Drico: Fight for places begins now

IRELAND captain Brian O’Driscoll spoke of the relief for many players at winning a place in the World Cup squad but insisted there was still plenty to prove before the opening game against the USA on September 11.

O’Driscoll and many others in the 30 named yesterday by head coach Declan Kidney will have never doubted that their places in the party leaving for New Zealand next Tuesday were under threat yet with one warm-up game still ahead of them, against England in Dublin on Saturday, the captain said places in the starting side for the Pool C opener against Eddie O’Sullivan’s Eagles in New Plymouth 20 days from now were the new focus for the chosen few.

“There’s definitely a big relief when the squad is announced, definitely,” O’Driscoll said yesterday. “There would have been certain guys who were fairly confident they were in the squad but there would have been quite a few still who would have enjoyed hearing their names read out...that’s one thing you’ll ever get bored of.

“The great thing now is that guys are in and there’s a comfort factor to that but that brings the next stage which is the fight for places and knowing the mentality of the squad guys won’t be content with just getting on the plane and travelling down there and being a squad member. They’ll want to get into the starting team.”

O’Driscoll, preparing for his fourth Rugby World Cup campaign, referred to the surprise omission of fellow backs Tomás O’Leary and Luke Fitzgerald as a testament of the squad that was travelling to New Zealand.

“I think today there was huge excitement when the squad was announced. The realisation sets in that this was the party that’s going to travel. I think you look at the calibre of players that was left out and that makes it even more exciting, that a couple of guys who have won Grand Slams haven’t made it in.

“I just think that’s a big tribute to the staff for trying to develop that squad mentality and we’ve got a much stronger squad from one to 30 and hopefully they’ll be called upon at different times throughout the World Cup. I wouldn’t fear anyone going in and replacing anyone else because of the standard of that 30.”

Reaching the final 30, though, had made for a stressful time for both players and coaches alike, and Kidney said he understood the mindsets of both young and older players alike in coming to terms with inclusion or omission.

“You are in the latter section of your career, it’s now or not at all and there’s a finite sense to that, the stress levels last weeks,” Kidney said. “Something I said to the players earlier, the way they conducted themselves over the last week or 10 days it can’t have been easy for them.

“The older guys would see it as now or never, the younger guys can be so full of confidence they can say well it’s now. I didn’t go to anyone and say, look you will get your chance in four years, they wouldn’t appreciate that.”

And just as the players experienced relief at the end of the process, so too did Kidney, although he too spoke of moving onto the next phase in the process.

“I suppose the whole World Cup, I was luckily enough to have some experience of it eight years ago. You learned that there’s different steps and that we’re probably at step two now. Step one was getting up to the first (warm-up) match, to play Scotland.

“Now the squad is announced we have the last of our five games coming up now and that’ll bring us to the conclusion of that phase and then we’ll be into the next phase which is the pool stages. And you’re working hard then to make sure you’re in the fourth and final stage.”