Player welfare is paramount.
Iâve gone for Koroibete to score two tries @ 12/1 for something to follow
Yeah, Iâm also leaning Australia in this one.
Winner likely gets a path of France then South Africa.
Loser likely gets a path of England then New Zealand.
Letâs go Qantas Wallabies
Too much humidity and not enough humility did for the goys
Gonna watch this one at home. Wouldnât be fit to focus in a pub.
Letâs go Hoops, Letâs go James, Letâs go Bern.
Let's go Wallabies!
Good start from Wales
Drop goals and the RWC
Wales start reminiscent of their quick try vs Ireland.
Eamonn Sweeney: âWas this the worst defeat in Irish sporting history? Can you think of a worse one?â - Independent.ie
September 28 2019 9:12 PM
The mockery of Eddie OâSullivan because his team only scraped past Georgia and the laughter which greeted the infamous draw in Liechtenstein seem a bit unfair now.
The Shizuoka Shitshow is in a class of its own.
All those predictions that Ireland could win the World Cup turn out to have been the sporting equivalent of those late Celtic Tiger era exhortations to keep buying property because the boom would get boomier. Hardly anyone saw this crash coming either.
In the stands, Joe Schmidt looked like a man whoâd just heard how his Anglo Irish Bank shares were doing.
His players looked like guys whoâd discovered what those East European apartments theyâd bought off the plans were really worth. Ireland havenât turned out to be the new All Blacks any more than Bulgaria turned out to be the new Tuscany.
Japan were regarded as a mere stepping stone towards encounters with teams more worthy of our attention. They were the amuse-bouche preceding the meal proper. We choked on it.
Chickens which had been circling the coop for a while came home to roost like a flock of vultures descending on the carcass of Irish hope.
It turns out that the true indicator of Irelandâs worth is not last weekâs meeting with the Supine Scots but this yearâs Six Nations campaign, when the lineaments of approaching disaster were there to be seen. Our 2019 form turned out to be more relevant than our 2018 form. Whoâd have thought it?
Irish hopes of exiting Japan without further disgrace now rest with the Scots, so readily mocked a week ago. Should they beat the hosts we might yet progress to a quarter-final against South Africa and for a week delude ourselves that our hopes are not in complete tatters.
Should Japan beat Scotland, Ireland face a meeting with the All Blacks, which could turn out very embarrassing indeed.
Just before half-time you could see things beginning to unravel. Rory Best overthrew a line-out, Tadhg Furlong knocked the ball forward in the tackle, Jack Carty put a kick-off dead, an Irish scrum disintegrated humiliatingly in the Japanese 22.
It was like that moment in a slasher movie when the lad announces heâll check out that noise in the basement and the creepy music accompanies him down the stairs.
Japan played well. But too often, Irish miscues like Bestâs throw and Cartyâs kick had less to do with opposition excellence than our own sloppiness. We continued on our merry way in the second half.
Four minutes in, with an excellent attacking position in the opposition 22, Conor Murray was caught in a ruck. The only ones who seemed to notice this were the Japanese, who promptly stole the ball and cleared.
Six minutes after that another good platform was squandered when a lineout went astray. A routine high kick was spilled in the 52nd minute to cede good field position to Japan.
Five minutes later CJ Stander picked up from the back of a scrum and passed to Chris Farrell who promptly ran into the back of him to concede a penalty for accidental offside. Again, this had less to do with opposition pressure than Irish inattention to detail.
A minute later Kenki Fukuoka crossed for the winning try. The fact that we were undone by Fukuoka in the city of Fukuroi seemed peculiarly appropriate. Ireland rallied and had a ruck just short of the Japanese line where James Ryan was penalised for not releasing.
The sight of our best player transgressing in this manner seemed to sum up the wretched nature of the whole effort.
About the only good Irish moment came when Keith Earls made up ground brilliantly to deny Fukuoka a second try and preserve Irelandâs losing bonus point. Ireland might be grateful for that point yet. That is where they are now.
Joe Schmidt is the zombie manager, still in charge though everyone knows heâs on his way out. Now Ireland have become the zombie team, condemned to trek on for another three weeks towards inevitable quarter-final defeat.
This wasnât the first time Ireland have looked stolid and unimaginative. But the lack of creativity was thrown into particularly sharp relief by a Japanese team who seemed full of ideas and perpetually willing to take risks.
The killer was that the forward dominance which might have been expected to justify Irelandâs shortcomings elsewhere never materialised. Time and again it was the eight samurai of the Japanese pack who made ground with ball in hand, delivered the big hits and relished the collisions.
That âCian Healy teaches those pesky foreigners a lessonâ storyline which had been flagged all week didnât pan out. Neither did the Rory Best redemption one. If the Irish captain âanswered his criticsâ last week, what did he do yesterday?
Best isnât the only one who looks worn out. That old Leaving Cert poetry favourite, Thomas Grayâs ploughman homeward plodding his weary way, was a figure of huge energy and vitality compared to most of the Irish forwards.
What excuses can there be for this fiasco? September 28, 2019 is another date that will live in infamy.
It made you wonder if renowned rugby fan Samuel Beckett might have scripted the whole thing. He was, after all, a great man for depicting the dashing of illusions and the absurdity of human hopes.
Waiting for Webb Ellis is some downer. Like Godot, the title character never turns up.
Ireland failed to play tournament rugby yesterday and paid the price
Iâve heard it said that Ireland play a very boring brand of rubby football
Not yâday unfortunately!
Shizuoka Shitshow
I think Alun Wyn Jones has a little technique where he slips down in the tackle giving the appearance heâs being choked - has got a couple of penalties this year for it
Gats. What a coach.
This is going to be a cracker
Some Sligo Rovers soccer type now a rugby journalist for the Sindo. The whole country is just gone bonkers for rugby.
bin