Open To Debate Ireland's focus for 2011 should be . . .

RUGBY: GAVIN CUMMISKEYand JOHN O'SULLIVANdiscuss the prospects of the national rugby team

on peaking in New Zealand - preferably in the World Cup final

JOHN O'SULLIVANsays the Irish team's priority should be to develop a game that measures up against the world's elite

IT WOULD be wrong to label the Six Nations Championship as irrelevant in a World Cup year, but primacy has to go to the global tournament rather than the localised spat.

When Irish rugby is reviewed in the context of 2011, events in New Zealand in the autumn should supersede all other concerns. Is it about being the biggest fish in the aquarium or the sea?

The Six Nations Championship should be a stepping stone, a building block in the preparation of the Ireland team to mount a meaningful challenge at the World Cup.

That’s not to say the national side shouldn’t try to win the Northern Hemisphere tournament, but the ultimate arbiter of success and failure this year will be determined by how they fare in New Zealand.

What may suffice in terms of performance in eking out victories, irrespective of number, over the next two months is unlikely to provide the necessary bedrock to a hard-nosed assault later in the year.

Ireland must not become overly preoccupied by the win-loss column in the Six Nations, instead endeavouring to reach the land of the long white cloud with the personnel, patterns and playbook that will sustain them when they collide with the global heavyweight elite.

The lamppost of statistics can serve to illuminate or be leaned upon and we must be careful not to seek succour in victory alone.

Performing well in the Six Nations does not preclude Ireland from doing so again in the World Cup, but, as the rider goes in the well known television commercial, “past achievements are no guarantee of future success” – 2007 in France, anyone?

A graphic illustration can be gleaned from a parallel drawn with the under-20 Six Nations Championship and the IRB Junior World Cup for that age-grade rugby. In recent years Ireland has won a Grand Slam – there was no World Cup that year – and also prevailed on a couple of occasions in winning the championship.

There was, however, no legacy in terms of winning when they got to the World Cup. Those under-20 teams that had performed so capably to win the Six Nations were ruthlessly shunted aside when it came to the main global stage, occasionally by teams who they had beaten earlier in the year.

In conversation with England and French management teams at that level, their priority is to try to win the World Cup. They see the Six Nations tournament as a conduit to that goal rather than a separate entity, a fine-tuning process and a platform to ensure they have the right patterns and personnel come June.

The French and English have periodically broken through the Southern Hemisphere hegemony as a result.

Clive Woodward’s England team winning the Grand Slam and going on to claim the World Cup, beating Australia in their backyard in 2003, is seen by some advocates as an affirmation of how the Six Nations can foster success and build momentum. It appears a compelling argument at face value but, akin to an iceberg, what lies beneath the bald statement is more impressive.

From the time England played their first match in the November Test series of 2002 to the World Cup final, Martin Johnson led his team to 19 victories in 20 matches, their only defeat a 17-16 loss to France in Marseilles in a warm-up match on their World Cup quest.

During that period England beat New Zealand in Wellington and Twickenham, Australia in Melbourne, Twickenham and Sydney and South Africa at Twickenham and in Perth.

Their Grand Slam was a mere bagatelle in comparison as they soundly thrashed their geographical neighbours with the exception of the French, thereby confirming that the Six Nations triumph wasn’t so much a catalyst for World Cup success but a reflection of their pre-eminence as a team.

If Ireland acquit themselves well in the Six Nations in terms of results but then lose three of their four pre-World Cup matches against France (two), England and Scotland in August, will the impetus of the tournament vanish in a puff of despair? The answer should be “no”.

It seems ill-advised to compartmentalise the recent November Test series, the Six Nations, pre-World Cup friendly matches and the World Cup as separate entities simply based on results. They’ll be relegated to statistical flotsam and jetsam irrespective of what happens in New Zealand.

Ireland must draw a line between the first game of the World Cup and work backwards; the staging posts en route are about developing a squad and a style of play.

Acing your exams every Christmas and summer has a hollow ring if you implode when it comes to the Leaving Certificate and go on to repeat that failure.

The Irish rugby team has to develop a game that measures up against the elite and that is much more difficult to achieve if it is a secondary concern, overshadowed by winning matches in a tournament of lesser import in this particular year.

The two are by no means mutually exclusive – England proved that – but is it better to travel to New Zealand in genuine expectation rather than hope.

That’s been the case for most Irish rugby global expeditions in the past.

Players of that calibre play a sport to try to be the best, to try to beat the best: that is how they measure themselves. The World Cup is the ultimate testing ground, not the Six Nations.

. . . on our only chance for silverware - the Six Nations . . .

GAVIN CUMMISKEYon how this is the best chance to win a Championship since 2009 and until 2013 .

IRELAND WILL not win the World Cup. Even with the most talented and resilient group of players to ever represent this country. In any sport.

