Peter O’Mahony: We won’t be fazed by Jamie Cudmore

Peter O’Mahony insists Canadian talisman Jamie Cudmore will not intimidate Ireland in Saturday’s World Cup pool opener but the Irish pack knows the Clermont lock well enough to have huge respect for an old adversary in Cardiff this weekend. 

Kieran Crowley’s Canadians may be a tier-two nation but their forwards have enough physicality about them, and their backs blistering pace to give Joe Schmidt’s Ireland a nightmare start to their Pool D campaign to rival those given by the likes of Namibia and Georgia during an awful 2007 tournament.

Wings DTH van der Merwe and Jeff Hassler as well as forwards Jebb Sinclair and team captain Tyler Ardron are well known to the provinces from Pro12 and European excursions but 37-year-old Cudmore remains the tallest Maple in the Canadian forest.