Ireland have upped their game and will try their utmost to cross the line

ROY KEANE was mocked by many when he said Ireland could win soccer’s 2002 World Cup.

But they came to realise that Keane might have been onto something as soon as they saw the standard of the teams in the competition he had left behind to return to England. Not that we would have won it, but that Irish side would have gone much further in the competition had it prepared properly and had the self-belief which comes from that.

You need self-belief and confidence in top-class sport if you are to win the matches that count but professional athletes are experienced enough to know that only comes from proper preparation. “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” was Keane’s oft-quoted maxim from the time. How right he was.

Our last rugby World Cup campaign was stifled by a lack of ambition which fed into the preparation, and vice versa. We’d had a couple of good years in the Six Nations — where, finally, we were winning more matches than we were losing — and should have gone into that World Cup tournament with big ambitions. But whereas we should have been aiming at a semi-final place, the focus became not to repeat the experience of four years earlier, when we went out of the competition in the group stages when beaten by Argentina.

The pressure was lifted once that goal had been achieved, although that same pressure not to lose almost became self-defeating. However, a glorious opportunity to beat the hosts, Australia, in the group stage — and clinch a more favourable quarter-final draw — was missed because of a lack of self-belief, clinical control and ambition, and because we had not prepared for the eventuality. We lost by just a point but could, and perhaps should, have won a game that the Australians had never expected to be so close. The squad’s focus was not as it should have been in the wake of that narrow defeat and, the following week, the team was hammered by France in a quarter-final; a sad way for that year’s captain, Keith Wood, to end his career.

Four years on and the Irish squad is full of experienced players, more talented than those of any previous generation and better prepared than anyone who has come before them. Irish players have always had talent to run, kick and pass but the physical conditioning of this generation, and their dedication to proper professional preparation, has lifted them far ahead of the standards ever reached before.

With all of that comes attitude. Famously, the 1991 side — full of players who would have prospered in the professional era — came closest to getting Ireland into the semi-final, leading Australia by five points with just minutes to go in a quarter-final at Lansdowne Road before conceding the winning try and conversion. A lack of organisation and self-belief betrayed them in the closing stage, in contrast with the calm Australians who knew exactly what to do and how to do it.

Of course, only this year the current Irish team lost a big game in much the same circumstances. If Ireland had beaten France at Croke Park, they would have won the Grand Slam and would have gone into this World Cup as European champions. Instead, we conceded a last minute match-winning try. So much, it would seem then, for professionalism and preparation.

Except, the 1991 team went into decline after the Australia defeat whereas this team bounced back to hammer England in its next game, before going on to beat Scotland and Italy. It has learnt from what happened: not panicking when faced with adversity and confident enough to play the right way to get scores.

Gone are the days when Ireland kicked the ball up in the air and chased, in the hope that the opposition would fumble and collapse in the face of mad fury. The days of the one-off success, of hoping that passion would prevail, have disappeared.

The attitude of this Irish rugby team closely resembles those of the most successful GAA teams in the country.

In hurling, for example, Kilkenny and Cork do not rely merely on tradition. Their dominance of the sport this decade has been based on extraordinary preparation and mental discipline. The same can be said about Kerry and Tyrone in Gaelic football, and many others aspire to the levels those teams have set.

As a result, domestic Irish sport has never been healthier, and even the older generations concur. Few demurred when veteran Waterford coach Justin McCarthy recently called this generation of hurlers the best ever. Claims that Kilkenny captain Henry Shefflin is the best ever player have to be taken seriously, although the modern era of professional preparation in amateur sport might have brought the legendary Christy Ring on to an even higher plain. Gaelic football may not be as exciting as played by the great Kerry team of the late 1970s and 1980s but you cannot doubt the dedication of inter-county players in a tougher competition.

The high standards demanded in modern Ireland — and the willingness to work hard to get the rewards — are given expression in our sport. While there are those who never tire of telling us of what we have lost, supposedly because of the Celtic Tiger — and who bemoan an apparent obsession with the spending of material rewards — they are unduly negative and miss the point. This generation works hard for its rewards and deserves the successes which come from that.

The achievements of golfer Padraig Harrington are a perfect example. He is nowhere near the most naturally talented player in the professional game but is ranked in the world’s top 10 and this year, at the age of 35, won his first major tournament, the Open in Britain, even though many had written him off. It was perseverance, practise and, most importantly, a belief he would eventually achieve his goal that brought him through.

The main players in the Irish rugby team have more than a touch of the Roy Keanes about them. They are talking of winning this competition and it is not bravado. They are confident because they are prepared.

That attitude improves their chances in what will be some very difficult games.

Four years ago I interviewed coach Eddie O’Sullivan prior to that World Cup and he said his ambition was to get to the quarter-finals and see what happened from there. He sold himself and his team short. Recently, I talked to him again and finished my interview with a straightforward question: can Ireland win this World Cup? The response was immediate and came in a single word: “Yeah.”

Roy Keane would approve of setting the bar so high. So would many other members of this hard-working and ambitious generation. If the Irish team fails, it won’t be for the want of trying.

The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on 100-102 Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30-7pm. He is also presenting TV3’s Rugby World Cup coverage, starting with France v Argentina this evening.