Ireland's Conor Murray believes that the current Irish team will not get carried away with their excellent form coming into the Rugby World Cup.
Andy Farrell's men remain the number one ranked rugby team in the world. Having beaten the likes of New Zealand, South Africa, England, and Australia over the last two years, there is quite a confidence that Ireland can have a very successful tournament.
The goal for the Boys in Green is to get past the quarter-final, which has evaded them in recent tournaments.
They will play Romania, Tonga, South Africa, and Scotland in the pool, and depending on whether Ireland play first or second, they will play either New Zealand or France in the next stage of the competition.
Despite their success, Murray believes that Ireland's players will have their heads firmly screwed on when it comes to the nitty-gritty part of the World Cup.
"We’re in a pretty good place, given where we have been over the last two years and what we have achieved," he said.
"We never get carried away with ourselves. We know going into every game that we have to respect the opposition.
"It (Form) going into a World Cup doesn’t count for much. You have to bring your best rugby when you get to the tournament, when the competition kicks off for real.
"But we know how good the team can be. We also know how hard we have to work to get to that level and be there every week.\
Conor Murray of Ireland during the Guinness Six Nations Rugby Championship match between England and Ireland at Twickenham Stadium in London, England. (Photo By Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile via Getty Images)"The summer series was good, and people got hit outs and we feel match fit now, but it’s a different animal by the time the World Cup comes around.
"We know where we can go as a group; the confidence is really high."
Last weekend, Ireland came through a tough test against Samoa in Biarritz. Andy Farrell said he was delighted with the test his Ireland players encountered on Saturday evening.
Murray, now a 34-year-old, also believes that Ireland's warm-up games will give them ample fuel to tackle the sides in the pool.
"Along that road, we’re going to have games when things don’t go perfectly and we have to find a way," he said.
"The World Cup could be like that and probably will be like that; it won’t go perfectly.
"There’s going to be nights like this (Samoa), the atmosphere was really hostile, in a good way, but we’re going to have to deal with that kind of thing as well.
"We know how much pressure there’s going to be, how the atmospheres are going to be."
Ireland 2023 Rugby World Cup squad
Forwards (18):
Ryan Baird, Finlay Bealham,Tadhg Beirne, Jack Conan, Caelan Doris, Tadhg Furlong, Iain Henderson, Rob Herring, Ronan Kelleher, David Kilcoyne, Jeremy Loughman, Joe McCarthy, Peter O'Mahony, Tom O’Toole, Andrew Porter, James Ryan, Dan Sheehan, Josh van der Flier.
Backs (15):
Bundee Aki, Ross Byrne, Craig Casey, Jack Crowley, Keith Earls, Jamison Gibson-Park, Mack Hansen, Robbie Henshaw, Hugo Keenan, James Lowe, Stuart McCloskey, Conor Murray, Jimmy O’Brien, Garry Ringrose, Jonathan Sexton
Ireland Fixtures, Rugby World Cup 2023 - Pool B:
- Ireland v Romania, Saturday 9 September, Stade de Bordeaux (2.30pm Irish time/3.30pm local time)
- Ireland v Tonga, Saturday 16 September, Stade de la Beaujoire (8pm Irish time/9pm local time)
- Ireland v South Africa, Saturday 23 September, Stade de France (8pm Irish time/9pm local time)
- Ireland v Scotland, Saturday 7 October, Stade de France (8pm Irish time/9pm local time)
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