Ireland coach Joe Schmidt said it was devastating that his side had come within seconds of an historic first ever win over world champions New Zealand only to lose 24-22 with the final kick in one of the sport’s most memorable ever Test matches.
The Irish had possession deep in the All Black half with less than a minute to go, but they conceded a penalty and the Kiwis produced a stunning passage of play to move the ball downfield for Ryan Crotty to score a try – which Aaron Cruden converted at the second opportunity.
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The 48-year-old New Zealander, appointed to the post after Declan Kidney was sacked following a disappointing Six Nations campaign earlier this year, added it was a missed opportunity which had seen the Irish make a total mockery of their odds of 10/1 to win Saturday’s game and led 22-7 at half-time.
Indeed had Johnny Sexton not missed a kickable penalty inside the final 10 minutes, which would have seen them lead 25-17, even the All Blacks admitted it would have been game over.
Schmidt, though, said even without the points from the penalty the Irish should have held on.
“To be a minute away from history and with the ball in our hands and deep inside their territory, not to do it is devastating,” said Schmidt, who emerges from his first November campaign with one win and two defeats.
“It is a missed opportunity. You don’t get many opportunities to play the All Blacks and you certainly don’t get many like that to beat them.
“If we had done that it would have been a feather in the boys’ caps.”
Schmidt, who got the post after guiding Leinster to two European Cup titles, admitted he was beginning to worry in the dying minutes.
“To be honest we started to look a bit piecemeal out there,” he said.
“By the last few minutes we had some guys out on their feet as they made a heck of a lot of tackles in the second-half and others who had taken knocks.
“In the end it was too thin a line to hold.”
Schmidt, who said last Friday he would not have mixed emotions when his Kiwi national anthem rang out as his loyalties were to a ‘superb bunch of guys’, commented he would not have taken consolation even if Cruden had missed the conversion and it had ended as a draw.
“It wouldn’t have been a relief to us to draw,” he said.
“We haven’t beaten them in 108 years of trying and we have already drawn against them [in 1973 while losing the other 27 times].
“A draw would have been like a loss to us.
“This to me is a more disappointing outcome than last weekend’s result [they lost 15-32 to Australia in a much-criticised performance].
“Last week we were never in danger of winning but when you set yourself up to win a Test and then you don’t take it, it is bitterly disappointing.”
Ireland’s inspirational captain lock Paul O’Connell, who dominated the line-out, said it was pleasing to have rediscovered some of the things that had been missing in the defeat by Australia.
“We had the intensity, the attitude and the emotion that was lacking last week,” said the 34-year-old.
“But it is disappointing and frustrating to give away those points in the final seconds when our defence had been so strong all day.
“Got to give credit to the All Blacks they showed great character.
“However, they have that confidence that stems from the momentum of winning. We desperately need to gain some of that. Over the past couple of years we have produced some performances like the one but have failed to build on it.
“So we must keep this performance in the back of our heads while we go back to play for our provinces and return for the Six Nations capable of repeating that in our opening game against Scotland.”
It was bloody close… 30 more seconds of holding on and Ireland would have taken it and made history.
Wat my eintlik stomslaan is die hoeveelheid kere wat die All Blacks nou al so gewen het. Wragtie ek glo as jy stats iewers kan opsoek sal jy maklik by 10 uitkom. As dit nie meer is nie. Wat my stomslaan is hoe hulle in 79 minute nie sulke foutlose bewegings kan voltooi met n drie nie maar klokslag in die laaste minuut dit reg kry. Dit kom weer neer op die persepsie wat skeidsregters oor hulle het. Hulle is eenvoudig te bang om n 50/50 beslising teen die All Blacks te maak.
Gedurende die wedstryd is hulle nog bereid om die 50/50s te deel onder die twee spanne. Maar in daardie laaste minute kan hulle nie dit waag om teen die AB,s te besluit nie. Ek se nie ek het iets spesefiek gesien nie maar Ierland het briljant probeer keer vir n vale en ek kan nie glo hulle kon nie 1 roep in hul guns kry nie.
Andersins is die All Blacks heeltemal bo menslik in hierdie situasie en is hulle foutloos in sulke situasies. Dit is scary want dit het al teen ons ook gebeur. Dus kan hulle na willekeur so beweging van stappel stuur, dit is reeds vervolmaak en kan te enige tyd geroep word.
