O’Brien: Bring on the Welsh

Everyone is in great form at the minute

Sean O’Brien is convinced Wales would have reached the World Cup final had Irish referee Alain Rolland not sent off skipper Sam Warburton for a spear tackle early in their semi-final clash with France.

Although it pained O’Brien to watch that match, given Wales had only knocked Ireland out of the competition the week before, he agreed with the general perception that the loss of Warburton was the deciding factor in the outcome of the game.

But, as Ireland prepare for the opening match of another RBS 6 Nations Championship against the Welsh on Sunday week, O’Brien is unlikely to show the sympathetic side of his nature; nor is he thirsting for revenge.

“I suppose it’s good that we have them first up,” he said.

“They’re probably one of the form sides, through the World Cup and now coming into this competition, so it will be nice to have them at home and nice to have them to start off the competition.

“In the World Cup, we had a couple of opportunities and didn’t take them. We made a couple of mistakes and they punished us. They’re that type of team that they can do that to you. We have to be on the ball, but this is a good game to start because we can see where we really are after that.”

Although it would be nice to exact revenge, O’Brien believes Ireland must put that result in context and accept it’s something from the past.

“Look, it doesn’t go away, it is something in the back of every individual’s mind and obviously there was a lot of hurt after that game, but it is a different competition, a different year, so we have to regroup, refocus and not let that match get the better of us, rather stick to what we’re wanting to do this time around.

“Yeah, that one got at me for a while. I’m usually pretty good at that, good to forget and move on to the next game but in fairness, for a week or two I was looking at that one saying I could have done this, could have done that and obviously at that level, a quarter-final of a World Cup, you don’t want to lose. But again, this is a new year, new competition.”

O’Brien is convinced Ireland will have to bring a new vigour to this match.

“I don’t know if we were too predictable or not. We had our chances to score. I had one myself and we put a bit of pressure on them in the second half as well but our concentration wasn’t good at times and we let them in for a couple of soft scores.

“They [Wales] bring a lot of energy to everything they do but they’re also physical, tough, lads. First and foremost the physicality will have to be there from us and we have to sort out the rucks. Last time, they slowed up our ball a lot and it’s something we’ve got to address to get us on the front foot.”

Yet, Ireland, he says, go into the Six Nations with optimism and enthusiasm, even though there have been huge demands on players in the last 18 months.

“The excitement is building and I don’t think there is any fatigue, as such. We’re well managed within our provinces and stuff, so we know when we need a break and they’ve managed that pretty well. Everyone is in great form at the minute.”

A successful Heineken Cup run for Leinster, Munster and Ulster appears to have significantly helped.

“There’s a good kind of buzz, you know, all the teams have been playing pretty well so I reckon we can build on that and take confidence from that, three Irish teams in the quarter-finals of Europe is great and can only be good for this team.

“If we were losing games in Europe I suppose we wouldn’t be firing and you might be lacking a bit of confidence. We have no real excuses at the minute, we can really look forward, improve on what we’ve done with the provinces and [hopefully] bring it all together now into the Six Nations campaign.”