Tadhg Beirne: Ireland camp 'feeling much better' than 2019

He's not the first Ireland player to hint that things are very different to the last regime and Tadhg Beirne has hailed Andy Farrell’s management as the squad gear up the for World Cup "feeling much better" than four years ago.

Asked for input about how to make the 12-week run-in, the wider squad were able to feed back what they felt worked and what didn’t in previous camps.

Off-weeks have been factored into the training programme, which began in mid-June, and there has been a more "rugby-oriented" approach to the build-up, said Iain Henderson.

Beirne was a relative newcomer into Joe Schmidt’s Six Nations-winning squad prior to the World Cup in Japan, first capped in June 2018 and winning eight caps before the opener against Scotland in Yokohama.

While Ireland dismissed the Scots with minimum fuss on that day, a shock loss to Japan and a big quarter-final defeat to New Zealand in the quarter-final meant it was another case of 'same old, same old’.

And as the Munster lock prepares to fly to France tomorrow, he believes the team are in a better place.

"With every loss you take a lot of learnings," he said.

"That whole World Cup was probably a bit disappointing from our end in terms of we had higher expectations of ourselves to go further in the competition but unfortunately our performances didn’t match that.

Ireland are on a record 13-Test winning run – a stretch that includes victories over New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and France in a Six Nations Grand Slam – and Beirne says it’s important to take belief from their performances.

Ireland's first game is against Romania in Bordeaux on 9 September.