The last time Ireland lost a World Cup quarter-final, their captain infamously took to Instagram in an attempt to sum up the campaign. Missed opportunity combined with gratitude for the public buy-in made for difficult summation.
“We lost but we won,” was the line Johnny Sexton came up with. Reaction was mixed. Cynics ruthlessly zeroed in on yet another men’s quarter-final failure.
Two years on, we’ll see how, if at all, Sam Monaghan or Edel McMahon express their feelings on social media. Fresh off a last-eight defeat of their own, they won’t parrot Sexton verbatim. But if they did, this time there would be little room for disagreement.
Ireland are ranked as the fifth best women’s side in the world. In that context, a quarter-final defeat to France – one spot higher than them in fourth – however painfully narrow, is an accurate representation of this group’s current ability.
RM Block
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Getting to a quarter-final won’t be recorded as a monumental achievement. Victories over Japan and Spain were to be expected. Yet Ireland’s well-placed devastation at this French result is a testament to their performance against a side further along in their development.
As the last fortnight showed, Ireland aren’t as good as the world’s best teams, but they are firing more shots against them.
The last four months have shown a flawed team which is able to manufacture situations which maximise their strengths. To a point.
In round one, a sevens-inspired backline tore a poor Japanese defence to shreds. Set-piece wobbles in that game gave way to a dominant scrum against Spain, a platform which helped Ireland overcome some weak defence close to the ruck.
The third outing against the Black Ferns saw Ireland at their tactical worst. Attack plans played into the teeth of the blitz while the defence was slow off the line against more powerful athletes.
Not once the French came into view. Niamh O’Dowd was a defensive menace, playing a part in multiple choke tackles. Aoife Wafer and Stacey Flood both won crucial breakdown penalties. Found lacking last week, Ireland discovered an extra gear of physicality.
The scrum broke their historical trend and dominated the French front row. Linda Djougang put in an inspired display across the park. Between bullying France off their own ball, then getting a shove in the build-up to Flood’s try, not to mention the penalty which saw Dannah O’Brien tack on three more, Ireland had the scrum to thank for all 13 of their points.
Tactically, Ireland played the conditions well. O’Brien kicked 14 times out of hand in the first half with the wind at her back. France failed to cross the Irish 22 once before the break.
Ball in hand is the biggest area of concern. Ireland entered the 22 on 13 occasions, scoring just 10 points from those entries. Attacking patterns looked laboured. The wet ball was spilled in contact. Clear-outs failed to deal with French jackal threats.
France brought a sickeningly clichéd version of themselves. They panicked in the monsoon, handing Ireland field position via needless errors. One poor pass was met with a disgusted French boot, launching the uncatchable ball into row Z. Three yellow cards were brandished to blue jerseys. Let’s not get into bite-gate.
For all their folie, France still found a game-breaking quality. One offload exchange between secondrow Fall Raclot and flanker Escudero produced a more sumptuous line break than anything Ireland produced. Grisez’s match-winning score came from the instinctive desire to throw turnover ball wide.
Ireland have similar pace threats but lacked either the ability or tactical awareness to get them into space against the big teams. The ball was wet for both teams, after all.
Four years on from their World Cup qualification disaster, Ireland are unquestionably a better team. The senior squad and coaching structure has been boosted by investment. Inevitably, big picture post-tournament analysis calls into question events taking place underneath the hood. Is rugby attracting and developing the country’s best athletes, Ireland’s equivalent of tall, explosive, offloading lock forwards?
Scott Bemand expressed his faith in the women’s national talent squad. A full-time provincial model is on the way while the AIL calls out for more support. Prompted by Eileen Gleeson’s landmark court case, Irish sport as a whole, let alone rugby, may be set for a reckoning with the finances of women’s professional sport.
At full-time at Sandy Park, plenty clad in green were inconsolable. Try telling them that they have ‘won’. Their bar on the day was high, as it should be for high-performance athletes. But no one who knows the system will tell them they failed.
In four years’ time, Ireland will expect better than to be valiantly carried out on their quarter-final shield. We’ll wait to see what steps are taken off the pitch to turn lofty ambition into actual on-pitch victory.
