INTERVIEW PAUL OCONNELL: JOHNNY WATTERSONfinds the second row taking nothing for granted ahead of Ireland's opener in Rome

BY HIS own admission, he could have done with another match or two before the dog fight that Italy has become.

First match up.

The prospect of a new beginning for the Italians on their home turf and you can see in O’Connell that just one or two more games of real contact, real heat in the kiln, would have had him more happily battle-hardened. The Italians, no pushovers. Not anymore.

But the secondrow isn’t complaining. He’s not of a mind to search for rods to beat himself or the team with. Eighty minutes against London Irish, 74 against Toulon, he’s longing for the challenge, for the shirt and for international rugby, something he hasn’t felt since Ireland’s Six Nations defeat to Scotland last March.

“I feel good. I’d rather have some more games under my belt, obviously. But that’s my own fault,” he says. Confession over. Move on.

“I didn’t think I’d get as much time as I did in the last two games, so to get 80 minutes against (London) Irish was great and whatever it was, 74 minutes against Toulon, it was great to get that under my belt. That’s what I need now. I need games to get my match fitness up. It’s probably not where I want it to be yet. But it’s a bit better than I thought it was. So it will be another big step towards that this weekend . . . if I get selected,” he adds.

O’Connell’s modesty hasn’t diminished over those questioning days he spent in hospital on intravenous antibiotics fighting a groin infection that occasionally had a mind of its own.

Then frustratingly the vexation of lingering injury was heightened by suspension. But such is the standing of the secondrow that players still look to him. Forwards coach Gert Smal says the mood dynamic in the Ireland squad has perceptibly changed since O’Connell’s shadow settled on it again.

The master arriving home to the big house.

In a game where players talk about bringing things to the game, his return has had a visceral effect.

“Game fitness,” he explains is his current personal issue. He has bench-pressed tonnage and run miles but it’s not enough when scrapping over centimetres against opponents who have done the same and more.

“In rugby more than any other sport it’s hard to train for your match fitness. The contrast in intensity when it comes to mauling, tackling, wrestling on the ground for the ball, going into sprints, jogging, jumping, ball-carrying – they’re all very hard dynamics to replicate in training,” he says.

“And it’s really when you come to matches, the work you have done starts to come through. But it always takes three to four matches for that.

“I was delighted to get through what I got through in the last three weeks, a lot of good work done with the fitness coaches.

“Really now the matches should bring the rest of it through.”

O’Connell, a work in progress, is a strange concept. But a squad beset by injury needs players of dimension, anchor points. He’s one, Brian O’Driscoll another.

As much as players have faith in him, the secondrow has faith in the squad, and for O’Connell the injury list is a “crisis, what crisis?” scenario.

Squad rotation, the balancing act between Magners League, Heineken Cup and Ireland, can seem a chaotic juggling act. Players live with flux week to week.

“We are well used to chopping and changing with teams,” says O’Connell.

“Very rarely does the same team take the pitch from week to week. The guys are used to being able to jump in and still play with something of the same structure. Obviously guys bring their own way of doing things, but by and large the structure remains the same.

“I don’t think it’s a struggle for guys. You look at some that are injured and there are great players there. But I think it’s part and parcel of being a team. The way the game is going, it’s more and more physical and there are going to be injuries. The team that can manage that can be successful.”

He says there is no stand-out team in this year’s competition. He says that momentum is more important than reputation or previous results, that a team with a winning run gathering momentum is a difficult animal to stop.

He says a side rarely arrives to a big game with everyone they would like to have. He says this will be the physically toughest game Ireland will play in the Six Nations.

“They maul 50 per cent of their ball,” he says flatly.

The Eternal City waits.

For O’Connell an eternity . . . if selected.