Paulie’s words of wisdom to outfox Azzurri
O’Connell famously learned to count in Afrikaans to unravel South Africa’s calls by Victor Matfield in November 2009, when Ireland beat the Springboks 15-10 at Croke Park.
And now, with the help of Ireland’s forwards coach Gert Smal, an Italian-speaking South African, he is brushing up his Italiano ahead of the winner takes all World Cup Pool C clash with the Azzurri in Dunedin.
“He’s been talking to Gert because Gert can speak Italian,” O’Callaghan said. “He’s been looking into it. He’s been keeping a keen ear on that stuff.
“Paulie’s like that though; he’d be getting ref links etc. He’ll do so much work on it (lineout) which can be a bit of a disaster because he expects everyone else to put in the same amount of work, so every call gets changed on its head.
“It’s grand for Paul when he’s making the calls and you’ve time to think about it. But when you’ve only a split second to react and you don’t have time to think about it; if you don’t, you end up getting the head bit off you.
“As always he’s been doing a savage amount of work, and really been on top of things.”
The lineout may be Ireland’s domain but Italy coach Nick Mallett yesterday stepped up his baiting of the Ireland scrum by saying their dominance of Australia’s pack was overrated.
South African Mallett, who is being replaced after the World Cup by Perpignan head coach Jacques Brunel, is intent on doing all he can to send the Azzurri through to the knockout stages for the first time in Italy’s history. Tomorrow’s game against Ireland represents his last chance to do so and he began stoking his players up on Tuesday by claiming his much-vaunted pack were better scrummagers than the Irish.
Yesterday, having named his strongest possible side for final Pool C showdown between the Six Nations rivals, including his front row of Salvatore Perugini, Leonardo Ghiraldini and Martin Castrogiovanni, Mallett again talked them up and also tried to bring the Irish scrum down another peg or two.
Asked if he regretted his claim of scrum superiority following the 27-10 win over the USA on Tuesday, Mallett said: “I’m not unhappy with that comment. If we don’t believe that we have a very strong front row, then no-one can believe it.
“We believe we have a very strong front row. I don’t regret what I said, it’s an area of our game where we’ve been very good against Australia, against New Zealand, against South Africa, against Ireland, against Wales — there isn’t a single team we haven’t been good in the scrum against so it’s a realistic comment, not an arrogant comment.
“They certainly know that we’ve got a good scrum and they’ve certainly improved their scrimmage. One must remember they got three scrum penalties against Australia but they played against an Australia side without (injured hooker) Stephen Moore and in my not so humble opinion I think that Stephen Moore is much, much more important to Australia than any other player on the field because without him, their pack isn’t half as effective.
“But as the Irish quite rightly said: it’s only one area of the game. They’ve got a good lineout; they’ve got excellent ball runners; they’ve got great backs and we like to think we’ve improved that aspect of our game.”
Mallett also threw in another barb, citing Italy’s superior try count over Ireland at the tournament so far.
“We’re not just a one trick pony; we’re not just a scrummaging side — we’ve scored more tries than Ireland against the same opposition. We scored 13 tries — they only scored 12.”
All of which is water off a duck’s back to O’Callaghan who has no truck with Mallett’s sledging and sees no point in responding.
“I think that’s out of respect for the Italian team,” he said. “They’re physical and aggressive but while other people would make smart comments, they never do.
“I think we’re alike that way. What happens out on the pitch stays there. Against Argentina, there’s always verbals. With them (Italy), that doesn’t happen.”
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