AHEAD OF SUNDAY’S make-or-break meeting with Scotland, Peter O’Mahony says the leadership of Donncha O’Callaghan will be crucial to Ireland’s chances.
Declan Kidney had to pick his team without the inspirational Paul O’Connell and his replacement Mike McCarthy for the Six Nations encounter.
And with many new faces dotted around the park, O’Mahony’s Munster team-mate will inflate Ireland’s experience by 92 caps.
Up against a powerful Scotland pack boasting Richie Gray and Jim Hamilton in the second row, the line-out will be an even more important area to disrupt than usual.
“They’ve endless amounts of line-out jumpers there. We’ll have to be right on our game to get stuck in.” O’Mahony said, adding that Donnacha Ryan’s familiar partner will bring his hard-working ethos into the frame:
“He’s a great voice, a great level head and he leads by his example, leads by his work on the pitch. And that happens in training (too), it’s not just the 80 minutes, it’s every week in training or the gym. He’s a good fella for young lads to look up to and get in and put their head down behind him.
“He’s very upbeat all the time. He’s a great character constantly messing and joking, but when it comes to stepping over the whitewash in training, the gym or the pitch, I don’t think you could meet anyone more serious. He’s bi-polar, you could say.”
At 23, O’Mahony can still be described as a ‘young lad’ himself. But the squad demographics are changing quickly. From playing a bit-part at openside in last year’s Six Nations, O’Mahony has managed to make the blindside his own in 2013. Even if he neither wants to admit as much, or take himself out of contention for the other back-row places.
“It’s lovely to get a run of games at six.” He says with the stare of a serious competitor. “But I still wouldn’t be nailing myself down to six.
“At the end of the day, you’re just over the moon when your name is called out on a starting 15 for Ireland, but I won’t be nailing down to any position and when you do get nailed down it’s probably the easy work done.
“They 80 minutes at the weekend is where the work starts.”
