Rob Kearney confident that Ireland won't make the same mistakes of 2019 World Cup

Former Ireland Leinster fullback Rob Kearney is confident that Ireland will avoid another dip in form in the year of a Rugby World Cup.

Kearney was part of Joe Schmidt’s side that Grand Slammed the 2018 Six Nations and remained in the team that would get knocked out by the All Blacks in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup a year later in Japan. 

The question of whether Ireland has peaked too soon has been raised once again following Andy Farrell's incredibly successful tour to New Zealand.

Speaking on BBC’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast, Kearney said that he is confident the same thing won’t happen again.

Kearney explained that Ireland 'probably stayed stagnant a little bit' after winning the Six Nations and claiming a Series win in Australia.

“I think the big mistake we made in ’18 was, we won a Grand Slam, we went to one [in the rankings], we beat Australia away, we thought that we had the magic potion to success and what a great team looks like,” Kearney explained.

“We probably stayed stagnant a little bit. We didn’t feel as if we had to go and work on too many areas of our game. That was the big lesson that we took from that tour [to Australia] and that season.

 

 

“It’s only two and a half or three years ago so there’s a lot of players who are in this squad now who would have felt the exact same way.

 

 

 

“They will know, ‘We’re one in the world, we’ve beaten the All Blacks, we got the Triple Crown in the Six Nations but we still have a huge amount of growth left to do.’ I think that’s where the really important learnings over the last two and a half years will be.

 

 

“They’ve learnt the hard way that it doesn’t matter if you’re number one going into a World Cup, if you won a trophy beforehand and have taken all teams before you, you still have to be getting better week on week.”

 

 

Kearney argued that Andy Farrell and his staff are fresher than Schmidt and his staff were as the former Ireland boss had been in charge of Leinster for three years before leading Ireland for six before the 2019 World Cup.

 

The former fullback believes that the new and fresh approach should help Ireland avoid another early peak.

 

“I think one of the elements that is going to work in Ireland’s favour this time around is the fact that they still have a relatively new coaching group and coaching staff,” Kearney said.

 

 

“When things go a bit stagnant or your performance isn’t quite where it is with an older coach… We experienced that with Joe who was with us for six or seven years. That could potentially happen to England with Eddie [Jones].

 

“I think when coaches are there for a long time it’s a little bit easier for them to fall into some of those traps.

 

 

“With a new coach and a new group of assistant coaches and a head coach who’s desperate to achieve his first time around, I think the obstacles and barriers to things going wrong are not as high.”