The Irish Rugby team are preparing to travel home from the World Cup. Argentina will play Australia in the semi finals next week following a 43-20 victory over Ireland at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. Argentina deserved their victory, but the way the game panned has led to many  'maybes' and 'what ifs'....

What if those two early tries had been stopped? Maybe things would have been different had Ian Madigan levelled the scores on the hour mark or if Conor Murray hadn't dropped that ball at the back of the scrum, which led to Joaquin Tuculet's match winning try. And what if Paul O'Connell, Johnny Sexton, Peter O'Mahony and Sean O'Brien had been on the field?

It was brave but below par performance from Ireland. Most agree all the damage was done in the opening ten minutes. They only conceded 35 points in the pool stages and coach Joe Schmidt says the defensive problems stemmed back to the loss of key personnel.

The players were obviously gutted when speaking to the media in the bowels of the Millennium Stadium after the defeat. Devin Toner tried to put on brave face.  Dave Kearney seemed in shock. Keith Earls was down but defiant.

The squad have been together since the middle of the summer. They will now break up and return to their provinces. They never said it but, as back to back Six Nations champions they would have expected to become the first Irish team to reach the semi finals. Long before the tournament began though, it was said that Ireland's success would hang on whether key players avoided injury. Would New Zealand had lifted the Cup four years ago had Ritchie McCaw and Kieran Reid followed Dan Carter out of the tournament? The All Blacks very nearly lost the final to France.

Ireland absorbed the loss of their captain their out half and others against the French. They just could not do it twice in seven days.