Murray Kinsella reports from Wembley
PAUL O’CONNELL ISN’T quite accustomed to a bench role with Ireland, although there’s no doubting his ability to impact or his mindset in supporting the starting team.
The veteran lock belongs out there from the start. When Joe Schmidt informed O’Connell early last week that he would be benching against Romania, there was a brief pause before the Ireland captain responded.
“How long will I get? How many minutes am I getting?”
O’Connell is in excellent nick and hungry to be on the pitch. It’s for his own good that he was held back yesterday, limited to a cameo in front of a magnificent crowd in Wembley. Ireland will get the rewards in the weeks to come.
The 35-year-old is expected to return to the XV against Italy next Sunday at Olympic Park, leading from the off again. With Romania and Canada comfortably taken care of, Ireland will need to move up a gear.
There’s probably a bit of a mind-shift now over the next two weeks, playing two Six Nations teams in those two weeks, “said O’Connell post-match at Wembley yesterday.
“(They’re) teams who know us very well and teams we know very well.
“We’ve had very close games with France in the last two years and have been lucky enough to beat them. We had a very close game with Italy in Rome and we were lucky enough to beat them as well. It’s two massive games ahead now.”
O’Connell returns for Ireland, but the Italians will also welcome back their own talisman. Sergio Parisse should be fit again after missing the two opening games of the Azzurri’s World Cup campaign with a calf problem.
“Parisse makes a massive difference for them, he’s obviously a world-class player, a former World Player of the Year,” said O’Connell.
A lot of their defensive lineouts run around him, and a lot of their attacking lineouts run around him. We talked today about having 100% set-piece, it’s going to be a lot harder to do that with him in the lineout next weekend.
“Also, around the field he can produce that something different that puts you under pressure that maybe the teams in the last two weeks haven’t had. So he’ll be an incredible player for them.”
Parisse would probably say much the same.
