O’Connell urges Munster to atone for past defeats
He has also spoken of his worry that he might not have been in contention for Saturday’s Heineken Cup quarter final against Gloucester, and his frustration of having to watch from the stands as Munster negotiated their way through the “Pool of Death”.
After suffering a crippling back injury on his return from the World Cup, the totem second row forward has courageously worked his way into Munster’s Heineken Cup squad, terming the build-up to the winner-takes-all European Cup tie at Kingsholm as the best time to be a Munster player.
However, O’Connell who believes that this is Munster’s strongest ever squad, says Munster must atone for the two heavy defeats inflicted on the Reds during Alan Gaffney’s reign as head coach. He also hopes the lessons learnt and the experience gained from previous European missions abroad will stand to them in the Kinsgholm cauldron.
“We’ll have to try to make previous visits irrelevant by winning on Saturday,” he said at the team’s base in UL yesterday. “We’ll be going over there knowing how tough it is. I suppose in one way, it’s a bad thing to have lost there twice, but in another way it makes you respect the fixture so much. It’s a very similar place to Thomond Park. It’s an intimidating place to play and our experience over there is a good thing. Hopefully our experience can bring us through.”
After the highs of a memorable autumn and Six Nations series with Ireland in 2007, the feelgood factor was punctured by the province’s limp exit to Llanelli at this stage last season. It may be a long time ago in a players’ mind, but O’Connell and company are using that defeat as a motivating factor.
“It will always be at the back of our minds,” says O’Connell. “We didn’t really perform when we went over there. It was very tough. I think we’ll be looking to put that right and put in a Munster-type performance.”
The back injury he suffered after returning from the World Cup curtailed his involvement in Munster’s rollercoaster journey through the pool stages. But, at the back of his mind, he set this quarter final tie as one of his target matches on his return.
“I wanted to make sure I was available for this game,” O’Connell stressed. “It was a very frustrating time. It was a small enough injury but it kept dragging out. It was supposed to be two to three weeks and kept dragging out.
“You’d nearly be happier if you had a serious injury and you had 10 weeks. Then you can start planning things. But, when you’ve a little niggle, it can get very frustrating.”
He added: “I think after the disappointment of the World Cup not being able to go hell for leather into training and into matches was a frustrating time, and then to watch the guys in the half-new Thomond Park playing so well it is tough.
“But that’s part of it. That’s why we’ve such a string squad and in fairness to Declan he has quietly assembled a very good squad and it has paid dividends for us.”
Since his return to the international fold against Wales and then England, O’Connell’s form is on an upward curve as the Ulster result testified. Munster appear to be on a high too, but one of Ireland’s most competitive sportsmen, who doesn’t shy away from cold analysis, is inclined to disagree.
“There are a lot of things we need to improve on: when we looked at the Ulster game, I can’t see us scoring some of the tries we scored that day in a Heineken Cup match. Some of the scores were a small bit soft. We turned over the ball an awful lot, especially after making breaks. Once we did the damage and made the break, the main thing was to retain the ball. The score can happen in the phase after that. We had to work a lot on that.
“Last week in the conditions we got frustrated. You’ve got to accept that there will be mistakes. But the team that reacts to mistakes like that is the team that normally wins or does well.”
O’Connell has been at the centre of some epic away wins for Munster in the past and is thankful for every second he gets in a red shirt in European rugby’s biggest days.
“Normally these weeks are special in the Munster camp and we do get into a very good frame of mind.
“These are always the biggest weekends of the year, It’s always the best part of the year after Christmas and after the Six Nations when you’re still in the European Cup. It’s a massive game, a massive occasion, big support travelling and a lot of hullabaloo about the game around Limerick.
“These are the best times of the year to be a Munster player, to be on the starting XV.”
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