February form dip shouldn’t dent Cup hopes, says Fardy

Scott Fardy says the Ireland team may not be pleased with the rugby they’re playing right now, but the former Australia lock says such woes could easily be forgotten when the World Cup comes around.

The Leinster player was part of the Australian team that won the 2015 Rugby Championship title, beating New Zealand that August – before going to England where they lost the World Cup final to the All Blacks.

And the Wallabies are not the only side to experience such a scenario — no team apart from England in 2003 has won their regional championship and backed it up with a World Cup title in the same year.

“It is very hard to do,” Fardy said of trying to achieve that double.

In 2011, Australia won the Tri-Nations, with the All Blacks losing 50% of their games, yet the Kiwis beat Australia in the World Cup semi-final before beating France — who finished second in the Six Nations — in the final.

In 2007, South Africa won just once in the Tri Nations, but beat England (third in the Six Nations) in the World Cup final.

“There are so many things that happen in the Rugby World Cup, so many things that go in that seven-week tournament,” said Fardy, who started for Australia in the 2015 final.

“Things can go completely wrong for teams, you saw that with Ireland with injuries [in 2015].

Things went really right for us at certain times of the tournament. Scotland [who they defeated in the quarter-final], we got the right or wrong decision there depending on your perspective.

“We had a tough pool. We had England and Wales. We had to fight our way out of that, fight our way through two tough teams to get to the final.

“I wouldn’t be overly worried about things happening before it. You’ve got seven games to win the thing.”

Fardy knows many of the players enduring a difficult time with Ireland, and laughed when asked if he’d “been there before?”

“Yeah, we played the All Blacks 15 times!” he said. “It happens, you go through things and obviously form, they have had a high turnover of players over the first three weeks. They probably haven’t clicked as much as they could have but these things happen in rugby.

“You can’t be up there all of the time. Sometimes you have small dips but I don’t [see a crisis]. They are playing against good sides. England are a good side. I thought the Italians played very well on the weekend and obviously Scotland are a good side as well.”

Joe Schmidt admitted confidence may be low among the players after the shock home defeat to England, and Fardy said that is a crucial factor for any team.

“Confidence is big, I think it’s one of the biggest things in the game,” said Fardy.

“They have got every reason to be confident in what they are doing. Three or four games earlier, they beat New Zealand. There were some uncharacteristic mistakes in the game against England, which they would have been reviewed hard and they will be better for that.”