to back titles! Priceless. 

Of course this can, in the unconsidered opinion of Deus, only happen if teams opposing the Boks are hopelessly off form or suffer hugely at the hands of the refs who always favour the Boks. 

Deus lives in an upside down rugby World. 

Ireland is undoubtedly the better side at the moment, but knockout rugby is a different kettle of fish.

The Irish went into the quarter-final match with a lot of confidence, but the All Blacks played a very expansive brand of rugby that was so high tempo it ran the Irish off their feet. The game as a contest was over very early on.

Ireland had peaked in 2018. Our 2019 6 Nations form wasn't great and we suffered a really heavy defeat to England in the warm up games and had lost to Japan in groups. So I'm not sure where your getting the idea that Ireland had a lot of confidence going into that match.

Can also recall saying it on this very forum that Ireland where not going to beat NZ. I certainly had no expectation we would win going on Ireland's form at the time.

I expect Ireland to beat New Zealand this time round. Ireland's form is excellent and I've not been overly impressed with New Zealand, trashing minnows and a bizarrely bad Italian team don't really say a whole lot. New Zealand had one good opponent in France and France beat them comfortably without playing at their best.

Appreciate New Zealand are by now means a bad team and their getting some key players back but it takes time for players coming back from injury to get fully up to speed.  Going be a tough game but I confident Ireland will get the job done.

Hearing a f ew comments like Ireland will lose because they are due a loss. Why cosmic karma or something?

Stav, there are three certainties in major global sporting tournaments:

England's football team will choke in the late stages of any WC or Euro Champs.

The Proteas will choke at any stage of a Cricket WC or T20 WC.

Ireland will choke in the quarterfinals of a RWC.

We can hope against hope that it changes or we can search for reasons why it won't happen again . . . but they will continue to happen and there's nothing we can do about it. Call it cosmic karma or whatever you want but those three things are certainties.

England's football team will choke in the late stages of any WC or Euro Champs.

They generally don't choke, they simply aren't good enough to win, there has always been one or two teams that are simply better than them.

Ireland will choke in the quarterfinals of a RWC.

Mostly the same story for Ireland in the rugby. RWC 2019 for example wasn't a choke Ireland simply weren't good enough to beat New Zealand. Nothing in Ireland's 2019 form suggested they could win that match.  You could argue Ireland choked maybe twice in the world cup, but the rest of the world cups they where eliminated simply because they where not good enough to progress rather than them under-performing.

We can hope against hope that it changes or we can search for reasons why it won't happen again . . . but they will continue to happen and there's nothing we can do about it. Call it cosmic karma or whatever you want but those three things are certainties.

Except it isn't true. I think its something more opposition teams and more so opposition fans bring up. Its kinda of a compliment in a way because it indicates opposition teams/fans are rather nervous about playing us.

Absolutely, the All Blacks despite being not at level we normally associate them with are a massive threat. There is the potential for either the All Blacks to play at level beyond what they have playing at over the last few seasons or for Ireland to have a bad day at the office or both.

Obviously losing to the AB's would be no disgrace but I'd be very disappointed if we lost, not least because we would have to listen to this Ireland are quarter final chokers in 4 years time again.

‘Obviously losing to the AB's would be no disgrace’  …..there’s your problem. Loser think

You see the guys in green as the monsters….signs of a deeper psychosis?

It will have to be a mega choke...Ireland really plays next level good ATM.

You've shown us the Blueprint to beat Ireland Boks so Thank You. Kick all our penalties and keep building scoreboard pressure. No kicking for corners in front of the posts.

A fast rush, cut off the outside. That's it. Contest the rucks. The All Blacks were too powerful in the RC. Retallick was monstrous. I'd do what Wales used to do, have the 9 in the line with the winger up. It always caused us problems. The Boks cannot create, so don't give them space. No space, their ball slows and they start going backwards and sideways. They are not strong on the gainline either, which exacerbates the problem. On attack, rush up hard, slip short balls on contact it just before it. Don't pull the trigger too quickly on the inside, as our rushes are sloppy and will brush past you. They are passively reactive. More box formations like the Wallabies used to do. It bamboozles Damian, and Kriel has a hard time. Most of our players have a hard time picking up reads. When the Wallabies used condensed formations, it caused a lot of confusion. Sometimes two to three players picking up the decoy, or someone not involved. The reactive types like Steph are easily moved around. Kolisi is another, so too Damian. We have a lot of players who are blown away on contact.