'The All Blacks were fantastic... they put us on the back foot and never let us get off that again'
Retiring captain Rory Best paid an emotional tribute to Ireland rugby after a clinical performance from New Zealand ended their World Cup dream in Tokyo.
Aaron Smith scored two of the All Blacks’ seven tries in a comprehensive 46-14 quarter-final victory to set up a semi-final showdown against England.
Defeat against the back-to-back champions signalled the end of Best’s international career, while head coach Joe Schmidt will be leaving his role.
Best, 37, struggled to hold back tears in his post-match pitchside interview. “I would just like to thank this unbelievable Irish crowd. It started off with an incredible atmosphere and they were brilliant,” he said.
“But the All Blacks were fantastic tonight. We felt we prepared well all week, we felt we had a game plan, we felt we had enough in our armoury to beat them. They just started off out of the blocks hard at us, put us on the back foot and, like good sides do, they never let us get off that again.”
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Best paid tribute to the efforts of Schmidt to help move Irish rugby forward. “I have loved every minute of it, the support I have got from the fans home and away and the coaching staff,” he said on ITV1.
“Joe Schmidt as well who is moving on, he brought my game particularly to another level when he came here and a massive credit must go to him.”
Schmidt felt his side gave New Zealand too many “access points” into the game. “We turned the ball over, but we missed opportunities to get into their zone and really put some pressure on,” he said.
Peaked too soon☘️➡️🎢 #NZLvIRE #RWC2019 pic.twitter.com/5WOjoKwsHl
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 19, 2019
“We kind of gave them a leg up and, when they get a points differential like they had, you are chasing the game. When you chase the game, you take risks that, if you are not executing perfectly, they’re going to capitalise on the back of it.”
Schmidt admits Ireland had been somewhat “flat” since earning their place as the number one side in the world, but that he leaves them “in a really good place”. He said: “When you reach a height, there is always a risk that you’re going to just slip off that height a little bit.
Ireland player ratings on a World Cup night to forget versus New Zealand in Tokyohttps://t.co/U8IUeEhJwH
— RugbyPass (@RugbyPass) October 19, 2019
“I don’t think it was any complacency or anything else. We made a target of ourselves, certainly teams went after us a little bit more. We had been able to kind of sneak up on New Zealand a couple of times, and sneak up on a few other teams.”
All Blacks forward Brodie Retallik felt his side produced an “awesome spectacle” as he turned his attention towards the clash with England. “We have only seen bits and bobs (of England), and I saw a bit of the Australia game, but they are playing with great skill,” he said.
“They have great outside backs with a good forward pack, but we will knuckle down to playing them this week.”
– Press Association
WATCH: Former Australian international Matt Giteau sits down with RugbyPass in the latest episode of Rugby World Cup Memories
Comments on RugbyPass
🤦♂️🤣 who cares who’s the best . All I know is the All Blacks have the star coach but have few star players now …
27 Go to commentsJe suis sûr que Farrell est impatient de jouer avec Lopez et Machenaud et d’être entraîné par Collazo… 🤭
1 Go to commentsAn on field red (aka a full red) in SRP must surely carry a bigger suspension than a red card given by the bunker as that carries a 20 minute team punishment. Had Damon Murphy abdicated his responsibility as a ref and issued both Drua players a yellow, which would have been upgraded to a 20 minute red by the bunker, that would have killed Australia and New Zealand’s push for the 20 minute red to be trialled globally from July this year.
11 Go to commentsEver so often you all post a Danny Care story that isn’t the announcement that he has finally re-signed for one more, victory tour season at Quins and I’m just like, “well you fooled me again!” My absolute favorite player ever, we need to make his final year at the Stoop (and Twickers) official already. I know he supposedly snubbed France but I won’t feel better until he signs.
1 Go to commentslate hit what late hit it wasn’t at all late and can clearly see he was committed before the tackle
1 Go to commentsChristian Lio -Willies 2 try perfomance was a standout. As was captain Scott Barrett. Up front was where the boys won it.They are a great team and players. Fantastic Crusades , you can keep going.
