It’s good to be involved in a clean sport, we are lucky in that regard
“If we play our best we can beat any team in the world”
LITTLE could Rob Kearney have fathomed last month when tweeting support for Usain Bolt’s 100-metre world championship victory over the doping-tainted Justin Gatlin that the worlds of athletics, rugby and doping would quickly collide.
Eight nights ago, the effervescent Bolt dropped by the Ireland team hotel in London to give a pep talk. Not only that, unsubstantiated doping accusations then emerged some days later from France concerning triple-winning European champions Toulon.
Kearney, speaking before the Toulon allegations emerged, believes his own sport is clean, unlike athletics where he describes Bolt as its shining light amid all the innuendo and proven drug test findings.
‘We’re very lucky in rugby,’ he volunteers. ‘We do get drug tested a huge amount; I’ve been tested a lot. Testing happens and there is very seldom cases where guys are done for it [doping]. It’s much nicer to be involved in a sport that is clean than a sport that is not.
‘Switching on the athletics your interest in it is massively diminished and you’re quite cynical. If you come second or third place the feeling is you just need to up your juicing levels.
‘Everyone believes that [Bolt winning in Bei- jing last month was good for sport], don’t they? It’s just inconceivable to me how you could be done twice for doping (as Gatlin was), yet be in a position where you can be world champion.
‘When you compare that with the sport I’m in, I don’t it would ever happen in rugby, would it? We’re lucky it’s a clean sport.’
Kearney has spent this week minding the bruised knee that ruled him out of last weekend’s final warm-up for England 2015. Now 29, he’s poised for a second appearance at the tournament he first got into as a kid growing up on the family farm in Cooley.
‘The ’95 World Cup in South Africa is the one I remember the most,’ he enthused. ‘In ’91 there were games in Ireland and I’ve vague memories, but I was only five years old.’
SIXTEEN years after Nelson Mandela famously handed Francois Pienaar the Webb Ellis trophy, Kearney had his first shot on the world’s biggest stage. It ended with a thud, Ireland exiting at the quarter-finals.
‘We just didn’t turn up against Wales. We played poorly. To be fair, and this is something I have always thought has got lost a little bit, Wales were very good that day and for the whole tournament they were playing some good, effective rugby.
‘ Their game plan, they had it perfected pretty well. [Sam] Warburton doesn’t get sent off against France in the semi-finals, it’s a different game then. It’s important to be mindful of that.’
Especially with Ireland heading into this edition with so much expected before they even start, unlike four years ago where it was only after the monumental pool win over Australia that the country dared to dream.
Kearney acknowledges this greater attention already heaped on Ireland but cautions against giddy assumptions they will automatically beat France to top their pool.
‘The World Cup is the pinnacle and because we are so close to home there is such a massive build up. I can pretty much predict this can potentially be the biggest, most followed World Cup in the history of Irish rugby. Anyone I talk to seems to be going to a couple of the games. Support will be massive.
‘It’s going to completely take over the country and it’s important that the players are a little bit prepared for that. You need to disregard all that hype, sort of submerge yourself a little bit in a bubble.
‘You know yourself Cardiff is tiny, that it’s going to be all Irish when we are there. London is much more vast, we can probably go out and do things, but when we are in Cardiff there won’t be too much leaving the hotel.
‘I’m not one bit worried (about expectation) because I’m 100 per cent aware what our interpretation of it is, which is that it is going to be a tough pool and we all know the French are a different side come World Cup. Against England the other week they just looked physi- cally much better, sharper, much more conditioned.
‘But we have always said that on our day, if we play our best rugby, we can beat any other team in the world and we believe that.’
IRELAND enter the tournament with consecutive warm- up defeats but the full-back, first capped nine years ago, believes the run-in to next Tuesday’s departure has been encouraging.
‘Because the tournament hasn’t started the only vibe you can pick up on is team environment, your standard of training, how well conditioned guys are and just how happy a mood the place is. All those have been really, really good.
‘ They got the balance perfect between getting guys back home, back into the province and then coming into camp and working hard. Sometimes if you’re in camp for five, six, seven weeks before the tournament even starts, you can get a little bit claustrophobic, but there definitely isn’t a sense we are becoming a little bit institutionalised.’
Millennium Stadium is obviously familiar terrain, but Ireland’s London venues aren’t alien to Kearney either: he played at Wembley for Leinster against Saracens and attended Olympic Stadium when London 2012 was in full swing. He prefers pitches where the crowd are on top of the players than ones like Olympic with a running track, but these logistics won’t matter as long as he is winning his particular duels.
‘There is a going to be a huge amount of kicking in the World Cup. As the stakes rise higher, teams will kick more. They will want to get out of their own half and it’s an area where there is going to be more and more collisions in the air.
‘It’s a good skill and it’s all about timing and literally just being 100 per cent eyes on the ball. Nothing else matters.
‘My favourite catch? I got one over Kurtley Beale at Eden Park in the last World Cup which got us back into the game... one high ball can put your team back into the game. It can be a big swing factor.’