Defeat in Wellington

Was up at 6 AM this morning (along with half of Ireland, I imagine) to see our boys take on the Welsh in the Rugby World Cup.

Final score was 22-10, but not in the way we would have wished!

I don’t think that anyone would deny that the better team (on the day) won.

They were very well organised, very strong and determined, and they took their chances.

The pattern of the game seemed to be, from the Welsh perspective:

• Defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; opportunity; score
• Defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; defend; opportunity; score

I was disappointed for Brian O’Driscoll especially. Even an inspirational leader such as he could not find a way through the Welsh defence.

I was also disappointed for Tommy Bowe. He didn’t get a chance to shine in this game as he had in previous ones.

It is important to remember, as our World Cup adventure comes to a close, that the lads did us proud. They won all 4 games at the pool stages, including that historic victory over Australia. And that particular win will live on in our memories for a long time to come.

Sometimes when a team knocks you out of a competition, you do not want them to go on to do well. A great example of this for us is France in the 2010 soccer World Cup after the disgraceful cheating by Thierry Henry. No so in this case. I think that lots of Irish people will now be behind our Celtic neighbours.

Sporting Heroes Once Again!

In my first posting in this blog (just a week and a half ago) I mentioned some things which I thought I might blog about. I never anticipated that I would be blogging about sport! But here I am with my second entry on this topic.

Ireland had a comprehensive win over Italy this morning (36-6). Another fantastic team performance by the Irish team. My favourite individual performance was by Tommy Bowe. He:

• Scored the first try (which was incorrectly disallowed)
• Made the second (scored by “Captain Fantastic”)
• Might have scored another fabulous try later in the game but was illegally tackled close to the try line when not in possession of the ball.

 The remarkable thing about the Irish performance to date is neatly summaried by listing the winners of the four pools:
Pool A – Won by New Zealand (played 4, won 4)
Pool B – Won by England (played 4, won 4)
Pool C – Won by Ireland (played 4, won 4)
Pool D – Won by South Africa (played 4, won 4)

Which team (according to the World Rankings!) doesn’t deserve to be in this list?!

What a fantastic performance in the pool stages.

Roll on next weekend and Wales!