O'Driscoll: Ireland have to win opening game

Brian O’Driscoll admits it will be “disastrous” if Ireland fail to crush Namibia in Sunday’s World Cup opener at the Stade Chaban-Delmas.

Ireland’s group took an amazing twist last night when Argentina defeated France 17-15 and O’Driscoll knows qualification for the group stages could go down to the wire,

“It’s been said that we’re the best prepared Irish team for any World Cup and I’d go along with that,” he said. “This is my third World Cup and we’re the most prepared going over.

“But preparation counts for nothing if you don’t perform in the pool stages. Obviously with the opposition we’re facing it’d be potentially disastrous if we didn’t perform well.

“First and foremost, you’ve got to try to get out of your pool and then you reassess after that. I don’t think we can start talking about being happy with a semi-final or a final just yet.

“We have to find ourselves in the knockout stages and we’ll kick on from there.

“You have to try and play these teams the same as you’d play any of the bigger sides. You have to give them the same respect.

“And respect can mean beating a team by a lot of points, not letting them off the hook.

“Australia scored 22 tries against Namibia in the last World Cup. To keep your concentration and intensity for 80 minutes,

“The really good sides take the weaker nations apart. We want to be like that. And we want to make sure we start with a really big performance and a big result.

“To a point Sunday is about making a statement. It’s a good chance to throw down a marker ahead of the tournament.

“From our point of view I think we’re fortunate to have the Namibia and Georgia games in the lead-up to the French game because we’re still not exactly where we want to be at.

“The games give us an opportunity to get there.

“We’d like to throw down a marker and not just show everyone in our pool, but everyone in the competition – even against a perceived weaker nation – what we’re here to do.”