Glory to Ireland as men in green clinch series against Wallabies and grab favourites tag for RWC 2019

All hail David Pocock

The Wallabies were thrown into dis-array when captain Michael Hooper had to leave the field on 16 minutes with a reported hamstring problem.

Luckily David Pocock stepped into the breach and had another standout match. The real surprise performer for Australia however was the Crusaders recent defector Peter Samu.

With Hooper going off so early you would have thought it was a disaster for Australia, but if anything it corrected an imbalance in the Wallabies backrow with Samu, Lukhan Tui and the peerless Pocock standing tall against a very good Ireland backrow.

One hit from Tui on Bundee Aki shook the stadium and all of the trio had their standout moments.

Wallabies coach Michael Cheika is notorious for tinkering with the backrow and has a fondness for Waratahs flanker Ned Hanigan, but surely this must be his back-row quartet going into the Rugby Championship.

Ireland are now Rugby World Cup favourites

Fifteen months out from the 2019 Rugby World Cup and although New Zealand are still the No1 ranked team in the world, the favourites in Japan are Ireland.

Kiwi Ireland coach Joe Schmidt, alongside Australian High Performance director David Nucifora, have done a superb job developing skills and depth.

But most of all Ireland are the masters under pressure. This win, where they virtually defended for the entire second half, was just as good as the last minute heroics in Paris that began their Six Nations run to glory.

Yes the All Blacks are far more dangerous in attack than the Wallabies but in the high pressure of a RWC knockout match with Ireland’s swarming defence and the All Blacks as yet untested mental strength, I’m backing the men in green.

“Players in the air” has become a farce

Another incident with players in the air with this time Israel Folau yellow carded for an innocuous challenge on Peter O’Mahony.

It was as commentator Phil Kearns said: “World Rugby has gone mad.”

French referee Pascal Gauzere at first made the correct call saying that Folau had made a realistic attempt to play for the ball, therefore did not commit a foul.

He was then over-ruled by officious TMO Ben Skeen, who seemed desperate to make a name for himself. (He was much quieter when called upon later in the match.)

The Kiwi decided that Folau, who brushed O’Mahony’s side while he was in the air, should take a ten minute rest.

There have been some very poor decisions in this area over the last month but this was the worse.

The fault in O’Mahony falling was completely due to CJ Stander’s poor security as the lifter.

Players contesting the ball in the air is one of the great spectacle of rugby but there is now so much uncertainty about this facet of the game that you can completely understand players just letting the ball bounce.

Last week France’s Benjamin Fall was red carded, a decision that was rightly overturned by the judiciary, and now Folau’s absurd yellow card.

World Rugby must act on this and act now. The rule desperately needs to be clarified.

For starters lifters must be held to the responsibility of getting their own player to the ground safely.