PETER O’MAHONY ENTERS the media room at the IRFU’s high performance centre and settles into a chair. He’s here to help launch Ireland’s new jersey for the Rugby World Cup, but before we look forward, there’s still plenty of ground to cover from the end of last season.
It’s now been seven weeks since O’Mahony and Keith Earls lifted the URC trophy in Cape Town, waiting the Munster’s long, long wait for silverware. The backrower admits it’s been nice for the Munster contingent to come back into Ireland camp as champions, but on a personal level, the overriding feeling has been a release of pressure.
“I’ve been lucky to win a handful of things with Ireland,” O’Mahony says. “It was kind of more relief than elation (to win with Munster). I’ve been at it for a long time, and thinking it wasn’t going to happen to be honest with you, because you’re at it so long and it’s a difficult thing to do now, and it’s probably an even harder competition these days with the way it’s structured.
“After I came back from the Six Nations, the run-in that we ended up with, it was a hard way to go about it, away from home for seven or eight weeks and spending a month or whatever in South Africa, it was a difficult way to do it, but happy days.
“I was delighted for a lot of the older fellas who’ve been at it for a long time, Stephen Archer, Murr (Conor Murray), Earlsy, I’m leaving out a few guys now, but I’m even more chuffed for the younger group who’ve kicked on, and I think it will give them a great bit between their teeth for the next few years and a great hunger.
“I know hunger is the best sauce but when you get your teeth into once, you want more of it, and I think that group have had a great experience now. When there’s a group of us that leave over the next few years, they’ll have a real appetite for it and I was delighted for them.”
O’Mahony is clearly enthused by the emerging talent coming through at Munster and the same goes for Ireland, where Andy Farrell has encouraged young players to have a voice and express themselves in camp.
“I tell you what, they’re incredibly inquisitive and hungry to learn,” O’Mahony continues.
“I think Andy has kind of bred that into the environment as well, but if they have something they’ll come to you, and they’re hungry for information.
“It’s great, because obviously the experienced guys have gone through a lot and made a lot of mistakes, and hopefully, by doing so you can pass it on so they don’t have to make the same amount of mistakes that we did. Talking through experiences or stadiums we’ve been at, or even down to our plays and what we feel works, and they’ll always come and ask and they’re hungry for information.”
They’ve also been quick to outline their ambitions for the upcoming World Cup. Last week, Hugo Keenan – who is set for his first taste of a Rugby World Cup – stressed the goal is to go all the way. Farrell has made as much clear himself, and O’Mahony sees it as a good thing that the group are being open about their desire to reach the promised land in France.
“I doubt you go into any team that is going to compete in the World Cup and someone is going to tell you you want to come fourth. That’s what you have to compete with, everyone is in the same position training their holes off and working as hard as they can.
“You’re going to come up against the best version of every country you play in the tournament. Everyone has ambitions to win it outright, everyone goes to France wanting to win it. It’s a different animal going and doing it, that’s what we’re training to do at the moment, training in environments that are difficult, testing the limits of ourselves.
“Obviously we have a huge amount of experiences in the last two years and beyond in different scenarios we have gone through that we will all fall back on at different times.
You have got to be ambitious and this group and coaching staff are ambitious. We certainly won’t shy away from that.”
Ireland look well-placed to do something special in France, with the Grand Slam success earlier this year capping a stunning 2022-23 season in which they won 10 of their 11 Test fixtures. O’Mahony is confident there is even more to come.
“You look back on performances, even in the Six Nations, England, go back to the last 20 minutes in France, Australia in the November series, we had to dig in there, we didn’t really perform well but we dug in and we won those games.
“There is plenty to go in our game. That’s the beauty of it. You talk about 2 or 3%, there is 10, 15 or 20% for us to go. That gives you a great encouragement that we are going ok, but when they show you pictures on the screens, here is an opportunity, here is an opportunity you are thinking ‘great’. You want to get stuck into training and see how much we can get better and how good we can really be.”
The squad are currently working away out in Abbotstown ahead of the August warm-up games against Italy, England and Samoa, and so far, all the reports coming back have been positive, with Farrell and his coaching staff taking on player feedback throughout the year and using that to inform the training plan in a bid to avoid a repeat of 2019, where a fatigued looking Ireland side where thrashed at Twickenham before flying to Japan.
“I think the staff have huge experience under their belts. A few of them were there (in 2019), and Andy was our defensive coach and was there for the whole thing.
It’s already been hugely different. The leadership group were asked for their opinion. There was lots of stuff thrown out there.
“When you are in it the only thing for you to do is to commit. That’s what we have got to do. The work we have gone through, S&C and video guys, the coaches, to backroom staff, I’d probably say they have been putting in together for two or three years, at this to get us right for this.
“From our point of view all you have to do is to commit to the whole thing, and have a huge amount of trust with the amount of work that’s gone in already.”
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