Past World Cup failures ‘absolutely weighs’ on Ireland players – Rob Kearney

Former Ireland full-back Rob Kearney believes his country’s inability to get beyond the quarter-finals at the Rugby World Cup will weigh heavily on their players at the global showpiece in France this year.

Kearney represented Ireland in 95 Tests between 2007 and 2019 and played at three World Cups during that period – in 2011, 2015 and 2019 – but the men from the Emerald Isle failed to advance to the semi-finals on each occasion.

Ireland’s woeful knockout record

In 2011, they were expected to reach the tournament’s semi-finals for the first time but suffered a 22-10 quarter-final defeat to Wales in Wellington. Four years later it was a similar story when they lost 43-20 to Ireland in Cardiff, and in 2019, they were blown away by New Zealand, who cruised to a 46-14 win over Ireland in Cofu.

“They’ll say it’s game by game, but it’s not,” Kearney told the Irish Mirror of the current Ireland World Cup squad’s mentality.

“It absolutely weighs on players – you know that in the history of your country at World Cups, you haven’t been able to manage to get out of a quarter-final.

“I’ll always remember that I played the All Blacks nine or 10 times before I beat them, and every time you take the field, you think no other (Ireland) team has done this before.

“So immediately you know that it’s a very tough challenge, and listen, that quarter-final is the crux of this tournament for Ireland.

“It’s going to come down to the last 10 or 15 minutes, you’d have to think. The guys will know that, too.”

After that emphatic defeat to the All Blacks, the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) held a review of Ireland’s 2019 World Cup campaign – which also included a shock loss to host nation Japan – and came to the conclusion that the players had suffered from ‘performance anxiety’, something which Kearney does not entirely agree with.

“I’m not sure I really fully buy into this ‘performance anxiety’ notion,” said the 37-year-old.

“But you have to be able to produce your best rugby at a World Cup.

“Against Japan, we were caught out big time by an incredibly good side that day. There were times it genuinely felt we were playing against the All Blacks.

“We just got blitzed by New Zealand in the quarter-final, but the Japan game is the one that hurts most because we had an incredibly good game plan that we had been working on for a long time to play against South Africa.

“Had we come up against them, I still think to this day we would have beaten them in the quarter-final.

“It’s just a very good lesson that you don’t take your eye off any team in the pool stages.”

Although Kearney gives credit to IRFU high-performance coach Gary Keegan for helping players to develop greater mental resilience, he feels the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

“When you go into the red hot coal face of a World Cup game, that’s when you can only really tell how far a team has improved,” he said.

“This is proper big, big stuff now where guys’ mental strength is going to be tested like no other time in the last four years.

Different ahead of 2023 Rugby World Cup

“But I do feel it’s different. As a team, my impression is that they haven’t plateaued or dipped yet – as was definitely the case in 2019.

“They’re still very much growing. They’re trying to get better; their attacking game is in a far superior situation.

“It’s without doubt the best brand of rugby an Irish team has ever played before.”

Kearney admits that he would love to play in the current Ireland side and feels their attacking game is more potent than any other international side.

“You’ve got two or three options at the ruck every single time,” he explained.

“We’ve got some of the best ball handling forwards in the world, they can tip it to the left or right or pull it out the back to a back at top speed.

“The gains that they’ve made in their attacking shape is incredible.”

Andy Farrell‘s troops head into the World Cup in a confident mood after winning their last 13 matches but Kearney feels their haven’t exploited their weakness yet.

“You have to try and physically beat them up, to slow their ball down at ruck time, to make sure that you’re going strong at the ball with poachers over the ball,” he said.

“If Ireland do get beaten in this World Cup it’s going to be by a physically bigger, stronger team that just bullies them.”

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