Irish rugby shoots itself in the foot by letting Ryan go

WHAT are the two most dispiriting defeats for Irish rugby over the past two seasons? Easy.

The World Cup quarter-final loss to Argentina in October 2015 confirmed that Ireland would fail to make the last four of rugby’s premier tournament for the eighth time in succession – a 28year run of failure. Then there was February’s harrowing defeat by Scotland in Edinburgh, a reverse that ultimately cost Ireland a third Six Nations title in four seasons.

There were certain, distinct similarities between the two. Both involved alarming mental no-shows by Ireland in the opening 25 minutes which allowed their opponents to forge ahead.

Both games also saw commendable revivals to make comeback victories a live possibility before Ireland ran out of gas. And the other, largely overlooked, point of symmetry was the fact that Donnacha Ryan (right) did not start in the second row on either occasion.

In the absence of Paul O’Connell (injured for the Argentina game, retired for Scotland) Ryan is the obvious like-forlike replacement. Only his Munster colleague Peter O’Mahony (also missing for those Argentina and Scotland defeats) carries the same degree of relentless, focused, scrapping aggression in the pack and there are certainly no Irish-qualified second rows at Ryan’s level in this regard.

Ultan Dillane could become that player but he is not there yet, while Devin Toner and Iain Henderson are more languid than feral in style.

Now that it has emerged Ryan is joining Racing Metro from next season, having not being provided with a sufficient incentive to stay, Munster and Ireland have a major issue in terms of finding a replacement – on the assumption the Nenagh man has played his last game for his country due to existing exclusion policy regarding players based overseas, He may be 33 but extensive time on the sidelines means there is plenty of running in Ryan yet, enough to take him to the 2019 World Cup in Japan. This decision to allow Ryan to leave could come back to haunt Irish rugby – particularly if they flop again on the biggest stage.