WATCH: Ireland on song as pipe-opener goes to plan

Ireland 50 Canada 7: As opening weekends of a World Cup campaign go, Joe Schmidt will have been pretty satisfied as Ireland hit the road and headed for the English FA’s training base.

The Irish left Cardiff for St George’s Park in Burton-on- Trent yesterday having achieved all they possibly could in dispatching Canada at the Millennium Stadium on Saturday afternoon. Spirits had already been high after the squad eventually arrived at the tournament last Wednesday following a summer at home and got their first taste of the England 2015 atmosphere. Their opening Pool D encounter did nothing but enhance the feelgood vibe.

A seven-try romp in front of a massive travelling army of Irish supporters, who made up the vast majority of the 68,523 crowd and turned the Welsh citadel into a green-hued fortress can only have had a positive influence on the mindsets of Schmidt’s players and the way they went about their business on Saturday showed a squad in determined mood to get on with things.