How a mentality shift led Ireland and O'Mahony to a turnaround 10 years in the making
MONUMENTAL: Ireland’s Peter O'Mahony. Pic: Billy Stickland/INPHO
There may have been tears at the final whistle in Wellington last Saturday but the emotions Peter O’Mahony was experiencing were in stark contrast to those he felt a decade earlier on Ireland’s previous tour to New Zealand.
Ten years apart and history made at either end of the spectrum but as a 22-year-old completing his first season in Test rugby, a 60-0 drubbing by the All Blacks in Hamilton cast a dark shadow over O’Mahony’s 2012 close season.
This year’s summer break will be a lot easier to digest. The Munster captain, now 32, enjoyed the tour of a career as he regained his place at blindside flanker and started all three Tests as Ireland claimed an epic 2-1 series win with a 32-22 deciding victory seven days ago, a week on from a historic maiden win on Kiwi soil in the series-levelling second Test in Dunedin.
At times it seemed as if his shoulders were being held together by sticky tape but in a team of outstanding performers, his wholehearted, relentless contribution to the Irish cause was significant, even if his in-game statistics in comparison to fellow back-five forwards Tadhg Beirne, James Ryan, Josh van der Flier and Caelan Doris do not reflect that effort. Yet his leadership alongside captain Johnny Sexton was and is the glue that helps keep the squad unified and driven to succeed at the outset of a World Cup year.
First, though, a well-earned summer break is to be enjoyed.
“It’s a different place we’re going, from 60-0 to winning a series in New Zealand,” O’Mahony reflected of the contrast between 2012 and the present.
“That summer was a tough place, I know I was a young fella but the last time we left here it was 60 points to nil and now it’s winning a series 2-1. If you’d have asked me back then would it have happened I probably would have told you ‘no’.”
Yet the enormity of the achievement has not been lost on anyone in the Ireland set-up, and no-one more than O’Mahony.
“It means a huge amount. It’s not just the four weeks of work, you know, it’s been 18 months, two years of graft and understanding and learning. We had the French away loss (in February) and the learnings that we took from the first Test (defeat) and I’m delighted for the lads. I’m delighted they got their reward for the hard work they put in, especially the young fellas," he said.
“The last time I played a third Test was 10 years ago and we were beaten by 60 points and this is a different animal, a different team, the way they learn, the way they adapt. The young guys are the ones who are really driving it on for us and I think there were no better men tonight.”
That Ireland not only notched their first win in New Zealand but did so to keep the series alive following a 42-19 Eden Park defeat in the opening Test and then put in an improved performance to win the decider at Sky Stadium speaks volumes about the different place Andy Farrell’s team finds itself in compared to previous incarnations of the national team. O’Mahony suggested the edge that has been found is a mental one.
“We’re trying to get away from the emotion side of it. That will come with international rugby and how much that means to you but it’s about your process and how you deliver your performance and how calm you can be when everything is going mental around you," he said. "And in a third Test like that, a third Test series decider against the All Blacks away from home, it’s a mad environment and how cool can you be in those scenarios?
“That’s where we’ve got to, we can be calm, you know, after half-time when we concede three tries you come into a circle of people who are looking across to leaders, looking for information to see what we’re doing from the kick-off or how we’ve got to fix things rather than panic, looking up at the screen. That’s the difference.
“It’s about being in the moment and the boys, not only did we take what they (the All Blacks) had, which they’re always going to have their purple patch but we got back into the game. We clawed our way back, penalties. There was no-one getting uneasy, everyone stuck to the system and you saw the way the bench came on and ramped the game up for us again.
“So you go up to 10 points with 15, 20 minutes to go, you know, when you’re sitting on the bench it seems like it’s doable for them but it’s a long way back.”
O’Mahony had been on the bench when Ireland defeated New Zealand in Dublin last November, the number six jersey that he had been on possession of for the best part of a decade, passed on by head coach Farrell to Doris with Jack Conan at No.8 in an all-Leinster back-row also featuring van der Flier.
It did not stop him describing that autumn camp as the most enjoyable month of his career and these past few weeks in New Zealand, which saw him earn his 87th Ireland cap a week ago, have only deepened his attachment to the current environment being nurtured by the management, leadership group and the wider squad.
“It’s no different. For me, whether you’re wearing 20 or six or 17 or one, to be amongst this group of people is special and we enjoy our time together. People who never experience it, the environment is special and the coaching team have given us a great platform to play off but the buzz and the craic that we have together is a different animal and that’s why you want to get in.
“You play as hard as you can with your clubs to get back in to try and make a difference and to try and learn. Every day you come to training you’re learning something, whether you’re big Joe (McCarthy) or you’re Johnny Sexton. You’re learning all the time, which is a great environment to be in and an enjoyable place to be.
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the leadership group and you’ve 80-odd Tests, 110 Tests whatever Johnny has, you’re constantly sharpening the knife, constantly getting better, constantly adding new little things to your game that can make a difference to make the rest of the team a bit better.
“And when you add that to a team of honest people, good people, it’s a good mix.”
Together they have taken Ireland to a new level, and not just in terms of a return to the top of the World Rugby rankings, thanks to their two victories in New Zealand.
“Do you know what, I think the most pleasing thing is that there’s parts of that game that we’ll look back on and say ‘first-up tackles weren’t good enough, some of our defence wasn’t good enough, some of our lineout defence wasn’t good enough, some of our discipline gave them access’.
“I think we gave away three penalties in the first half and it was the only access they got into the game against a team, we’re talking about one of the best teams in the world here. We’re not talking about one of the middle-of-the-road teams, we’re talking about the very best and the three penos we gave away in the first half were really the only access they got.
“So I think the most impressive thing is we’ve a lot more to go and a lot more to give and that’s the exciting thing for November.”
Ireland will face world champions South Africa, Fiji and Australia in the next international window four months hence, primed to round out the year in style as they did following a record-breaking summer series win over the Wallabies under Joe Schmidt in 2018.
What followed in 2019 was an alarming tail off in performance levels that led to another World Cup disappointment but O’Mahony is as confident as anyone dare be that this team’s peak has not been scaled just yet.
“Yeah, that’s the thing. Mentally it’s a different animal. You can’t predict the future but the group of players that we’ve built, it’s a young team, we’re incredibly hungry and you drip feed in a few of the older fellas and it’s a good mix to continue the progression that we need to keep building towards the World Cup.
“Because that’s what it is, we’re not going stand here and say it isn’t the goal, the World Cup cycle. It was a great test for us, three Tests, two Maori games, a bit of chaos, we’re moving, guys are doubling up, you know, Keith Earls is playing a crazy amount of minutes within four days of each other.
“That’s what World Cups are like and that’s why we’ve got to prepare ourselves for it and we dealt with it really well. But look, you bank that now and you move on.”
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