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Are Ireland and Leinster the biggest chokers in world rugby?
By Jon Newcombe
Drawing parallels between another trophy-less season for Leinster and Ireland bombing out of the quarter-finals of last year’s Rugby World Cup, Springbok legends Jean de Villiers and Schalk Burger believe that mental frailty is the root cause for the failure.
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Nearly half of Ireland’s Rugby World Cup squad (16 out of 33) featured in both of Leinster big game losses this season: the 22-31 Champions Cup final defeat to Toulouse and the equally demoralising URC semi-final exit to the Bulls in Pretoria.
Leinster – or Ireland in blue, as they have been called in the past, given the majority of their players are internationals – have now gone three years without any silverware.
And the two Rugby World Cup 2007 winners, de Villiers and Burger, say that it’s not down to a lack of talent but rather what is going on in the top two inches that is seeing both the provincial team and the national team fall short of meeting expectations.
In the latest episode of RPTV’s Boks Office, back-rower Burger likened the situation to the one Northern Ireland golfer Rory McIlroy is going through in his elusive search for a fifth Major title.
“You saw it with Rory McIlroy on the weekend, at the US Open,” he points out. “It’s not the technical fault he has got, it’s a mental hurdle he has got to get over. He missed two short puts in the last three holes and made three bogeys out of the last five and (Bryson) DeChambeau wins it, That hurts, that stings.
“There’s a trend in all these big games (with Leinster and Ireland),” he continues. “the pack of forwards crumbles and then it becomes hard to play their style, the breakdown becomes a bit more of a contest, and they don’t have that speed of play that they sort of get through their nine (Jamison) Gibson-Park and (Ross) Byrne at 10.”
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De Villiers points out that while 80% of the players are shared, the coaches are different, with Andy Farrell in charge of Ireland and Leo Cullen the man pulling the strings with Leinster.
But Burger believes that the similarities are still sufficient for the correlation to be made between provincial and international failure.
“Yes, but it’s the same type of style though, with the way they play,” he suggests.
“The Boks can really challenge them physically.”
Ireland, of course, have an opportunity to debunk such theories when they take on the reigning world champions – minus the injured Gibson-Park – in next month’s two-Test series.
The series begins in Pretoria – the scene of Leinster’s humbling at the hands of the Bulls – on July 6th, and concludes in Durban the following Saturday, July 13th.
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De Villiers says that a successful summer tour would do wonders for Ireland psychologically.
“It is concerning from their side, there’s some mental damage there, I would think,” he concedes.
“I am sorry to say this but it is like our (South African) cricket team, the more you want to get away from it, the more it just sticks to you..
“You shake it by being in that situation, performing when the big game arises, and getting over the line, and they haven’t been able to do that. Fast forward a couple of weeks, though, and they get another opportunity.”