Scrum of the Earth /

Not good times in the Ireland camp and the players are burning on the pressure cooker. They might be the best Irish team on paper but AT says it's not only the media who are critical of their performances.

Catching a wave

Myself, Isaac Boss, Jerry Flannery and Paul O’Connell took a trip to Hossegor beach to see the World Surf Championships. We saw Kelly Slater and all those boys… We took pictures of them as they walked past. It was great. We got this big 28-seater bus and only four people turned up, so we had to find a mini-bus instead. It was another one of those days that Isaac and I have organised but none of them have actually been all that successful.

French anxiety

I was pretty nervous before the game. About three hours before kick-off for the big games, I start wishing I wasn’t playing. I was very nervous beforehand but once I got onto the pitch I was fine.

The France game was the biggest of my life because I was starting and played a bigger role in it. There was a crazy atmosphere. It was all very intense. It was a huge game anyway but it was made even bigger by its importance. Unfortunately our performance didn’t match up to the occasion.

Devaste!

We played some good rugby in the first half but we made some stupid little mistakes, especially at the start of the second half. We gave away stupid penalties despite playing quite a few good bits of rugby. Even when we were 12-3 down, we knew we had to score next. Once we put them under some pressure, we did the inevitable whenever we were in a try scoring position and passes went to ground. We’re not very good at chasing games but it was stupid rugby.

I was wee bit disappointed I didn’t get my hands on the ball as much as I’d have liked. I thought as the game went on they would’ve started to soften up a little bit and we would’ve got a bit more ball, but it wasn’t to be the case.

Everyone in the dressing room was gutted. The better team won and we just had to come to terms with that. We never really got in a position to win the game. Had we threw it away it would’ve been a lot harder to get over the defeat. They were a lot more composed and clinical with their opportunities.

Scapegoat?

I am a bit disappointed but Eddie’s gone for experience. Perhaps Dennis is better to deal with Argentina’s kicking game and they have an awful lot of experience and ability in their backline.

Coming home early

It certainly is something we have to face up to. Hopefully, it can push us on to make sure Sunday isn’t our last game. It’d be an awful shame if things didn’t go our way. Not a lot of people are putting confidence in us but we have to believe in ourselves and our ability.

Not so happy days

The way we’re playing there’s not been much fun. It’s only fun when you’re winning and when the performance is what you've wanted. We haven't had that yet, so there hasn’t been that much enjoyment here. We’re all tough mentally so we don’t let the results get us down.

If you could beat The Pumas?

It would be enormous, playing in ¼ finals would be massive opportunity for me personally and to go up against the All-Blacks would be an enormous challenge.

Hardly ideal prepartions for Ireland as they prepare for Friday's French test. Embroiled in a bitter war of words against various newspapers, whose revelations have tried to rock the boat but despite all this AT is good to go and he won't be leaking anything incriminating, so safe reading....

I’m in!

My highlight’s definitely been getting selected on Tuesday morning. That was pretty special.

It’s been really exciting, there’s been an extra buzz about training this week. Despite being part of the squad, it was hard to get motivated last week knowing I’m just there to hold the bags. There’s nothing like starting a game and being the centre of attention with all the training and preparation.

Eddie’s changing faces

It’s the way Eddie works. He puts a lot of faith in the players and never lets one bad performance change his opinion of a player. It’s good to see and from the our perspective it’s very exciting to get a second chance to get the opportunity to play against France in a World Cup and hopefully I can make the most of it.

Why does nobody want to speak to me?

Eoin’s been getting a lot of press. I walked into the press conference and I wondered why no one wanted to speak to me. He was drowned in a sea of microphones and there were a lot of people giving him fair amount of questions but I’m extremely pleased for him and we both cant wait to get going.

Entertainment updates

The boys wanted to go to the circus….But they didn’t really.. They wanted me to find out some information just to give me something to do so I was at the front of the bus making an announcement about entertainment so I just blagged it and told them there was no circus on because it was a Sunday. The next day I got fined because someone was on the phone to our French Liason Officer, who said ‘I cant hear you because I’m at the circus’ so I got fined for that. I just paniced and thought they’d be no circus on a Sunday, but there was unfortunately.  

The prospect of the biggest rugby upset ever

At one stage in the second half, a lot of us were getting extremely anxious, especially with the intercepted try. Right up until the final whistle it was tight. I don’t think we will come up against a more physical team but defensively we looked good but we weren’t as good going forward continuing on from Namibia with a lot of handling errors and mistakes.

We were thinking we could actually be knocked out of this tournament by Georgia, which would’ve been disaster. It would’ve been absolutely gutting. The fact it nearly did happen is an awfully bad reflection on some elements of our game but we got through it and we’re where we wanted to be with two wins out of two, so we’ve just got to take on the positives and It’s all about France now.

Ireland United

It’d be nice not to be aware of it all but we know what’s going on and what people are saying. We refuse to let it frustrate us. We talked about this the other day in the team meeting and the vast majority is made up. We were all saying it doesn’t matter what people think because there are 30 players in this room plus the manager and that’s all that matters. Everyone else can say what they want really because we’re not going to let it get the better of us.

It’s a bit over dramatic with everybody saying if we lose then we’re out, but if we win then France will be out. We don’t want to be thinking of any negative thoughts but if we win its simple and we’re in the next round, and it would be a straight shoot out with Argentina for top spot. It’s just a massive game.

