The buzz has not died down since our win over the West Indies. The morning after the match, we had an early flight from Nelson airport to Hamilton and onwards to Brisbane. By the time we reached our hotel in the Gold Coast, we had been travelling for 12 hours. After interviews with Sky Sports and Ireland’s own Slog Sweep podcast, a late dinner was required.

The Gold Coast is an hour- long bus trip south of Brisbane. It's a beautiful area of perfect beaches and nice restaurants. We stayed here in October on our World Cup prep tour, so it was nice to be back. I think it was a great idea to come here for a couple of days off. We spent so long preparing for this World Cup and for that first key fixture. That, combined with the long gap between our first and second fixture, meant some time off was warranted, and the guys appreciated that.

I spent the couple of days relaxing around the beach and we had a lovely chilled boat ride along the river with the squad. Then it was back on the bus and off towards Brisbane as we battled our way through Cyclone Marcia. We seem to have brought plenty of rain with us – we had a week of showers in Coogee and again now in Queensland.

Long series

The World Cup is spread over such a long period of time that you need to make sure you are mentally and physically fresh for each game. The arrival of the partners and families soon will help, as it can be tough for guys being away from the family for long periods.

Phil Simmons and the management staff understand that, and they'll plan what's best to make sure we're in the right mindset for each game. Those Hobart/Hamilton/ Adelaide games will be the most demanding for us.

The win over the West Indies has opened up the group. They are such a talented team that could beat anyone from here. Three wins could be enough to qualify but does not guarantee it, so it’s anyone’s game after round one. It sets up the United Arab Emirates game nicely, with a chance to get two wins from two games, which would be a dream start.

The UAE are coming off a loss to Zimbabwe in their first game. They are usually a spin- reliant attack with the spearhead of the batting being the experienced Khurram Khan, who is playing this World Cup at the tender age of 43.

Our batting was superb in the last game, so hopefully we can keep that form going. I think we have room for improvement with the ball, especially in the back end of the innings. If we can improve on that aspect and add to a strong fielding performance, we’ll back ourselves to make it two wins on Wednesday.

Our media man, Barry Chambers, has been inundated with requests for interviews since the game. It’s brilliant to see the media response to the win, and I hope it helps to build momentum not just for this World Cup but for Irish Cricket in general.

I'm told there has been a fourfold increase in cricket in Ireland over the last eight years (up to 45,000 people playing). World Cups are huge for getting people interested in cricket and I have seen the impact a win can have on schools cricket after the victory over Pakistan in 2007, while I was at Gonzaga College.

Our win has has caused a bit of a stir in the media. There has been a lot of attention on the format of the next World Cup in 2019. The current format is a 14-team tournament, but in 2019 this will be cut to 10 teams.

I think it’s tough to limit the participation of what is called a worldwide competition to 10 teams. Even in the first round of fixtures, the four qualifiers (Ireland, Afghanistan, UAE and Scotland) have shown they are here to win games.

There is a pathway for us to qualify for this World Cup, with the top eight ranked teams as of September 2017 automatically qualifying and the next four teams playing in a qualifier (held in Bangladesh) for the final two places. However there will be four less teams, which doesn’t help promote cricket globally.

Odds against us

I think the odds will be against us making the top eight ranking teams with our lack of fixtures outside of World Cups. The way the rankings table works is you gain most points by beating teams ranked higher, so to climb up the table, we need fixtures against the top 10 teams.

Since the 2011 World Cup, Ireland have had nine games against teams ranked above us. Not only does this make gaining ranking places hard, it doesn’t help develop the full potential of our cricket. As a team it’s very hard to play a high standard of cricket when you are playing a one-off match. However when we play consistent cricket, such as in World Cups, we have shown that we rise to the challenge.

I believe we need Test teams to agree to play us more often with help from the ICC. You can’t expect much improvement from playing on average two competitive games against Test teams per year.

If you compare our preparation for this World Cup to other teams, such as England or Sri Lanka, you will see that they have played 20 to 30 ODIs per year compared with our two. This is a gap that makes it very tough for us to come to a World Cup and expect to be at our peak straight away.

Fast starters

As a team we have been notoriously slow starters and this has been obvious in previous World Cups taking a few games to get into our stride. I am delighted we hit the ground running and, bar a couple of areas, we were right on it against the West Indies. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we shouldn’t be judged on six high standard World Cup games when we only play two to three per year for the previous four years.

It is good that these questions are being raised. Hopefully with the media behind us, and combined with a good World Cup here, we can change this. As players all we can do is win matches by training hard and preparing well for each game.

With current plans for 2019, this may be our last World Cup, so we might as well enjoy it.