Category Archives: Match Post

10 minutes into the game you would be forgiven for thinking that Ireland just might cause the biggest upset in Rugby World Cup history. Ireland started well and the team looked promising, they were certainly hitting the rucks harder than the previous two matches.

At only 3-0 down Ireland were very much in the game, but the attacking line struggled to challenge a very organised French defence. Key players such as Ronan had to play the best rugby of their lives to win, the result showed they didn’t.

Line-outs were poor and to many silly penalties were given away, with incidents like Wallace v.s Chabal the referee should not have the option of making a bad decision in the first place.

If this was a Six Nations match I think Ireland’s early performance may have had more of an effect however with a few wayward refereeing decisions and facing opponents who had no option but to win Ireland failed to stamp any authority on the game.

Ireland were always going to find it hard to beat France in their back yard especially under the circumstances, from the start many of us accounted for this possibility however no one accounted for the first two matches. If Ireland go out on Sunday night it will be the Namibia and Georgia matches that are to blame, those performances should have been the building blocks for what was to follow but instead sucked the confidence from an over complacent squad.

Ireland scraped together a win over Georgia in what became a dismal display for Ireland’s most capped team to ever play. In the final five minutes we were just hoping to win after a lack lusting Ireland faced an opposition who simple wanted the win more than us.
It was a surprise to see an Irish team who performed so badly against Namibia fail to come out all guns blazing and show the rugby world that the previous game was nothing but a mishap. However the blip on the radar has grown significantly and with it, Ireland’s problems. Ireland failed to gain the much needed bonus point by not running in four tries, this will make it even harder for us to qualify in what has now become the accurately named pool of death.

Ireland 42 – 6 Bayonne

Brian O’Driscoll has suffered a fractured sinus after being punched in the face, while the injury is not as bad as first thought the IRB have demanded the French rugby union investigate the incident. This was supposedly a friendly match between Ireland and French club Bayonne but instead resulted in five yellow cards and a very physical game.

I don’t mind physicality, but it was more than physical. There were some cheap shots, that’s the pity, but that’s the way they want to play it. We can’t control that, we can only play our game.

Eddie O’Sullivan

It is easy to spin a conspiracy theory on this story, after all it was Bayonne who suggested that Ireland should play a warm-up game with them just weeks before the world cup kicks off. Bayonne were a team with nothing to lose who were clearly in the mind set to rough up a few Irish players.

O’Driscoll will certainly miss Ireland’s first pool game against Namibia and possibly the second game against Georgia. While Ireland should win these games comfortably it is important match time that Brian will be missing out on.

We can only hope for a speedy recovery…