‘Now we have to put it all together’

DECLAN KIDNEY’S side has taken longer than expected to get up to speed for the Rugby World Cup and there was more frustration yesterday when the first leg of the team’s mammoth 35-hour trip to New Zealand was delayed out of Dublin Airport.

The travelling party will pass through London Heathrow, Dubai and Sydney before touching down in Queenstown on the south island for a tournament which, for Ireland, has produced far more in the way of pain than gain in the past.

Ireland have faced Tier One nations 17 times in the six previous World Cups and won only twice. Both of those victories, against Wales in 1995 and Argentina in 2003, were by one-point margins. A stark statistic.