The Ireland team operate in pairs at this Rugby World Cup. It makes it easier to tackle the questions when they come as non sequiturs and there’s a chance to offload, passing the microphone with a raised eyebrow. Stuck on a dais before a phalanx of television cameras and microphones, players are courteous.
The global media descended on l’Honoré, in the tiny hamlet of Domont where the team is training, a 25-minute RER train ride out of Gare du Nord in Paris.
Anecdotally, the venue is used for weddings, a giveaway the magnificent chandelier in the centre of the ballroom and a double staircase that descends from a lofty height, presumably as separate walkways for the newly minted bride and groom. The players enter through a more conventional doorway.
The acoustics disappoint - the mics don’t work and then suffer from distortion. There are no such issues with the message. Irish head coach Andy Farrell and captain Johnny Sexton are first up, replaced by Tadhg Beirne and Hugo Keenan, then Andrew Porter and Garry Ringrose, video analyst Vinny Hammond and Conor Murray and finally Iain Henderson, an excellent soloist as a communicator: Ireland are playing the game not the occasion.
The quarter-final has been Ireland’s Waterloo moment in many previous iterations of the global tournament. It’s a familiar topic of exploration as inquisitors drill for detail but, for the week that’s in it, everyone sought an epiphany. It came couched at times, but any disguise was see-through.
The short answer is that the Ireland players are focusing on playing New Zealand, not the occasion. This is another match to be won, just like the pool games against world champions South Africa and the fifth-ranked side in world rugby, Scotland.
The last four years since Japan have been a journey to become mentally resilient. Ireland don’t get spooked, haven’t done in 17 matches and shouldn’t at the Stade de France if they stay faithful to that progress.
The players understand and recognise the context of the game they’ll play at the weekend but, as they’ve uniformly mentioned, they are embracing challenges. By the same token their recent history with the All Blacks, winning on New Zealand soil, will galvanise Saturday’s opponents. That’s not the focus for the Irish players; it’s about producing the best performance.
Everyone takes an edge from where they can find it, some comfort, whatever is required. That applies in life, not just sport. It’s down to the individual. Ireland loosehead prop Andrew Porter spoke about how the group has got stronger mentally, saying: “Irish rugby has come such a long way even in the last four years since the last World Cup.”
He was asked about what the sight of the New Zealand jersey meant to him. “I remember growing up watching the All Blacks. Jonah Lomu was my favourite player growing up. I had the honour, the chance of meeting him when he played in Dublin. They are an incredible team still and they will be a huge challenge for us this weekend.
“I think that we can take a lot of confidence from our previous encounters with them. I am just backing our own ability and I have that belief from our previous performances against them.”
Porter’s phenomenal athletic and aerobic capacity has seen him accumulate significant match minutes to complement his prodigious workload. He paid tribute to the work done to get the players into the best possible shape. “Obviously, like you say, there is a very high ball-in-play time.
“We are looked after incredibly well by our coaches; we are feeling like we have just started the tournament, nearly. We are mentally fresh and physically fresh coming in to this weekend, so I think that is incredibly positive to be that well looked after.
“It’s an incredibly fast game [in general] and I think the ball-in-play time was so high last week [against Scotland] that we were just forced to get through a lot of work. It’s just how we have been conditioned, prepared, especially in our preseason.
“Our S&C coaches have prepared us incredibly well physically, but we have also been mentally well prepared by Gary Keegan, our mental skills coach. It is about bringing yourself to that dark place in your mind to know you are going to have to get through a lot of work. You take a lot of confidence from the guys on either side of you to be able to get through so much work.”
Like an All Black place. That’d work.
