HEADING INTO HIS fourth World Cup, Rory Best carries a wealth of big tournament experience. But also a bounty of lessons, cautionary tales and vigilance for potential pitfalls both shallow and deep.
As captain of Ireland since Paul O’Connell’s career ended in hamstring agony in the 2015 quarter-final, Best has led his country to some astounding feats.
His captaincy has featured a first ever win over New Zealand, and a second. A win in South Africa, a tour win in Australia (albeit a success he missed through injury) and a Grand Slam amid a 12-Test winning run.
And yet, he won’t retire content with his achievements as Ireland skipper unless he can steer this squad through Japan without regret. That does not necessarily mean lifting the William Webb Ellis, but if Ireland perform to their potential then Best will accept whatever fate awaits.
During a stool-top Q&A with Darren Cave, the 36 going on 37-year-old touched on some of the experience gained and lessons learned from the nightmare of 2007 to the bright beginnings and crushing disappointments of 2011 and 2015. They are scars he never expects to shake off, but making more history and advancing to the final four would surely be a balm.
“Most of the questions (here) were about ‘07, ‘11 and ‘15, and the learnings and regrets.
“Well, they are regrets. I’ll carry those. You could ask me in 40 years and I could give you the exact same answer because, when you’re at this level, those regrets will stay with you forever and that is ultimately what I don’t want.
“You don’t want the boys to be doing press conferences during the Six Nations and they’re going, ‘Yeah, the learnings from ’19 are…’
“I think we need to stop ‘learnings’ now at World Cups and go, ‘right, how do we throw our best performance?’
“If we throw the best that we have out there and it’s not quite enough for whatever reason at least you can go, ‘you know what, that was the best of us, that wasn’t us playing within ourselves, that wasn’t us holding something back. That was the best of us and it wasn’t quite good enough.’
“Or, ‘that was good enough to do what we wanted to do’”.
Best is undoubtedly chastened by Ireland’s form since hitting a veritable mountain top with the November win over New Zealand. He laments that an element of complacency entered the collective mindset as they stood on the precipice of taking over the world number one spot. Setting that straight, returning to an underlying drive for consistency that made Ireland consistently excellent, brings Best’s sights squarely on Scotland on World Cup opening weekend.
“You try to avoid it, but you (hear) people saying: we peaked in ‘18, that we did this, that and the other, or we’re predictable or whatever… if we can get ourselves, in the next four games, into a position where we can explode into the tournament on the 22nd, I think that will speak volumes about the job the coaches have done, but also the job this leadership group has done.
“That is the big thing, just to make sure that we’re in the best possible place. Because, like for me, I’ll never get another opportunity.”
The younger men in Schmidt’s camp could get another shot at a World Cup in 2023 or beyond, or perhaps they won’t. Nothing is guaranteed in a sport as punishing as rugby.
Every second counts.
“It’s that hurt that drives you forward,” Best adds of his past World Cup experiences.
“Something that we’ve talked about is that we seize every opportunity. It might be a window to go and do a bit of catch-pass stuff, or a window to go to the pool and recover a bit better. Every single one of those will add up, when this group of 31 gets to Japan you don’t want to look back and wish you’d done something the first week or the second week because you’re a wee bit off.
“At the minute it’s all about Italy (kick-off 2pm Saturday). That’s when you can make sure the likes of ’07 doesn’t happen, because we need to give the team that plays in each of these summer series games the best opportunity to perform, to create momentum.
“Then we get to the World Cup and go ‘right, this is the World Cup squad and this is us now. We’re into a championship’”.
