Brian O’Driscoll: Post-Match Reaction
Speaking at the post-match press conference, Ireland captain Brian O’Driscoll relayed the disappointment of his team-mates after their 30-15 loss to Argentina and spoke about the performance in Paris and Ireland’s overall World Cup campaign. Read on for reaction from the centre.
ON THE FEELING OF BEING KNOCKED OUT OF THE WORLD CUP:
“It feels very low to be knocked out of the World Cup. It’s the second time I’ve felt this way at the hands of Argentina (1999 being the other time). It’s tough to take but that’s sport. If you don’t perform, you don’t get the rewards. A lot of the onus has to go on the players.
“There’s only so much coaching that can be done. The responsibility is on the 15 guys that take the field. We didn’t front up enough during the four games.
“Maybe we played some half decent rugby against Argentina but it was too little, too late. As individual players we’ll look back with disappointment at the way we played.”
ON IRELAND’S WORLD CUP DISPLAYS AND PREPARATIONS FOR THE TOURNAMENT:
“When you don’t play well individually, then it’s difficult to play well collectively. It’s very hard when you only have a couple of people putting in big performances here and there. I think we’ll all be going back home disappointed in our individual performances.
“We’ve worked incredibly hard since we came back from our holidays in early June. I certainly don’t think we got our fitness work wrong. But this World Cup has been very physical to date.
“Even some of the perceived weaker teams have been very strong and very fit. They haven’t been tiring after 50 or 60 minutes, which they might have done in previous World Cups.
“They’ve been playing right through until the 80 and that’s why you haven’t seen any record score-lines. So, I really don’t think our fitness is anything to do with it. I just think that individually we didn’t produce big games.”