‘JOE CAN MAKE HAY’
LOOKING back at the past, Sean O’Brien shrugged his good shoulder. ‘Years ago, you never really wanted to go to France for your first cap because you’d be waiting years for another one.’
Times have certainly changed for the good of Irish rugby, but defeat in Paris seems to be a constant part of the landscape. In 1974, Moss Keane made his Ireland debut and only a few (Phil Orr, David Humphreys and Eoin Reddan) have gone on to enjoy successful Test careers afterwards. Alongside Keane, debutants Patrick Agnew and Vincent Becker toiled in a 9-6 defeat, but there is a reason why the latter pair are not household names.
Out of the 15 men who have made their debuts in Paris since Keane, nine have failed to collect more than five caps, but now, an Ireland team sets course for France with the wind in their sails and silverware to capture.
Ireland were always going to play well under him
However, the commander on deck will be experiencing the French capital for the first time in Test combat, but O’Brien insists that coach Joe Schmidt is the very reason why Ireland should win.
‘Ireland are playing really well but it was always going to be the case under Joe. From a players’ point of view, that was why it was so exciting after the November internationals, knowing that we’d have a lot more confidence and structure to our game, a lot more direction and knowledge where we’re going as a team,’ explains the Guinness brand ambassador.
‘It’s basic stuff but it’s basics done to perfection, that’s what he’s aiming for, to do everything well for every minute of every game and that’s where other coaches mightn’t be on to you all the time about your detail and where you’re meant to be and what your job is.
‘I think you see that every week with the lads, the way they’re playing. They have a clear mind of what they’ve to do on the field and where to go and it’s easy to play then.’
Schmidt gives his players the tools and the information to nullify their
And Tank backs his team-mates to steamroll French rivals
opposition and even this week when everyone else i s asking which French team will turn up, the coach already knows the personnel at least.
In his Leinster days, the New Zealander was always able to get his hands on enemy intelligence whenever a French club were the opposition and O’Brien expects it to be no different this week.
‘He has a few little contacts over there that he manages to get the right teams,’ he said with a wry smile.
However, the transition hasn’t been as simple as it sounds, which i s highlighted by the l oss to Australia in November where a lot of the non-Leinster players, who had no previous experience of Schmidt’s methods, needed to l ean on the l i kes of O’Brien, J ohnny Sexton a nd Bri a n O’Driscoll.
‘At the start, a lot of the Leinster lads were very used to Joe and everyone else wasn’t and they were kinda saying to us “ye direct us around”. A lot of lads were overthinking what they had to do at the time in those couple of games and I think they have probably realised now it is pretty simple.’
Admittedly, O’Brien is not comfortable sitting in the stands and although he was in Lansdowne Road for the Wales game, he has made the most of his convalescence by surveying the Six Nations from the comfort of his living room in Tullow on his own.
SO FAR, France have not caught his eye. True, he accepts, that they know just how to throw the formbook out of the window but he believes that Ireland’s clinical edge will be too much for a blase French side who will rely on the emotion of their home support to conjure some of their famed off-the-cuff ‘jouer’.
‘I just don’t think they have a structure in place or a real steady game plan. I think after two or three phases, they kind of don’t know where they are going,’ says O’Brien, who believes Ireland can target the weaknesses of the French back row.
‘I don’t think they’re that settled i n that area. Missing Thierry Dusautoir hasn’t done them any favours, he’s a huge leader and has a
O’Brien believes Schmidt will buck losing trend in Paris
ON HIS FARM BOY IMAGE ‘Toulon were leading the chase and it wouldn’t bother me to leave Ireland. Everybody thinks there’s no hope of me ever going to France, that’s not the case. I want to try something new and it’s just that right now isn’t the time JOE SCHMIDT’S IMPACT We should all be thinking that we should beat anybody in the world. With Joe there we’ve no excuses. We have the best coaching staff, the best players and the best squad we’ve ever had SELLING TULLOW TANK We ran him and he was beaten by 10 lengths so Barry Connell bought him from us. Now he’s a multiple Grade One winner so it would’ve been nice if we kept him
big influence on the lads around him. The other back-rowers have played well as individuals but as a unit, they’ve been all over the place. So it’s an area that we can probably go after.’
Of course O’Brien could have been off to play his rugby in Toulon next season, owning up that he had come to a point in contract negotiations with the IRFU where he thought ‘Jesus, have I to go here?’
He won’t rule out the possibility of playing in France further down the line, describing it as a ‘man-upathon’ due to the Top 14’s mon- ster-sized packs, but O’Brien does feel that the public and drawn-out contract sagas between the players and union need to be addressed.
‘If we could get the process being moved along a lot better and people were open and honest with each other, it would be done quicker,’ he says. ‘When people move the bar or are moving around a lot, and coming back with different answers and replies all the time, it’s hard to get something sorted quickly.’