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Irish Fans Are Extremely Mad at the All Blacks and Jaco Peyper

By Hayden Donnell
Jaco Peyper (Getty)

Irish fans are venting industrial quantities of rage into the Internet after their side’s loss to the All Blacks today. Hayden Donnell dives into the pool of bitterness and resentment.

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The All Blacks beat Ireland today, taking out the sides’ two-match series 50-49 on aggregate. It was a hard-fought game between two very good teams. Or as Irish fans call it, an orgy of cheating orchestrated by an incompetent referee, a legally blind TMO, and an All Blacks pack that should be prosecuted for war crimes.

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The match at Aviva Stadium was littered with questionable decisions. Did Beauden Barrett really ground the ball in the second try of the game? Should Malakai Fekitoa have been sent off for a high tackle, rather than yellow carded? Did TJ Perenara pass it forward in the lead-up to Fekitoa’s second try? Did the All Blacks spend the whole game trying to decapitate their opponents?

The laundry list of potential complaints has propelled Irish fans into a kind of mania. They’re filling up Internet  with their bitter tears. Raging on Twitter. Identifying culprits on Facebook. Ref Jaco Peyper is first on the kill list. The South African official is an experienced pro who may have missed a few calls. To Ireland fans, he is a demon from the pits of hell, corruption thick on his breath.

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Open up any Irish fan right now and you’ll find pure hatred coursing through their veins. The TMO who awarded Beauden Barrett’s try is another target.

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But the bulk of the rage is reserved for the All Blacks. In the eyes of the vast majority of Ireland’s Twitter users, the world’s #1-ranked rugby side are a gang of oversized thugs intent on concussing their opponents with high tackles.

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Some Irish fans were overcome by the injustice. One Munster fan account lapsed into a kind of fugue state, tweeting the word “filth” roughly 50 times in a row.

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As a counterpoint, Ireland failed to score a try and didn’t look like threatening the All Blacks line that often. Their coach refused to blame the ref in his post-match interview. So is this outpouring of anger maybe, kind of an overreaction?

All Blacks fans would argue it is. Many of them have been spotted calling for peace online. Telling their opponents to be more magnanimous in defeat. Saying post-match bitterness is embarrassing. They have every right to lecture. After all, no-one takes a bad call or two in their stride like a New Zealand rugby fan.

 

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Nickers 5 hours ago
All Blacks sabbaticals ‘damage Super Rugby Pacific when it is fighting for survival’

Sabbaticals have helped keep NZ’s very best talent in the country on long term deals - this fact has been left out of this article. Much like the articles calling to allow overseas players to be selected, yet can only name one player currently not signed to NZR who would be selected for the ABs. And in the entire history of NZ players leaving to play overseas, literally only 4 or 5 have left in their prime as current ABs. (Piatau, Evans, Hayman, Mo’unga,?) Yes Carter got an injury while playing in France 16 years ago, but he also got a tournament ending injury at the 2011 World Cup while taking mid-week practice kicks at goal. Maybe Jordie gets a season-ending injury while playing in Ireland, maybe he gets one next week against the Brumbies. NZR have many shortcomings, but keeping the very best players in the country and/or available for ABs selection is not one of them. Likewise for workload management - players missing 2 games out of 14 is hardly a big deal in the grand scheme of things. Again let’s use some facts - did it stop the Crusaders winning SR so many times consecutively when during any given week they would be missing 2 of their best players? The whole idea of the sabbatical is to reward your best players who are willing to sign very long term deals with some time to do whatever they want. They are not handed out willy-nilly, and at nowhere near the levels that would somehow devalue Super Rugby. In this particular example JB is locked in with NZR for what will probably (hopefully) be the best years of his career, hard to imagine him not sticking around for a couple more after for a Lions tour and one more world cup. He has the potential to become the most capped AB of all time. A much better outcome than him leaving NZ for a minimum of 3 years at the age of 27, unlikely to ever play for the ABs again, which would be the likely alternative.

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