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Matt Williams details the possible flaw in Ireland's World Cup strategy
By Ben Smith
Former Scotland coach and Australian Irish TV pundit Matt Williams has detailed a theory on the possible error in Ireland’s Rugby World Cup campaign after their quarter-final exit at the hands of New Zealand.
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Head coach Andy Farrell was prepared to play his number one side all through pool play without rotating his key players against the lesser likes of Romania and Tonga.
After being placed in the group of death Ireland weren’t prepared to take any chances, but in the end perhaps left the top players without enough fuel in the tank after falling just short to the All Blacks.
Williams believed that the pivotal point that will be raised in the post-mortem is whether they should have played their seconds team in the opening clash against Romania which Ireland won 82-8.
“I think in the review, the question will be, in the last warm-up game against Samoa in Bayonne, they played their seconds team,” Williams explained on Virgin Media Sport.
“Was that the day you play your first team, then give them the week off and don’t play them against Romania, and then you get them going [against Tonga].
“Because as Shane has said, they had to peak or be ready for South Africa. And I said this at the time, we will only know in hindsight. But I think it is going to come up in the review.
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“That’s where the Romania game, where they put 85 points on them, maybe that’s it. And maybe we are clutching at straws and maybe it doesn’t exist.”
Ireland’s second unit didn’t impress against Samoa in wet conditions during their last warm-up which may have influenced the decision, but also the need to get into form ahead of South Africa surely played a part.
Former international Shane Horgan believed that the circumstances around key players meant that they had to play against Romania and the weight of history also played a role.
“You’re trying to balance different things, because you also want to create a momentum, and they did, and a feel good in the camp,” Horgan said.
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“And you want game time for your key players, some of whom were injured, Sexton hadn’t played.
“So there is a balance, and I’m not sure there is a perfect way to do this.
“If there is foolproof way of winning a World Cup everyone would be following it.
“Listen, I thought we had ticked the milestones that Ireland has hit, we’d done all those things. They’ve done the preparation, they’ve done what you needed to five yourself a chance of winning the World Cup.”
Horgan thought that previous World Cup jitters meant that Farrell wasn’t going to take any risks of not picking up the required bonus points.
“I think they had to focus on getting out of that group,” he said.
“That’s another hangover from never getting out, never getting beyond a quarter-final.
“It’s the group of death, Scotland are resurgent and South Africa are the world champions. You’re thinking what happens if we don’t get the bonus point?
“It happened to me at the World Cup in 2007. We had a terrible result first time out, we got a bonus point, we played Georgia and didn’t get a bonus point and nearly got beaten, then we lost against France, and then you’re out.
“So I can understand, until Ireland are a little more comfortable in their own skin, I can understand why they did what they did.”
Ireland were fine. I think they were only trying to get past the quarter, so playing the team each was probably the best way to do it.
It’s not like they had a to play through to the final, and come up against a side who’s forwards had only played half a game each week. Personally, I think they should have tried to achieve more and made mistakes in how they prepared for SA, but it was essentially irrelevant in the end.
Poignantly, this article had an ad video of their 6Ns victory. They looked like they won the World Cup. I think this attitude that 6N is their pinnacle for NH teams, given they can have very little success on the world stage, is what they will need to pass. I think both Ireland and France will now have gone a long way towards doing that for 2027 (and hopefully Ireland aren’t unlucky to be sucked into a poor mindset by - comprehensively - beating an atrociously coached AB team again).
Matt’s favourite word: “Maybe”.
F-all insight. That’s why he’s the most unsuccessful Scotland coach EVER.
Excuses excuses excuses. As a Kiwi fan, been there, done that. Reference RWC1999, RWC2003, RWC2007. There's no “why”. Put it down to this beast called “finals footy’.
Move on.
I said before the tournament that maybe we should just play our B team against SA and finish second. At the end of the day it was Hobson's choice who we played in the quarters
Matt Williams, the most overrated non entity in the entire world of rugby.
Matt “mr morals” Williams at it again 😂😂
No question Johnny Sexton was out on his feet towards the end of the ABs match.
He should have been subbed —— we have to bring on Crowley his successor.
We could have won the match. !
Just imagine —- even a semi final !!
Hanson Lowe Park played below par .just wasnt Irelands day SA better on the day
As I understand it, after four pool games the average minutes for players in the starting 15s were Ireland:250, France:191, NZ: 167, SA: 164. It’s not just the averages that are interesting, but the ranges. Almost all SA players were between 130 and 180 minutes of playing time in those four games, whereas the range for Ireland was between 75 and 320 (the latter being the ceiling of course). Draw your own conclusions.
One observation is that SA spread the load extremely evenly, and on average each player had played roughly two games before the QFs. Nienaber is a pro physio, so maybe he has some insight on this. The Ireland average, on the other hand, was over 3 matches on the odometer for their starting 15, with two players having played all 4 full games.
Did Ireland miss a trick by over-playing their players? Maybe, but maybe they had little choice. I think Rassie/Jacques would point out they could only avoid this because of many months of preparation. They intentionally built sufficient breadth, depth, experience and versatility that they could spread the load in the pool games and still emerge from a tough pool. And they have been able to carefully manage the load on each player to land within some target range at the start of the KOs. You would bet that they have a plan to extend this through their remaining games.
You do not want players like Bundee Aki or Hugo Keenan going into a QF against NZ having played every minute of every pool game in the toughest of all pools. Aside from the questions about how well they can perform having put in that kind of mileage, it raises big questions about your ability to substitute them with RWC-ready players, should the need arise.
In short, the Farrell RWC 2027 plan needs to revolve around developing depth and versatility in the squad. It’s not an Irish QF curse - it’s just the ton of work it takes to deliver consistency in the tournament. We should expect Ireland to get there in the next 4 years.
Postmortems are too easy and so many journalists jump on this bandwagon. Prior to this game the rhetoric being spouted was Ireland was dominating because they had cohesion from playing their top lineup game after game. Now we have to listen to the 180°