Ireland Catch-Up With O’Mahony

Catching up with Munster and Ireland back-row Peter O’Mahony as he prepares to face England in Round 3 of the 2015 RBS 6 Nations at the Aviva Stadium on Sunday – KO 3pm.

Two wins from two against Italy and France respectively sees Ireland lie second on the championship table, just behind England who top the table on points difference. Always looking to improve and build momentum as the competition progresses, O’Mahony feels there’s a lot more to come from Ireland in this year’s campaign.

“We’re obviously happy enough to get the wins but I don’t think we’ve been overly happy with our performance. I think we’ve had two very tough games and we’ve battled them out well but I don’t think we’ve been happy with our execution and our attention to detail. On the flip side of that it gives us plenty to work on and plenty of things to look forward to and implement. So there’s kind of a mixed feeling at the moment.”

The Munster captain also responded to comments from those who would prefer to see Ireland adopt a more expansive running approach to this season’s championship. While again explaining that Ireland are not yet the finished article, he also stressed the importance of the team's intense physicality in both their games to date and for the games that lie ahead.

"It doesn’t really affect me. If I go out there and win the game, I'm happy enough.

"We have quality rugby players, quality footballers so there's plenty of potential there, we just need to unlock it.

"You've seen our game-plan. We're not going to change the wheel because we're playing England. It's another game in the Six Nations for us. And that's it.

"We do a lot of analysis and not every team is perfect. We're far from perfect. No team in the competition is perfect.

“I think we’ve come up against two hugely physical teams and the reason we’ve won both of them is because we’ve matched them and gone beyond them. For me, that’s the reason we’ve won the two games.”

“They are hugely attritional games, and we’re staring down the barrel of another one at the weekend. We need to brush up on a few things, our attention to detail and that kind of thing, but trust me, the physicality and attrition out there is hugely high and intense.”

Ireland v England, 2015 RBS 6 Nations, Sunday March 1^st at the Aviva Stadium – KO 3pm.

This game will be televised on RTE2 while you can also follow the action on twitter #IREvENG #ShoulderToShoulder