O'Leary: Southern hemisphere still class above

Ireland scrum-half Tomás O’Leary admits southern hemisphere heavyweights New Zealand, South Africa and Australia are still leading the way in international rugby – but insists the European sides are starting to close the gap.

Ireland, RBS 6 Nations Grand Slam champions in 2009, are currently ranked fifth in the world behind the All Blacks, Springboks, Wallabies and current Six Nations champions France, and take on New Zealand in a one-off Test in New Plymouth on Saturday.

The tour, which also includes a match against New Zealand Maori in Rotorua and a Test against Australia in Brisbane on June 26, will give the Irish a good idea of what to expect at the World Cup in New Zealand next year.

At that tournament they will play matches in New Plymouth, Rotorua and Auckland, where they will take on the Australians.

“The tour gives us good experience of the weather conditions, the opposition and what level we need to step up to within the southern hemisphere because the southern hemisphere teams are ranked ahead of the northern hemisphere sides,” the 26-year-old O’Leary said.

“It’s a higher level of opposition. Hopefully we’ll get to see where we’re at and what we need to come up to it.

“I think the divide is becoming smaller but the world rankings say it all. There is a difference and they are still ahead of us at the moment.”

History is certainly against the Irish when it comes to knocking over the All Blacks. The best they have managed in 22 Tests over 105 years is a 10-10 draw in Dublin in 1973, despite some close-run encounters in 2006 and 2008 when they were well in the hunt going into the final 20 minutes.

And it is that lack of a strong final quarter that skipper Brian O’Driscoll wants to see remedied this weekend.

“The winning and losing of a game is more often than not in the last 20 minutes and you have to finish strong,” the veteran midfielder said.

“It’s probably what we’ve struggled to do. Any time that we’ve pushed them somewhat close they probably won that last 20 minutes.

“There is no point trying to hang in there with them because it only takes a breakaway and all of a sudden you are chasing the game.”

But what may be in the visitors’ favour is the All Blacks tendency to be a little off the pace at the start of their international season.

France made the most of that last year when they claimed a 27-22 win in Dunedin before narrowly losing the second fixture 14-10 in Wellington.

O’Leary, though, is not buying into that theory.

“Hopefully they will be slow starters but I don’t think they will have too many cobwebs at all,” he said.

“They are an impressive unit. We just hope that we can stand up to them physically and have a great victory come Saturday.”