Ireland's strange influence on the Rugby World Cup

Ireland, a team that a year ago looked like potential WC winners, imploded dramatically playing a similar game to the Boks. So rather than having an inspiring WC, they saw several  reputations ruined.

But that is not to say that they didn't play a huge role in the WC. The obvious point is their loss to Japan upset the seedings....so NZ had the harder path, and the Boks the easier one.

But it also set up a series of motivational influences......after losing to Japan, they crushed Samoa. That, their earlier win against Scotland and their recent wins over New Zealand convinced the ABs that they had to shoot all their ammo against Ireland.

A week later that game seem to have taken something out  of the ABs, and the eventual big win also introduced a fair measure of complacency for their game against the Poms. It was a very flat AB team, that in turn made the Poms look better and believe they were better than they really were

Another week later the causal string is still alive and the experience is repeated, the Poms are complacent and flat as a pancake. Against them they have a Bok team which had an easy game against Japan, and a low key, much criticized win over Wales....they had everything to prove, and they did.

 Even the Bronze medal crushing of Wales had the ABs much more motivated to reverse the embarrassing take  from the Pom game.

Ireland played no real role, but they did.

Mozart

Even though the Irish misfortunes did influence the  game allocations in the play-offs the fact is that there are other aspects to be borne in mind insofar as the Irish and the AB's are concerned,

The problems in both teams relate to two issues.   Those are -

*   The key Irish players have lost form and so did some of the key AB players;

*    The second issue is that there were players in both teams that was beyond their sell-by date already,   . 

First of all it must be borne in mind that Joseph is a very shrewd coach and like any top coach he identified where the Irish strong and weak points are and used that knowledge to attack the weak points in the Irish set-up.      Jones did the same to the AB's and Erasmus in his turn did the same to the English.   

The real weakness of the Irish was playing a slow team on a fast field and in the end  pace killed the Irish I belief - coupled to atrocious form of Sexton.    Hansen also identified the problem and used pace and strength to beat the Irish easily and concentrated on the out of form Sexton,

I believe Eddie did the same with the AB's.   On the day the AB's were flat - but the real reason is that the AB's has a front row deficiency.   Retallick was up to standard - the other four Tight 5 players were deficient.   The other area to hit the AB's hard was around the center combination.   

Now back to the English - over-confidence is a likely factor as well,   However - I am sure Erasmus saw what the English play - their strong points and their weaknesses.  It may sound weird to you - but the weak part in their team was in the Tight 5 and to a lesser extent their center pair.   Farrell is a better flyhalf than center and Tuilagi is a strong carrier - but slow and ponderous.   That is where the attack on the English backline was launched in the main through exact defense,  In the end the potential problems of the Springboks became their strengths.

I think not enough credit is given to -

*    Joseph coaching the Japanese i nto top league status;

*    Hansen seeing clearly what the strength and weaknesses if the Irish were and attacked the weaknesses relentlessly - I am not surprised they thumped the Irish totally,

*   Coming the semi - Jones - another shrewd coach  studied what the AB's would be up to and knowing the situation the English went for the jugular.

Even though it is disputed I think Erasmus is always nice and friendly - but as a coach he knew exactly what the English will bring to the party.   He had one week too many to work out what the English team is about and what Jones will try.  That was the end of English quest for glory.  I think that Erasmus was a key to Springbok success - a lesser coach would not have his team winning the WC..                                    .

“ Hansen sawing clearly...............“