In the players' heads this suburb of Bordeaux represents a bend they have turned. The Coupe du Monde is everywhere; everything around the ground tells them they have touched down. It is now, says Denis Leamy, "a time for setting down markers".

Here in the tidy little stadium on the bow bend of the Gironne river, Leamy goes through his paces, the aching shoulder now last week's story.

Leamy will tell you that for him the journey began as a dream four years back. A backrow trying to break into the Munster team, watching Ireland. Now Ireland will watch Leamy and warm to his athleticism, his menace, the way he will set down the above-mentioned markers in his first World Cup.

So often he is the grit in the ointment for opposing teams, and here just 15 minutes from the Irish base in Bordeaux du Lac, the number eight is stretching in gentle autumn heat.

"Last World Cup I wasn't even close," he says. "Looking at the backrows around Ireland and what was in front of me, it was a long road to travel. But it happened very fast. It was a hard-enough journey. Now it's a dream, a great honour."

Pitted against a Namibian side the main strength of which is in their back row, Leamy evinces self-belief without arrogance.

"My discipline has improved over the years, definitely," he says. "My understanding of the game has developed a lot. You try not to lose your old qualities of aggression and stuff like that. It's knowing how to use it and when not to and how to play different players. I'd like to think my skills side of the game was pretty god, decent in the tackling and stuff like that . . . every year that's gone by I've developed."

The shoulder has been manageable, an unwanted companion he has learned to live with. Like Brian O'Driscoll and David Wallace, Leamy wants and needs game time. The fact his Munster sidekick Wallace is there helps.

"Me and Wally have played together for the past couple of years, played a lot of big games together," he says. "We've a good relationship and we've done well as a pairing. You know where he's going to be . . . what he's going to do. I suppose we know each other's game inside out and that's what you want. It's instinctive."

Together the two, with Simon Easterby, will target Namibia's numbers six to eight.

"I was watching them the other day, against Romania and South Africa," says Leamy. "They have a very good back row; a lot of their play goes through there; that's really where they're strongest.

"They're very good on the deck. Their number eight is really big and he's a lineout option too."

The homework has been done. Ireland and Leamy expect to rise with the competition. And if they do there will be witnesses.

Thirty-two of Leamy's family, including his mother, Ann, and father, Kevin - "down to one crutch after a hip operation" - will hit Paris for pool games.

If Ireland reach the quarter-finals they will have watched him play five Tests in five weeks.

"That's the plan. I want to play in every game and I want a good performance in this match," he says, leaning against the wall, muscles flexing at the thought of it.