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Irish inquest

Bruce_ma gooshvili

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A lack of tactical variation, a lack of mental support and underestimating humidity are three suggestions being thrown about by the Irish camp this week.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-50398477

I don't think these are on the ball at all, although I haven't read the full report. If a daft Scotsman who has never set foot in Japan was banging on about humidity in September and how it can disproportionately impact on olded players then I cant see how the IRFU could have overlooked it. It smells of throwing Schmidt under the bus a bit and I think is a misdiagnosis. If they had said that the Schmidt tactics of high intensity multi-phase forward pick and go was ill suited to conditions to Japan I think it would have been more valid. Thats one of my explanation, but others include.

- failure to adequately explore options aged 25-30 at key positions like hooker and fullback
- 2nd best fly half exiled by union, contributing to loss against Japan and tougher draw in QFs
- mental reaction to Schmidts personal situation and announcement of his departure (not a criticism this one)
- declining defensive performances throughout 2019
- a bit too much loyalty overall to the stalwarts, regardless of form or fitness, not exploiting the clear depth in Irish rugby
- underestimating the ability of the Japanese pack (I was guilty of that myself)
- a general lack of (positive) aggression and intensity (maybe that fits in with the mental support?)

I don't see that a wee bit of tactical variation was the clear key to Ireland progressing further. I think Best is closer to the truth in suggesting you can look for answers all you want, but sport is sport and frankly who knows!
 
I don't see that a wee bit of tactical variation was the clear key to Ireland progressing further
Agreed. While I'd like to see Ireland play a more expansive style, turgid rugby saw them win a 6 Nations grand slam, beat Australia away in a test series and beat New Zealand in 2018. With the greatest of respect to South Africa, turgid rugby (deservedly) won them a World Cup.

Picking players on reputation rather than form was the biggest issue.
 
- failure to adequately explore options aged 25-30 at key positions like hooker and fullback
- 2nd best fly half exiled by union, contributing to loss against Japan and tougher draw in QFs
- mental reaction to Schmidts personal situation and announcement of his departure (not a criticism this one)
- declining defensive performances throughout 2019
- a bit too much loyalty overall to the stalwarts, regardless of form or fitness, not exploiting the clear depth in Irish rugby
- underestimating the ability of the Japanese pack (I was guilty of that myself)
- a general lack of (positive) aggression and intensity (maybe that fits in with the mental support?)
Agree with all of that except for your second point, it's not anyone at any level in Irish rugby who's responsible for that except himself.

Rest of that is spot on though, I'd add in not selecting on form during the actual world cup as well. It seems to me like Joe just tried to freeze the grand slam team and refused to deviate from that set of players regardless of their form, the form of others or what other teams were doing to counter us. There were actually shades of Eddie and his undroppables in the noughties. Persisting with Best is the biggest sin for me, it's not like there weren't other options, Scannell got a chance in Australia and seized it with both hands but ended up barely able to get a look in. We seemed to treat the England thrashing in Dublin at the start of the year as a one-off poor performance instead of trying to address the issues that arose from that. Was obvious we needed a bit of a shakeup and we just didn't.
 
Nucifora trying to justify his job and the fact he gave Farrell and Easterby contracts too. I do think Joe takes the Lions share of the blame but this is so OTT.
Does seem like an attempt to absolve those still around (both in coaching, wider governance and the players) of as much blame as possible while pinning as much as Schmidt (who's gone now so an easy target to pin the blame on), rather than an actual go at trying to identify what went wrong and how we fix it. Bit frustrating really.

Investing in performance science or whatever it's called is a good idea though, although we really should have been doing it already instead of being prompted into by losing a few games of rugby (and that's all it is).
 

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