Incredible bulk as Ryan is looking bigger and better!

IRELAND v ROMANIA

JAMES Ryan admits he’s bulked up for the big stage – as he vows that Ireland will put their top-ranked heft on show from the starting line at France 2023.

Second-row Ryan is visibly bigger now after a summer of piling on some pounds and he hopes that will give him an edge at his second Rugby World Cup.

Speaking ahead of today’s clash with Romania in

Bordeaux, the Leinster star (right) said: “I’ve added a few kilos alright, yeah, throughout the summer.

“You’re always trying to get the balance right versus if you feel it maybe compromises your ability to get around the park and stuff.

“But I felt really good throughout the summer in the games that I played at the weight I’m at.”

Ryan insists that

Ireland will take the plunge into these finals with a big opening statement.

The world’s number oneranked team get their bid up and running against the Group B minnows, and – after a low-wattage, low-profile warm-up series – the experienced lock expects Andy Farrell’s strong line-up to catch fire in their tournament opener.

“It’s definitely not about easing ourselves in,” said Ryan.

“I think if we’re going to take this compe- tition seriously I don’t think you can ease yourself into any game. We’ve got to go in with the right mentality. “It’s about playing with real intent and putting in a performance that we know we’re capable of. We were a bit off in a couple of the pre-season games, and we didn’t hit that 80-minute performance we were looking for.

“It’s about winning every moment, or winning as many moments as we can. We don’t want to drift or lose 10 minutes or 15 minutes. “We’re definitely striving for the full 80-minute performance tomorrow that we can be proud of, and hopefully give the Irish people there tomorrow something to cheer about.”

Discipline will be a key element to how Ireland fare but in that regard they have been exceptional, having not picked up a yellow card since Andrew Porter’s in the third Test in New Zealand over a year ago - that’s 11 games ago.

“It’s definitely something that we talk about every week,” said Ryan. “We pride ourselves on being a disciplined team and a big part of that is the way we train and the habits that we try to build.

“It’s a very fine line now with a lot of the decisions around the tackle area. If you get a little bit wrong, or we’re just not quite right, the results can be a pretty lengthy ban.

“We would do a lot of tackle tech every week to try and mitigate that risk as much as we can, because yeah, obviously it can be hugely costly for a team if you lose a couple of big players.”

World Cup pressure is, of course, a heightened pressure given the global nature of the event that is compressed into an eight-week tournament every four years.

Ireland have 18 players in their 33-strong squad that are experiencing this environment for the first time, and 10 are in the matchday squad for the opener.

Ryan says that all are focused on the job in hand.

Pressure

“I think there is always pressure,” said the 27-year-old.

“When you are playing international rugby, when you are playing for Ireland, there is always huge pressure.

“Obviously with the World Cup now, the stakes are higher. I think it’s just playing the game really, not the occasion, as we talked about this week a little bit. We’re expecting a huge amount of support tomorrow and it to be an amazing day, World Cups are different.

“I think it’s just remembering to play the game and not the occasion is important. All of our focus has been going into our performance during the week.”

On top of everything else, Ireland have to deal with the heat and temperatures are expected to rise above 35 degrees centigrade during the match.

Ryan believes the players won’t struggle.

“I like to think we’ve gotten maybe more used to the heat.

“But you can’t hide from it – kick-off at 3.30 and it’s probably going to be the hottest part of the day.

“But it can’t be an excuse, we have to be able to manage the heat – that’s the expectation.”