Is this the best Irish squad?

It’s something we said just before we set out and Eddie said ‘this is it, congratulations, there is something special about this group.’ In the last couple of weeks, we haven’t produced the goods on the pitch but there are a whole lot of people who know what we’re capable of and there’s a few who are trying to knock us down saying that we’d become bad players. We’re still the same players with the same bond. There’s that added incentive and a bit of pressure because on paper we’re a quality side and we’ve proved it in the past just not in the last couple of games but hopefully we will when times right, we’ll come good.

Loss of form

I think we are out of form but form is only temporary and it has to change eventually. We’ve got one more opportunity to change it on Friday and although the performances haven’t been great, it’s the performance on Friday that makes all the difference. Everybody’s grand. We know we can sill do it, nothings changed there, and the fact that everybody expects us to lose now takes a little bit of pressure off us. Ireland has never classically dealt with the tag as favourites too well so to go to France as underdogs will help.

Pre-game rituals

The night before I try to keep it quiet enough, maybe watch a bit of TV and take it easy. With the evening kick off’s it’s very difficult to kill a whole day. You just want to get on the pitch. About 9 o’clock there are many nerves flowing and its difficult trying to keep calm so I always try and get my head down for a little prayer and I would always bring bible into changing room and have a little read after the warm up.

Strings in my bow

I played on both wings and at centre for Ulster and for Ireland as well so I’m pretty used to swapping positions. The best players in the world are those who can play in a number of positions so it’s good for my game.

Cedric & Vincent

I’ve played against both of them before and I’ve been looking at the videos and see what they’re capable of. The back three are all so comfortable on the ball whenever defences give them a little time to settle, get into the game, get the ball in two hands and start to make decisions, it makes life easy for them. We’re hoping to disrupt their composure and get right in their faces and force them into a few errors.

What I’ve been up to

I’ve joined up with a few old friends. I was at Ulster versus Leeds last night and tonight I’m off to the Snow Patrol concert in Bangor, which should be pretty good. I live in Belfast so I like getting up north and seeing a few of school friends. I’m interested in what every 22-year-old is into really.

Something to look forward to

Everything’s good, we’ve been together for five weeks now and we could be at the World Cup for the same length, which is a possibility. Things haven’t got stale and we haven’t got bored of being in camp because we’ve got the World Cup to look forward to.  We haven’t stayed in the same place. We’ve been in been in Limerick, Belfast, Dublin and in France, which was a really good week and few of us got a bit of surfing in as well. The change of scenery kept people fresh.

World Cup

My bible is the first thing that goes in the suitcase, and then DVDs, maybe a wee box set, I was hoping to get third series of Lost but apart from one or two personal items they provide everything. I’ll probably just bring my laptop and my Ipod.

I don’t know who I’ll be rooming with because usually I’m always with Tommy Bowe but last week they changed all the combinations and I was with Jerry Flannery for the week, which was grand. I’ve roomed with Neil Best for a week in Australia and that was ok. A week was fine but any longer and the joke will start to wear thin. There’s been a few requests from people to move away from him, so he’s been moved about a bit.

In hiding

Eddie was walking around the hotel and basically he had a press conference in the morning to announce the squad. Eddie assured us we’d be told before so everyone had it in their heads, if you could avoid Eddie in the morning, you weren’t going to get dropped. I heard a couple of wee rumours and there were enough people that got dropped so the chances were you probably made it. It was harsh enough but I suppose it was a nice way of doing it.

Teammates:

Who’s the best dressed:  The Dublin fellas - Girvan Dempsey, Dennis Hickie, Shane Horgan and Gordon D’Arcy all seem fairly into their clothes and their image. D’Arcy has a Puma deal where he orders about five pairs of boots and ten t-shirts a week. He wears them once and throws them out because he hasn’t got a washing machine.

Worst: Neil Best, it’s awful. He looks ridiculous whatever he wears, even if its quite stylish and fashionable he’ll look ridiculous wearing it. For some reason he just can’t seem to pull anything off. I think he knows though.

Longest in the mirror: Isaac Boss has got to fix his dreads before he comes out every night so he spends a lot of time waxing his dreadlocks up making sure everything’s in good shape.

Nicknames: There’s a load. Tommy Bowe – Trevor, because he looks like Trevor Ringland when he plays. Shane Horgan’s called Shaggy but I don’t know why, Marcus Horan’s had a few but ‘Slimer’ because of the Ghostbusters character.

Biggest joker: Donnaca O’Callaghan, Quinny (Alan Quinlan) or Frankie Sheahan – There’s this well known story although I wasn’t there about Donnaca leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for all these ducks who came into the meeting and crapped all over the sofas.

Who has a problem with lateness: Malcolm O’Kelly, it’s not even getting out of bed but he just sits in front of the TV and will forget there’s a meeting.

Who’s the most Intelligent: Girvan Dempsey would have V. for very intelligent. I’d probably be the least intelligent to be honest

Who would you least like to meet down a dark alley: Carl Hayman

Teammates say about you: I’m a Christian so they’d probably think I’m a bit of a weirdo.

On Danny Hipkiss: I know his defence is very good and he runs very good lines. He’s also a pretty good thinker by the looks of things