Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

With Ireland’s World Cup hopes improving with each performance in New Zealand, these are giddy days indeed, writes Emmet Moloney...

This is what it’s all about: Ireland in a quarter-final of the Rugby World Cup and half the country getting up at 6am on Saturday morning to watch them. Excitement has been building all week. We need this lift more these days; I suspect the players and management know that. They’ll handle the pressure. They’ll perform. We, on the other hand, will go crazy.

I think a bit of this craziness has started already. Two or three people have already mentioned plans to me for “staying up” on Friday night and lasting without sleep until the match and then really getting into it! Perhaps there’s a wedding out there somewhere in the country where the sing song might start at 3am with the rugby match as the finishing line.

Otherwise Ireland’s early start means early to bed on Friday night. And rightly so. We used to hear about power surges during commercial breaks back in the heyday of The Late Late Show. I expect the ESB should be prepared for another one at about 5.45am this Saturday morning when every kettle up and down the country springs into life.

And if Ireland do manage to topple the Welsh, at about 8am there’ll be a lot of people far too excited and happy to go back to bed. Thank God the pubs won’t be open!

And here’s why we’ll win: planning. Declan Kidney has meticulously prepared this squad for these past few weeks and this next few weeks. This masterplan is three years in gestation. We’ve won our group and held the mighty Australia to six points along the way, with the Italians also only managing to score six. We conceded no try to either team, with the Italians beaten in a manner that suggests we are coming to the boil at the perfect time.

Looking around the tournament this week and apart from the perennial All Blacks (the Carter loss could actually end up easing the pressure on them), no team is in better shape than Ireland. No one has overly impressed and some like the Aussies, French, English and Boks have lost much of their lustre in the group stages. Wales have done well, but we’re a better team – on and off the pitch – and while they will strongly fancy their chances, we’ll take them.

There’s a point only just been made in this country, but a point that has been much spoken about in New Zealand: after the All Blacks, Ireland are the home team. The sheer weight of supporters in attendance in green is making every game a home game. This is remarkable and this is worth seven points when it comes to the knockout stages.

We’d fancy our chances against anyone at home. These are literally home matches and we’re playing them like we’re the home team. That’s how we played the Australians and the Italians. We softened them up, we took our chances, we won as we expected.
Whisper it: there is something happening in New Zealand right now and Ireland are a couple of breaks away from getting to a World Cup final.

However, this kind of loose talk will have absolutely no effect on Declan Kidney or the squad. Even if the whole country started talking about winning the World Cup, it would not affect our performance on Saturday. That’s Kidney’s way. His squad are closeted in New Zealand, yet embracing the outpouring of support that is following them around the country.

It’s a tricky balance to get right, but this coach (manager/psychologist/teacher/jack of all trades, master of plenty) can get it right.

The negatives? The breaks. We could get on the wrong side of a referee, we could have no luck. In a very tight match that might be the margin: the breaks. But I actually think we could beat Wales comfortably. How’s that for loose talk!

The Welsh have talent and can score. That’s what makes them so dangerous – their ability to score tries from very little. But we know them, we know their form, we know their danger men and we know how to take them apart. We’ve done it before. Like ourselves, when the Welsh struggle, sometimes it isn’t pretty. We can break the first tackle against these guys and we have the men to do it.

If our back row stays in one piece between now and the end of the tournament, we have a right chance. Peaking at the World Cup – that’s what Messrs Heaslip, Ferris and our man of the tournament Sean O’Brien are doing right now. They are phenomenal and they’re the stick we’ll beat the Welsh with. The French too if, as expected, it’s them we see in the semis.

Have faith in Kidney. Don’t be surprised if he makes a change or two either for this game. All his career he has made the big selection call when he needed too. The O’Gara/Sexton issue is far from decided, although it appears that Conor Murray is now in possession of the nine jersey. Trimble is knocking on the door and that’s what we want – the back line under pressure to deliver when they know a man of his form and calibre is chomping at the bit to get on.

The pack picks itself although our front row is getting a little stretched, especially with Rory Best’s injury. No matter, three games in three weeks is all we have left. And they are the biggest three matches these guys will ever play. Have faith in O’Connell and O’Driscoll. Born leaders, they are made for this. They will give everything to ensure it doesn’t end this Saturday morning. It won’t.

The stakes are rising by the week. Have faith, too, that Warren Gatland will open his large mouth between now and the match and say something to annoy us, just in case we might need any more reason to tear into the Welsh.

But here’s a point that might have been missed: Declan Kidney mentioned in his typically calm and collected post-match interview last Sunday that many Irish are in New Zealand supporting the team because things aren’t great back home and quite a few have had to emigrate.

You don’t think the team have spoken about this? Of course they have. They know that this World Cup means everything to those people. They know that for this month that the Irish diaspora will consider themselves lucky to have been in New Zealand for the World Cup and not at home with friends and family. It mightn’t always be that way.

We’re into emotion now. We’re into what it means to be Irish. This is Declan Kidney country. Set your clocks. To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Irish Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...