“Josh! Josh!” roared CJ Stander, signalling with his arm. “Come out!”
Josh van der Flier – who put in a massive shift – steps back into the defensive line but he could not come forward. His legs would not operate the message sent from the brain. There is 58:36 on the clock and Ireland are spread out one yard from their own try line.
On 54:44 Kenki Fukuoka dives over.
Van der Flier has super human fitness levels. He probably felt this way a handful of times coming back from surgery or in pre-season. Alien conditions got to him. It got to them all.
Stander and Keith Earls were marking the same man but Ireland have Japan numbered up. Five green jerseys facing four Brave Blossoms. The try was conceded because they were physically and mentally unable to react in time. Once you're thinking it's too late!
Fukuoka’s winning try was not conceded in that moment. It was lost chasing shadows over the previous 30 minutes. No team can cope with this level of punishment.
Your lungs are burning. You have to take two steps back before powering forward. You cannot speak (fair play to CJ). You are relying on body language. You are praying for an error.
What was so disappointing was Ireland’s inability to enact their strategy to halt the Japanese momentum.
So many of them have been down this road before. They have been The Men In The Arena many, many times before, and survived. Maybe they needed every one of them, all 23 players, to be ready for the storm. But injury intervened, again.
A combination of events – stifling humidity, Japan's superb impression of a Joe Schmidt team and no Johnny Sexton – contrived to leave Ireland ambushed at The Ecopa.
It need not be Irish rugby’s Béal na Bláth. But – and there is nowhere to hide from this reality – despite ten unbelievably prosperous Schmidt years we find ourselves in the same place as always; needing to refute all the evidence at our disposal with a closing argument of such sustained charisma that it alters the jury’s collective belief.
Never mind Johnny Sexton we need Johnnie Cochran.
The great unseen Irish performance will now be essential come the World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand or South Africa.
Something similar to the 1991 quarter-final against Australia or the Eden Park defeat of Australia in 2011. Empty the tank. Rise above oneself for the greater good of the team. That’s Irish sport in a nutshell. It has led us to unpredictable heights.
Shut down
Staying up there that has always been the problem.
Glorious, brave performances (ending in victory or defeat) were always going to be needed in Japan.
It’s hard to see them getting beyond the quarter-final. It’s hard to accept our last glimmer of hope is regressing to the one-off shock. Again.
Defence sets the tone of this World Cup. See the All Blacks against the Springboks. See Wales against Australia. Even Scotland against Samoa on Monday.
Ireland’s defence was flat.
Also, in multi-phase attack, they have been easily shut down by well coached opponents. It forces me to hark back to when I played under Joe for Ireland. We produced pictures that created doubt in the mind of defences.
Animation off the ball was a valuable currency. A first or second phase ruck, that had dummy runners coming onto Conor Murray’s pass, with options out the back, or forwards going down the short side off set piece plays.
We kept them guessing. Everyone held their width. Hours of intense well instructed training ground work was accurately repeated against New Zealand, at Twickenham, in Paris.
So many options, off nine and ten, and clarity.
Clarity of each player’s specific job. As a result, opposition defences needed to respect the picture we showed them. Make a team scratch their heads under their own posts enough times and not only will they respect you, they’ll fear you.
Then they’ll do everything in their power to beat you.
I’m wearing rose-tinted glasses. These were simpler times. Ireland weren’t ranked number one in the world at any point and we were able to go after the best teams knowing that they didn’t respect us.
Innovative Ireland under Schmidt required enormous and largely unseen effort from Stander, Jamie Heaslip, Cian Healy et al to take ball into contact while the cleanest possession imaginable was presented.
2018 was the pinnacle of Schmidt’s Ireland, with everyone working in tandem, all guns pointing in the same direction and everyone knowing precisely what their role was and knew that by doing it victory was all but guaranteed.
There were no regrets on our slow climb up the mountain. Players were shed – great leaders like Paulie [O’Connell] and Brian [O’Driscoll retired – but the journey remained the same.
Line speed
The mountain top was where we were headed. Beat the All Blacks, so what, next job. Grand Slam in Twickenham. So what, next job. Series victory in the Southern Hemisphere, so what, next job.
Did Ireland reach their peak on that monumental November night?
Defence coaches are miserable individuals who never sleep. The key to breaking Ireland is slow ball. If the carries do not get over the gainline and the ruck is slower than two seconds it instantly shifts the advantage towards the defenders.
Japan were these soldiers last Sunday. Oh, you could see it – they became unbeatable before our eyes. I know that feeling. You feel invincible.
We saw it when James Ryan carried and was isolated in those final, agonising moments at The Ecopa. Irish forwards had nothing left to give.
Great teams can alter the game plan in the heat of battle. No coach can tell them to do that. ‘If my tactics are not working, just shred them and give it a lash.’ But over the years I’ve seen Brian, Rog, Seanie, Paulie demand ball.
Sexton will do that if he’s on the pitch.
Twickenham, we hoped, was ground zero for the Japan 2019 campaign.
Ireland had the energy sucked out of them. Japan emphasised this by owning 71 percent possession. The ruck, on average, was two or three seconds long. That’s a lifetime in rugby games.
There was no line speed. Their brains were scrambled. It does feel like Japan did an ‘Ireland’ to Ireland. So many attributes we used to describe Ireland apply to Japan on the day.
This is not a psychological hole. It is simple. Keep the ball. Play the poker game Ireland have played since 2013
Let’s see what Scotland make of them. That will be a fascinating contest.
Watching Wales beat the Wallabies, there was a clear game plan; kick points and attack the Australian rucks. I’m not saying Ireland do not have a plan. I’m just seeing this team and remembering what it was like to play under Schmidt.
Tall order
The coaching is ultra demanding and highly rewarding. This was always going to be a tall order. Ireland – same as it ever was – need so many things to go to plan to be successful at a World Cup. Right now, far too many of them are going badly wrong.
This happens at World Cups. Their luck is out. The conditions are devouring them. There are injuries to key players. Oh that Groundhog Day feeling is here again.
I’ve said this before, there is such faith in the system and Joe that maybe players have lost faith in themselves. Are they too scared to make a mistake or attack what is right in front of them? Who was screaming into Jack Carty’s ear that there was space on the far touchline once Jacob Stockdale had taken Japan to the edges?
Japan always show teams the wide channels. Ireland failed to get the ball out to the spaces on the far side.
More animation is needed, hard thankless lines out the back to soften a shoulder. That can only come from the players on the field. They have heard all the speeches they need. All the work is done. They are ready, willing and the jersey has their name stitched into it.
This is not a psychological hole. It is simple. Keep the ball. Play the poker game Ireland have played since 2013.
When the opportunities come along be accurate. Beat the Russians out the gate.
Closed roof or not.
