O’Brien: We can beat anyone on earth
Not only for the fact he is so upbeat about his return from injury next season but in the confidence he exuded over Ireland’s attempt to win the Six Nations championship this Saturday by claiming victory in Paris for just the second time since 1972.
Forget that record. Forget the talk about French unpredictability – which O’Brien also mentioned – and all those bookie odds that can’t separate Ireland’s odds of topping the table from those of England.
Mere background noise, all of it. Not only is this French team not the France of old, the current Ireland collective is many moons removed from the days when first-cappers left the French capital in the knowledge that a second appearance was a long shot thereafter.
The Carlowman’s response was instant and in the affirmative when asked if Ireland are the best team in this year’s championship and, even from his spot on the physio’s table, he has divined evidence of real progress in Joe Schmidt’s squad.
He had spoken plainly in the wake of last November’s loss to New Zealand about the need for Ireland’s players to ‘grow up’ and he was asked to expand on what he meant by that when he repeated the phrase over a half-hour chat in Dublin.
The answer was illuminating.
“Growing up is realising we can be the best team,” he explained. “We can be one of the superpowers of world rugby. Before, we probably accepted at times that we would just be satisfied with competing. The players we have and the squad we have now, we can beat anybody. That’s what we had to realise after the All Blacks game. We should all be thinking we should beat anybody.”
It’s a powerful message in the week when Brian O’Driscoll, the man who dragged the Irish team up from plucky opponents to Grand Slam champions, departs the scene and reassurance that standards will remain high. If not higher.
“It’s probably better now we have Joe there. We’ve no excuses. We have the best coaching staff, the best players and the best squad we’ve ever had in the Six Nations. You see the replacements coming in and upping the pace. You’re going to need those replacements against New Zea-land and South Africa. They’ve all had it for years now. I think we’re in a way better place now.
“It’s something we all feel. I don’t think you need to talk about it. It’s a thinking that’s there and you can start to feel it build and grow the whole time. A lot of the younger lads, even after the All Blacks game, got confidence from that. They realised they could do a job on these lads. That’s what I mean about growing up. Realising we can beat the best in the world.”
O’Brien’s dissection of Schmidt’s influence, training sessions and preparations in general would be worthy of an article or two all in itself and it was noteworthy that he echoed many of the squad’s recent comments in touching on the clarity of message concerned.
Other words stressed included structure, game plan, accuracy and confidence. The underlining message was: stick to what they have done this last two months and everything else will be immaterial. It is an approach painted in an even better light by the mess which Philippe Saint-André’s side find themselves in now despite the fact they have won the same amount of games as Ireland as the pair prepare to collide in Paris. Ireland’s players and coaches will pepper ‘Les Bleus’ with superlatives this week because that is the way these things are done but O’Brien could afford to be less constrained when offering a more honest verdict on them here.
“Yeah, I watch all the games,” he said of the championship. “I just don’t think they have a structure in place or a real steady game plan. I think after two or three phases they kinda don’t know where they are going.
“That’s the way the French have played over the last few years and maybe it has worked for them in the past but it’s difficult to see them changing that this week. I think they will just try to go out and play a good brand of rugby this week.”
“I go down every couple of weeks and do a bit of mental stuff with them, give them different triggers at training. It has been going well. They’ve reacted to it well. They’re a bit more professional about how they’re doing things down there at the minute. There’s a lot to do within the county board, a lot to be dished out there in the next while. But, they had a nice win [against Antrim on Sunday] and that will give them a lot of confidence.”
“I done a little bit with Tullow this year again. I didn’t really do anything at the start of the year because we were busy. I wanted to keep myself as fresh as possible and I didn’t want to be travelling up and down.”
“He’s a good horse. I owned him with a friend of mine from home a couple of years back. We ran him in a point-to-point and he got beaten by 10 lengths. We sold him afterwards just because he got beaten by so much and Barry Connell bought him off us. I was absolutely delighted when he was bought by Barry because you know he’s going to a good owner and he’s going to be trained well and get the best of everything. Looking back now he’s a multiple Grade One winner. It would have been nice to keep him for another little while.”
“No, he said all week that it is all about the team. It is not about him, regardless of everyone else making it about him, media and whatnot. It is about the performance now at the weekend and making sure that the lads, the whole squad, go out and do the job. In the backs of their minds they will know that it his last game and, yeah, you want him to go out on a high note but you want them to work hard and make sure our own shop is in order in order to achieve that.”
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