Will Irish golden generation shine?
Ireland's so-called 'golden generation' have a chance to finally write themselves into the history books in Saturday's World Cup quarterfinal clash with Wales, lock Donncha O'Callaghan said on Tuesday.
Ireland have reached the RWC quarterfinals four times but have yet to make the final four, a dream O'Callaghan said was now achievable after they topped their pool at this year's edition with an unbeaten run of results that included a shock 15-6 win over two-time champions Australia.
The Irish were bitterly disappointed with their World Cup campaign in France four years ago, which saw them fail to qualify for the knockout phase of the tournament and things were not looking good before this year's tournament either after they lost all four of their warm-up matches.
However, seasoned campaigners such as Brian O'Driscoll and Paul O'Connell led the way admirably and were backed up by promising young players such as flank Sean O'Brien as they swept aside all before them in Pool C.
But O'Callaghan, 32, warned that for all the talk of a golden generation in Irish rugby, the senior players in the squad had achieved "not a whole lot" when measured against their potential and added that Saturday's match in Wellington was an opportunity to finally prove their mettle.
"The big thing for our group of lads is to maybe do something to separate ourselves from Irish teams that have gone before," O'Callaghan told reporters.
"An awful lot of other Irish teams have won Grand Slams or triple crowns or got to quarterfinals - this could be a chance for us to maybe stand on our own.
"For the group of players who people talk about in last the few years as being a 'golden generation', what have we done that's separated us from the rest?
"If you're honest, not a whole lot," he said.
This year's tournament is expected to be last World Cup for players such as O'Callaghan, O'Driscoll, Gordon D'Arcy and Ronan O'Gara, giving the sudden-death match against Wales an extra edge.
Wing Tommy Bowe - who plays his club rugby in Wales - said he expected a "ding-dong battle" against their northern hemisphere rivals, who hit a rich rein of form to emerge second from a tough pool involving champions South Africa, Fiji and Samoa.
"We'll be expecting them to be playing an expansive and exciting game of rugby," Bowe said.
"Hopefully the rain stays off because we'd be wanting to play a bit of rugby also. I think it's really up there for a ding-dong battle," he added.
O'Callaghan said Ireland were full of self-belief after the win over Australia and a 36-6 demolition of Italy last weekend which sealed their quarterfinal spot as the top team in Pool C.
"Everyone thinks it's a massive surprise that we beat Australia, but from our point of view, we don't see it that way," he said.
"We back ourselves to go out and put on massive performances and if you look at the Italian game, the last game of the pool was really tough for everyone and for us to get a 30-point win, we take great confidence from that."
* Assistant coach Mark Tainton revealed that injured hooker Rory Best was a doubtful starter against Wales but back-up Sean Cronin said he would not be daunted if selected after facing the same situation last year.
"In the autumn internationals just gone, Rory picked up a bad injury against the All Blacks, so I had to come on early in that game and prepare for the following week against Argentina," Cronin explained.
"Obviously it's a different level here at the World Cup, but I've done it before."
AFP