The team remain heavily reliant on three or four players. One (Paul O’Connell), arguably two (Jerry Flannery), of them was absent in November and, man, did it show.

The other major nations can compensate. Despite a noted improvement in our strength-in-depth, it remains a numbers game.

It would be a miracle if Declan Kidney can deal from a full deck by the time Ireland takes the field against the Wallabies, just six days after playing the US Eagles, in Invercargill on September 17th.

Take a look at last week’s injury list: Andrew Trimble, Rob Kearney, Geordan Murphy, Tommy Bowe, Stephen Ferris, Jerry Flannery, Rory Best, Jamie Heaslip, John Hayes and Shane Horgan.

Be assured, by the time we get to New Zealand a similar number of regulars will be crocked.

This theory is simple: Ireland have a far greater chance of winning the Six Nations.

Contrast a history of failure at the World Cup with a healthy return in the Six Nations (not the Five Nations, mind).

1987 – Beaten by Wales in the Pool and Australia in the quarter-final.

1991 – Lost to Scotland in the Pool. Then, in the quarters against Australia at Lansdowne Road, Gordon Hamilton scored what seemed the winning try but an inability to get the ball off the field meant an iconic moment in Irish sport was instantly followed by one of the most disappointing.

1995 – Comprehensively dispatched by New Zealand and France.

1999 – Lens.

2003 – Ultimately, a failure. If David Humphreys’ late drop goal against the Wallabies had not drifted right after Brian O’Driscoll’s brilliant try then who knows? Opened up by the French in last eight.

2007 – Utter disaster and almost suffered the worst defeat in Irish rugby history against Georgia.

There is no indication this ageing Irish team can sustain optimum levels of performance over seven games, on foreign soil and after a gruelling season.

The time is now. France and England are coming to Dublin. This is the best chance to win a Grand Slam or at least the championship since 2009 and until 2013.

The World Cup preparation will not suffer by putting all our eggs in the Six Nations basket. We are not advocating the Eddie O’Sullivan way of undying loyalty to 15 or 16 players. No, to win the Six Nations, Ireland will require the best of Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connacht (Seán Cronin and Gavin Duffy) to intermingle effectively.

Kidney got it right in 2009 when he freshened up the team for Murrayfield by dropping Tomás O’Leary and Jamie Heaslip. Granted, Denis Leamy’s shoulder didn’t hold up, but this meant a revved-up Heaslip came off the bench. It was Peter Stringer’s break and offload that led to the number eight’s finger-wagging try.

For many warhorses the World Cup is the final battle charge but their legacy can be cemented over the next two months. Many of the current Welsh squad have won the Grand Slam twice (2005 and 2008). It would be a shame if irreplaceable men like Paul O’Connell and O’Driscoll cannot equal the international achievements of Shane Williams, Stephen Jones, Tom Shanklin, Gavin Henson, Gethin Jenkins, Adam Jones, Ryan Jones and Martyn Williams.

The Six Nations is the IRFU cash cow, but it is also part of our history. This group can win another Grand Slam. But it has to be now. The mantra that must be sounded by this team is “There ain’t no tomorrow”, because for many of them there isn’t.

The World Cup is bonus territory. Beat Italy, America, Russia and don’t get smashed. But a successful Six Nations campaign will see them arrive in New Zealand with the belief that Australia are beatable, or they can at least have a decent cut off the Springboks.

Picture the perfect scenario for a moment. Ireland win in Rome this Saturday. Lievremont makes a mess of his team selection (very possible) in Dublin. Two wins banked.

Ireland must be in their groove by the time Edinburgh and Cardiff roll around. Winning both away matches will be difficult, even more so if the World Cup is the priority, but both are achievable. It may require an O’Gara cameo at some point and Seán O’Brien transferring his Leinster form onto the main stage. The scrum will need to have steadied as well.

Four wins. Everything on the line against England. An evening kick-off. Replace Croke Park in 2007 with the Aviva stadium in 2011. Imagine winning a Grand Slam in Dublin? I was in Cardiff when the Welsh did it, at our expense, six years ago and it was as crazy a night out as any music festival I’ve ever been to. I even met Charlotte Church.

Now, pull the perfect World Cup scenario together in your mind. There are twice as many variables. Even try to imagine Ireland beating the All Blacks on home soil.

Success breeds success. This we have seen since since the under-19 World Cup in 1998. Winning another championship would be further encouragement for the McFaddens, Sextons, Ferris(es), Earls(es) and Cronins to maintain the standards set in the green jersey this century.

It’s about creating a culture.

Win the Six Nations and the next wave will also look after the World Cup in 2015. That’s in England, by the way.

But that’s a whole other debate.

SHOULD we view this championship as a stepping-stone to the World Cup? Or, with hopes of success in the land of the long white cloud nothing more than a pipe dream, should we be focusing solely on the here and now?

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