O’Connell ready to get physical

WHEN you have captained the British & Irish Lions, you know a leader when you see one. And in this Wales side, Paul O’Connell sees them in places most of us would not expect to look.

Like a teenage winger who was still in school when O’Connell was leading from the front on the Lions’ tour of South Africa three summers ago. Yet to Ireland’s second-row totem, a player such as 19-year-old George North, less than a year into his international rugby career, can display leadership skills better than a player with 10 more years on the clock and three times as many caps.

“Certainly on the pitch, from my experiences, whenever I’ve captained and a young guy comes into the team playing well like North, it gives the team a massive lift,” O’Connell says. “That kind of leadership is more important than anything when you look at a young guy coming in and leading the physicality. Some of his carries against Samoa were phenomenal.

“Obviously, then, Alun Wyn Jones, who I worked with in the Lions, is an excellent guy, a passionate man, Mike Phillips the same, enjoys himself but when it comes to the game he’s a real leader in terms of how passionately and how physically committed he is.

“So to me, they have leaders everywhere, not just the guys who can speak well. They’ve got guys who go out there and lead from the front on the pitch and that’s probably the most important thing.”

O’Connell, who turns 32 later this month, will lead the Irish pack into tomorrow’s World Cup quarter-final better aware of the personnel he will be facing than the way they are going to play.

“I don’t think they’re playing as strictly to their pattern as they did in the past,” he says. “So trying to guess what they’re going to do, you could end up getting yourself into trouble, so we need to analyse what they’re doing from recently, not from what they used to do a few years ago when we worked with Warren [Gatland] or when they played a more structured game. We’ve got to look up and see what’s in front of us in terms of defending them and attacking them.”

What is also plain for all to see is that this Wales squad put together by Gatland is flying high after coming through a tough pool that saw them push defending champions South Africa to the limit in their opening game and overcome Samoa in an extremely physical contest the following week, before knocking over Namibia and then Fiji last Sunday.

O’Connell concurs: “They’re very confident, certainly. They’ve come through a really tough pool. They should certainly have beaten South Africa. They beat a really good Samoan team in a really tough game, which I’ve no doubt Samoa would have been targeting and they came out really well in the physicality stakes in that game. So at the moment I’d say they’re really confident in what they’re doing. They’re doing the simple things really well and then obviously there are some great flair players. So that when they do get opportunities, they’ve been putting them away.”

Such is the familiarity between the two camps, forged on Lions tours and maintained through long domestic seasons in the Celtic League and Heineken Cup, that O’Connell framed tomorrow’s match in Wellington as being very similar to an Irish inter-provincial derby.

“We know each other very well and there’s a lot of respect for each other there. So when you know each other very well, it’s similar to Munster v Leinster games. It tends to make the games even tougher and more physical and I’m sure that’s the way it will be on Saturday.”

Which means a hard evening’s work is in store for the Ireland forwards. O’Connell reported himself in good health after missing the Russia game with a hamstring strain suffered against Australia and lasting 60 minutes against Italy last Sunday before wisely calling it a day when he felt his hammer tightening during the impressive 36-6 win. He also professed himself as happy as he has ever been with the Irish pack.

“Our maul defence at the weekend took a bit of gloss off the performance. We’d like to be getting after more lineouts as well, defensively, than we are but our scrum and what we’re doing at the breakdown at the moment is excellent.

“Your set-piece and breakdown, as forwards, is vital and I think what we’re doing at the breakdown and at the set-piece — both on our own lineouts and in the scrum — is excellent. It’s laying a good platform for what we’re doing at the moment.”

O’Connell has been impressed by the progress made under scrum coach Greg Feek, the former All Black prop lured to Ireland by Leinster and absorbed into Declan Kidney’s management team before last November’s international series.

“Our front row has to take a lot of credit. They’ve worked really hard, and taken a lot of responsibility in the scrum and it has become a real weapon for us now,” the Munster lock said. “No doubts, Greg Feek has done really good work with the guys that have come in there.

“Mike Ross has stepped up the last few years, Cian Healy is maturing all the time and getting stronger and better all the time, so there’s been a few things which have come together and a bit of confidence as well, I think. That front row played together for the first time against Italy this year. We got a few penalties against us which we thought were harsh at the time but we’ve gone on from there, improved from there and every time we’ve got better.

“I suppose working together more often and working together with Feeky more often has certainly helped the scrum and confidence has risen all the time.”

Behind that front row, O’Connell and Donncha O’Callaghan have long been a fixture. Indeed, when the former won his 71st cap against Italy in Dunedin last weekend, it was alongside the latter for the 43rd time, solidifying further Ireland’s record number of appearances for a second-row combination.

Not that they always sing from the same hymn sheet.

Such as this week when O’Callaghan spoke about the senior players, the so-called “golden generation”, needing to separate themselves from previous Ireland teams by reaching the World Cup semi-final and doing something no other group of Irishmen have achieved. Did O’Connell share the Cork man’s feelings?

“It’s certainly relevant but I wouldn’t want to get bogged down with that one,” he said, before expressing exactly the call to arms O’Callaghan had done in different terms.

“For me this is just one game. Last week we spoke how if we didn’t win against Italy, we were going home and it’s the same this week. We don’t look beyond that. We treat this game as our cup final. It worked for us last week, we were mentally in the right place. Even when we were 9-6 at half time, we were still willing to dog it out and do whatever we had to do to win.

“It’s the same this weekend. If we don’t win this weekend we’re going home and in terms of creating anything for the team, we just can’t look beyond this game. We just go out, give it everything in this game and then regather after it.

“That’s the way I look at it but everyone has their own way of motivating themselves. It’s one game. We go out, empty the tank this weekend and hopefully we’re still in the competition Sunday morning.”