‘Sleepless' Andrew Porter breaks silence on 'blood boiling' scrums

Ireland prop Andrew Porter has broken his silence on his country’s agonising exit last month from the Rugby World Cup. The Irish went into their quarter-final against the All Blacks in Paris as the world’s No1 ranked side and were tipped to progress to what would have been a first-ever semi-final appearance.

However, New Zealand won 28-24, leaving Porter and co deflated. More than four weeks on from that crushing Stade de France exit, the loosehead has opened up on his battle to move on from the disappointment and he has also reflected on the series of scrum penalties that went against him, visibly leaving him frustrated on the pitch during the game.

Appearing on the latest episode of The Rugby Pod with Jim Hamilton and Andy Goode, Porter began: “I’m still trying to come to terms with it in my own head. It was gutting, I have never felt that much of a low in my career.

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“There was huge hype and expectation and just the energy that was at home and all the fans that had travelled over from Ireland to create that unbelievable, special atmosphere that I have never witnessed before. All that linked in together and built up really, really high and then it’s like a roller coaster, it’s bang and it felt like you were just at the bottom.

“I came home and thought great, a different environment, but I had too much time with my own thoughts. You start playing everything back in your head, thinking of everything you could have done differently and done better.

“I was really struggling being at home after being in such a great environment with all those incredibly special people for so long… I didn’t want to do anything, I just wanted to be by myself.

“At the end of something like that, there isn’t really a debrief… there was no real closure, no real closing the book on it. I have had to deal with sleepless nights, things playing over in your head, that kind of thing. It’s just part of the game we play. We were so close so that is why it was a bit more gut-wrenching.”

Porter hasn’t yet managed to watch the quarter-final back on video as he remains pained by Ireland’s exit. Despite this lack of review, he stood by the frustrations he felt about the way he was refereed in the scrum by Wayne Barnes.

“I haven’t really gone through it yet, I think it would bring back bad memories. I know I probably should watch it in terms of taking learnings from it, I’ll probably get around to it eventually.

“You feel there is an added pressure and responsibility on you in the front row where a decision that doesn’t go your way can tip things in favour of the other team. There is that side of it. A lot of the time you know when you are wrong and when a penalty is given against you, but when it is the 50/50 calls where you feel a bit hard done by it’s really tough not to get worked up about it.

“I felt that in the game, my blood was honestly boiling after a while because I just felt like I had been hard done by. There are a lot of people out there who can probably disagree with me, they always have. It’s tougher when you feel like those 50/50 calls aren’t in your favour a lot of the time.

“It’s just one of those things, being a ref is probably tougher than being a player in terms of the amount of criticism you are going to get. One team is always going to hate you at the end of the day. That’s the tricky part.”