Murray Kinsella Reports from Sydney

IRELAND HAVE A fit squad to choose from for next weekend’s Nations Championship opener against Australia, with assistant coach Paul O’Connell reporting that all 37 players are training in Sydney.

Ireland arrived in Australia in two groups on Tuesday and Wednesday, and having taken a couple of days to settle in, have begun their preparations in earnest in recent days.

They had a high-intensity ‘performance’ training session today at the Leichhardt Oval, home to rugby league’s Wests Tigers, and O’Connell said that everyone had taken part.

Ulster’s Stuart McCloskey was sidelined at the end of the province’s season with a hamstring issue, Munster’s Tadhg Beirne was out of action with a knee problem, and there were a few others who came into this tour as injury concerns.

“Everyone’s fine,” said O’Connell at Ireland’s team hotel near the Sydney Opera House.

“Everyone’s training and trained hard and trained well today. So, everyone’s fine, yeah.”

The former Ireland lock said the squad have settled into Sydney very well so far ahead of next Saturday’s meeting with Australia at a sold-out Allianz Stadium.

“It’s a great hotel, it’s a good location,” said O’Connell. “We arrived on Wednesday morning, we got the ferry to Manly with a nice morning out there, and the weather was beautiful, a lot better than it’s been in the last few days. So, it kicked us off nicely.

“Gym across the road. We’re training in Leichhardt Oval, which is a little bit of a bus drive, but it’s a beautiful training ground. And we’ve been lucky enough with the weather when we’ve trained as well. So, it’s good.

“We’ve tomorrow off. I think some of the lads are going to the rugby league [in Manly] this evening. A few lads are going out for dinner. So, yeah, it’s been good. It’s a great city to be touring in.”

O’Connell and the Ireland coaches are confident that the players have come into camp with plenty of energy and intent.

Many of the Ireland group were part of Farrell’s Lions squad in Australia this time last summer, with that tour rolling all the way into August.

However, O’Connell said most of those men have had their playing minutes well managed this season, and he expects them to be in good shape for the opening window of the Nations Championship.

Ireland will play Japan in Newcastle in the second week of the new competition before flying to Auckland to face New Zealand at Eden Park.

“It feels like a summer tour, really,” said O’Connell of the Nations Championship.

“I think it’s exciting to have a competition, and we certainly want to be at the business end of it come November. But it feels like a tour.

“And that’s what we’re trying to make it. I think you learn a lot about each other as a group. You develop a little bit more on tour because you’re not going home at the weekend.

“You’re not catching up with your family at the weekend. You’re together all the time. So, we tend to get an awful lot of work done when we’re on tours.

“We tend to, I think, take big strides as a team in terms of trying to improve and evolve. So, even though it’s a competition, it feels like, and we’re probably treating it like a tour.”