Wallace: We can’t wait to unleash O’Connell again

DAVID WALLACE has revealed that the very possibility of Paul O’Connell being available to play a part in the conclusion to Munster’s season has provided the entire squad with a massive boost.

With his form making him one of the best Irish performers so far this season, Wallace is a pivotal figure in the Reds’ set-up but O’Connell is a talismanic figure for province and country, amongst the players just as much as the supporters.

That was confirmed by Andrew Trimble’s almost reverential description of the lock’s pre-match speech before Ireland beat England in the Six Nations. While Wallace isn’t ever going to go down that route, given that he’s been around longer and is older than O’Connell, his quiet acknowledgment of what it would mean to have his long-time colleague around if Munster were to reach the finals of the Amlin Challenge Cup and Magners League is telling nonetheless.

“Hopefully he can be back playing at the end of the season,” he said in Dublin yesterday, where he launched the Pedigree Adoption Drive.

“It was a bit up in the air really as to how he was going to get on because it looked pretty bad.

“He seems to be positive enough and is back doing a bit of training now. You’d have to talk to himself and the physios as to what his schedule is and whether he’ll make it back or not but it seems positive.

“Nobody knew really (how bad it was). He went for a scan but it was still too early to tell and that’s why he went for another scan 10 days later. It looked very painful. I’ve had ankle injuries and they are very painful but hopefully it was limited to the ankle and didn’t go any higher. It would be great to have him because there’s a lot to play for yet.” His own brilliant form has been amongst the constants for both Munster and Ireland, even when club and country have been having their wobbles. Given what he’s done and continues to do, it’s hard to believe he is two months shy of his 35th birthday. That’s why people were placing a question mark next to his name at the beginning of the season.

“I suppose there was maybe a little more pressure on me going into it. I always try to back myself personally anyway. Coming off the back of it I was happy but it’s trying to maintain it and keep it going until the end of the season, get a break and then get back at it.”

Getting back into it fairly quickly will be critical because the little matter of a World Cup coming up. For Wallace and the other survivors from 2007, redemption will be a massive factor.

“In terms of time it’s not that far away but in terms of games and preparing for it, it seems a lifetime away because we have these big games coming up at the end of the season, a bit of time off to get away from the game and then you’re into the pre-season; build up to prepare yourself physically and then those four hard games in the autumn.

“That’s a lot of things that happen before we even get to the World Cup.

“The mood after the England game is positive and it’s great that we finished with a win in the Six Nations because if we didn’t, we would have won two games out of the five and that would have been bad for us confidence-wise going into the World Cup.

“Obviously Ireland were very disappointing at the last World Cup, we didn’t click for one reason or another and I still haven’t really figured out why.

“I think that it will hopefully be a motivating factor because it does stick in your craw; you’re on the biggest stage and you just didn’t perform.”