Peter O’Mahony warns Ireland now have target on their backs

The Corkman is well aware that this is the biggest stage of all 

FOCUSED: Peter O’Mahony during the Ireland rugby squad captain's run at the Stade de Bordeaux. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

Peter O’Mahony believes Ireland’s pre-tournament performances have served as timely reminder that with a target on their backs, the world number one side will have to be at their very best to turn France 2023 into a success.

A week of media interaction with the Ireland camp has thrown up a singular theme, that Andy Farrell’s team need to hit the ground running when they open their Rugby World Cup campaign in Saturday afternoon’s opening World Cup match against Romania.

Both at their pool base in the Loire Valley city of Tours and further south-west here in Bordeaux, the message has consistently combined an acceptance that the warm-up wins over Italy, England and Samoa were only okay and that there is much more to come now the tournament is upon us.

Juxtapose that with the blistering late-summer form of defending champions and pool rivals South Africa, as well as hosts and potential quarter-final opponents France and even Fiji in recording their first victory over England on August 26 and only okay for Ireland could be construed as something of a concern.

O’Mahony, though, does not see it like that. The Corkman will win his 97th cap in front of an army of Irish supporters at Stade de Bordeaux Saturday afternoon as he starts at openside flanker against the world number 19 Romanians and his response to the suggestion that Ireland’s form coming into the World Cup does not stack up well in comparison with others was an interesting one.

“I don’t know if I’d completely go along with it. We’ve missed a few beats certainly over the last few weeks but I think a lot of it has been good for us,” the 33-year-old said.

“Not that we needed a reality check but it’s just been a reminder, which is great before a World Cup, that teams are going to be at their very, very best, and particularly now that we are world number one we’ve a big target on our back. There’s no point in putting it otherwise.

“So, every team you play is going to be at their very best to try and knock you over and I think it was a good reminder for us over the last few weeks of the different types of games and the way to approach them, that we need to be all over things from minute one to minute 80.

“I think we took some great lessons from it and I think the guys put in some huge performances. There were parts of our game that we were really impressed with and happy with, that we need to keep building on, but we found some areas that ‘these were really good 18 months ago, lads, but we need to get back to them a little bit and have a little review on them’, which we’ve done over the last few days and weeks.

“So, I think that’s exactly what we wanted out of those games to prepare us for these next few weeks and beyond, and I think it (pre-season) went the way we thought it was going to go.” 

O’Mahony was in no mood to discuss the possibility of earning his 100th Ireland cap at the tournament in the coming weeks but he did speak of what makes playing in the World Cup so special.

“It’s the biggest stage of all for us that we can get to. I’d argue with most people over that, it’s where you want to be, it’s the cycle of every international team who’s trying to play in the World Cup or who wants to be in the World Cup.

“Four years we’ve been planning this, the management team. We’ve been very vocal about how we’ve designed the last couple of years based on getting to this point using all those experiences that we’ve gone through over the last couple, three years, to best effect here and how we can use them in our performances over the next few weeks.

“It doesn’t get any bigger than this stage. 

“We’ve spoken about the atmospheres. Myself and Tadhg have been at a couple at this point and it’s a different animal. And with the utmost respect to Romania I think there’s going to be a lot of Irish in the ground, regardless of who we’re playing and particularly this weekend in Bordeaux.

“So a few of us who’ve been here a few times have spoken to the guys who haven’t about the difference. I remember talking about the French game in 15 in the Millennium when the roof was closed and missing a lineout call completely because of the noise in there and I was only six inches behind the back of Paul.

“So I think it is an added factor and it’s a different animal when it comes to crowds.” 

The conservative estimate is that 20,000-plus Irish supporters will be inside Stade de Bordeaux Saturday, where they will have to brave the 36C temperature forecast for kick-off and only imagine what it must be like for the players they will be cheering on.

"Yeah look it's difficult, you're looking at it being in the 30s at the moment which is unusual for this time of year for here,” O’Mahony said.

"But I think in fairness to the management, they've certainly designed a lot of the back end of pre-season around some hot weather training, obviously we had Biarritz, we had some time in Portugal as well and all of them were very similar temperatures to here, and humidity.

"So we've certainly had a good amount of training in these conditions and circumstances, so I think that will stand to us certainly over the next few weeks.”