Murray Kinsella Reports from Tours

PAUL O’CONNELL’S PLAYING career ended with injury at a World Cup. It was 2015 in the big pool-stage decider against France when he suffered a hamstring avulsion. In plain terms, his hamstring ripped clean off the bone.

He was one of a few key players Ireland lost in that battle. O’Connell, Johnny Sexton, and Peter O’Mahony joined Jared Payne on the injury list. Sean O’Brien ended up getting banned for striking Pascal Papé. The toll was too heavy and Ireland were beaten by Argentina in the quarter-finals a week later.

The injury also denied O’Connell the chance to play in the Top 14. He had signed a deal to join Toulon after the World Cup and made the move to France, but he never recovered enough to play. His retirement was confirmed in early 2016.

With the benefit of time, O’Connell harbours no strong feelings of frustration about that injury, nor about the World Cup quarter-final exit for Joe Schmidt’s team. He’s at peace with both.

“It is what it is,” said O’Connell, who is now preparing for another World Cup as Ireland’s forwards coach. 

“I thought we were in a great place as a team. We’d excellent leadership as a team, a real understanding of what the coach wanted and how he wanted it done.

“We’d a group of players that were very good at driving that, delivering that, and unfortunately a few of those guys got injured for that game against Argentina. We hit a really hot Argentina team on the day.

“It was really disappointing, I was disappointed as well not to spend 18 months in the south of France. But when I think of myself now as a retired player eight years later, I’m physically in a very good place where some guys struggle. I don’t know if I would be in such a good place if I spent 18 months down in France when Toulon were beginning to struggle a little bit.

O'Connell's career ended with injury in 2015. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

“So, that’s the silver lining of it I suppose. It was disappointing to go out the way we did. We always had our struggles against France, but by the time we played them in that World Cup, we played really well against them.

“We were in a really good place, but lost a bit of leadership for Argentina and we hit a hot team. That was a disappointing exit and a disappointing end for sure.”

Who knows what would have happened next for Ireland if Sexton, O’Brien, O’Connell, O’Mahony, and Payne – or even a couple of them – had been available. In fairness, New Zealand would have taken some beating in that 2015 World Cup.

It was a good Irish team but O’Connell believes the one he’s working with now is better.

“I think it’s a better Irish team,” said O’Connell, who played in four World Cups.

“Physically, a lot of us were incredibly committed but these guys, there’s some serious athletes in the team, particularly in the forward pack. Guys that can accelerate quickly, they can change direction really quick.

“A lot of them are the product of really good coaching from a very young age at U20s, in academies, they’ve had different coaches in their provinces and because of that they pick things up really quickly and they’ve really good leadership and ownership of going about their business.

“We’ve players that are able to figure things out really quickly. We can come up with something and they will adapt it to their game quickly.

“That’s the biggest thing I’ve found since I’ve come back into the Irish set-up two years ago, the smarts of the players is a real strength of theirs. So I think they’re further down the track than any Irish team I played in, for sure.”

As Ireland scrum coach John Fogarty revealed earlier this week, O’Connell has dubbed some of the Irish forwards’ training sessions as “box office” and the man himself was happy to expand on that.

The Irish forwards set for a scrum. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

“I just enjoy watching the scrums,” said O’Connell. “Wednesday is ‘performance day’ and we go at it pretty hard.

“There’s a lot of mauling, we’re trying to gas the players a little bit and then train under a little bit of stress and pressure, the same with the scrums.

“Some guys see the scrum as their real point of difference, so that’s their big, big session of the week. So, the last few weeks, that scrummaging session on a Wednesday has been the most enjoyable session of the week for me. It doesn’t last long but it’s great to watch.”

O’Connell understands that the scrum, lineout, and maul will be pivotal if Ireland are to have success in the coming weeks. He highlighted that the penalty count in those departments often correlates with winning.

But even as they go after the World Cup, O’Connell believes that the Irish players will be able to stay focused on each job as it comes.

“There’s no doubt when we went to New Zealand [last year] we wanted to create a little bit of history and we would have spoken about that briefly, but then you just go back to week-to-week,” said O’Connell.

“Same with the Six Nations this year. We were sure we wanted to win it and we were sure we wanted to win a Grand Slam, but they all know they need to focus on the performance and they need to go back to week-to-week.

“It’s the same here, there’s still bits we need to add to our game. There’s still bits and pieces the players are looking to show in the game both individually and as a team. And they get quite excited about showing that in a game, not necessarily winning a game.

“It’s something that Andy manages quite well. It’s something that Gary Keegan manages well and the senior players manage it well as well, trying to stay focused week-to-week.

“I’m sure they think about going deeper into the competition very often but they’d be good at getting back to neutral and focusing on what’s ahead of them then.”