Ireland players on facing World Cup's so-called 'Pool of Death'

There will be no sleepless nights in the Ireland camp ahead of the World Cup in France. Ireland will face the Springboks, Scotland, Tonga and Romania in what has been labelled the ‘Pool of Death’.

If they can get out of that pool, hosts France or New Zealand will be waiting for them in the quarterfinals.

It’s a tough draw, but the Ireland wing James Lowe is not feeling the pressure just yet.

“You are going to have to beat them along the way somewhere,” Lowe told Off the Ball podcast when asked about the tough teams on Ireland’s side of the draw.

“To make it out of the pool is obviously the first battle and then the crossover game with either France or New Zealand.

“It’s exciting but we have to be prepared for everything.”

Lowe is confident his team is on the right track to give their all in France.

“I think we are in a good place to put our best foot forward and come September we will jump at the opportunity,” the wing added.

After a series win in New Zealand and a Six Nations Grand Slam, Ireland will be heading into the World Cup with a lot of momentum.

“You do have to take confidence from those moments,” said lock Tadhg Beirne. “In New Zealand, we bounced back [after losing the first Test] and winning in November and then doing the Grand Slam, those are huge achievements.

“You got to take those with you into a World Cup, but it is a different kind of pressure.

“You don’t have two weeks on and one week off. In a World Cup, it is back to back to back, so we are going to depend massively on the whole squad and everyone is going to have to take confidence that we can do it.

“We will gain that confidence from our pre-season and our warm-up games.”

Beirne is not looking further than the pool matches at this stage.

“We are in a very tough group,” said Beirne.

“Our aim is to get out of that and go from there.

“There are a lot of teams that are more than capable of winning this World Cup, so it is certainly going to be an exciting one.”