Eddie O’Sullivan: Press Conference Quotes

See below for quotes from Ireland coach Eddie O’Sullivan from Sunday’s catch-up press conference.

ON POTENTIAL INJURY CONCERNS:

“Brian (O’Driscoll) is fine. I was anxious to get him off because his hamstring tightened up again. It’s a fatigue issue.

“He could have finished the game but the danger is if he sees a gap, the crowd cheers and he takes it, he could end up damaging his hamstring.

“He would then be in a battle to play in the Triple Crown game against Scotland. For that reason I took him off. He didn’t want to leave because he was enjoying himself, but it was the right thing to do. There’s no issue with the injury.

“Gordon D’Arcy’s groin tightened up a bit but he was managing fine so we left him on.

“We’ve been lucky with injuries so far in the Six Nations. There are two games left and we are in good health. I hope we’ll keep that profile because it will make a big difference to us.”

ON THE REMAINDER OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP:

“Any team can beat any other on any given day. When France go to Twickenham, all bets are off. England can put themselves back in the championship with a bang if they beat France.

“There’s a lot of motivation for them now and, if they get certain things right, there’s no doubt they will beat France. They won’t if they play like they did against us – it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work that out, but I think England will bounce back.

“They have a lot to prove. They recognise they did well in the first two games against Scotland and Italy but maybe also now realise they weren’t tested as much as they thought they had been.

“France will test them but England will now have a greater feel for where they are. It should be very interesting and hopefully they’ll blow the Six Nations wide open.”

ON SATURDAY’S OPPOSITION AND THE PROBLEMS THEY POSED:

“I think it was an inexperienced English team. If you look at the profile of their team, we were a lot more experienced. We’ve been in the situation where we’ve been in Twickenham against a very experienced English team and we’ve been well beaten. It’s very hard.

“The only way to get experience is going through the grinder in international rugby. They were playing well for England. They were playing well in the Premiership. But to come into Croke Park in the cauldron like that and deliver is very tough.

“You can’t buy experience, you’ve just got to live it. Once we got control of the first half I think we were pretty ruthless.

‘The start of the second half England hit a purple patch. They got a good try. I think we were asked questions there.

“I think we responded in exactly the way we should have and we came back and we took the game to them and finished the stronger team. That’s a long way of saying it but that was a very good performance.”

ON IRELAND’S FOURTH SUCCESSIVE WIN OVER ENGLAND/WORLD CUP ASPIRATIONS:

“It’s great to have won. We’ve gone a whole World Cup cycle (four years) without losing to the World champions. That’ss a good statistic.

“I said in the build-up to the England game that all previous wins against them had been by only one score. We were very happy to win those games and some of them might have gone the other way but we dug in.

“Saturday was a comprehensive victory and the best in that respect. It shows where we are and proves that we are building in the right direction.

“You don’t get it right every day but, on balance, we’ve got it right more often than not. This win gives us a lot of confidence. We’ve ‘transitioned’ the team pretty well over the last year and a half now.

“The last time we lost to England was at Lansdowne Road in a Grand Slam game and the score was the other way around to Saturday’s. We were well beaten.

“To say we are where England were in 2003 is a big statement to make. That team that beat us went on to beat New Zealand and Australia before going on to win the World Cup.

“For us, job one is to get out of our pool (at the World Cup) and, if we can do that, we want to reach the semi-finals.”