All of Ireland is waking up with a hangover this Sunday. First in the world rankings and announced favorite for the World Cup, the XV of Clover fell from a very high position against New Zealand (24-28), conceding the eighth setback in its history in the quarter-final. More than ever, all the green people believed in their lucky stars this year but the adventure is already over. A cruel disillusionment for the Irish press, still in shock this morning.
“This result amounts to a power outage while the party was in full swing. The greatest journey in Irish sporting history is over. But what a trip it was.”, writes The Irish Independent, the country’s leading daily newspaper, which prefers to thank its players pushed by thousands of supporters invading the Stade de France. “We are not disappointed with the Irish team. We are disappointed for the Irish team. They have given us so much in recent years that it is impossible to feel anything other than pride, sympathy and gratitude towards them.”
Proud of its national team, the daily does not forget to salute the performance of its New Zealand tormentor, already on his journey four years ago in Japan. “They came close enough to win this time against New Zealand, but the fact that they fought will be little consolation for these players. It will haunt them. The All Blacks presented a plan and executed it brilliantly. So the winning streak ended at the worst possible time and, in truth, they were beaten by the best team of the night.”
Impressive in the group stage, Ireland took on the role of favorite for this clash at the top, which offered a legendary match. But the coin did not fall in his favor, once again. “The dream is dead”, “a heartbreaker” can be read on the front page of the press while The Irish Times complains about the performance of the English referee of the match, Wayne Barnes.
“There will be frustration with the performance of Wayne Barnes and his video referee Tom Foley ruling that Richie Mo’unga’s shoulder into Bundee Aki’s jaw did not merit at least a yellow card,” the newspaper wrote, before paying tribute to coach Andy Farrell: “This Ireland team made us dream more than these other nine predecessors in the World Cup […] In any case, Farrell can be satisfied that his team is “dead with its crampons”. He reflected and spoke with pride about what they had accomplished.”
For its part, The Irish Examiner chose the cinematic metaphor to express its pain, drawing on the film Matrix. “There’s a scene in The Matrix where Switch, helpless, watches the inevitable happen, and says what everyone is thinking: ‘Not like that,’ she says. ‘Not like that.’ We were all Switch last night. Hopeless. Horrified. Resigned. But we’ve been through this before.” Anger, sadness, misery are the words that come back. “But if not now, when will it be? Streams of green jerseys leave the stadium, return to the RER and the Paris metro, the night is cold and cold, the air is full of questions that will never be answered. There is anger, but only a little, and there is sadness, but only a little. On the contrary, the overwhelming sensation of a kind of perplexity, of a gaping void,” laments another article.
At the heart of this general distress, one player obviously attracts attention: Jonathan Sexton. The 38-year-old Irish fly-half and captain, transparent in the game and ineffective at the foot, missed his outing. “Johnny Sexton had the haunted expression of a man who has just been thrown, by a plunging express elevator, into the depths of infernal and eternal misery” coldly poetics The Irish Times. In tears at the final whistle, the former Racing player today symbolizes the grief of all of Ireland. “Rugby is not a fairy tale” concludes The Irish Independent. In pursuit of its dream, the Emerald Isle experienced a nightmare that should be remembered for a long time.
