Ireland were outplayed when it mattered most

By Frank Quinn
WE lost didn’t we, as the All Blacks enjoyed a good second half by
scoring 19 points to our 3. For the final period we were outplayed as
the All Blacks pushed harder and harder and finishing up on our line. We
were the team behind we should have been on their line at the finish.
we had plenty of difficulties which we could not fix. Our Line out
continues to be acknowledged as a a shambles – where we left off before
the break. Losing Tadgh Beirne to a red card did not help as the Munster
man watched from the sidelines.
The preparation of the team for Andy Farrell’s return — made the
spotlight. The Irish squad members including the Lions tour members
were banned from playing games for their respective clubs resulted in
players not getting combative games. The selection of 21 players from
Leinster and 3 from Munster after they demolished Leinster in the
stirring Croke Park game. The following week Leinster played and had up
to 10 on the not available injured list and 21 in the irish Squad list
and played a game in the URC . Andy farrells version of this is that the
squad are fresh going into the AB game – however they ran out of
freshness with a quarter of the game to go. At this critical time the AB
were in full rugby mould and were steam rolling us.
For the biggest game of the year it appeared we were not taking it
serious, the schedule was well documented for the November games but we
did not react and prepare for a major fixture. One feeling is that we
should have released all the players to their clubs for the full month
of October. Then the squad selection could have reflected what the
selectors were seeing in front of them at the club games – but not just
select the squad as they did from memory and we got the the same again
as at season end.
To finish this off we lost the biggest game of the year. There is no
joy in side tracking us, or changing the subject and looking forward to
the rest of the games at the Aviva in 2025.

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