HUGO KEENAN SAYS Saturday’s World Cup win against the Springboks ranks as the biggest night of his career after Ireland delivered a statement performance to down the defending champions.
Ireland are now in prime position to top their pool and set up a likely quarter-final date with New Zealand, and post-match, Keenan ranked it as the most significant game of his career as he reflected on a famous night in Paris.
“Probably the biggest wasn’t it? It’s been in the pipeline,” he said.
God, I was nervous this week, I met my girlfriend briefly this morning and she thought I looked sick!
“I felt good once I got out there, it’s a pressure environment. Stade de France hasn’t been kind to us in the past, there’s a pressure lurking that we were keen personally and as a team from that loss to France two years ago and learn from that.
“Jeez, that support was incredible. The Irish crowd are amazing, the numbers, the amount of people who made the effort to get over here and support us – it made some difference.”
Ireland spend a lot of time working on their mental preparation so with that in mind, it was interesting to hear Keenan admit to some pre-game nerves. As much as you try prepare for it, you can’t feel the noise and intensity of a packed Stade de France until you’re out there in the thick of it.
“You need to harness it at the right times and I think the forwards did,” Keenan continued.
“I’m sure South Africa felt under the cosh at times when the 60-odd-thousand Irish fans are cheering for us, it does make a difference.
There’s times you have to ignore it during play and just do your job, but you also have to embrace it and make the most of it.
“The walkaround after the game was incredibly special, I saw some familiar faces which makes it extra cool.”
Keenan came close to scoring a try for Ireland early in the first half, getting on the end of a wonderful Garry Ringrose pass only to be tackled short of the line.
“We left a few tries out there alright, it was annoying I didn’t carry three metres further. I was too far (to reach), you have to be careful of the double-movement, be patient and not greedy. They’re big moments.
“It was such a tight affair, both teams were making mistakes, both had opportunities and we both didn’t take them, it could have gone either way.
“Defensively, we were very good and that was pleasing. Lads fronted up, the forwards and the lads off the bench were involved in that. They were brilliant, weren’t they?”
Agreed.
As a Munster fan I hate to say it, but Nienaber is definitely the man who can get Leinster to win trophies again. They have been in ruthless form for a few years, winning games almost by default, but then don’t do it when it really counts. Nienaber will be the guy who can make this Leinster team more resilient. I hope Munster can be even more resilient though and win the champions cup and the URC.
@Jorgen Hartogs: maybe last weekend was the start of that. Leinster have a habit of losing games in the last few minutes not the other way round.
@chris mcdonnell: I don’t know if we can conclude much from last week. Surely Leinster’s problem has just been the inability of their first team to beat the physically more powerful La Rochelle and prime Saracens. Sure they’ve lost a few more with heavily rotated teams, but that’s a different set of issues. At this time I’d say the major new concern would be whether we’re seeing post RWC rustiness/mental fatigue or whether some top players are now past their peak
Yikes