Brian O'Driscoll has bittersweet memories of the World Cup. He competed in four of them, albeit they all ended in quarter-final exits, but he was part of some big wins, notably against Australia in Eden Park in 2011, and he scored his first Test try against the USA in the 1999 tournament.
Yet speaking in the redeveloped Lansdowne Road yesterday, it was clear the ambassador for the 2023 bid is fully on board, the reason being that “having the whole country embrace what is probably the biggest tournament we’re capable of hosting. We’re not going to get an Olympics. We won’t get a soccer World Cup. This is definitely where we’d probably max out. But we could do a phenomenal job at it, I really think that”.
"North and South, understanding all the work that's gone into getting to this point, we don't want to deliver an okay tournament. We want to deliver a tournament that will send people away thinking 'that's been an improvement on the last one'. Japan will have their work cut out on delivering better than the UK, but the difference in Ireland would be no one will talk about anything else in the six months build up to the tournament, the seven weeks of the tournament, and the aftermath as well."
In that respect, a small country embracing the biggest global sporting competition within its reach, Ireland 2023 would be far more akin to the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
Unlike the rival bids, South Africa (1995 hosts) and France (2007), O'Driscoll encapsulated the benefits of taking the tournament to a new host country.
”We’re trying to grow rugby, break into new ground from a playing point of view,” said O’Driscoll. “If we go back to the same old, same old, people will confuse memories as to when certain tournaments took place. France only took place in 2007. It’s not that long ago. If you look to 2023 and how the country would embrace the whole thing, I think we’re on to an absolute winner.”
Sitting on board meetings involving members of both governments has taken O’Driscoll into new environs. “I can’t say anything other than positive things about how much both governments want to embrace this.” Now comes the tough part.
‘Something exceptional’
“It’s just about convincing people that we are capable of delivering something exceptional, not delivering an alright tournament or an okay tournament, that it would be something that, not just us as Irish people could be proud of, but world rugby could be proud of choosing us as the host nation. I don’t see a huge amount of obstacles to be honest.”
Invariably, an audience with the great one turned to matters on the field, and specifically the historic win over the All Blacks and this Saturday’s rematch.
If Chicago was bittersweet in any way, it didn’t show. It was his first time since he started playing professionally that he attended a game without playing, sitting in the stand as an injured teammate or commentating.
“It was lovely to become a fan. There is a disconnect between ex-players and the team for a couple of years. You are in limbo a bit. It was probably the game that reattached me as a fan again and getting genuinely excited about finally getting that monkey off our backs.”
‘That wasn’t New Zealand’
“I was at the World Rugby awards on Sunday night and they [the All Blacks] are licking their wounds. There is no doubt they are coming ready. I heard a lot from them because they picked up a lot of awards. That says a lot about their team.”
“That wasn’t New Zealand as they saw themselves 10 days ago. They want to put that right. We are going to see a different team. We are going to have to produce a better performance ourselves. There is no reason to think that we don’t have a bigger performance too.”
In this, O’Driscoll merely cited the Joe Schmidt factor. “Joe would have pulled the game apart with a fine tooth comb and he would have picked out eight or 10 things that we could improve on. It wouldn’t have been ‘Let’s have a look at the great tries we scored. It would have been about ‘Look at the errors you made.’ System errors, defensive, lost ball, inaccuracy at the ruck. All those things.
“So he will plant the seed in all the players, that he’d say: ‘Look, we could all improve by five, 10 or 15 per cent, without a shadow of a doubt.’And if they think that and do manage to do that, we will be a handful to deal with.”
