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BORDEAUX - Ireland captain Brian O'Driscoll insisted Friday that his team had rediscovered their bite ahead of Saturday's crucial World Cup clash against Georgia here.
Ireland were roundly criticised for an abject performance against Namibia in their opening game last Sunday but now they appear to have the fire back in their bellies.
And that started in training this week.
"That element of narkiness was brought back up again which is always good for training sessions," said O'Driscoll, rated one of the best centres in the world.
"The guys were having a bit of a go at one another, trying to get the best out of ourselves and when you get that competitive edge back into training it's certainly one of the steps forward to playing better at the weekend.
"Maybe that was lacking a little bit last week but certainly people weren't holding back this week in training."
Head coach Eddie O'Sullivan agreed, revealing as well that he and his coaching staff had to monitor the level of bite to make sure no-one went over the top.
"Training was very physical this week. We had a very hard hit out Tuesday morning, that was a very physical session and we let them get on with it. I think we needed a bit of that," he said.
"I think its part of the bigger picture. If the northern hemisphere sides have erred a little bit its been in terms of playing rugby.
"We spent the summer preparing to play rugby but not playing much rugby. We are a bit short on match practice and I think that's true of a lot of the home unions at the moment.
"You try and address that in training but there's a risk that goes with that, if you let the dogs go in training you can pick up injuries and recovery time is very short so we've been lucky this week.
"I think the guys enjoyed it, there's a good atmosphere in the camp, a good buzz."
One thing O'Sullivan is expecting from Georgia is a very physical battle.
And although Georgia are playing a virtual second string side, O'Sullivan doesn't think that will make Saturday's game any less tough.
"As we saw in the Nations Cup there's not a huge difference between their players. They're all playing in France here, they'll be pretty fresh and we're expecting them to come out the blocks and fire against us. We dont expect an easy ride here at all," he said.
"They're very aggressive, a very much hand-to-hand combat type of rugby. They're strong at set pieces and when they have the ball it's difficult to get it back from them and we'll have to work hard to do that."
- AFP
