Are Ireland in danger of focusing too much on World Cup?

Ireland is a small country with a real opportunity to win something big on the world’s sporting stage so, under the circumstances, they can be forgiven if they have taken one eye off the Six Nations ball and focused it instead on the World Cup in Japan.

Ireland's Bundee Aki and Rory Best train at Murrayfield. Picture: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

“If we get a super performance and we’re beaten by a better team because they [Scotland] are a bloody good team, then we’ve got to accept that,” said coach Joe Schmidt at Thursday’s team announcement. “And it will give us a benchmark and extra hunger for that first-round game in Pool A [of the World Cup].”

Why is the normally canny Kiwi talking about the World Cup just days before a Six Nations match? Well, perhaps because everyone else in Ireland is too. Here is a headline from the Irish Independent: “World Cup may be coming a year too late for Ireland.”

The same online page boasted several rugby stories, including two opening with the following: “Every moment of the week of the [2015] World Cup quarter-final loss to Argentina is etched in Joe Schmidt’s memory.”

And this: “The world is watching Ireland through new eyes this spring; in particular the international rugby coaches and analysts looking for an edge they can take to the World Cup.”

It’s a bizarre stat to swallow, but Ireland, All Black killers and the second best side in the world, have never been past the quarter-finals of a World Cup and no number of Grand Slams or Championship wins can ease that pain. The Irish are obsessed with the World Cup, fixated, infatuated, haunted even, just as Scots would be if Gregor Townsend’s team were contenders.

Fully expecting to get slapped down, I ask a World Cup question at yesterday’s captain’s conference at Murrayfield. Do Ireland feel that they need to put down a marker ahead of that opening Pool A match against Scotland?

“I think at the minute with the week we’ve had it feels a million miles away,” replies the Irish captain, Rory Best. “Having said that, it [the World Cup] will creep up very quickly. Will there be much credence given to what happens tomorrow in whatever months’ time? Possibly. But at the same time, we need to focus on winning a Six Nations game, get our campaign back on track. We’ll worry in September whenever September comes for those lucky enough to be involved in that one.”

It is the right answer – eventually: we’ll worry about the World Cup only when we need to, but Best is still surprisingly open to having the discussion.

Whether by accident or design, the Irish skipper was sittting under a huge photograph of an ecstatic John Barclay holding the Calcutta Cup aloft, as if to remind the Irish skipper what happened when England got ambushed last season. Eddie Jones’s team arrived at Murrayfield full of confidence after one loss in 25 Tests. Defeat to the Scots affected them so badly that England lost five matches on the bounce and finished fifth in the Championship.

It has to be lurking at the back of Irish minds that something similar could happen to them, that last weekend’s sneeze morphs into something life threatening should they fail this afternoon. And by ‘life’ I mean ‘World Cup’. That just turns the screw another notch when Ireland’s rugby players already carry the hopes of a nation.

“It’s a very different feeling and it’s not one you particularly want to get used to,” says Best of last weekend’s defeat by England in Dublin. “It was a nice feeling, the other way, coming into post-match press conferences having won but maybe not played well.

“I think from our point of view we expect to play better than we did last week, we expect to play with more intensity, we expect to play with more accuracy and, again, from our point of view, we expect a really tough test because we know how good Scotland are.”

Is it simply a matter of upping the intensity and letting the rest take care of itself, especially given the wet and windy conditions which would appear to favour the muscular Irish pack rather than Scotland’s quicksilver attack?

“Ach, look, I think we need to start well and we need to cut out the mistakes,” said Best, stating the obvious. “When you look at that first set that England had, they got ahead of us at the lineout, they then got gainline and then we made one more mistake and they scored.

“We have got to understand at this level it is about putting moment after moment after moment and just when you think you are doing well, that is when you are in the most danger because that is when you relax. As soon as you relax, that is when you are in trouble.”

It is hard to see anyone in or around Schmidt’s squad relaxing at any time, between now and boarding the return flight from Japan.