1 Go to commentsI don't know how the locals feel about that? I guess if you call yourselves the Worcester Wasps that might be appease. But really we need more teams in the Premiership in my view so they are not padding it out as they are at the moment. It might curtail so many players going abroad as well
5 Go to commentsNZ 😭😭😭is certainly rivaling England for best whingers cup!😭😭😭 !!!
27 Go to commentsYup. New Zealand won 3 out of 10 world cups played. SA 4 out of 8 attempts 30 Vs 50 per cent.🤔🤔
27 Go to commentsShould've done this years ago. Change Saturday kick off times to around 11am. Up and off and back home before 3pm, limit travel time too. Allows players to actually do something else with their Saturday that's family oriented or being rugby fans they could ‘watch’ pro rugby. Increases crowds etc. How can anyone that enjoys grassroots and pro rugby have to choose between the two on Saturdays?
9 Go to commentsI bet he inspired those supporters just as much.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith Springboks living rent free in his head 😊😂
67 Go to commentsGood to hear he would like to play the game at the highest level, I hadn’t been to sure how much of a motivator that was before now. Sadly he’s probably chosen the rugby club to go to. Try not to worry about all the input about how you should play rugby Joey and just try to emulate what you do on the league field and have fun. You’ll limit your game too much (well not really because he’s a standard athlete like SBW and he’ll still have enough) if you’re trying to make sure you can recycle the ball back etc. On the other hard, you can totally just try and recycle by looking to offload any and everywhere if you’re going to ground 😋
1 Go to commentsThis just proves that theres always a stat and a metric to use to justify your abilities and your success. Ben did it last week by creating an imaginary competition and now you did the same to counter his argument and espouse a new yardstick for success. Why not just use the current one and lets say the Boks have won 4 world cups making them the most successful world cup team. Outside of the world cup the All Blacks are the most successful team winning countless rugby championships and dominating the rankings with high win percentages. Over the last 4 years statistically the Irish are the best having the highest win rate and also having positive records against every tier 1 side. The most successful Northern team in the game has been England with a world cup title and the most six nations titles in history. The AB’s are the most dominant team in history with the highest win rate and 3 world cups. Lets not try to reinvent the wheel. Just be honest about the actual stats and what each team has been good at doing and that will be enough to define their level of success.
27 Go to commentsHow is 7’s played there? I’m surprised 10 or 11 man rugby hasn’t taken off. 7 just doesn’t fit the 15s dynamics (rules n field etc) but these other versions do.
9 Go to commentsPick Swinton at your peril A liability just like JWH from the Roosters Skelton ??? went missing at RWC
14 Go to commentsLike tennis, who have a ranking system, and I believe rugby too, just measure over each period preceding a world cup event who was the longest number one and that would be it. In tennis the number one player frequently is not the grand slam winner. I love and adore the All Blacks since the days of Ian Kirkpatrick when I was a kid in SA. And still do because they are the masters of running rugby and are gentleman on and off the field - in general. And in my opinion they have been the majority of the time the best rugby team in the world.
27 Go to commentsHaving overseas possessions in 2024 is absurd. These Frenchies should have to give the New Caledonians their freedom.
21 Go to commentsBell injured his foot didn’t he? Bring Tupou in he’ll deliver when it counts. Agree mostly but I would switch in the Reds number 8 Harry Wilson for Swinton and move Rob Valentini to 6 instead. Wilson is a clever player who reads the play, you can’t outmuscle the AB’s and Springboks, if you have any chance it’s by playing clever. Same goes for Paisami, he’s a little guy who doesn’t really trouble the likes of De Allende and Jordie Barrett. I’d rather play Carter Gordon at 12 and put Michael Lynagh’s boy at 10. That way you get a BMT type goalkicker at 10 and a playmaker at 12. Anyways, just my two cents as a Bok supporter.
14 Go to commentsThanks Brett, love your articles which are alway pertinent. It’s a difficult topic trying to have a panel adjudicating consistently penalties for red card issues. Many of the mitigating reasons raised are judged subjectively, hence the different outcomes. How to take away subjective opinions?
11 Go to comments