poc

England is apparently turning a shade of green since their country were unceremoniously dumped out last night by Australia and when asked about it Ireland captain Paul O’Connell had an excellent response.

“We are available for selection for support,” he remarked.

“Looking at today we are going to need everything we can get.”

The lock apologised to Irish fans, who made up the majority of the 53,187 in attendance at the Olympic Stadium, after the game.

“The crowd were amazing,” he said. “I wish we could have put on a better performance today… It was a shame we didn’t match them [for energy and enthusiasm].

“When you make mistakes and concede penalties, it flattens the performance and you can’t get into any sort of rhythm.

“To turn it over it takes the edge off it a little bit and that is something we have to deal with. We probably did not do that well today.”