Golden opportunity for Irish
Irish rugby history will be made this weekend in the New Zealand capital if Brian O’Driscoll’s side can reach a first World Cup semi-final for Ireland in the seventh edition of the tournament.
For the captain, and many other senior squad members, the clash represents their last chance to deliver a crowning moment for a nucleus of players who have delivered four Triple Crowns and the 2009 Grand Slam in the last decade.
O’Callaghan (32), is one of only five players of Declan Kidney’s current squad to have been part of the group that reached Ireland’s last quarter-final in 2003, when O’Driscoll, Ronan O’Gara and Paul O’Connell all played in the 43-21 defeat to France in Australia. O’Callaghan was on the bench that night, and Paddy Wallace in the squad, while Gordon D’Arcy missed the tournament having played in the 1999 World Cup.
Having beaten Australia for the first time at a World Cup during the pool stages and gone on to top their group, veteran lock O’Callaghan admitted it would be a massive disappointment to then go out against the Welsh.
“To go home now [would be] gutting but the big thing from our group is that we’re maybe about to do something that will separate ourselves from Irish teams that have gone before,” O’Callaghan said yesterday in Wellington.
“Other Irish teams have won Grand Slams, they’ve won Triple Crowns, and got to quarter-finals. This could be a chance for us to maybe stand out on our own. People talk about the last few years being a golden generation, but what have we done that’s separated us from the rest? If you’re honest, not a whole lot.”
The Munster second row made it abundantly clear that confidence in the Ireland camp was sky high following a pool campaign that saw them beat the Wallabies 15-6 in Auckland and ended last Sunday in Dunedin with a 36-6 victory over Six Nations rivals Italy, their largest over the Azzurri since 2003.
“Everyone thinks it’s a massive surprise that we beat Australia but from our point of view we don’t see it that way. We back ourselves to go out and put in a massive performance and I think we’ve done that.”
Applying a touch of forward thinking, O’Callaghan said the Irish pack needed to play well this weekend if Ireland were to advance at Wales’ expense.
O’Callaghan added: “We go well when our pack goes well and although we lost our four warm-up matches before the World Cup, our pack was probably hitting a bit of form and it’s just keeping on top of that. But there’s key indicators for the pack you need to reach, the breakdown’s one, the scrum’s one, all the set-piece, line-outs, kick offs and then when you’re blessed to have a back row like we have at the moment, that can carry ball, and a front five that will work hard you’re in a good place. But everything needs to go right and everyone has to perform to the best of their abilities to get there because, you look at the English match before we left, we probably got bullied up front and when that happens we lose.”
One of the key weapons used in the Irish arsenal for the wins over Australia and Italy was the scrum and O’Callaghan pointed to having reached a high level of consistency at scrum time that now needed to be maintained.
“We haven’t reviewed the scrum [against Italy] yet but I know lads were happy the way it went,” he said. “It’s been going well for a while now and our scrum’s probably at the stage where if you put down one performance, no-one will remember how well it’s gone the last two years, they’ll highlight how poor it was that one time.
“We’re aware as a pack that we’ve a stick to beat ourselves with and the performances we’ve put in before have to be backed up. We have to date and it’s all about backing up the hard work you’ve done over the last few weeks and making sure the scrum on Saturday is outstanding.”
The 79-times capped second row said he expected another full-on collision this Saturday morning as the Welsh scrum would come gunning for their Irish rivals.
“There’s games within games and the scrum is one of them. It’s turned into a competition in itself and it’s a chance to show where you’re at as a pack and you’d always say, when it comes to how the forwards are going, the first scrums or the first few mauls really give a key indicator of where you’re at.”
“He’s been incredible. He has set a massive standard. In this tournament you could probably put him up there for a World XV the way he’s going. Like all the best leaders, he’s leading by example. We’re going to have to do an awful lot of work on hisindividual movements and how we can beat him to the breakdown and stuff like that because he’s up there with the likes of McCaw and Pocock on whipping your ball and as we’ve learned in this competition, the breakdown and the tackle contest is where it’s at. If you can get dominance there you’ll come out the right side and he’s top class.”
“He’s a player you’d really respect, a good professional, works hard and someone you’d bet would play well because he’s at that level, world class, and when you play against guys like that you have to put in a massive performance.”
“To be honest, it’s another massive challenge against probably the best two props in world rugby when you look at Gethin Jenkins, who’d probably make any World XV, and from playing with Adam Jones, he’s a workhorse. The amount of work he gets through and his scrummaging is incredible, so it’s another area we’ll have to be on song with.”
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