Eddie’s unfancied Eagles ready to rock Ireland’s World

EDDIE O’SULLIVAN has warned Ireland his US Eagles will “throw the kitchen sink” at them when his current and former charges meet in the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand.

Talking about the USA v Ireland clash on September 11, he said: “Certainly going to a World Cup and playing Ireland will be very weird but having said that, it’s not really about me, it’s about the American players.

“A lot of these guys who go to the World Cup will be amateur players and they will be putting their lives on hold for three or four years to try to get to the World Cup.”

Speaking on yesterday’s ‘Sport At 7’ programme on RTÉ radio, the former Ireland coach also admitted that the fact the game falls on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America in 2001 will be a factor in how the US players approach the game. He said: “There will be a lot of emotion. The tricky part for me is to contain their emotions so they go out and play the best game they can play.”

O’Sullivan says his goal when the Eagles face Ireland is to try to make life as difficult as possible for them.

“Ireland would be expected to beat the US on any day. What we will do is go into the game and throw the kitchen sink at Ireland. You never know, if you get into them early,” he said. “We (Ireland) found that out at the last World Cup, when a team like Georgia gets into you anything can happen. That is the ambition of the US: to make Ireland as uncomfortable as possible.”

O’Sullivan also talked of his regret surrounding the 2007 World Cup campaign where his Ireland side came in for a barrage of negative criticism after a run that saw them struggle against unfancied Georgia and Namibia and lose to both France and Argentina as they failed to get out of their group.

The Cork-born coach admits that much of that criticism was warranted.

He said: “I think the criticism — or the vast majority of it — was reasonable. We were playing way below par. We were a shadow of the team that performed in the Six Nations in 2007 when we were within a whisker of the Grand Slam.

“The plan was to go to the World Cup and replicate that form and there is no question or doubt that if we had replicated it we would have been serious contenders.’

According to O’Sullivan, some of the Ireland players lost confidence and became “panicky” during the tournament, while a glut of rumours that circulated about trouble in the Irish camp also took their toll.

He said: “The confidence went a bit, guys got a bit panicky and there was a lot of criticism.

“The thing that people don’t talk about much any more but that was a factor is that there was this crazy rumour mill around the camp that there was carnage going on which was later proven not to be the case.

“At the time that was the currency of exchange in the media. It definitely got to the team.

“It was basically a disaster of monumental proportions.”

With America’s participation in the upcoming World Cup barely registering back in the States, O’Sullivan will be able to send out his team this time round with nothing to lose, in a group that also includes Australia, Italy and Russia.