{"id":174463,"date":"2025-12-04T09:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T09:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/174463\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T09:40:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T09:40:09","slug":"we-dont-want-to-just-get-past-a-quarter-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/174463\/","title":{"rendered":"We don’t want to just get past a quarter-final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Given Ireland’s tortured history at the Rugby World Cup, Andy Farrell knew well enough to avoid getting sucked in by the permutations<\/a> of Ireland\u2019s draw when he spoke to the media on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The supporters and us in the media can speculate and plot Ireland\u2019s path in public, but if Farrell is thinking ahead about who stands in the way of his side and World Cup glory, he will be doing so privately.<\/p>\n

The Ireland coach wouldn’t be drawn on the ifs, buts and maybes of potentially sidestepping South Africa and New Zealand on their side of the draw, but there is one undeniable certainty about Ireland\u2019s World Cup hopes: winning your pool is imperative.<\/p>\n

Even aside from what comes later in the tournament, the fact of Pool D<\/a> is that Ireland\u2019s meeting with Scotland is enormous.<\/p>\n

Four years ago, the difference between finishing first and second in the pool was negligible. Ireland finished first and lost to New Zealand a week later.<\/p>\n

Had they finished second, hosts France wouldn\u2019t have been much easier.<\/p>\n

In 2027, the winner of Ireland\u2019s pool will take on a side that finished third in their group in the Round of 16.<\/p>\n

The runner-up of Ireland\u2019s pool will face the winner of Pool C, who, barring a mega shock, will be France.<\/p>\n

Even as he tried to stay coy about Ireland\u2019s path, Farrell conceded there\u2019s a big difference between first and second in this pool.<\/p>\n

\"Rugby<\/p>\n

“You would have thought so, that’s for sure, and you obviously look at the importance of that,” he said.<\/p>\n

With Ireland\u2019s ambitions extending beyond just breaking their quarter-final hoodoo, Farrell isn\u2019t getting bogged down by how they get there.<\/p>\n

“There are ways that things can happen a little bit differently as well and obviously everyone gets carried away with different sides of the draw, which is stronger and which is not,” he added.<\/p>\n

“But ultimately we don’t want to just get past a quarter-final, so ultimately you’re going to come across whoever it is that are unbelievably strong quarter-final, semi-final, final-wise, and you have to be good enough to aim for that.<\/p>\n

“I suppose that’s the main point from it.<\/p>\n

“Obviously I back myself and the rest of the coaches and the players and all the staff to go as far as we’d all hope, we’d have the ambition to win a World Cup. Otherwise, what’s the point?”<\/p>\n

Between now and then, Ireland have four international windows to get themselves in shape, with two Six Nations Championships and the summer and autumn Nations Championship blocks coming up in 2026.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s not a long time at all and we need to use all that wisely, that\u2019s for sure,” Farrell continued.<\/p>\n

Based on their 2025 form, there is plenty to improve on.<\/p>\n

Eight wins from 11 games, including a Triple Crown, is a reasonable return on paper, but the story of the last year shows a team that has struggled to bring their game together.<\/p>\n

\"22
\nIreland were beaten 24-13 by South Africa in their final game of 2025<\/p>\n

The scrum and discipline are major areas of improvement, as evidenced by the most recent defeat to South Africa just under two weeks ago.<\/p>\n

Farrell said: “I agree that from the autumn it [discipline] is certainly a little bit of a work-on.<\/p>\n

“Obviously South Africa are a lot to do with that and we\u2019ve seen that in other games that they\u2019ve played as well.<\/p>\n

“It isn\u2019t just the discipline, it\u2019s how you handle the pressure of the game within itself. It\u2019s something that needs to continue to improve.”<\/p>\n

While the current Irish squad still contains a core of players in their late 20s and early 30s, it was pointed out by assistant coach Johnny Sexton how the squad has seen several hundred caps of experience depart in the two years since the World Cup in France, with Sexton, Keith Earls, Peter O\u2019Mahony, Conor Murray and Cian Healy among those to have stepped away.<\/p>\n

And Farrell believe that his current leadership group will continue to develop in the lead-up to Australia in two years\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s just fact, isn\u2019t it, and it\u2019s just part of life that that\u2019s where we find ourselves,” said the 50-year-old former Wigan rugby league star.<\/p>\n

“That\u2019s good, because then you\u2019re asking others to fill that space but fill it in a way that their team\u2019s going to be propelled forward.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re not trying to do the same as what we did two years ago, we\u2019re trying to be better than that.<\/p>\n

“These things, experiences, take a little bit of time for people to understand, ‘OK, I know how to deal with the pressures of international rugby, how do I become a better leader within that?<\/p>\n

“How do I help the team get better?\u2019 It\u2019s part of everyone\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

“You have to go through that to understand what it\u2019s going to take to propel the team forward.”<\/p>\n

Listen to the RT\u00c9 Rugby podcast on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n

Listen to live commentary of Bath v Munster on Saturday from 8pm on RT\u00c9 Radio 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Given Ireland’s tortured history at the Rugby World Cup, Andy Farrell knew well enough to avoid getting sucked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-174463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}