I WAS NAMED to start in the Ireland team that earned a first ever home victory over the All Blacks in November 2018.
As it transpired, a bulged disc in my neck, which prevented any movement in my arm, ruled me out of the game a couple of days beforehand.
I had been in the bubble all week and I knew Ireland were going to win that game. Sometimes, you do just know. Our gameplan was unbelievable, everyone was razor-sharp. There was an energy about us that told me that we were going to beat the All Blacks, and probably beat them well.
I went to the game with my mates, just as a spectator. And I couldn’t believe how negatively they were all thinking about the game.
The consensus was, ‘Aw, we could get smashed here.’ I’m there like, ‘Lads, we’re going to win this game. Like… I was in the camp?’
A lot of it was just parroting what they had consumed in the media the week beforehand. And it’s interesting being exposed to that ‘real world’ even more since my retirement.
As a player, I never gave a rat’s ass about what was said outside of our group. Throughout my career, I didn’t consume any media — good, bad, or indifferent. And when you’re properly in the bubble, you’re genuinely not aware of a lot of the external narratives.
I’ve learned since that there is a weird, inherently Irish trait which makes us afraid to believe that Ireland can actually win the World Cup. Even ahead of the Six Nations game with France, the feeling was often: ‘They’re the best team in the world, really. They could smash us.’
Well, they didn’t smash us. Ireland are the best team in the world. They’ve won 20 of their 22 games since their Six Nations run-in in 2021.
In terms of talent, they’re an unbelievable team. In terms of results, they’re an unbelievably consistent team. They’re also the closest-knit Ireland team I’ve ever seen. The players are genuinely enjoying camp. And what especially impresses me about them is that every time they are doubted from the outside, they pull it out of the bag and perform really well.
Maybe that latter point bodes well. We’re just days out from kick-off in France and I keep hearing people invoking Ireland’s performances at previous World Cups as cause for caution.
I’m genuinely baffled by this concept. Why would it matter what has happened to Irish teams before? History has got absolutely nothing to do with it.
As a player, I would have looked at this tournament with a totally different mindset to those preoccupied with past traumas. Ireland’s players will see it exactly the same way: this World Cup is like a carrot being dangled in front of Andy Farrell’s team to break new ground for Irish rugby, just as was the case with their series win in New Zealand last summer and their Grand Slam success on home soil earlier this year.
Six of our most important frontliners — Caelan Doris, Jamison Gibson-Park, James Lowe, Mack Hansen, Hugo Keenan and Dan Sheehan — don’t even have a World Cup history of their own to speak of. Virtually all these guys know in an Irish jersey is success.
I often think of an interview that Sheehan gave after the New Zealand series which offered a glimpse into the mindset of the young Irish rugby player. Even while enjoying his role in a slice of Irish rugby history, Sheehan was still noticeably pissed off about the first-test defeat. He and Ireland hadn’t gone down there to nab a couple of wins — they had gone down there to try to whitewash the All Blacks.
Do you think Dan Sheehan, or anyone on this Ireland team, will be intimidated by the prospect of playing in a World Cup quarter-final just because Ireland haven’t won one before? It’s total nonsense.
A quarter-final is the same as a Grand Slam game. It’s the same, even, as just a big European game. If Ireland make it out of the pool, other people might think back to 2011, 2015 or 2019. The players will think, ‘Knockout rugby, win your games.’ For them, it will be that simple.
In reality, of course, a deeper run into the tournament will present serious complications. There can be no massaging the reality that the draw is a huge factor this year, particularly for Ireland who finish their pool with back-to-back games against South Africa and Scotland.
Think back to 2019: from a physical and emotional standpoint, New Zealand played their ‘final’ against Ireland in the last eight, and smashed us. England played their ‘final’ against New Zealand in the last four, and smashed them. South Africa played Japan in the quarters, scraped past Wales in the semis, and they played their ‘final’ in the actual final.
This time around, a far worse team than South Africa four years ago is going to sleepwalk their way into the decider on 28 October.
