O’Connell: We must find form

Paul O’Connell last night hit back at suggestions that Ireland set their expectations too high ahead of this year’s World Cup when they said they could win it.

Ireland teeter on the brink of elimination following last night’s heavy 25-3 defeat to France at the Stade de France – a loss that sees those expectations backfire spectacularly.

Ireland showed plenty heart but lacked a cutting edge — and they will now need a miracle to avoid elimination at the group stage of the RWC.

“Expectations were definitely not too high,” blasted O’Connell who was yellow carded in the second half.

“That is the way it has to be. We have a good team and the quality of the players has not been a problem, so there is nothing wrong with having high expectations on ourselves.

“We have got the players, we can do it, but we have to find our form.”

“It has been disappointing. We are ambitious in the competition and that is not a bad thing. I don’t think we have to change our minds about it. But it has been disappointing because we are not performing well on the pitch.”

“We have to figure out in the next few days what the problem is. We didn’t expect to be having this kind of experience in the world cup. We’ll have nine days to recover and we’ll come back better for the match against Argentina.”

“We don’t have to think about much for the next match against Argentina. We have to win with a bonus point and it’s simple as that.”

Article courtesy of the Evening Echo newspaper.