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| | Tuesday, 11 June, 2002, 09:32 GMT 10:32 UK O'Driscoll: The heat is on BBC Sport Online columnist Brian O'Driscoll starting to feel the heat as Ireland prepare to face New Zealand. The heat is on us now with our first Test looming against the All Blacks on Saturday. And it will be warm, as the temperature is a lot higher than I expected. Since our arrival the weather has been excellent with clear skies although the temperature does dip at night.
It was hot when we played our opening game last weekend. We did relatively well considering that we hadn't played together for a while. It was a good victory over the Divisional side and the fact that we scored nine tries and didn't concede any is a positive point. Natuarlly I was pleased with my three tries - who wouldn't be. Some say that it doesn't really matter where they come from, but it does - it's an added bonus scoring tries and they way we engineered them was very encouraging. Eight of those tries came from the backs, and that is certainly very positive from our point of view. That opening game has put us in a very positive frame of mind for Saturday. We nearly rolled New Zealand over last autumn before going down 40-29, and we are genuinely looking forward to the big challenge in Dunedin.
It is going to be very difficult as New Zealand rugby is on a high at present. But some people have this idea that the All Blacks are invincible, but we certainly do not think that. We will give it a real go that's for sure as we think we have as good a chance as in the past. Hopefully this time we will get that first victory over them. I haven't had much opportunity yet to see New Zealand as we have been fairly busy preparing. Dunedin seems a real nice spot, but I'll let you know after Saturday's game whether it's worth remembering. So far everything is going well in the squad. The training has been very good and upbeat, and after Saturday's victory we all had a real blow-out in Timaru.
It was great craic, and there were a number of really funny incidents which I won't go into here. No tour talk and all that. We are due to take a break on Wednesday when we will play at a local course in Dunedin. I'm looking forward to that. I have not played as much as I would like to have played at my club in Royal Dublin. At present I'm playing off a very poor nine. My handicap at present is the clubs. Still, the golf will alleviate some of the pressure we will be under, before we get down to business of focusing on the All Blacks later in the week. Then, well, you never know. It could be another night out, with something really special to celebrate. | |
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