O'Mahony: 'We're not playing tennis or golf, it's a physical game'

Ireland Captain Peter O'Mahony ready to get stuck in as they go for back-to-back championships.

ALL ON THE LINE: After a tough and stressful week Ireland Captain Peter O'Mahony will be hoping to lead the team to back-to-back championships. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Defeat in Twickenham last Saturday, and the lost opportunity of a back-to-back Grand Slam, has colonised thoughts all week. Rare though the taste was, it wasn’t the first time that Ireland have struggled on the biggest of days in recent memory.

The disappointment of losing that World Cup quarter-final to New Zealand last October stands as an uncomfortable companion piece in that sense and last year’s stuttering effort against a 14-man England held similarities even if the result went Ireland’s way.

Realising there is an issue is the first step in finding a solution. It’s not that players and coaches have drawn a line through a string of games and spotted a common denominator, but past dips in performance have been mined for the task ahead against the Scots.

“It was something that we went on a fair bit,” said Peter O’Mahony after yesterday’s captain’s run. “We weren’t very happy with that [England] performance. Performances like that, the All Blacks game, the game last weekend, stand to us.

“Going back to even the France games a few years ago where we had the opportunity to win the [2021] Championship and didn’t turn up: I think that particular game stood to us a long time after that, that experience.

“You need to be able to use them and bank them, the stress, the pressure of the whole occasion, and using all those examples to fill your tool bank of how to negate them and how to be better in those performances certainly.” 

There has been very little time to process that loss to England and the knowledge that history slipped from their grasp. O’Mahony spoke of “a tough week, a stressful week” but eyes remain on the prize still on offer.

He has addressed the team on that, shared how many times he has reached round five of the Championship with nothing tangible to play for and urged them to bring their best as they go about claiming a second successive title.

Still, there’s no doubt but that the wider public needs some convincing.

“Going back over a long period we're way down the list of championships won,” said the Munster veteran. “You're talking about back-to-back [Grand Slams] and no-one has done it because it's so hard, that's why.

"You've got to win ten championship games in a row, win five away from home. It's unbelievably difficult to win a game away from home in this championship, if you look at the stats across the board.

"So it's everything to us. Absolutely everything to us, another championship. It's probably a manner of the Irish psyche, 'Jesus, another championship', you know what I mean? When all of a sudden a few years ago you'd have taken your arm and your leg off for one.” 

Appetite will hardly be theirs alone. Scotland have been licking their own wounds after a deserved loss to Italy in Rome last weekend and yet they still come to Dublin with the prospect of an eleventh Triple Crown but a first since the memorable year of 1990 still within their grasp after earlier wins against Wales and England.

It’s impossible to underestimate what a win today would do for a team that has impressed and flattered to deceive in almost equal measure in the course of Gregor Townsend’s long stint in charge as head coach.

“It's a competitive game and both teams always get stuck in,” said O’Mahony. “And that's what you want, isn't it? You want both teams flat out. And we're not playing tennis or golf. It's a physical game, and you've got to get stuck in and you've got to be on the edge, and that's rugby, like.”