IRELAND SECOND ROW Donncha O’Callaghan was predictably pleased with the 53-0 win recorded by an Ireland XV against Fiji on Saturday.
The veteran forward played the full 80 minutes of the convincing win at Thomond Park and speaking to 98FM’s Stephen Doyle afterwards, admitted he could find little fault with the performance, considering the home side entered the contest in a no-win situation.
“Happy with it.” He said to open.”(It’s) Very tricky: you get a scoreline like that and everyone says you should not. It’s a day for putting in massive performances and I think the guys did that across the board.”
Though the victory came in a non-Test situation and so does not arrest Ireland’s five-game losing run, the Munster man admitted that the squad was badly in need of a ‘W’:
“It was good to get a win like that. We needed it. We needed it. We’ve been too long on the end of losses and they hang over you like a bit of a cloud so we needed to shake it off.”
Less than an hour after the full-time whistle, O’Callaghan revealed that the result was “parked” and team focus had already shifted to the much more difficult prospect of an Argentina side going from strength to strength after an inaugural season in the Rugby Championship.
However, while Fiji offered little, O’Callaghan expressed the most pleasure in talking about Ireland’s clean sheet – the first time since the World Cup that an Irish team has not conceded a try and the first time since 2009 that an Irish team (then the Wolfhounds v Argentina) managed to keep a team scoreless.
“That’s a bit of goal-line pride and that’s invaluable; not to let them across our line and have pride in your defence.” O’Callaghan said. ”We’ll go on about our attacking and our tries but that’s what will please our coaches most – that we kept our goal-line clean. That’s a really important thing to bring into next week.”
Next week bring the Pumas and if their confidence is dented by the chastening against France in Lille, then Ireland’s should be on the up.
O’Callaghan called it “a joy” to play with stars of the future with “a buzz of youth” like Iain Henderson, Luke Marshall and Paddy Jackson at the weekend. And he feels the performances should make competition for places a little more interesting than usual this week.
“It’s about confidence. When everyone is a bit more confident there’s better training as a result. There are guys that will feel that they should be in the team for next weekend and it will lead to competitive training sessions. It pushes everyone on. It’s great.”
