Paul O'Connell remains philosophical about World Cup heartache
PHILOSOPHICAL: Forwards coach Paul O'Connell during an Ireland rugby media conference at Tours Town Hall in Tours, France. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Paul O’Connell left his last World Cup on a stretcher and Ireland’s disappointing exit that followed a week later in 2015 still rankles but he returns to the tournament as a coach confident the 2023 team is better equipped to break his nation’s self-inflicted glass ceiling.
O’Connell, the lock and warrior leader, endured the heartbreaks of four successive quarter-final exits between 2003 and 2015, the latter as a helpless onlooker after serious injury in the final pool game win over France denied him the chance to face Argentina.
Now back as Ireland’s forwards coach, the 43-year-old nevertheless spoke Tuesday of his fond memories of the World Cup and also the excitement of helping to guide Andy Farrell’s top-ranked squad to reach the potential of which he believes they are capable.
"I think it's a better Irish team,” he said of the current crop ahead of Saturday’s opener in Bordeaux against Pool B outsiders Romania.
"Physically, a lot of us were incredibly committed but these guys - there's some serious athletes in the team, particularly in the forward pack. Guys that can accelerate quickly, they can change direction really quick.
"A lot of them are the product of really good coaching from a very young age at U20s, in academies, they've had different coaches in their provinces and because of that they pick things up really quickly and they've really good leadership and ownership of going about their business.
"We've players that are able to figure things out really quickly. We can come up with something and they will adapt it to their game quickly.
"That's the biggest thing I've found since I've come back into the Irish set-up two years ago, the smarts of the players is a real strength of theirs.
"So, I think they're further down the track than any Irish team I played in, for sure."
O’Connell is philosophical about his World Cup exit as a player, when Ireland’s emphatic final pool-game victory over the French was soured by multiple injuries, the most serious of which saw the captain’s hamstring torn from the bone. He would never play again, ending not just a legendary 108-cap Test career but also scuppering an Indian summer away from Munster at Toulon.
"Ah, look, it is what it is. It is what it is. I thought we were in a great place as a team, we'd excellent leadership as a team, a real understanding of what the coach wanted and how he wanted it done.
"We'd a group of players that were very good at driving that, delivering that and unfortunately a few of those guys got injured for that game against Argentina.
"We hit a really hot Argentina team on the day.
"It was really disappointing, I was disappointed as well not to spend 18 months in the south of France.
"But when I think of myself now as a retired player eight years' later, I'm physically in a very good place where some guys struggle and I don't know if I would be in such a good place if I spent 18 months down in France when Toulon were beginning to struggle a little bit.
"So, that's the silver lining of it I suppose.
"It was disappointing to go out the way we did.
"We always had our struggles against France, but the time we played them in that World Cup we played really well against them.
"We were in a really good place, but lost a bit of leadership for Argentina and we hit a hot team. That was a disappointing exit and a disappointing end for sure."
O’Connell is entirely positive the team he now helps to coach not only has a higher ceiling but is one capable of managing the expectation that surrounds this group of Grand Slam winners.
“It’s been exciting for ages so, not managing it for ages but we’re not looking too far ahead for ages. There’s no doubt when we went to New Zealand we wanted to create a little bit of history and we would have spoken about that briefly but then you just go back to week to week.
“Same with the Six Nations this year. We were sure we wanted to win it and we were sure we wanted to win a Grand Slam but they all know they need to focus on the performance and they need to go back to week to week.
“It’s the same here, there’s still bits we need to add to our game. There’s still bits and pieces the players are looking to show in the game both individually and as a team. And they get quite excited about showing that in a game, not necessarily winning a game.
“It’s something that Andy manages quite well. It’s something that Gary Keegan manages well and the senior players manage it well as well, trying to stay focused week to week. I’m sure they think about going deeper into the competition very often but they’d be good at getting back to neutral and to focusing on what’s ahead of them then.”
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