Wood finds retirement is a state of mind

Old habits are hard to shake off, so on the first morning of his retirement Keith Wood got up for what he thought was a compulsory pool session to find that only a handful of his team-mates had turned-up.

It didn't appear to cross his mind that he could have stayed in bed for an extra hour and give respite to those aching limbs; that famous appetite for hard work will take more than one day to wear-off.

It must have been an unusual sensation for Wood; waking-up and not knowing (perhaps for the first time since he left St Munchin's College many years ago) what he was going to do with his life.

"It's a strange feeling this morning," Wood admitted. "I was obviously pretty emotional on Sunday night and the whole thing didn't really hit me until the final whistle. But it wasn't an emotional call on retiring because that was always something that was going to happen."

A new dawn also gave Eddie O'Sullivan an opportunity to reflect on Ireland's campaign. The coach highlighted Munster second row Paul O'Connell, Llanelli back row Simon Easterby and Leinster's Shane Horgan as players who may have surprised observers by their performances, and in general O'Sullivan was keen to emphasise that Ireland's efforts over the past five weeks should definitely be looked upon in a positive manner.

"Thinking about it this morning, the first thing that we have to say is that we came here with a goal of making the quarter-finals and we achieved that," said O'Sullivan. "It was a big ask because of the pool we were in. I think our performances against Argentina and Australia defined our World Cup in the sense that it gave us the expectation for Sunday's game that we could actually get to a semi-final.

"Having achieved your goal of actually getting to a quarter-final, and in the process raised expectations beyond that, I think you've got to write that down as a very good World Cup for Ireland," he said.

As for the future, O'Sullivan was a touch downbeat. Watching the tournament, and indeed the international game the past two years, he has come to believe rugby has become "hand-to-hand combat with a ball", and the physically bigger a team becomes, the more chance they have of success.

"It's getting harder and harder for skill to overcome strength in this game," said O'Sullivan. "It's a power sport and it's supposed to be a power sport, and might is right in that sense because it gets results. For Ireland, with the player base we have, that's a certain worry for us about how far up the food chain we can work ourselves. How we get round that is our problem to solve and we need to be even more aware of how we use our resources and recruit resources."

With Ireland now out of the tournament, O'Sullivan could at last predict the Webb Ellis Cup winners without the shackles of World Cup involvement holding him back. Naturally, his opinion must be clouded by the physical walloping his side received from France, but, nonetheless, he's still backing Les Bleues to brush aside all challengers over the coming fortnight.

"I believe that New Zealand will come through (against Australia) based on form, although I don't think there'll be much in it because both sides know each other pretty well," O'Sullivan said. "As for the other side of the draw, England have the potential to beat anyone in the world but at the moment they don't seem to be in the right zone. If the French can bring that into the next round they can turn England over.

"If it comes down to France-New Zealand, I'd have to back France. I believe they can do it, they have the firepower, they have the discipline and the focus. It's a very unusual French team, it's consistent, it's organised, it's focused, very aggressive - and they play rugby on top of that. I think that this is a very special French team."