O’Connell Looking Forward To Wallabies Test

Paul O’Connell spoke today about Ireland’s performance against Fiji, the new caps and what it will be like to play Joe Schmidt’s Australia on Saturday in the IRFU 150 Test Match – the final game of the Autumn Nations Series.

In squad news O’Connell confirmed that Jamie Osborne, Tadhg Furlong, Ryan Baird and Jacob Stockdale have been ruled out of contention for Saturday.

O’Connell was pleased to see how new caps Gus McCarthy and Cormac Izuchuku performed on debut against Fiji showing the maturity they had seen in both players on the Emerging Ireland Tour.

He was also asked about meeting up with former Ireland coach Joe Schmidt who brings his Wallabies team to Aviva Stadium this weekend,

“He’s a fantastic coach. He was very successful with Leinster and very successful with Ireland and still has a bit of an influence in here in terms of how we play the game.

“I enjoyed it, I was an older player when he took over, I was probably hanging on a little bit and I was able to find my niche in what he was doing. I enjoyed how we played, but I probably enjoyed how he coached more than anything.

“He’s a teacher, and he had a lot of teaching principles in how he coached. I played nine times against New Zealand as a player and failed to beat them and he was part of that coaching staff that broke that duck and did it again in 2018.”