O'Mahony declares the end of a fruitful Irish era 

The 34-year-old flanker appeared to indicate his time in an Irish jersey was nearing an end following a heartbreaking 28-24 quarter-final defeat to New Zealand at Stade de France on Saturday night.

RESPECT: Ireland's Peter O'Mahony and his Munster colleague Keith Earls, who confirmed his retirement after the defeat to New Zealand. Pic: Dan Sheridan, Inpho

Peter O’Mahony declared the end of an era for this Ireland team following their World Cup exit as he paid tribute to retiring team-mates and friends Johnny Sexton and Keith Earls.

The 34-year-old flanker also appeared to indicate his time in an Irish jersey was nearing an end following a heartbreaking 28-24 quarter-final defeat to New Zealand at Stade de France on Saturday night.

“Will I come back? We’ll see,” O’Mahony said. “It’s tough one to take, as a lot of my friends won’t be back so I’ve a contract to the end of the year and we’ll see how we go after that.” 

 O’Mahony praised the contributions of fellow Ireland Test centurions Sexton, 38, and Earls, 36. 

Sexton has long made known his intention to call time on what was a 118-cap career in the green jersey after a tournament in which he passed his predecessor at fly-half Ronan O’Gara as Ireland’s leading points scorer, finishing up on 1108 points. 

Head coach Andy Farrell announced Earls’ intention to quit the Test arena after 101 Ireland appearances and his Munster team-mate and captain said: “It’s tough to lose these guys in these tough circumstances.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with himself and Johnny obviously. Probably every one of my caps had one or two of them in it, if not all of them.

"It’s tough to lose fellas like that – big characters, big players for us. Most importantly, big people, the best type of people, fellas who have your back all the time, good friends of mine, so it’s tough to say goodbye to them.

“It is the end of an era. It is. You’ve a group of senior players who are moving on. There’s no other way of putting it. There’s a group of guys who won’t play for Ireland again who’ve had an incredible impact on Irish rugby, not only in the last few years but in the last decade. So absolutely, it is the end of an era.” 

O’Mahony said he believed his generation of Irish internationals had left their jerseys in a good place and he hoped they had inspired a future class of player to take up the game and emulate what this team has achieved.

“I’m very proud of the team. We’ve achieved a huge amount together over the last four years, building up to this. It’s a terribly tough pill to swallow. Obviously we had plans to continue on for the next couple of weeks but I’m proud of the lads and how they’ve carried themselves over the past few weeks, and the past few years.

“We’ve had 17 games unbeaten, a grand slam, a series won in New Zealand…. There are lots of positives for this group and I’m sure there are lots of kids who we’ve inspired to take up the game and who might be in this position in 15, 20 years’ time and you can look back and be proud of that.” 

The back-rower added that the group of players within the squad for whom time was still on their side were perfectly capable of carrying the torch into a new era for the Ireland team.

“Lots of players who aren’t here but who were in our squad can step up to the plate as well. I’ve no doubt this team will have left Irish rugby in a better place, you know? We’ve achieved a huge amount – there’s no other way of putting it. I think we can be proud of where we’ve left the jersey. It’s about honouring the jersey and I think this group have left it in a good place.” 

On the eve of his 100th Ireland cap, against Scotland seven days previously, O’Mahony had spoken of the impact Anthony Foley, his late head coach at Munster, had made on his career and referred to a conversation he had with Sexton about the much-missed former Ireland No.8, who had died at the age of 42 in Paris this Monday seven years ago. Ireland paid tribute to “Axel” when they formed a figure 8 as they lined up to face the All Blacks’ haka.

"The players decided,” forwards coach Paul O’Connell, Foley’s former team-mate, explained. “They'd all be very conscious of Anthony, the Munster lads and Pete, in particular, would be very conscious, around this time of year in October it all comes to our mind a little bit.

"It was the players' idea and as coaches we were delighted because their thing is they want to inspire the nation, they want to have respect for the people who have gone before them as well.

"A lot of these guys are unbelievably professional, but they like a bit of old school as, well; they like looking back on the old players, things like that. So, it's a lovely mark of respect for Anthony that they did that today."