Reality check for Irish rugby

We lost to Argentina when we simply ran out of road. It’s a match, people need to get over that. We all wanted Ireland to win, badly – not more than the squad mind you – but it didn’t happen and that doesn’t mean all of a sudden everything is wrong with the world.

Perspective is really lacking these days in the rush to find a scapegoat for everything and anything that goes wrong in our lives. It’s almost a contagious disease. Sport is today’s best example of that.

Our hearts went out to the team and their back-room staff as they saw it all get away from them in Cardiff. Thousands upon thousands of Irish supporters were in the stadium and their hopes died with the team, but they still roared to the end as real supporters must do. It is only when you are with a team when they lose that you can truly enjoy it when they win.

It was tough on everyone, but it hardly means that Irish rugby is dead and buried.

It’s funny how so many pundits who predicted Ireland would beat Argentina subsequently led the charge to write the obituaries on players and the national team a week before they were hailing as the best in the world. Clearly they take the defeats personally when they really have no right to. Hopefully enough people can see through the contrived angst.

I thought we’d beat the Argies, I thought we’d have enough and with the momentum of the French win, the emotion of the missing troops, the atmosphere, I thought we’d have enough. We didn’t. And if you’re expecting the boot to be put into Joe Schmidt or any of the players, you can stop reading now.

Our start killed us and we weren’t up to the pitch of the contest quickly enough. That’s happened to plenty of teams and it was hardly the plan. Did we anticipate the opposition coming at us with everything? Of course we did, but it just wasn’t there. We just couldn’t summon the same fire but we never stopped trying.

Of course their character made it a game and we came back. For a while there we looked to be on top and if we had gotten level, who knows, we might have been able to ride that energy over the line. The start, however, was too much to claw back – the effort that took meant we were out of diesel long before the finish.

Joe Schmidt was an absolute genius before this game and his reputation might have taken a hit in certain quarters but it shouldn’t. There’s a reason why Ireland have never won a World Cup final, because it’s next to impossible, but he did give us hope.

He also gave us the French win and in a couple of months we’ll be back to the Six Nations looking for a historic three-in-a-row in that competition. That’s something that might be within his gift.

Injuries are not within his control. In fact, they are out of everyone’s control. Concussion is only a part of this problem. This will cloud rugby following this World Cup – the sheer physicality of the game. And we paid that price in spades. For the next few months, Tommy Bowe, Peter O’Mahony and Paul O’Connell will play no rugby and they won’t be the last casualties of a game that is going to suffer hugely from how it is now played and who plays it.

For Ireland to maintain our standing in the game – and despite what you might have heard over the past few days, we are in the top five nations in the world at this sport – we will have to develop athletes first and rugby players second.

At the top level, rugby will become a numbers game first as regards the size of players and we’re probably finally going to suffer from our lack of a large playing population. Looking at the way the game has been played at this World Cup would at times make you wince, such has been the ferocity of the hits. And they have been mostly legal.

In this country we carry four professional teams and our provinces more than punch their weight at European level, while we also have a serious academy system. But these hits are only going to get harder; the attrition level will only increase. We are going to find it exceptionally difficult to keep churning out teams that can match what the other well-resourced nations can turn out when it comes to bodies that can stand up to this.

That’s a fear for the game of rugby. We have been able to compete at the top level for years because we have played the game for over a century, we have tradition, a style of play and we have know-how. Those advantages are now under serious threat.

For now we can to sit back and watch the southern hemisphere duke it out for the William Web Ellis trophy. For most of us, the underdog Argentina will be our team now and they will give Australia plenty of it, although the Aussies are my pick to reach the final and in turn put it up to New Zealand.

I hope they all make it through the next two games, I hope the winner isn’t the last one standing, but instead the team playing the best rugby with the best players. As we found out, some parts of the car simply cannot be replaced when you are reaching for the accelerator. The best team on the day will win, as it’s supposed to. That won’t make the losers failures, unless of course you tipped them to win the week before.

Hard luck Ireland and welcome home. Life goes on.