Italia '90: David O'Leary's penalty kick and Packie Bonner's iconic save, Jackie Charlton's heroic army brought our little nation to a standstill and George Hamilton's words would forever be immortalised in the beating hearts of every Irish man, woman and child, "A Nation Holds It's Breath..." The day that saw Ireland go through to the quarter finals of a World Cup.
Tomorrow, a different type of World Cup will embark upon us. Unlike the aforementioned, Irish Rugby is no stranger to reaching a quarter final, from 1987-2011 (apart from 2007 where Ireland where eliminated in the pool stages) Ireland have never progressed passed a quarter final.
Nothing to be ashamed of, of course, but having reached a historic ranking of 2nd in the world this year and now currently ranked 6th after two defeats to Wales and England, the big exam question needed answering is, can the class of 2015 graduate to a semi-final position or will Groundhog Day come to snarl at Ireland's World Cup dreams yet again?
Looking at Ireland's current form, they have been exceptional under Joe Schmidt's reign. The Schmidt Era has seen Ireland win back to back six nation championships but recent warm up games have shown slight disorganisation amongst the ranks, still no reason to panic, some say it may be a ploy to throw the opposition off the scent or as a precautionary to avoid any injuries or maybe Ireland just take that little bit longer to gel together, whatever it is, one thing is certain, there will be no more warm up games and Ireland need to utilise their match time against Canada and Romania to find their feet.
With all this in mind, who will be the key players for Ireland in the hunt for world cup glory? Sexton for starters that's who. If Sexton were to be compared to a chessboard piece it would be the Queen, Sexton is versatile, powerful and lethal, a useful mastermind to winning any game, but there's a catch, this mostly happens when Sexton is not on flying form, anything less than 100% from the number 10 and the process as a whole becomes flawed, cracks can be seen in the Irish play, and dynamics change. Checkmate.
Not to say that Ireland winning a game is based on Sexton's level of play alone, it's not, and the pressure to guide a game must be truly phenomenal, Sexton cannot do it alone however, step forward captain Paul O' Connell, the powerhouse of the Irish rugby team, he is set to become the only Irish player to have played in four world cups, ever the professional, the Munster lock provides stability to the pack, he digs deep, if ever there was a player to nearly break his own body in half for the sake and love of the game, it's O'Connell, his tackling ability is scary and sometimes he uses other players as human battering rams (remember Zebo) in order to break down the opposition's defence, his only flaw might be that on occasions he can't keep his hands out of a ruck, but like a kid with a cookie jar, if nobody notices and you can get away with it, is anybody really going to tell?
A third set piece who stands out is veteran Rory Best, a cog in the wheels of motion that keep the Irish team going forward, this forward seems to get better each year, who could forget the time he cleared out a ruck with a broken arm against New Zealand, for a Hooker he has pace, a trait that has seen him crash down over the whitewash on numerous occasions, the Poyntzpass native is like a jack of all trades, good at scrum time, gets around the field of play in epic fashion and has overcome injuries time and time again to be one of Ireland's notable players of all time. Stand Up for the Ulsterman.
The only and maybe most important flaw that Best could carry to the world cup (and let's hope not) is his ball handling skills, sometimes Irish lineouts suffer if he can't get his head in the game, opposing teams can feed off on this and many a lineout can be lost, losing out on advantage gained previously towards the try line.
These three giants of Irish rugby along with the other 28 chosen warriors could potentially help lead Ireland through to their best world cup to date, a hard task and something we, as a nation will fully get behind, one thing is for sure though, if Ireland do successfully reach the quarter final stage, this country, whether from holding it's breath or in mourning, is going to be turning some sort of shade of blue.