Ireland’s prospective route is far more perilous but Andy Farrell has known as much for nearly three years. One of the areas in which he has significantly improved Ireland is in their capacity to back up physically and emotionally taxing performances with another one in the following game.
Zoom in towards this Saturday, though, and Farrell will need to box smart from first whistle.
Against Romania, I can’t see him going full-noise with his selection. There are a few players like Rónan Kelleher who, over the course of the summer, haven’t been able to get the minutes they would have wanted, and who will likely start as a result.
The key will be to kill the game as early as possible and use the game to spread those minutes as generously as possible across the 23.
With all of that being said — and I appreciate this might read as crazy — but I would play Johnny Sexton for the majority of the Romania game.
It’s just about ensuring that Johnny is fully fit and firing for South Africa, and greasing his wheels against Romania seems a slightly better idea than playing him against a Tongan team who will just run at him all day.
Johnny will need proper reps, and if the Romania game proves to be as much of a stroll as their form guide would suggest, then there may be a case for his inclusion on the bench against Tonga.
But even at 38 years of age and after 113 caps, there remains a lot riding on Ireland’s captain.
The magic and the madness all gets underway a night beforehand, of course, as hosts France begin their campaign against the side who they recently replaced as tournament favourites.
At full complement, you wouldn’t bet against France beating New Zealand — but Cyril Baille, Paul Willemse, Romain Ntamack and Jonathan Danty are all huge players for Les Bleus and their respective absences change the complexion of this game slightly.
Ntmack, in particular, is absolutely crucial. With past French teams, you were never sure as to which half-back pairing you were going to get whereas, under Fabien Galthié, Ntamack has been an anchor outside Antoine Dupont, and much of France’s growth has been predicated upon their consistency as a pairing.
There’s virtually no drop-off in talent to Matthieu Jalibert, who is an exceptional footballer. The concern is simply one of test-match experience: it’s one thing to play for your club in the Top 14, and it’s another thing entirely to take the reins for your country in a home quarter-final in front of the whole world.
France still boast enough freak athletes that they’re a juggernaut of a team, particularly at home in a tournament opener.
New Zealand though, are arguably in an even more enviable position. Have we ever seen an All Blacks team going into a World Cup at which their chances of success have been downplayed to this extent?
People are very quick to forget form. New Zealand lost one game to South Africa. They were down to 14 men for more than half of that game. They were playing with 13 for a lot of it. The All Blacks got thrashed and now, ‘South Africa are back.’
Cast your eyes back to the last World Cup and the bigger picture around it. In the middle of that World Cup cycle, South Africa got absolutely hosed by the All Blacks, 57-0. It served as a serious kick up the ass, and we know what happened next (although we often forget that South Africa were also convincingly beaten by New Zealand in the pool stage on their way to glory in Japan).
Granted, it was a tighter turnaround to the World Cup when New Zealand were given a similar reckoning by Ireland last summer, but until a particularly bad day at Twickenham last Friday week, all evidence suggested that virtually every aspect of their game had improved in the last year.
Don’t get me wrong: the current crop is not like the New Zealand teams of old. Their aura of invincibility is long gone. Anyone who plays them now has a real pop off them. But at the same time, they’re going to make it out of their pool even if they lose on Friday night. I believe they have the talent to time their run in a similar vein to South Africa four years ago.
I honestly can’t make the call as to who will win Friday’s curtain-raiser. What I can say is that, from Ireland’s perspective, the very worst eventuality would be for New Zealand to beat France and for Ireland to wind up facing scorned hosts in the quarters. That would be the most dangerous fixture of the entire tournament.
I believe Ireland will beat South Africa and Scotland in their pool but, whatever way things shake out, I would 100% prefer to face New Zealand in a quarter-final.
Anyway, people can worry about that when we get there. Ireland’s players won’t.
Who do you think will win Friday’s RWC opener between France and New Zealand? (Odds courtesy of BoyleSports)
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