Sean O’Brien’s pre-match comments would frighten the life out of lesser men

Sean O'Brien's prepared for a battle in Cardiff.

The Leinster forward is expecting the wounded animal of Wales to be swinging on Friday night as they try to get back to winning ways. Having lost both their games since their victorious tournament opener against Italy, the Welsh have had to endure the snarl of the unforgiving media and the fans after each underwhelming performance. O'Brien knows they'll be dangerous, especially in the lion's den.

"Yeah, they're going to be hurting obviously, you know? If we were in their shoes what would you be thinking as well, so they'll want to put in a big performance at home."

To be prepared for whatever beast shows up in Cardiff, O'Brien wants Ireland to not let up, and go for the kill from the get-go.

"But we'll have to try and combat that as best we can and as I said make sure when we start we have all of our boxes ticked and we're ready to rock and hit the ground running."

https://twitter.com/SportsJOEdotie/status/840154283806973952 The ability to adapt is key in O'Brien's eyes. A skilled warrior will know how to act in a fire-fight, a tactical chess match or a grueling affair. If he can't get his running game going, he'll slay the dragons inch by inch.

"Sometimes you've got to try and win an inch, and an inch might lead to another inch a phase later so you have to put in a few of the hard yards, too." "In an ideal world, yeah, you'd love to have a bit more space and be moving on to more ball at a rate of knots but in the last game that wasn't the case either, they were a big pack and were good at the breakdown."

He's more than ready for this.