PETER O’MAHONY SAYS expectations for Irish rugby are on a different level to a decade ago as he signed off his international career with a third-place finish in this year’s Six Nations.
Reflecting on his time in a green jersey after Ireland’s victory over Italy on Saturday, O’Mahony spoke about losing in Rome in 2013 when Ireland finished fifth and the change in what is demanded now.
“Now the expectation of everyone in Ireland when we take the pitch is that we win. The expectation at the start of the Six Nations is we win the Six Nations. That’s the expectation that they have, that’s down to the hard work of players, that’s not down to anyone else.
“But we’ve gone from hoping to expecting. Over the space of a decade or so, we’ve changed the mindset of players and supporters to expecting nothing but wins from Ireland.
“I think that group that you’re looking at at the moment is one of the most talented groups of people you’re going to come across, the number of players that I’ve been lucky enough to play alongside over the last eight weeks, it’s getting better and better.
“It gives me a huge amount of pride. Cian [Prendergast] spoke inside about leaving a mark on the younger people, if I’ve made a little bit of difference to the people, shown them a few things not to do, I’ll be a happy man.”
Assessing the mentality shift, O’Mahony put it down to delivering success on the pitch. “We’ve had some big wins. Back in Paul [O’Connell’s] team we won the double, we came fifth here and had back to back championships after that and that was definitely a huge step forward for us.
“Then you go to 2018, you win a Grand Slam and that run continued on for a while, that was probably the point where we were chasing stuff down, and listen it didn’t go the way we wanted it to go but we went on and built from there, when Andy [Farrell] came on and we rarely lose now and that’s now the expectation.”
Regarding a move onto the coaching staff, Mahony said he would “not take it off the table but I’m going to take a break now to reassess”, insisting the dynamic there now
“It is in good hands, incredibly good hands. I’ve spoken about the players and management, they’re some of the best people, not just good technicians but as people that I’ve come across, people that care about Irish rugby and the state of Irish rugby and without a doubt the best coaching group that I’ve come across.
“I think Irish rugby is in an incredible place. The amount of young people that are playing the game, that’s because they’re following a team that are winning.
“You go back to my team, it was ‘what soccer team did you follow?’ because they won everything. There are kids now that are playing rugby in areas that never played rugby before because of what this team has been through and what has been done, and that is a huge chunk down to the coaches.”
Reporting by Ciarán Kennedy
Well i think most people can understand that, i would back mickey harte to the hilt in any argument against RTE. I heard the skit and was shocked at the time, the guy that did it is just not funny.
Rte are muppets.
I agree with the 2 previous comments. John Murray has a smugness about him that reminds me of his predecessor on Radio 1 who has since gone on to ‘bigger and better things’
Murray is a muppet. His attempts at humour are pathetic. I switch off in the morning as soon as the news is over. Sadly there is a dearth of talent at RTE. Perhaps lowering salaries to appropriate levels might remove the smugness?
John Murray (who makes nice bobs on the side when RTE buy shows; like the recent Charlie Bird excursion to the South Pole, which he was involved in producing), is woefully ill suited to what he is doing now. He’s as funny as a broken leg in a marathon. Like Mooney in the afternoon, his signature tune has me reaching for the next station within nanoseconds.
He is a current affairs man, and that’s it. Des Cahill is a colour reporter, not a snorting ill prepared sports correspondent with stilted delivery and a jarring manner. Pat Kenny is a well briefed incisive and thorough interviewer, who happens to be devoid of spontaneous persona, so they gave him a talk show for eleven years, at the bones of three quarters of a million for each of those years. Tubridy is a vacuous, bubble dwelling non entity, who only came to life in recent times when Fianna Fail were mentioned, and now he’s numero uno, and falling fast. Duffy was a vox pop guy, who was anointed by Gaybo, beyond his talents, and now makes the Lahvline his own personal soapbox, treating callers with sheer bad manners, abruptness, and sighing condescension.
The late Gerry Ryan, who drove me cracked with his on air consumption of any passing foodstuffs, his constant plugs for Harry Crosbie and his other buddies (in exchange for freebies of course), and his arrogance, had, despite all those failings, more charm, and more personality than the whole flippin’ lot put together.
He was probably one of the only on air personalities in that institution, (with the exception of a fair chunk of the news team, Morning Ireland et al.) who wasn’t promoted beyond their station, as it were.
RTE is a living breathing example of the Peter Principle, with a healthy dash of nepotism.
Rte should be shut down
What a choice of song…idiots. What planet are they on. John murrays show is scripted and produced, there’s more than him to blame. And who leaked the contents of the private and confidential letter received by Rte? The postman?! The cleaner?? Professor plum in the library with the candlestick??!
All GAA players should boycott RTE this weekend and send the smug fcukers a clear message.
Ryan, with respect Gerry Ryan most certainly was promoted outside of his own show…secrets, school around the corner, Ryan confidential, operation transformation and on and on. Rte seem to use the same handful of bores to do everything! But leaking a letter and handing a "satirical" script to John Murray of all people to read out??? What planet were they on. Did they think people would turn on the hugely respected Mickey Harte instead of them??? Eejits.
Oh, I quite agree, Jaynie. I wouldn’t be looking at him with rose tinted specs or anything :) I remember The School Around The Corner too!
But my point remains that his bread and butter, the morning slot on 2fm, despite the faults I bored ye all with, had far more individuality attached than John Murray’s efforts.
His producer would want to be…I won’t say what, but as you allude to, there is a large and bloated degree of support behind the guy or gal on the mic, especially and almost exclusively wrt RTE, and it’s ridiculous that none of them had the skill or the cop on to say, “Hang on a second!”
Very insensitive, I’m a Dublin gaa supporter and it’s true to say we are like one big family.its very upsetting what the Harte family and John went through.shame on ya RTE.if I wasn’t going to the game tomorrow I wouldn’t bother watching it on tv.
‘One big ‘family” – when the footballers play Croker is always full (or nearly so) , when the hurlers have a game never more than half full. Lots of ‘family’ members don’t do their duty when the caman is involved.
Mickey Harte has had a tragic year, and in the face of all that stress he still pushes forward his beloved Tyrone to greater heights. The sketch was insensitive for sure, and would understandably have annoyed Harte at this time. It isn’t fair, however, to paint all of RTÉ as ‘muppets’ – this is an organisation made up of many individuals – doing their best and, more often than not, doing a great job. The problem with comment sites like these, I find, is that the negative voice is quite often the only one that bothers with being heard. John Murray is a fine presenter, so is Mooney etc… Not perfect, but who is?
Totally agree with you there, wouldn’t exactly call him a natural! In such bad taste! Did not one person on the team say…hang on a minute…maybe not the best choice of song…oh and probably best not to skit about the private and confidential letter our boss leaked, sorry, I mean received