By emerging undefeated from an extremely tough group, Ireland confirmed that it had the means to achieve its ambitions. The XV of Clover remains on a series of 17 consecutive victories and has not lost since an inaugural defeat during its 2022 summer tour in New Zealand. Tour that the men in green will win 2 victories to 1.
Coincidentally with the calendar and the draw, it is these same New Zealanders who will face the Irish this Saturday in Saint-Denis (9 p.m.) to compete for a place in the last four. Stage of the competition that Ireland has never reached before. To hope to lift the Webb Ellis Trophy on October 28, Andy Farrell’s men will also have to face their own demons.
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Four years ago, in Japan, the All Blacks had already put an unceremonious end to Irish ambitions, with a score of 46 to 14… even though Ireland remained on 2 victories in 3 matches against these same opponents. “There is no bigger game than facing New Zealand in the quarter-finals of a World Cup,” remembers Simon Easterby, Ireland’s defense coach. We’ve been there before and we’ve been soundly beaten. We learned a lot from 2019, even though it was a different staff and team. There are a lot of similarities between their team and ours. This match will undoubtedly be an important factor for Saturday’s match.”
Four years earlier, in 2015, the team already presented itself as a favorite. She remained on two consecutive victories during the Six Nations Tournament and had notably beaten a (small) French team in the pools. But on her way she found a dominant and humiliating Argentina. After a one-sided match lost 43 to 20, the Irish once again returned home prematurely.
There’s no point going back through the whole competition like that, it would just be a long litany of wasted hopes. Let’s just remember that the year they came closest to qualifying for the semi-finals, in 1991, in a home match at their Lansdowne Road den, a try from Australian fly-half Michael Lynagh wiped out a whole people in the 79th minute (19-18 defeat).
It is true that the results of past World Cups are no guarantee of future achievements. And, in Dublin, everyone wants to believe it: this time, it’s the right one. “We have experienced so much over the last four years,” judges Simon Esterby. The guys who played in 2019 will have gained experience and understanding around how to approach and adapt to big matches. But the new blood that has arrived since 2019 has also had incredible experiences over the last two years.
To do this, we must first, for the first time in their history, eliminate the New Zealanders. Reading the statistics can give them confidence, since they have two consecutive victories against them. Better yet, if we look at the last eight confrontations since 2016, the Irish have won five times. A record that is all the more flattering given that before these eight matches, the Irish team had never beaten the Blacks.
“Squad-wise, it will be similar to our victorious tour in 2022,” comments Simon Easterby. We had won this series, but the two teams were very close to each other. With us too, the squad is almost the same, because we haven’t made a lot of changes compared to the team we fielded at the time, and even compared to the one that faced them in November 2021 .”
Nothing therefore seems capable of frightening Ireland this year, and especially not the specters of the quarter-finals lost over the last three decades. But, in addition to facing the ghosts of its past, Ireland will face Joe Schmidt, New Zealand assistant coach who, for eight years, coached the Clover XV. The Irish owe him the 2014, 2015 tournaments, and the 2018 Grand Slam. He, better than anyone, knows the curse of the greens in the final phase of the World Cup: it was he who conceded more than 40 points during two quarter-finals that he played.
Last downside. To be world champion, Ireland must string together three new very high-level matches. After very big clashes against South Africa then Scotland (without even mentioning Tonga), we will have to face a team less physically marked by its group matches (apart from their inaugural defeat, the All Blacks have been walking for a month).
At the very start of the competition, the former coach of the French XV, Philippe Saint André, told us: “the Irish are favorites, but they are not used to stringing together more than two high-level matches. During the Tournament, there is always a week break. I think that the sequence, South Africa, Scotland, then quarter-final will be very difficult for them…” First elements of response this Saturday from 9 p.m.
