The doom and gloom of starting a new four-year cycle

Irish rugby is in mourning this week after an agonising loss in back-to-back World Cups to the All Blacks.

Unlike the loss in 2019, this one was agonisingly close, one score between the sides and a Jordie Barrett body part away from going ahead in a game that Ireland were chasing from the start.

This isn't just a loss, it’s the end of a four-year cycle, and at least two years of that cycle was spent with confident anticipation towards this World Cup because Andy Farrell had built such a strong environment for this Irish squad to flourish, building a rugby strategy and resilience that could potentially get them past the sticking point of a World Cup quarter-final, but more importantly, into the conversation of winning the tournament.

Losing is hard enough for sports people, dusting yourself off after an unsuccessful season to start a new one is also a mammoth task and uphill struggle, but I can only imagine what it must feel like to stare down the barrel of another World Cup cycle with the same tag hanging over the nation’s head.

There are certainly no easy fixes, but it’s hard to know how to even begin to change the landscape of this team with an eye on the bigger picture.

Rugby changes in every World Cup run because the laws are varied and the focus of the game changes shape as a result. Planning for the next one straight away would be silly, yet when a team loses, the temptation is to try and right some wrongs as soon as possible.

That won’t happen any time soon, Ireland won’t play another game until they travel to Marseille on the first Friday of February to take on France, another team going through the shock of exiting a World Cup when they’d have fancied their chances at winning it outright.

New Zealand came with a