Ireland to take it ‘step by step’ as Six Nations history awaits
Ireland flanker Josh van der Flier believes his team will not get carried away with their fine start to the Six Nations during the rest of the Championship.
Andy Farrell’s charges enjoyed a terrific opening to their campaign when they cruised to a 38-17 victory over France in Marseille last Friday.
Toughest assignment
The clash with Les Bleus was perceived to be the men from the Emerald Isle‘s toughest assignment of this year’s Six Nations and they are on course to securing a second consecutive Grand Slam – an achievement the Irish have never managed in their history and something no one in their camp has spoken about yet.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, there’s still four big games left so we’ll take it step by step,” said Van der Flier.
“I know we always say that but it is still the nature of it, we can’t get ahead of ourselves. But it’s a brilliant start, so we have to be very happy with that.
“It doesn’t really change anything for me personally, I’m trying to put as much effort as I can into every game and it’s obviously the way rugby is, some games it’s easy to get into it at the start, some games you’re not near it at all.
“If there’s more kicking, and there was a good bit of kicking on Friday, it can be harder. It’s just the way rugby goes, I suppose, no matter how hard you try.”
Van der Flier feels the squad’s mindset is strong though as they look to build on an impressive start to 2024.
“It’s definitely in a good place,” he added. “One thing I thought was that the work of Gary Keegan as psychologist and the way the coaches kind of… as I mentioned with the atmosphere, it’s something that we talked about.
“You’re kind of prepared for those things and then the leadership of Pete O’Mahony, I thought he was brilliant on Friday.
“There were times when they scored that the crowd was going crazy and it was getting to be a pretty close game and he was just… there wasn’t even a raised voice, he was just calm, just telling us to get back into it and he had given us clear messages.
‘In a good place’
“I think that was there from a leadership point of view and then, having spoken about it and it’s something that we work on, it’s in a good place.
“But it’s one of those things, you have to keep continually working on it. If you don’t address it one week, that’s when things can go against you a bit.
“It’s definitely been a strength of ours, I think, over the last couple of years and we’ll keep working on it.”
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