Ronan Kelleher and Johnny Sexton are the only two members of the 33-man Irish squad not to have played a minute in the three warm-up games, but as with the returning Irish captain, so Kelleher is set to feature in their opening Rugby World Cup pool game against Romania.
Scrum coach John Fogarty, who was bullish about the fitness of the squad in general, maintained “no one is ruled out” of Saturday’s match in the Stade de Bordeaux (kick-off 3.30pm local time/2.30pm Irish).
Yet the likelihood remains that Dan Sheehan will not be pressed into action as he continues his recovery from the sprained foot ligament he sustained in the win over England last Saturday week. Hence, Kelleher’s recovery from the hamstring strain which sidelined him for all three warm-up games is timely.
“I’ve been training fully and I’m just raring to get going now,” Kelleher declared after the squad trained under a sweltering sun at their newly built Stade de la Chambrarie training complex in Tours today (Monday). I had a few little niggles there over the last couple of weeks but fit now and ready to go.”
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Kelleher hasn’t played since the Champions Cup final in May, but the hooker maintained there were two ways of looking at that.
“You’d be thinking maybe I haven’t got a couple of games under the belt, which I would have liked, but at the same time my body feels unbelievably healthy, so it’s great. You very rarely go into matches feeling 100 per cent healthy, which is great. For me personally, first World Cup, really looking forward to it.”
[ Rugby World Cup: Johnny Sexton set for Ireland return in opener against RomaniaOpens in new window ]
Whatever else Ireland bring to this World Cup, it’s doubtful that any country will have as good a third-choice hooker, whoever that may be.
“Ah look, we’re so lucky, aren’t we, to have such talented hookers,” said Fogarty of Sheehan, Kelleher and Rob Herring. “Yeah, they’re aware that they’re in a competition with each other. It’s always been that way.
“I think that’s really important across the squad that we’ve got people competing for positions. You want a competitive group. It makes things difficult for coaches to select and that’s what we want. So, we feel we’re in a good place.”
Having arrived in Tours last Thursday and trained on the ensuing two days, the squad were afforded a day of rest and recovery on Sunday.
“It’s so essential to helping us have focus today. This morning we started with mini-meetings with forwards and backs split. We split up into frontrows and back five, and just set our week up, how we’re going to attack our week, what’s important to us.
“The players fed back to each other so there was real focus this morning so we could have a nice session just now. It has been nice and focused, nice and clear. That’s what’s important for the weekend, that clarity so that when there are opportunities, we can take them.”
The hot weather is set to continue when the squad transfer to Bordeaux on Thursday, with temperatures in the mid-30s, including for Ireland’s one afternoon kick-off in the pool stages.
But Fogarty stressed that the squad have benefited from both their training week in Portugal and match week in the southwest of France for the Samoan game in Bayonne.
“It’s certainly going to play its part at 3pm in Bordeaux but we feel we have stressed the players in that and there’s some really good strategies around how we’re going to deal with it. It’s certainly a factor but we feel we’re ready.”
Furthermore, when asked about the Springboks’ 7-1 split on the bench for their rout of the All Blacks at Twickenham last Friday week, and how Ireland might have to cope with this in their third pool game, Fogarty said: “We haven’t really spoken about it too much. I guess there’s risks and rewards with anything you do with your bench. What we do feel is that we’re very confident in the group of forwards that we have.
“Pre-season has been excellent. Fitness levels, power, strength – we’re right up there with anyone in the world and we feel ready to take on just about anyone in the world. So, whatever comes our way, we’re going to be ready.”
