Luke McGrath confesses Ireland’s loss to Japan is a bitter pill to swallow - and claimed there would be blood on the floor after their match review.
The Leinster scrum-half believes competition for places will drive a response against Russia in Kobe on Thursday.
“It’s not like this is the end of the competition and we’re going home,” said McGrath, who ended up on the left wing in the final stages of Saturday’s nightmare loss to Japan.
“We still have a lot to play for.
“Competition for places is very high as well, so whoever plays on Thursday will have a big opportunity but they will have to give a massive performance.”
McGrath admitted that honesty was now the best policy, with Ireland sitting down for a video nasty review of their performance yesterday before taking the bullet train to Kobe.
“It’s a bitter pill to swallow,” said McGrath.
“The good thing is it’s still all to play for. “We’ve a lot of leaders in this group, a lot of positivity will have to be brought.
“We’ll bleed during the meeting, but we’ll have to move on because we have to get maximum points (in the final two pool games against Russia and Samoa).
“We have to. In some ways, at least, it’s only a five day turnaround so we can go out to right a wrong.”
McGrath was one of those Ireland players who had faced the Brave Blossoms three summers ago in two Test matches that were comfortably won by the visitors.
But he claimed that there was enough in those games to suggest that the host nation would be tough opponents at this World Cup.
McGrath, 26, said: “We never looked past Japan. We knew how impressive they were.
“Our discipline let us down. They went 3, 6, 9 very easily (on the scoreboard) and we let ourselves down there.
“Full credit to Japan, the way they attacked - they went both sides. We pride ourselves on defence, we had a very good defensive performance against Scotland, and they just put us under pressure.
“It was Japan’s day. They thoroughly deserved their win, to be fair to them.
“We’re going to have to be honest with ourselves leading into to Thursday”.
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