Irish pack must at least gain parity

LOOK at it rationally and sensibly and you’d have to say Ireland haven’t a prayer.

Whereas Australia have more or less cruised through their first three World Cup matches, Ireland have been distinctly unimpressive.

They needed the grace of God, and all the angels in heaven to scrape by Argentina last Sunday, having also had to work far harder than the Wallabies to overcome Romania, and Namibia.

Now they take on a full-strength Aussie side absolutely bursting with confidence and self-belief, performing in their own splendid Telstra Dome, and all set to ignite the challenge that will lead on inexorably to a third World Cup. Coach Eddie Jones has so much talent on tap, he has a seven-strong bench you would die for, while world stars like Stirling Mortlock, and Chris Latham can’t make the 22 at all.

In contrast, Eddie O’Sullivan couldn’t consider Alan Quinlan - his side’s man of the match for twenty minutes last Sunday - before injury intervened, and also Victor Costello, who has been so surprisingly influential over the past year or so.

On the face of it, how could anybody seriously give Ireland a chance against such an array of talent in their own backyard. And yet, and yet ... you hang around this group for days on end and you think you see something special, individuals prepared to die for the cause. Yet experienced and shrewd enough to appreciate that passion and desire are no longer near enough to achieve success at the highest levels.

Even more importantly, there is the question of self-belief. All too often in the past, Irish teams have gone out with an inferiority complex, only to realise when it was too late that they were just as good, if not better, than the opposition. But O’Sullivan’s side has won eighteen of its last twenty matches, and even if some of the rival teams were as lowly rated as Georgia and Namibia, others are ranked up there - including Australia. The coach has tried all he knows to get a positive message across, and watching to see if it has struck home will be one of the more fascinating aspects of this latest clash There was a body of thought that O’Sullivan would rest some key players, most notably Keith Wood, who had taken a bit of a battering against the Pumas. But the coach claimed he was never going down that road: “While we’ve said that the quarter-final game next week is the more important, we’ve also said that we would put our best foot forward in every game. We’ve done that. If we did anything less, we’d be capitulating for a game we believe we can win, and a game we have a right to go after.”

The skipper himself concurred: “It’s only when you have genuinely injured players that you go down that road - and we don’t.”

While he hasn’t quite a full deck from which to pick, O’Sullivan has to be pleased that Anthony Foley, who celebrated his 30th birthday yesterday, is fit again to reclaim his place at number eight. Otherwise, replacing Costello would not have been quite so easy. “I think he knows some of the guys he’ll be up against pretty well, so I think it’s a pretty good game for him to go into. He’ll want to prove a point, which is always a good thing,” said O’Sullivan.

As always, the outcome rests on the performance of the pack. At the very least, they need to gain parity with the Wallabies, and I honestly believe they can do that.

Man for man, I see no particular reason why Ireland should worry unduly. Indeed, with an inspirational leader like Wood to show the way, the power of John Hayes, the experience of Foley and Malcolm O’Kelly, and the outstanding and dynamic qualities that Paul O’Connell brings to his play, Ireland could well have the core of a pack to put one over on the Aussies.

I honestly see no reason why not.

The rival back divisions, though, could be a different matter. Eddie Jones does without players of the calibre of Matt Giteau, Lotte Tuqiri, Mortlock, and Latham simply because he believes he can do better with Stephen Larkham, Mat Rogers, Elton Flatley and Matt Burke. If he’s right, and these guys get space ...

It would be a brave man who went for anything other than an Australian success. They should win, and probably will. Deep down, most Irish supporters would probably settle for seeing their men leave the Dome with their heads held high after a quality performance.