Oh Jesus.
Ireland have won 14 of their last 15 Test matches, are Grand Slam champions, have just beaten Australia on their home patch(es) and are second in the world with a personal best rankings tally.
The likes of Jacob Stockdale, James Ryan, Andrew Porter and Jordan Larmour all made stunning Test breakthroughs in the past 12 months and there is depth like never before. Joey Carbery is off to get game-time in a 10 jersey and Munster and he will be joined by Tadhg Beirne.
Sean O’Brien, Josh van der Flier, Rory Best, Tommy O’Donnell, Luke McGrath and Rhys Ruddock will all hope to fly through pre-season to get back into the Test mix while Jack O’Donoghue and Chris Farrell will get back to first team action a couple of months into the new season.
Even at scrum-half, where Conor Murray reigns supreme, John Cooney, Kieran Marmion and McGrath will all be jostling for that deputy role and eyeing a start, or two, in the November internationals.
All looks rosy and the Ireland squad will break up for the next two months, until Joe Schmidt gathers 40+ players for a mini camp at Carton House. “I don’t want to see Joe again until August,” joked Jack McGrath after Ireland’s series-clinching 26-21 victory in Sydney.
The World Cup, next September and October, has been on Schmidt’s mind since Argentina dumped Ireland out at the quarter final stage in 2015. From August on, it comes to the fore and the focus will be steely.
The Rugby Championship will be underway by then and the Kiwi will be taking studious notes of New Zealand and South Africa [possible quarter final opponents], Australia and Argentina. Most would consider Steve Hansen’s men as favourites for the ‘Three-peat’ but a leading rugby writer from Australia has backed Ireland to win the Webb Ellis trophy.
Alex Broun of Sports 360 was recently on The Hard Yards and backed Ireland to beat his Wallabies. That prediction played out and Broun has gone a few steps further in his post-series column. He writes:
’15 months out from the World Cup and although New Zealand are still the No.1 ranked team in the world, the favourites in Japan are Ireland. Joe Schmidt, alongside Australian High Performance director David Nucifora, have done a superb job developing skills and depth.
‘But, most of all, Ireland are the masters under pressure. This win, where they virtually defended for the entire second half, was just as good as the last minute heroics in Paris that began their Six Nations run to glory.
‘Yes the All Blacks are far more dangerous in attack than the Wallabies but in the high pressure of a RWC knock-out match with Ireland’s swarming defence and the All Blacks as yet untested mental strength, I’m backing the men in green.’
High praise from a man that was media officer for the Springboks and British & Irish Lions (2001) before he turned his hand to the journalism game.
Ireland have never got beyond the last eight, in eight attempts, so we’ll try not to get carried away with this prediction yet. But….
