O’Connell glad to be back in the engine room
Comebacks were attempted, with Young Munster, with Munster A, progress looked good, then would come another setback. Finally, however, and thankfully for Munster and Irish rugby fans, thankfully also for himself, it all came good for Paul and in the final few weeks of the Six Nations, he played a full part, has now played himself back to full match fitness.
“The body is fine,” he reported this week, at the launch of the three-day Anthony Foley Testimonial weekend at the end of May; “Four 80-minute games in a row now in the last few weeks, it’s been great to get through that. Feels good, hopefully it will continue.”
The third of those games was the final game of the Six-Nations, against England in Twickenham; unusually, given his consistency in the green jersey since his debut against Wales in 2002, O’Connell suffered widespread criticism for his performance in the England loss. In typical fashion, he makes no attempt at excuses.
“I got caught for some penalties which you just can’t do; I suppose some of them were unlucky but they were still penalties. That’s a vital part of the game and it’s normally one of the better parts of my game. The criticism doesn’t bother me, I’d have been unhappy myself. A penalty in rugby is just so debilitating; it’s either three points conceded or else it’s field position.”
For a couple of those penalties, and as happened to Ireland captain Ronan O’Gara also very early on in the match, O’Connell found him isolated after a good charge, was then pinged for holding onto the ball after the tackle. In such situations, that temptation is always there.
“It is, when you feel you’re going to turn it over you hold on for that split second too long, hoping the cavalry is going to arrive. Sometimes they don’t and in that situation you’re better off leaving it off, let them have the turnover rather than the penalty; at least if they kick it out you have the lineout, they don’t.”
That’s one of the prerequisites for improvement, individually or as a team — cold-blooded self-examination, equally cold-blooded self-criticism. Even after last weekend’s fine win over Ulster in Musgrave Park, a bonus-point six-try demolition of a side that had been flying under new coach Matt Williams, O’Connell found room for improvement. “It was a good win but you wouldn’t have thought so at the video session; our rucking was poor, our ball retention was poor — I think we turned the ball over 23 times, far too many. Instead of doing a speed session on Tuesday afternoon on a lovely track indoors we were back out in the muck, rucking for nearly an hour in the rain. Hopefully we can get that right, keep things going.”
A big test awaits Paul and his fellow-forwards at the Sportsgrounds in Galway this evening. When it comes to financial backing from the IRFU Connacht are the poor relations of the four provinces, thus don’t have the big-name panels of most clubs they come up against, including Munster. Michael Bradley has them well organised, however, in defence especially, a solid set of forwards, and they are notoriously difficult to beat at home.
“They are,” Paul agrees, “Conditions can be tough in the Sportsground, you’re almost guaranteed a wind. That’s the way it is, a good tough game, good build-up to Gloucester. These games against the likes of Ulster and Connacht are good games, tough, high-intensity, and you need a lot of discipline, all of which applies at the top level of European Cup games as well.” Speaking of which, have thoughts started to turn to Heineken Cup yet, that quarter-final next weekend against Gloucester?
“No, we’re just thinking about ourselves at the moment. We’ve been away for so long, we need to get ourselves right before we start looking at anyone else. That’s one thing with Munster, we can beat ourselves at times, and that’s the worst kind of loss. You can accept being beaten by a better team but when you beat yourself, that can eat you up inside. The most important thing for us now is to get ourselves right. We’ll review Connacht this week, get ourselves right for that before we even consider Gloucester.”
As for the impending departure of Anthony Foley to the Munster playing setup, the outstanding number eight having announced his retirement at the end of this season, massive loss, says the man who succeeded him as Munster captain. “Anthony is one of those guys who always says the right thing at the time; everything comes naturally to him. He’s very knowledgeable, speaks his mind, doesn’t waste words which is probably why his words carry so much weight, with the young guys especially. His big thing always was that he did his basics right in all his games, in terms of his position he was a big basics man and for young guys coming into the team that was something to aspire to, we all made sure our basics were right first and foremost. That has had a great effect on the Munster team, on the Munster attitude to playing rugby — get the basics right, play your role. Something he always said before games, ‘Know your job, do your job,’ and that has become a kind of mantra for us. Get yourself right first and foremost.
“He’s still in unbelievable condition. He doesn’t look like a thoroughbred but you’d be surprised how fit he is. We did testing — all sounds very scientific — where you get your lactic acid tested before training and tested again after training. The power athletes, guys like Wally and those, the readings tend to go up, which can hinder your performance — Axel’s actually didn’t change at all. He’s able to keep going, non-stop, he’s really, really fit. Some of that is down to Declan’s management as well, you saw how Anthony performed when he came back against Llanelli, in really bad conditions — he led from the front that night.
“There’s still a lot of rugby to be played, I’m sure Anthony will be heavily involved for the next few months.”
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