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5th September 2018
12:01pm BST
"If we go and win the World Cup, the buzz will be a lot better than Limerick winning the All-Ireland, I'd say. Yeah, I'd say the country would go on shutdown for a couple of weeks."Cutting straight to it, then, can we win the World Cup? "Yeah," he replied, "I believe we can. "We have the squad of players to definitely go further than we have in previous years. It's building nicely as well, in terms of young lads coming through again this year. It's a great mix of youth and experience. I think we have to believe that, yeah." Many expected Joe Schmidt's side would play at least one warm-up match in the Land of the Rising Sun but, instead, there will be two games in Dublin and trips to London and Cardiff. As per the IRFU release:
'Ireland will host Italy on Saturday, August 10 at the Aviva Stadium before playing England at Twickenham on August 24 and Wales at the Principality Stadium on August 31. 'Ireland will play their final fixture ahead of RWC19 at the Aviva Stadium against Wales on Saturday, September 7.'
That gives Schmidt's men what should be a rousing send-off at Lansdowne Road before they jet out for pool games against Japan, Scotland, Samoa and Russia.
Their first game is against the Scots, on September 22, so there will be no Tests over in Japan to get up to speed with local conditions and climates.
Ticket information for their two fixtures at the Aviva Stadium will be available in 2019.
IRELAND v Italy Aviva Stadium Saturday 10th August, 2019 England v IRELAND Twickenham Stadium Saturday 24th August, 2019 Wales v IRELAND Principality Stadium Saturday 31st August, 2019 IRELAND v Wales Aviva Stadium Saturday 7th September, 2019The men in green will be aiming to go three steps better than their previous World cup best(s) of reaching the quarter-finals, in 1987, 1991, 1995, 2003, 2011 and 2015.
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