Lindsay Peat’s advice to Ireland ahead of their World Cup quarter-final against France was clear enough: “We need to absolutely smother them, torture them.” As it proved, though, it was our bunch who endured a torturous conclusion to the game, one that left their semi-final dreams, well, smothered.
Lindsay had, then, been bullish before the game, Niamh Briggs a touch more wary, while Bernard Jackman tried not to put too much pressure on the team, apart from noting that “it’s now or never, this group will never be together again”.
Jacqui Hurley, in her neutral all-green outfit, reminded us that a) no Irish team, male or female, had ever won a knock-out game at the Rugby World Cup, and b), Ireland’s women hadn’t beaten France since 2017.
Other than that, the mood was upbeat, not least because where there’s an Aoife Wafer, there’s hope, Ireland’s cross between Antoine Dupont and Roy of the Rovers back after her knee injury.
Kerry FC earn Clifford-esque comeback as Hallgrímsson turns his attention to Eurovision
Heartbreak in the studio as Ireland fail to channel their inner Munster
Matt Williams: Clayton McMillan needs to change Munster’s culture
Kevin Kilbane: Besides Caoimhín Kelleher and Evan Ferguson, Ireland players lack the backbone to avoid humiliation
And that first half went swimmingly, Des Curran and Fiona Coghlan left pinching themselves after Ireland went 10-0 up with two tries, before Dannah O’Brien made it 13-0 at the break with a penalty.
“Is 13-0 enough?” Bernard asked, ominously, at half-time, reckoning Ireland had left way too many points out there. That rendered Jacqui nervous. “How do they go about this second half?” she asked. “Channel their inner Munster – ball up the jumper, don’t give it in to French hands,” Lindsay replied.
But the second half turned in to the shape of a pear, the killer moment when Joanna Grisez turned on her afterburners to score the try that put France ahead. A game of two halves, fair to say.
“It’s kitchen sink time,” said Des, and Ireland did indeed chuck that and more at France in those excruciating final moments, but no joy. Tournament over.
No end of heartbreak both back in the studio and with Eve Higgins and Sam Monaghan when Clare MacNamara spoke to them, but the postmortem was an honest one: a gutsy display, but “we had no plan B today”, as Lindsay put it. And Bernard wondered about the failure to make use of the bench a bit earlier. It was a day of “if onlys”, then, as most Rugby World Cups – boys and girls – have been for us lot.
The tears flowed in Exeter, as they did on any couch trying to watch Ireland v France live on RTÉ, Aoife O’Rourke live on the RTÉ Player and Shamrock Rovers v Athlone live on the TG4 Player all at the same time.
Did any of you wonder why the commentary on the World Boxing Championships in Liverpool was in Irish, before realising you’d muted it and the only thing audible on the laptop was TG4’s coverage of the FAI Cup semi-final at Tallaght? And you didn’t realise why O’Rourke pummelling Busra Isildar was resulting in “Kelly Brady! Baile Átha Luain! Cúl!”? No? All right then.
But after a week that delivered us no end of sporting misery, from Yerevan to Exeter, O’Rourke’s triumph was a beaut. Mind you, trust in boxing judges, even after so many of them have been exposed as shysters, was somewhat tested when the Moroccan lad gave the first round to Isildar despite her spending the bulk of it trying to defend herself from a Castlerea onslaught.
“That’s ... surprising,” said our polite commentator, who was equally flummoxed by the Guatemalan judge giving the second round to Isildar. So when it came to the hand-raising moment, you just couldn’t be sure, but justice was served – we have ourselves another world champion.
“I asked her what food she’d treat herself to after this, and she just said, ‘ah, a smoothie,’” our co-commentator told us. “Well, she can have lots of smoothies now with sprinkles of gold on them.”
The least she deserves is a double cheeseburger, chips and onion rings, but maybe that’s why Aoife O’Rourke is a world champion and some of us aren’t?
Anyway, it was a very lovely bright spot in a largely miserable week, as was Sonia O’Sullivan’s reaction on RTÉ to a certain Sophie O’Sullivan chucking herself over the line to qualify for the 1,500m semi-finals at the World Athletics Championships.
“She was in Cobh with me for three weeks and she was in at the Coral Leisure Centre twice a day. People thought she was mad, she was doing so much training, but that’s what athletes do when they’re injured. You work even harder when you know there’s the possibility of a reward at the end of it all.”
We don’t know the half of what these folk put themselves through to get themselves to the start line, never mind throw themselves over the one at the end to progress through a championship. A smothering torture, no doubt, and we sit on the couch nibbling cheesy nachos while judging them.
