Smash hit

From our point of view, the positives were that we won, that we got a timely wake-up call and a serious physical test without anyone getting injured. I did get some bruising on my ribs when I ended up on the wrong side during the first half but I’ll be fine. It’s sore but I don’t think there’s anything wrong.

We’d all better get used to a few bangs because, as I said, this will be a bruiser of a tournament. After the last one in 2003 Eddie used terms such as “hand-to-hand combat” and “trench warfare” to describe modern rugby. Those comparisons have be-come even more apt in the past four years. The hits are savage.

It’s basically because rugby players are becoming more and more powerful. This is the 12th year of professionalism, so nearly all players from tier-one countries at this World Cup have been in academies since the age of 16, doing rugby-specific weight training. Power is now king, not strength. We do a lot of cleans and snatches. Significantly, the 21 and 22-year-olds in our squad, the Andrew Trimbles and Stephen Ferrises, are right up there.

When you translate that training on to the pitch you get some savage hits. They’re part of the spectacle of the sport, something we aspire to. If you go into our team room, you can look at the file compiled by Mervyn Murphy, our video analyst, of big hits, set to music. Guys go down and watch them. You’re looking at the technique and the effect it has on the crowd and the team.

There’s one of Sione Lauaki in the Super 14s on Seilala Mapasua where Lauaki comes out of his defensive line by a good eight metres and, just as Mapasua catches it, he gets absolutely smashed. It was all about timing and having the speed to come out of the line after the pass has been made.

That one registered with me, but not as much as the one in a Magners League game at Lansdowne Road when I got smashed by Brian O’Driscoll. Again, he made his move only when the ball was in the air. He had the acceleration to get to me at the same time as the ball. What an embarrassment. To be flattened, by a back, in Dublin, against Leinster. I just had to pretend it didn’t hurt. I was winded but I couldn’t show any pain, not in that situation.

Even average hits are now more intense because specialised defence coaching means techniques have improved greatly. The best tacklers have good footwork. It’s like a boxer throwing a punch — if your feet are miles from the target, you lose power. In all the biggest hits, the tackler’s feet are nearly standing on the recipient’s toes so you can drive thought with your whole body. Neil Best gave a good demonstration of tackling technique on Friday night.

The other thing is that if you get hit in the war-zone near the ruck or maul, it’s rarely by just one tackler. Whereas before, most one-on-one tackles were around the ankles, now it seems every tackle has to be a double. One guy will go high and lock on the ball and the other guys will take the feet and drive the carrier back. Those are the hits that can really hurt.

It’s a different sort of pain from what you had in the slugfests of the amateur era. I remember watching them as a kid and I played in a few rough old games on the way up. You had loads of bodies piling into the rucks, loads of kicks and punches. It sounds like a different sport.

You couldn’t get away with that now. There’s loads of niggle, plenty of big hits and some cheap shots but in terms of really dirty play there are too many cameras, citing commissioners and so on — thank God.

Everything is so transparent now. Teams don’t put as many people into rucks because it’s a waste of defenders, so referees and touch judges can see what’s going on, and the TJs are now allowed to intervene.

The game is also now too quick for the sort of stuff that used to go on. The average ball-in-play time has doubled or tripled in the past 20 years. Test matches between the top nations are serious physical tests. Some Heineken Cup knockout games come close to that intensity but, generally, it’s a different level.

You sometimes wonder about the long-term effects of all those impacts. I’ve no doubt there will be a few crocks walking around in 20 years but, at the same time, while we train harder and get hit harder, we are given much better treatment than guys in the old days. We have massage, hydrotherapy, physiotherapy, while the number of games we’re playing is managed. That provides some comfort.

We’re still gearing ourselves up for a collision course over the next few weeks, especially after what happened on Friday. We all realise this is the sort of contest we’ll be in. Argentina and France are pretty similar to Italy up front, while having more to offer out wide. We know we need to be ready for it. And we will be.