Murray Kinsella reports from Cardiff
FOUR YEARS ON from the greatest heartbreak of his rugby career, Tommy Bowe is back in a World Cup quarter-final with Ireland.
Tomorrow is quarter-final number six for Irish rugby, none of the previous attempts having proven successful.
Joe Schmidt’s verdict on this history?
“Irish teams have been really well prepared in the past and haven’t gotten over the line. The Irish team four years ago were really well prepared and, you know, I think that they were incredibly disappointed at the end of the day and we would be too.”
So what makes it different this time around? What has changed, Joe?
I guess this group has demonstrated that, in adversity, they can respond and I think there’s something in the Irish psyche that if you are beaten around a little bit, there’s a resilience and resolve that gets demonstrated,” said Schmidt.
“I would be really confident that that will be demonstrated. Is that going to be enough? We’ll find out on Sunday.”
Indeed, men like Bowe have shown strong responses to adversity recently, the Ulster wing bouncing back from being dropped as the World Cup began. After two strong performances against Italy and France, that glitch in form seems a distant memory. He says he’s now feeling confident again, enjoying himself on the pitch.
Dig back four years though, and the hurt is still fresh for Bowe. 22-10 versus the Welsh, a deeply disappointing performance. The 2011 World Cup had promised so much after the pool-stage wins over Australia and Italy.
“We topped our group that time,” said Bowe. “We had one of our best performances, we obviously beat Australia, but our performance against Italy to top the pool was probably our best performance in the campaign.
“We were full of confidence going into that Welsh match. I don’t think we were complacent, I don’t think we were thinking too much about the semi-final, but something was off that day unfortunately and they were the better team on the day.
It’s still a tough one to take, so for players who are still in the squad who were part of that, we can’t make that mistake again.”
Bowe is one of a number of players in this Ireland squad who were involved in the 2011 defeat to the Welsh, but he also has happier memories of delivering wins under pressure.
Whether Six Nations titles or Heineken Cup crowns, Schmidt’s group has a huge number of players with confidence in their ability to deliver under the pressure knock-out rugby brings.
“We’re still just under 40 hours out from the match, but I think in the next day it will start to build in how big a game this is,” said Bowe yesterday.
“And certainly for the players who have been a part of it before, we’ll be able to reiterate that if we lose this weekend and we don’t turn up at the weekend, that’s the end of it. You don’t get a second chance.
“We all know what’s at stake. We knew right from the start that we wanted to get to the knock-out stages, we wanted to get where no Irish team has ever been before. We know what is there for us, so we’re in a good place from a confidence point of view.
“We’re excited about it but I don’t think we’re dwelling on the history and what it means.”
Each Irish player will approach the build-up with their own twist, some speaking in front of the group and others keeping to themselves. Bowe is a man who doesn’t like ” too get too over-egged up” before matchday.
Paul O’Connell’s final words in the changing room might be missed, but Bowe feels success is about more than inspirational speeches.
I think Paulie spoke very well before the last match and so did Jamie (Heaslip) speak very well also. But, listen, whenever you’re coming into a big game and someone says something that really touches you, it’s very special.
“But you can’t expect it for every game. You have to be able to go into these big games and know what’s going to get yourself up for it from a personal point of view.
“I think that’s what we’ll be looking forward to this weekend. If Rory (Best) or Jamie or one of the younger players in the squad says something it might really touch on giving us that little extra bit of passion going in there, but we can’t rely on that.”
