Jamison Gibson-Park: Ireland working way into Rugby World Cup shape

FAMILY AFFAIR: Ireland's Jamison Gibson-Park after the game with his daughters Isabella and Iris. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady

Jamison Gibson-Park has promised Ireland are only going to get better as they ramp up their World Cup preparations ahead of their final warm-up game against Samoa this Saturday.

The scrum-half played his first minutes of the summer at Aviva Stadium last Saturday as he started in 29-10 victory over Six Nations rivals England. The Grand Slam champions were disappointed with their performance in their Dublin farewell despite brushing aside a limited English side with a five tries to one win in front of their home supporters as Keith Earls crowned his 100th Test cap with an emotional try to round out the evening.

For all the celebrations, Gibson-Park and every other member of the Ireland set-up who spoke post-match expressed their frustration at the rustiness of their efforts that led to moments of poor execution which denied them a bigger margin of victory. And the scrum-half said Ireland, now in southern France ahead of their match in Bayonne, will only improve as they build towards an opening World Cup pool game with Romania on September 9.

Describing the England game as having “that pre-season feel to it”, particularly a scrappy opening 40 minutes, Gibson-Park added: “It was a little frustrating so we don't like to make excuses. We've been working hard and are hoping to put a better performance up, but happy with the result at the end of the day.

“I suppose if you put today aside we were feeling really good as a squad. We thought we could put a better performance out but to England's credit they came to spoil the party, like they did in the Six Nations.

“They came with a game plan to try shut us down and make it messy which they did in parts. We feel pretty good as a squad, we've put in tough work and are looking forward to the next few weeks for sure.” 

Ireland were working on some tweaks to their gameplan, the Leinster scrum-half said, a much more revealing admission than the one given by head coach Andy Farrell on Saturday when he treated a question about how much his side were holding back with an answer dripping in sarcasm.

"Holding everything back,” Farrell began with a knowing smile as he gently swatted aside the question. “Write that down. Everything. We've not shown nothing. There's so much up our sleeves, it's frightening.” 

Gibson-Park, though, played a much straighter bat to a similar inquiry about what Ireland were adding to their gameplan.

“A few little bits,” he said, “but for the most part we're just trying to get better at the building blocks of the last three years.

“We'll keep working away at it, and will put out a better performance next week.”