This was not as grim and attritional as some of us had feared. It was worse. It was a match from the old-fashioned school: attritional,largely risk-free and, particularly in Ireland’s case, and too disjointed for a team considered to be the fourth favourites to lift the Rugby World Cup. Their 16-9 victory ensures they will qualify for the knockout stages,but they will need to significantly improve against France next weekend whether they are to top Group D and avoid the All Blacks in the quarter-finals.
The list of positives that Ireland can take from this game is not a long one. There was the impressive performance of the young Ulster lock Iain Henderson, who was rightly named man of the match. The try scored by Keith Earls, and the only one of the match,which made him Ireland’s record World Cup try scorer with eight – one ahead of Brian O’Driscoll. And there was the satisfaction of getting the job done despite playing poorly. Ireland acquire now won 18 of their last 22 internationals, which is not a record to be sniffed at. But England’s coaching staff will not be the only one’s conducting a rigorous postmortem.
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Source: theguardian.com