‘I’ve been likened to Atilla the Hun’

EDDIE O’SULLIVAN admitted last night that he got Ireland’s World Cup preparations wrong — but insisted he had been vindicated in his role as Irish coach by the Genesis Report.

O’Sullivan was speaking publicly for the first time since the commissioning of the expert report into Ireland’s disastrous World Cup in France, and accepted: “I would do things differently if I had it to do all over again. Chiefly, I would start our preparation much earlier. I would shorten the amount of time we spent on fitness and play more matches. What killed us was not being match ready. There was a chance of playing South Africa but that went south and we were left with the games against Scotland and Italy.”

O’Sullivan explained: “I was trying to protect the players from injury but I got the balance wrong, it was my decision and the responsibility rests with me. My plan at the World Cup was to play my strongest team against Namibia and then mix it up against Georgia. Trouble was we played poorly against Namibia and then it was hard to change given the quality of the teams in the pool.”