‘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.

“That shows how difficult these championships are,” said the former Munster coach.

The losses against Scotland, France (twice) and England haven’t exactly raised hopes that such a low percentage can be bumped up in the next month but Kidney stood by the decision to commit to a heavy workload so early in the season.

Lessons had been learned, he stressed. Lessons that will be used in training sessions, team meetings and DVD reviews between now and the first pool encounter against Eddie O’Sullivan’s Eagles on September 11.

There will be no dramatic change of gameplan, nor of tactics. The one alteration Kidney alluded to was the need to get their heads around the vagaries of knock-out cup rugby which is something that escaped the panel in 2007.

There was no shortage of enquiries about that debacle, most of which were batted away as irrelevant by Kidney and captain Brian O’Driscoll, but the legacy of France four years ago has extended to matters off the pitch as well.

Ireland spent the vast majority of that event housed in a hotel based in an industrial estate miles outside of Bordeaux and the boredom, allied to the worsening situation on the field, added up to an utterly forgettable experience for all.

There will be greater variety this time around. Queenstown, their first stop, is regarded as something of an adventure capital and O’Driscoll already has some boxes to tick for the first port of call should time allow.

“Lads are entitled to do what they want to do on their days off but one of the South African lads at Leinster said that the best burger in the world is the Fergburger in Queenstown and when you hear that from a South African you know you have to try that out. We move around a lot (in New Zealand), so even if there is a place where we aren’t having the greatest of times we are only going to be there for three or four days. There is a great excitement.”

Kidney confirmed the players would be treated like adults. There will be no curfews, no list of activities, events, areas and times that are off-limits as has ben the case for some teams from around the world at similar events in the past.

Happy players off the field make for happy players on it but there has been a distinct lack of smiles to be seen around the Irish camp on match days in recent weeks and that suggestion provoked an interesting response from O’Driscoll.

“Listen, pre-season games are very different to World Cups. People just expect you to pick up after having a four-week holiday and a pre-season and it doesn’t happen like that. You have to play your way into getting form. Very rarely do you see any team in the world in their first match together playing brilliant rugby. You don’t see it with the All Blacks, Australia, South Africa, England, Wales or with us. You never see it. Teams have to build things and we have been doing that in parts and in segments the last four games. Now we have to put it all together into one piece.”