The manner of Saturday’s defeat was unacceptable and we need a massive improvement over the next two weeks to take something out of this tour, writes Jerry Flannery in his latest exclusive JOE column.
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I was nervous before Saturday’s game. Not because I was afraid of the game going like it did, but because I felt that this could be our chance to finally beat New Zealand and I was afraid that I’d feel resentful if that happened when I wasn’t involved.
The way it’s gone now, every time we play them is a chance to make history. Looking at their team we thought this could be it. I remember reading comments from Killian Keane about Munster’s first Heineken Cup in the book by Alan English (Stand Up And Fight).
Killian was nervous before the game, hoping he wouldn’t feel resentful about Munster winning when he wasn’t involved. But he said that at the final whistle he was crying with joy, and a lot of it was because he didn’t feel in any way envious. That’s the way I felt – I was hoping the lads would win but at the back of my mind I was afraid I would feel pissed off that I wasn’t on the field for it.
Any time one of their players got his hands even half free, there were lads running great lines to take the offloads. There was never a situation where you were thinking, ‘Jesus we were lucky there was no-one coming through there.’
Obviously, that’s not the way it panned out. It was a very poor performance and we let ourselves down badly.
You can’t react to a defeat like this by saying ‘these things happen’. That’s an easy out. You’re in control of your own destiny on the field. You can’t look at the All Blacks and say ‘Ah, sure they got tonked by 50 points a few years ago.’
On the best of days, especially against New Zealand, you can’t afford to miss tackles but we missed a lot of tackles and we paid the price. Our discipline was poor. Going down to 14 players, and subsequently 13 for a while, didn’t help. But they were causing us a lot of problems long before Jamie was sent off.
It was hard to watch. It’s frustrating too, because I felt our set-piece worked quite well but every time they got the ball they cut through us. We underperformed massively but New Zealand were awesome too. They ran good hard lines, played direct rugby and did the small things well.
There aren’t many positives but Tony Buckley and Andrew Trimble did very well
Every time they ran at us they seemed to be getting a lot of change, getting offloads away. Any time one of their players got his hands even half free, there were lads running those lines to take the offloads. There was never a situation where you were thinking, ‘Jesus we were lucky there was no-one coming through there.’ Every time they had a chance, even from half-breaks, they had someone coming to take it on and capitalise on it.
That’s not something that always happens. A lot of times when a fella gets his hands free there might not be anyone to take the offload, the play would go to ground and you’d get a chance to regroup. But that didn’t happen very often on Saturday.
The supporters will have been looking at the game and I can understand if they’re downbeat about Ireland’s prospects in the future, both in the short-term and looking ahead to a World Cup next year. But the players know it was unacceptable. What went on was a long way off good enough.
It’s a fine line with things like confidence and morale. It will be hard to take if we lose all three games
You have to look for any positives you can. It’s difficult to judge people on games like this, because when a team goes 30 or 40 points up they start to play differently and it’s hard to get an accurate read on how things are working. There aren’t many positives but Tony Buckley stepped in for John Hayes before the start and I thought he did very well. Andrew Trimble had a good game too.
It’s up to everyone now to hit the training-ground hard in Rotorua this week and try to bounce back from this.
If we turn around and get a really good result against the Maoris and another good result against Australia, then this game won’t have the same effect on morale. It’s only if you’re consistently losing that this kind of stuff begins to really effect you, so it will be hard to take if we lose all three games.
It’s a fine line with things like confidence and morale. It’s your job to be positive each time you go into a game but it does start to wear on you if things aren’t going well, like happened for a while before Deccie took over. Back then, we went from being a long way off the pace results-wise to winning a Grand Slam in a short space of time.
Small things can make a big difference. That’s why we have to hope that we can take something out of the next two games and then start getting ready for next season.
Fingers crossed
I’m still keeping my fingers crossed that I’ll be able to play in the Australia game but it’s very much a case of day by day with me because of the history of the injury. I’m working with Brian Greene and the medical staff out here and we’ve pinpointed the movements where the calf is weak so we’re working on trying to strengthen it up.
I need to get it 100 per cent right because whenever I go out at 90 or 95 per cent, it’s gone on me. Out here, the rehab is very intense so I’m getting an awful lot done – two sessions a day. The next few days will give me a good indication of how it’s going. Every day it’s getting a bit better. I couldn’t be in better hands so hopefully I’ll play some part before the tour is out.
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