Maar ek in maar n ongelowige thomaas, dit is net te goed vir woorde. En ek sal sover gaan as om dit die kersie op die flater seisoen van refs te noem.
From Scrum
Shambolic TMOs
France battled valiantly against the Springboks and eventually lost out by a nine-point deficit. But it should have been a lot more. In the third minute of the second-half, Jaque Fourie went over for what looked to be a legitimate try. Wayne Barnes checked with the TMO over whether Morne Steyn had knocked it on in the build-up, the correct decision as it’s better to check whether a try is good than award it only to have missed something in the run-up.
That’s what TMOs are there for. But what followed was bizarre.
Commentators, spectators and players alike seemed to accept Morne Steyn’s flapping attempt at catching the ball saw the pill go backwards, at worse flat, but for whatever reason, Iain Ramage deemed it to have gone forwards. An abysmal decision but one that thankfully did not have an impact on the eventual outcome.
PR said this
Anyway, everybody seemed to be of the opinion that Ireland had achieved something magical already, which for this correspondent only served to show just how ingrained into the psyche the perceived difference between the hemispheres is.
For the record: Ireland lost. In fact, they did not only lose, they were at 19-0 up at home after 20 minutes, 22-7 up at half-time, and they utterly, utterly blew it. A missed penalty that would have sealed the deal with five to go, a crazy penalty conceded with one to go, umpteen missed tackles, a couple of botched chances…
As a native northerner, I also have nothing but tremendous respect and admiration for New Zealand, which is only enhanced by their achievement this year of 14 from 14. You can’t knock their skill and tenacity. Nor can you knock South Africa’s continued ability to suffocate every opponent they come across, nor can you say Australia are spent as a competitive force.
But you can now start knocking a general attitude up north for being too satisfied with being second. Only in Wales over the past couple of years has there been a tangible sense of anger and frustration at not being able to claim a big SH scalp, rather than a pat-on-the-bum, never-mind-you-did-your-best, Mum-will-give-you-a-hug, take solace from being close in defeat kind of attitude.
When South Africa lose at home there’s a national inquest. When New Zealand lose at home it is unwise to talk positive rugby there until the order has been restored. And you only have to look at how Australians are all up in arms despite a relatively successful tour to understand how important success is to them.
So here’s a thought for Ireland – and for that matter, England (after the New Zeland game anyway), Wales, Scotland (after the Australia game) and France, who had both South Africa and New Zealand in their sights this November: you are two years out from a ‘home’ World Cup, and losing the close games from winning positions is just not good enough any more. It should not be good enough for the fans and it should not be good enough for the teams either.
Only when the players and the fans up north really start to understand that, to understand the difference between unnecessary negativity and the critical process necessary for improvement to the elite level, to understand that giving one’s best is not good enough unless one understands how to improve one’s best, will the teams in the north catch up.
So sorry Ireland. Good game and all. But no pick-me-ups here; you stuffed that up good and proper and you need to go and work out why.
Other takeaways from the weekend:
1 – Wales’ strength in depth still isn’t all that. A useful outing it was, but there needs perhaps to be a degree of experimentation in the forthcoming Six Nations with some of these youngsters, who looked a little overwhelmed by the step-up in intensity.
2 – Both Italy and Argentina are transitional now from their respective golden generations. Close the game in Rome was. Skilful and high-quality it was not.
3 – South Africa are still the masters of niggle. For neutrals it is tough to appreciate their quality when it is masked by a succession of pointless bits of off-the-ball rubbish. Classy teams don’t do that.
4 – Freddie Michalak is possibly more popular in South Africa than France. Just the number of hugs from Bismarck du Plessis alone – the hooker did a passable imitation of a wife whose husband has just returned from a fortnight-long business trip – were evidence of that. Michalak certainly was not smiling at his team-mates at the end…
5 – The turf at the Stade de France remains an insult to international rugby. A game of potential quality, in which scrums would undoubtedly be a pivotal part, utterly eviscerated by the shoddy state of the turf. Granted the French had to accommodate soccer on the Wednesday, but a pitch that disintegrates that badly…we’ve dealt with a few cases like that this November, is it worth daring to suggest punishing unions who can’t get their houses tidy ahead of illustrious visitors?
Good Night enough from me, over and out.
Cheers , Tata , Goodbye
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