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Why I'm going for the most boring team at the World Cup

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Roar Guru
17th October, 2019
19

If accountants ran a team at the World Cup, it would almost certainly be Ireland.

This team, so astonishingly devoid of creativity, has become a walking spreadsheet in recent years.

The ever-irritating Irish fan-base, which is becoming a ubiquitous evil in the game, uses all sorts of mental gymnastics to deny the fact that their team is horrendously uninspiring to watch.

There is no risk this Irish team considers taking.

Moving the ball more than three metres wide of the ruck? Can’t do that.

Doing anything other than kicking for territory and playing for penalties? Can’t do that.

Truth be told, my grudge against Irish rugby goes back to 2011 when they beat the Wallabies at Eden Park.

Aside from the Wallabies putting in a typically incoherent performance in the wet weather, Ireland’s point blank failure to play that game in good faith was a rugby abomination.

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The abuse of the overpowered drop goal and the shrill tone of Bryce Lawrence’s (now silent) whistle come to mind.

This game also saw the emergence of the now infamous “choke tackle”, which has been toned down somewhat but remains close to being rugby’s most abusable game mechanic.

Under the guidance of treasonous Australian assistant coach Les Kiss (raid that, Federal Police), Ireland systematically pumped the life out of the game, and played a brand of rugby that has undeniably damaged the game’s interest around the world.

Attempts to de-power the choke tackle were met with intransigence and disbelief from Irish authorities, shocked that the world was uninterested in watching PwC consultants play rugby.

You’d think after that spiteful rant I would be cheering on rugby’s family friendly, entertainment loving, values based All Blacks. Absolutely not.

I hope Ireland find yet another dishonest way to abuse rugby’s poorly written laws on Saturday. A brand new gimmick, so insultingly disingenuous to the game it will be changed just in time for England’s game the following week.

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I want Ireland to beat New Zealand 27–26, by scoring six penalties and three drop goals. At no point in the game do I want these spreadsheet fanatics to even consider the prospect of playing the game the way god intended, and scoring tries, not kicks.

I want them to attempt to hold up every New Zealand tackler that comes at them, I want them to collapse every scrum and reset it five times.

I want to watch their fan-base give a standing ovation to every last scrum penalty, every last drop goal and every one out run that Ireland comes up with.

Amid all this, I’m hoping several Queens council lawyers will be called in to deliberate on esoteric referrals to the TMO, and push the games finishing time out until the wee hours of the morning.

After all, when Ireland’s playing, who cares?

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