Inside the scrum with Johnny O’Connor

This week, Johnny talks about Treviso, Fionn Carr, a few well-earned days off and Ireland’s upcoming encounter with the Springboks.

 

I’m starting to sound like a broken record at this stage, but Treviso was yet another tough game and it was good to come away with a bonus point. For one of their tries we let them in easily; one of the lads slipped off a tackle. Our defence was holding up quite well, but we did gift them a couple of points. It was a bit of a scrappy game and even though we did leak two tries, one of them was just an individual error, but you can’t legislate for that, you just hope the guy won’t do it every week. Our defence has been very good so far and hopefully we can maintain that throughout the season.

In fairness, they were dominant for large parts but towards the end, we were putting ourselves into situations to try to win the game. It’s a really hard place to go to try and win; most teams struggle there. They have a serious pack and their tighthead, di Santo, is pretty much an immovable object. The lads just couldn’t move him; he was just so solid, so there was no getting the right type of wheel in the scrum that we needed.

The importance of a bonus point

Considering that Leinster went down there and got beaten pretty well, we were happy enough with a bonus point, picking up points on the road is a difficult thing to do. If we can keep getting something out of games like that away from home and tag on a few wins, we’ll have a good season. You go out to win every game, your main goal is to win every weekend, but in some games you get to a stage where it mightn’t be happening for you and the thought of keeping it tight, going to the corner and trying to stay within seven points does come into play.

You could be well out of a game and still be within seven points and then you decide to take your kicks and get out of there. The possibility of a bonus point often dictates the way a game is played, in terms of going to the corners and stuff like that. Sometimes you just have to slow it down, kick the points, stay in the game and try and get out with a bonus point.

Fionn Carr motoring well

Fionn Carr, once again, was brilliant in the build up to Niva’s (Ta’auso) try. Leinster didn’t give Fionn much space last weekend, but he has to be one of the best attackers in the Magners League at the moment. He just makes space out of nothing, he did it again on Saturday; he got the ball on our 22’ and before you knew it he was flying up the middle of the pitch, then he threw it out to Frank Murphy, Frank gave it to Niva and he went over in the corner.

To have a talent like Fionn, somebody with the ability to do something like that is brilliant to have, you need players like that in your team. He’s a fantastic player; I don’t know if there’s anyone else like him at the moment, I don’t know if anyone can offer what he can. He was unlucky not to make the Ireland squad, but there’s a mass of talent there already.

Johnny has been impressed with the form of Fionn Carr so far this season

You’ve already got the likes of Tommy Bowe, Luke Fitzgerald, and Rob Kearney; there are so many guys that can do a job. There’s definitely a case to be made for Fionn, but there’s a lot of talented guys with experience at international level. Maybe it’s an experience thing, but he’s that talented that he’ll get a shot eventually. I’m sure the coaches have an idea in their mind that they’re going to bring him in at some stage.

We have a bit of a break for ourselves now; we haven’t really had any proper time off since August. I know reading this; you’re probably thinking big deal! But it’s nice to have a few days off. Some of the lads were planning on getting away for a few days, but I’m just going to stick around Galway and relax, before we go back in on Friday to start preparing for the Samoa game next week.

I’ll be tuning into the Ireland against South Africa game this weekend and it’s really hard to call how it’s going to go. From Ireland’s perspective, it’s the first game of the season, so you’ve little in terms of form to go on. The summer tour didn’t go as well as they might have liked but there’s a few players back and a few younger lads coming through and with the talent in the squad, Ireland are capable of playing really well, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Same old Springboks

South Africa have a few injuries; they’ve lost Schalk Burger and Juan de Jongh, but you know what you’re going to get with them, they’ll be big physical and very fast. I made my Ireland debut against South Africa a few years ago and they haven’t changed much since.

I’m telling you, Australia will be dark horses when the World Cup comes around next year.

To be honest, they haven’t really adapted to the new rules that well. In the Tri-Nations, they tried to play the old way, they were basically saying, ‘we’re just going to run at you and turn you over’ and it didn’t really cut it. Watching Australia and New Zealand at the weekend, they’ve really taken to the new rules and they’re moving the ball at 100 miles per hour.

I’m telling you, Australia will be dark horses when the World Cup comes around next year. They have such a good skills set and put such an emphasis on that side of the game. We have first-hand experience of it with Connacht with our new coach Brian Melrose – he has put such an emphasis on skills and we can feel the benefit. Australia play so flat to the line and play with such pace and you just wonder can they be matched.

I’m sure that South Africa will have a really strong side this weekend, though and it will be a really tough game. My Connacht team-mate Sean Cronin has made the bench for the match so hopefully he’ll get a run at some stage. I gave him a text and a call last week to wish him well. He deserves a crack and I’m sure he will get one at some stage over the four games. They’re big games, but in fairness, they’re not Six Nations games and with the World Cup around the corner, they need to start thinking about preparing for that so I’m sure all 30 members of the squad will get game time.

Sean is a pretty exciting talent; he’s almost as quick as Fionn Carr. He’s got a lot of competition with the likes of Rory Best, Damien Varley and Jerry Flannery in there, but if you were to ask me now ‘will Sean Cronin be going to the World Cup next year, I’d think so.

LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ podcast – listen to the latest episode now!