Irish Examiner view: Club setbacks should fuel Ireland in the Rugby World Cup

Andy Farrell must now turn players' disappointment into a motivational tool to double down for victory

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell can help Leinster players deflated by defeats to focus on the Rugby World Cup. File picture: Brian Lawless/PA 

Devastating and all as the loss to La Rochelle in last Saturday’s Champions Cup final was for the Leinster players involved, the defeat must surely be seen by Ireland coach Andy Farrell as a motivating force for the national side ahead of the Rugby World Cup in September.

Certainly for the elite of Leinster to come away empty-handed for the second year in succession is a bitter pill to swallow after two seasons in which they dominated in both cup and league preliminaries.

However, their loss to Munster in the URC semi-final last week and the capitulation to Ronan O’Gara’s French outfit on Saturday will have left many Leinster souls deflated prior to their coming together with the national team for the World Cup. Some rugby experts now feel that Ireland’s Grand Slam-winning performances in the Six Nations has been diminished by Leinster’s failures.

But for a coach as nuanced and intelligent as Farrell, the disappointment of those players should easily be translated into a motivational tool come the World Cup.

He simply has to convince them that, despite their club setbacks, the collective of the Irish effort in France has only one aim: Let’s go and win something.