CONFIDENCE IS KEY, but if there’s any fear of this Ireland squad getting carried away with themselves, then Paul O’Connell is ready to step in and deliver a harsh history lesson.
The captain played a vital role in sealing a clean sweep of November victories with yesterday’s 26 – 23 win over Australia.
Add that success to the result over South Africa, the world’s second best team, a fortnight ago and it becomes easy for Irish supporters to allow their feet drift slightly off the ground. O’Connell, however, still has a few mental scars from an eight-year-old burn.
“We’ve been here before with a good autumn and it didn’t serve us well,” says the lock in reference to Ireland’s last clean sweep – also involving wins over the Wallabies and Springboks – in 2006.
The period that followed was perhaps the lowest ebb in Ireland’s professional era. Though the 2007 Six Nations introduced the Croke Park factor and a Triple Crown was enough to continue the positivity, the World Cup was to be very the worst of nightmares.
“That’s the main lesson you learn: you’ll have to reassess then when you come in for the Six Nations. Your previous performance really means nothing when the Six Nations comes around,” he added before somewhat apologetically drilling the point home.
“I sound like a broken record, but I know exactly what will happen when we come in at Christmas camp and Six Nations camp. There’ll be a lot of things addressed that need to be addressed and there’ll be a big emphasis put on learning and trying to improve those things, trying to be better at the things we were good at in this period and trying to bring that into the first game.
“There’s a lot of very good things [to look back on this month], but there’s a lot of things to improve on as well. That’s just the general attitude that the players and coaching staff has adapted and I think it works well.”
Before it was revealed that he was suffering pain from appendicitis, Joe Schmidt spoke to RTE post-match about his first full year in charge. The head coach laid praise at the door of several injured players (first and foremost Chris Henry) who he said “built the first half of the season” before the remaining fit players finished the year on yesterday’s high.
Asked to take stock at the end of Ireland’s 2014 the man sitting in Joe Schmidt’s press conference chair, Les Kiss, resisted the urge to point to the nine victories or the single defeat. Instead, he echoed O’Connell’s sentiment that there would be a focus on learning and short-term goals for long-term gains.
“It was an interesting year,” Kiss said trying to hide a smile, “obviously a lot of good things have happened for us.
“The reason we’re in a position we are at the moment is because we did take it one day at a time, each training session at a time, each Test match at a time and taking the learnings from each one.”
That method has been effective enough in the last seven games, and the four before that didn’t go too badly either.
True professionals these guys!
One game at a time is the best way to play. We have the six nations to come in February-March period if we can beat the Italians on the 7th of February the French on Valentine’s Day the English on the 1st of March then welsh on the 14th and the Scottish on the 21st of March we might be able to look forward to a good World Cup. But there is no easy games in the six nations now so if we can come through the tournament without any major injuries then we can look forward to September the 19th the start of Ireland’s campaign. Come on Ireland.
Good to see we wont be head of ourselves like before. Our new coaching team have instilled belief but most important the will to improve no matter how well we do
You need to keep the feet on the ground in this game because if we start getting carried away , thats when Italy or Scotland come out and beat you .
This team will go far and achieve great things. Believe it!
Long way to go, Ireland always play better as underdogs but lots of potential now we are moving to a solid squad over the main 15. Awesome couple of weeks lads ignore the hype and get stuck in for 6N & RWC prep
Ah cheer up.
Is there an open top bus tour after yesterday’s win? What time are they presenting the trophy?
In another other country, in any other sport is there a team that would view as a success the supposedly third best team in the world getting to a semi final of a World Cup
Lashes, we are a small country were rugby is a minority sport. Getting to a semi final of a World Cup would be huge.
Going forward I’m a little worried about our set pieces. I know Healy has to return but our scrum seems to be a bit weaker than last year and the same has to be said about the line out maul. Ireland should of torn apart the oz scrum and the one good maul we had off a line out was pulled apart. England’s scrum will be a worry come the six nations
Ken i agree with most of what you’re saying but at the same time remember we are missing Healy, acknowledged as being on of the best in the world, Ross is only back from injury and amazingly did a full 80 yesterday, he’s bound to have been rusty, as was Best who seemed to struggle to keep pace. With a full squad of players, match fit and back in the groove, having analysed and worked on their issues, come the 6 nations I think we’ll see a different set of forwards and set pieces to what has been on show so far.
Maybe Barry. I hope your right.
But are we peaking a year too early? We have seen this before a brilliant Campine then go to the World Cup and it’s a disaster, the pressure will b on now to win every game
Great teams don’t peak! They have systems and implement them with precision! If they have a strong enough panel we should be comfortable with dominating and losing the underdog tag!
The 2007 RWC was a terrible one for us. I went to the matches in Paris, what a waste. There was never a real explanation if what went wrong. Stories of Leinster Munster divide and ex wives but nothing concrete.
It was no game time and huge amount of weight training. It’s in all the players books.
I hope we wont hear in the near future that some rich dishonest s&&mb&g has bought the Irish team