O’Mahony: Relentless display is typical of this special group

IRELAND made history at Lansdowne Road last night as they beat the visiting All Blacks for the first time on home soil and even Kiwi captain Kieran Read admitted that the boys in green ‘were just too good’.

Standing on the pitch, surrounded by the roaring Irish crowd, Man of the Match Peter O’Mahony (right) said: ‘It’s a big day. It’s one we’ve wanted to tick off in Ireland and we’ve done it. It’s taken a while, a hundred and whatever years but this is a special group of boys. It’s an honour to play alongside them every time we take the field. It’s a special day today, playing alongside some of my best friends. We knew we had to be relentless. They’re not No1 in the world for the craic. They’re the best team in the world and we knew we’d have to play our best game of this squad’s tenure and I think this was up there.’

There was a try-saving moment from O’Mahony as well as many other crucial interceptions and catches from the Irish. The flanker was fulsome in his praise of his teammates. ‘It was unreal playing alongside my team-mates, boys showing up everywhere, tackles that probably shouldn’t have been made but guys were fighting for each other and for the cause and it was a good day.

‘We’re building nicely. We have some nice confidence going into the next Six Nations. We’ve obviously got a big game next week against the States, so we’ll get recovered and stuck in next week.’