We need belief, says Stringer

NOT a single member of the 10,000-plus Irish people who bit their fingernails to the bone and sat on the edge of their seats in the Adelaide Oval last Sunday will fail to recall one particularly heart-stopping moment in the second half.

Ireland were clinging on to a point lead at the time when Gonzalo Quesada, the Pumas number 10, kicked for the left-hand corner. It was one of the best moments of an otherwise miserable afternoon for Quesada and the ball just beat the covering Peter Stringer and crossed the touchline a couple of metres from the Irish try line. What happened next was a seminal moment in this remarkably tight contest. The irrepressible Irish scrum-half takes up the story.

“The ball bounced once and I grabbed it immediately before any ball boy could get near it,” Stringer recalls. “I turned quickly and saw Humps (David Humphreys) directly across from me in a straight line. I felt the better option was to give it to Humps because we were winning lineout ball and I wanted to get the play away from our line. Humps was facing me and I knew he was ready for it.

“If he had been facing another direction, I obviously wouldn’t have done it. He was a good distance away and so had a favourable angle for a kick to touch. I would do it again. If you get your hands quickly on the ball, it’s definitely on.”

The speed of thought and the self-confidence implicit in taking on that high-risk strategy demonstrates just how far Peter Stringer has come and the experience he has gained since winning the first of his 39 caps against Scotland as recently as 2000. “It’s one game at a time and Australia is simply the next big one and we are going to be very positive,” he asserted. “If we settle for second best, it’s obviously going to affect us later on. We must treat it like the full-on international that it is. We’re going out to win, looking to beat one of the best teams in the world. Winning the last day has taken some of the pressure off us having to qualify for the quarter-finals. We know we’re there now, but we still want to go out and keep winning and building on our performances. On Saturday, with the roof closed, conditions won’t be a problem. Hopefully, we will stick to our game plan and if we don’t, we’re not doing ourselves any favours going into the following week.

“Because both teams have qualified for the quarter-finals, it might seem like a nothing match to some people but it’s a massive game for us. We can’t take a step back and if we do, God only knows what will happen. In the last couple of seasons, we have played the top teams in the world on a consistent basis. Maybe there were times when we were in awe of them for a short while before realising we were in those games with a chance of winning.

“We came close to beating them on a few occasions and now we must realise we’re as good as these guys when we play to the best of our ability. We’re too long watching them on TV and being in awe of them. We’ve played Australia and beaten them. The guys in the squad know that and it’s given them confidence. That’s what we need on Saturday, the belief that we can do it.”

Peter’s opposite number is, of course, Australian captain George Gregan, the most capped scrum-half in the game with 92 to his credit.

The score in match results right now is one each and obviously, the latest battle between this richly talented pair will again be crucial.

“Being the captain, he is quite vocal and you do hear him,” says Stringer. “He’s a good leader. A lot goes through 9 and 10 for Australia, so we will have to watch them closely around the rucks. He reads the game very well and his main strength is in getting his forwards space when running at defenders. They did it well against us in Perth during the summer which opened it up for those out wide where they are lethal.”

Whereas Stringer hasn’t had a serious rival for the number nine jersey in five seasons, he has looked on as the battle waged between David Humphreys and Ronan O’Gara for the job as his half-back partner. Typical of his pragmatic view on life, Stringer has his own way of dealing with the situation.

“First of all, I’m worrying about my own game, my passing and what I need to do and no matter who is playing outside me, when a team is picked on a Tuesday, I have four or five days to practice with him,” he reasons. “They are both very good players and very good at what they do. They are different players. My role changes depending on which of them plays.”