Josh van der Flier: Cool Peter O'Mahony helped us shut out Marseille maelstrom

O'Mahony's in-game exhibition of leadership galvanised Ireland's collective mental strength, says Josh van der Flier.

Tue, 06 Feb, 2024 - 07:30

Simon Lewis

Peter O’Mahony’s calm under pressure captaincy in the heat of Ireland’s epic win over France has earned the praise of fellow back-rower Josh van der Flier as the defending Guinness Six Nations begin preparations for Sunday’s home clash with Italy.

Ireland return home to Aviva Stadium after silencing Marseille’s Stade Velodrome last Friday night with a record 38-17 victory, their commanding performance eventually subduing what had been a hostile and fever-pitch atmosphere ignited by the home crowds’ rousing rendition of La Marseillaise before kick-off.

There were French high points for supporters to voice their approval but van der Flier said he and his team-mates had been well prepared for what was to come when they produced them. Many of the Ireland squad in Marseille had experienced a raucous Stade de France when losing to Fabien Galthie’s men there during the 2022 Six Nations and the openside flanker also credited the work done with the team’s sports psychologist Gary Keegan in advance of the game to deal with the atmosphere.

Yet it was the in-game exhibition of leadership from captain O’Mahony that really resonated with his fellow flanker and galvanised the team’s collective mental strength to rebound from the two try concessions and respond in kind to keep France at bay throughout the 80 minutes.

"It's definitely in a good place,” van der Flier said of Ireland’s mentality.

“It's something that we talked about. You're kind of prepared for those things and then the leadership of Pete, I thought he was brilliant.

"There was times when they scored that the crowd was going crazy and it was getting to be a pretty close game and he was just... there wasn't even a raised voice, he was just calm, just telling us to get back into it and he had given us clear messages.

"I think that was there from a leadership point of view and then, having spoken about it and it's something that we work on, it's in a good place.

"But it's one of those things, you have to keep continually working on it. If you don't address it one week, that's when things can go against you a bit.

"But it's definitely been a strength of ours, I think, over the last couple of years and we'll keep working on it.”

With Ireland’s closest championship rivals of the past two seasons dispatched away from home in round one, talk outside the Irish camp has already turned to the idea of back-to-back Grand Slams, a feat never before achieved in the Six Nations era.

Yet while van der Flier admitted the possibilities of what this team can achieve over the next four matches were exciting, he also urged against thinking too far ahead.

"Definitely (exciting), yeah. I mean, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, there's still four big games left so we'll take it step by step.

"I know we always say that but it is still the nature of it, we can't get ahead of ourselves. But it's a brilliant start, so we have to be very happy with that.”

Head coach Andy Farrell last Friday night spoke of his satisfaction at how quickly his players had turned the page from the disappointment of last October’s World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand and van der Flier suggested the sense of an ongoing journey for Ireland would continue this week and beyond.

"Yeah, I think one thing I've found which has been brilliant is a lot of the narrative is it's a new start, it's a new cycle or whatever, that certainly wasn't the case with how we've gone about it in the last few weeks, it's just been 'right, what have we learned from New Zealand, what have we been doing well'.

"It's almost a continuation on from where the squad has been, I suppose we're still taking learnings along the way and it's almost like the World Cup was a stepping stone to keep going, to keep improving.

"That's kind of been the mindset that Andy has been driving with us and that obviously helped.”

There has also been an injection of energy from new faces in the squad and in particular the performances last Friday night of fly-half Jack Crowley, stepping into the number 10 jersey owned for so long by predecessor Johnny Sexton for a first Six Nations start, and two championship debutants, man of the match Joe McCarthy and try-scoring wing Calvin Nash.

"Fair play to Jack,” van der Flier said, “it's a hard position to play at any time, never mind with the French coming at you hard, he did really well.

"Joe was brilliant as always, destroying mauls and running hard, and then Calvin as well did really, really well, I was very proud of the three lads, they really put in a big shift.”