Josh van der Flier 'honoured' to be part of second World Cup

EXCITED: Josh van der Flier says he feels the same excitement he felt watching the World Cup as a kid. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

It does not matter that Josh van der Flier is the World Rugby Player of the Year, the excitement the Ireland flanker feels on the eve of a World Cup is exactly the same as he felt watching the tournament as a kid.

Saturday could see van der Flier, 30, get his second World Cup underway if Andy Farrell meets expectations and selects his strongest available side for the opening pool game against Romania in Bordeaux. Yet he speaks of childhood memories in front of the box with the same reverence as his recall of a tournament debut in Japan four years ago.

“I suppose just the excitement, van der Flier said in Tours on Tuesday. “I can still remember as a kid, the World Cup finishes and you can’t wait for four years until the next one starts. That kind of excitement for any big sporting event like that.

“I suppose, it’s probably the pinnacle of rugby in terms of international rugby obviously. The World Cup is probably always up there as the highest honour of a tournament to be part of.

“It’s always huge, there’s always huge excitement about it as a kid, and then to get to play in the last one was incredibly special.

“It was a pretty cool experience. It was obviously very different to being here now. It’s obviously closer to home here, whereas the time difference and everything was so far away in Japan.

“It’s a brilliant tournament. There is always so much excitement. You can kind of see when you bump into people on the street, even around here in Tours and back home.

“There is just great excitement around it, which you probably don’t get for any other tournament really.” 

Asked to describe that feeling within the squad at being back at a World Cup as opposed to a regular Six Nations or November international camp, the openside powerhouse described nearing the end of a familiar four-year wait.

“I think it’s actually fairly similar to how it’s been I suppose over the last number of years. The way we’ve probably a pretty set structure now and the way we go about our days. There is probably a bit more emphasis on the off-field stuff, making sure we’ve a bit of entertainment outside of training because we’re obviously planning on being here for a good while. It’s definitely a bit different in that way.

“In terms of the preparation coming into the World Cup, after the last World Cup we were already talking about building… it was at the start of the first time we met up as a squad it might be mentioned ‘That’s at the end of the four-year cycle, we keep improving’.

“I suppose the end destination, we have all the whatever it is, November internationals, Six Nations, building up, it’s not something that hasn’t been talked about I suppose. It feels kind of normal.” 

Yet life in Tours, at their pool-stage training base between matches in Bordeaux, Nantes and two trips to Paris, has been far from ordinary. Between an open training session last Saturday that attracted a crowd of 12,000 spectators, to Ireland’s purpose-built new training centre, van der Flier could not feel anymore at ease with his surroundings.

“It’s been great. We have had an amazing welcome here in Tours. The hotel setup, everything is brilliant, the training facilities are amazing.

“It’s been really good. We have got a good block of work done, nearly halfway through the first match-week, which feels mad, but everything has been really, really good, yeah, great.”