‘The last World Cup we had really big plans. This feels a bit different’

Few sports like to highlight the collective more than rugby but Conor Murray will stand alone in at least one respect against Scotland this week-end.

The Limerick scrum-half will be the only man among Ireland’s back line who featured the last time Ireland played a game at a World Cup. Injuries to Rob Kearney, Robbie Henshaw and Keith Earls have seen to that.

Murray let out a little sigh at the mention of 2015 after yesterday’s team announcement. That’s understandable. Joe Schmidt and his players have spent the last four years digesting questions about a quarter-final defeat to Argentina that ate everybody up but this is a very different team and squad to then.

Only four of the 23 named for this Pool A opener played a part in that 43-20 loss in Cardiff. Irish rugby may have some World Cup demons to slay but the vast majority of these boys are operating off a clean slate. Only seven of the starters, and none of the replacements, have played on this stage before.

“Yeah, it is a different group,” said Murray. “I’ve talked about it any time I’ve done media before the World Cup the last four years and (about) what we have done and the results we have had. It would be foolish of us now to start talking about 2015 within the group.

“Our focus is obviously on Scotland, what we can achieve as a team and how we can achieve it. We know how good we can be when we perform and are on song. There is plenty of confidence and belief in each other that we can go out and do a job if we get things right.”

It doesn’t seem all that long ago that a young Murray was making that successful late dash to squeeze into the Ireland squad for the 2011 tournament in New Zealand but here he is now, at the age of 30, contemplating his third tournament and, as was the case four years ago, a key cog in the machine.

It may be a familiar opponent awaiting them this week-end but so much is different about a World Cup environment and the players have been picking up on the buzz that is beginning to pick up this last week, especially since the team transferred from the more sedate Chiba to Japan’s second biggest city.

“Your preparation is slightly different. You are in a foreign country, the atmosphere will be slightly different and it is about how you deal with all those things. But in terms of our preparation and our training it has been a test match week and we all know how to go about that.

“It will be a new feeling for a lot of lads but for all of us this is a very different country and getting used to that takes a bit of time but we have been here just over a week now so we are settled into the time zone and everything like that. There is a good buzz around the squad to get going.”

There is an element of the unknown about Ireland that is unusual. And not just because Jordan Larmour is playing at full-back. The team’s struggles through 2019 to date have tempered the hype around them even as they assumed the role of world number one before the tournament.

Murray himself has had to contend with issues of form and fitness through that period, so too Jonathan Sexton, but Ireland’s half-back pairing retains the ability to change games in an instant if the pack can provide them with a reasonable foundation and there is plenty of other reasons for optimism besides.

Six Nations championships and a Grand Slam have been banked. So too a first ever win in South Africa and a first series victory in Australia since 1979. Add in the two defeats of New Zealand and it tells us that this is an Ireland that, at their best, should fear no one or nothing.

A good start and who knows where it could take them.

“The last World Cup we had really big plans and this feels a bit different. The squad is more settled and I go back the last four years again to what we have gone through. I’m eager to get out and see what kind of performance we can put together because it is really exciting. It’s a group of players that have been through an awful lot together.”