Prendergast and Henshaw start as Leinster make 10 changes

But Australia/SA/NZ all established teams and playing each other regularly.

There can't be a high level of animosity. It's not sustainable, you're playing them twice a year and seeing the players regularly.

All that arrogance stuff from Rassie before the SA series V Ireland is stone dead. The SA players knew it was BS and I am pretty sure Rassie could see by the Irish aggression in match 2 that it backfired and wasn't sustainable.

The Global rugby world is too small now for this nonsense. Better to have respect.

If Ireland stick around then this level of animosity is hardly sustainable and some level of acceptance may be required on NZs part.

Not strictly in 2007: Ireland lost to France and Argentina and were eliminated in Pool stage. France also lost to Argentina and went on to meet NZ in the QF, presumably they got absolutely hammered........NZ were world no.1, a staggering 6.5 points clear of the second ranked team...can you recall??

1999 a year we lost a Knock out match to Argentina. This time France beat them but as luck would have it they were then drawn against Jonah Lomu and New Zealand!!!!! I have a vague memory of a lot of tries....a cricket score for NZ I guess....help me out here my memory is failing...????

What.??

Ladies & gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case.! 🤓

Ahh hello ?? He cost us a shot at progressing in that WC, of course we were pi$$ed off, wouldn't you be.?

"acknowledged they were too weak mentally to win when things didn't go there way"

That's news to me, I'd like to know who said that Plus that comment is 100% pure hypothetical jibber jabber. Because it implies that if we hadn't been robbed in that game & then we did indeed progress, that they weren't mentally tough enough to win the whole thing.? That is just ridiculous.

So there ?! 😂

Owen Farrell in the All Blacks.? I think not.! 😂

This is not true. They were clearly devastated by the defeat and like other teams were there to win the tournament.

SA took the SA-IRL game as seriously as Ireland did. Win and you had a 50:50 quarter final against NZ which was defacto a semi final because the actual semi final opponents (Arg/Wal) were not strong.

Lose and its France had beaten NZ by 15, were playing at home and an extremely physical and relatively rested England team was the likely Semi opponent. Limp into the final and your opponent should be in better shape after an easier semi.

SA played their strongest team against Scotland. Scotland were ranked #5. Everybody from Townsend to Erasmus and Foster were accusing Ireland of being disrespectful to Scotland. With the scheduling of Ireland 6 days before NZ there was little else Ireland could do but beat Scotland and hope we were good enough to take NZ too. We weren't but there was nothing wrong with our performance, they just had a lot more homework done than us.