WE ALL NEED TO HAVE OUR FINEST GAME OF THE YEAR
MThe losses of Tommy O’Donnell and Chris Cloete have left coach Johann van Graan scrambling for an openside flanker for Saturday’s Champions Cup quarter-final with Toulon, and despite Jack O’Donoghue being the favourite to fill the role, O’Mahony is willing to take an unfamiliar position on his return.
‘There’s lots of guys who will be banging on Johann’s door for the last couple of months saying “I want to play” and probably this weekend you’ll get your chance and at this level you’ve got to perform,’ said O’Mahony.
‘I am really focused on playing well this week. I am not going to go and try and consciously play like a No7 if that is what you are asking. You have got to go and try and play as best you can at the weekend.
‘If you are thinking about doing different things because you are missing x or y then you are going to be off-task. The 22 or 23 who are lucky enough to be picked, you need guys playing the best game of their year on Saturday to have a shot at winning.”
At the age of 28 O’Mahony is now one of the older and more experienced players in the squad. The captain has shouldered the responsibility of leadership since he was first named skipper five years ago, but after just arriving back in the province on Monday last, he will look to his colleagues for assistance.
‘You can’t be a one-man leader, not at this level, not at this game. You need 25 or 30 of them at this level, maybe even more.
‘You have your little leadership group who have maybe been around a little bit longer and they’re the guys you lean on the most. But you see from the last few weeks you need an extended squad of guys who are ready to perform at a seriously high level and that doesn’t change either this weekend.’
O’Mahony played his first European game in 2011 with Tony McGahan in the coaching hotseat, and since then every season has ended in heartbreak in the competition. He lost out to Toulon in 2014 in the semi-final and Saracens at the same stage last season, but all the losses leave their mark.
‘All the ones you have lost in Europe they all hurt for a long, long time after. They probably shouldn’t. But in this game they do because it is what you are here for. We have to use that hurt.
‘[Toulon’s] strength is probably as hard to pick a weakness in them. The performance at the weekend, it was quite relentless. Their pack have the ability to beat teams up and their backs have probably even more of an ability to beat teams up.
‘You probably cannot go after them head-on. It is not like we have the size to really take them on like that but you have got to be physical. That is not saying you cannot shy away from it. You have got to go hard but be smarter about it.
‘Guys like Josua Tuisova, Malakai Fekitoa and Mathieu Bastareaud, you are naming household names across the board. The go-forward ball that Bastareaud gives them makes them difficult to stop.
‘It is about momentum. They have a lot of momentum givers so they are some of the guys we are going to have to stop at the weekend.’ UNSTER captain Peter O’Mahony says he’s ready to pull on the No 7 shirt against Toulon if required, but Ireland’s Grand Slam winner won’t be changing his methods. O’Mahony lays down the law for Munster ahead of Toulon clash