Its the 4 year Irish Rugby cycle. Weâre too far from the start of this one, but if you were to rewind 4 years, youâd remember how everyone felt going into the last WC.
IT WAS THE EXACT SAME.
The optimism was through the roof. There was no way we could fail to get to a semi final at least.
Every other teams form was shite.
We had the best manager.
Best preparation.
Best fans.
Best logistics.
Best outhalf (if a little injury prone and possibly undercooked)
Best lock.
Backrows coming out our arseholes (heh).
Fuck it we even had the best kit man.
It was identical, as it always has been. Irish Rugby is premium hype.
Iâd give them a big chance of upsetting South Africa.
That then changes the Ireland v South Africa game into a straight Knock out tie for the boks.
Thatâs the sort of dynamic Ireland want to avoid imo.
You are then basically looking at 5 games in 5 weekends against the best teams. Thatâs a fair work load. You see last summer by the third test in New Zealand how many lads were crocked.
The injuries we will get will probably define our chances.
Just in case lads dont remember how bad, truly awfully bad it was 4 years ago, here are some beautiful highlights of the shit show. Including Rory McIlroy breaking his hole laughing at how bad they were at the 8.20 mark
On what basis do you think they might beat SA? I suppose they often have a good game in them and SA can be slow to get going? Itâd be a huge upset though.
Injuries is the same for everyone really. Obviously thereâs some players you can less afford to lose but weâre better set up to deal with them now I think. Hopefully we donât get as many as under Schmidt now that the gameplan is no longer to put the head down and run directly into the nearest defender and get on the ground as fast as possible.