Rory Best backs Ireland to end World Cup misery ahead of 2027 tournament in Australia

Rory Best reckons Ireland's World Cup hoodoo will finally end next year.

The former Ireland skipper, who played in four World Cups but failed to go beyond the quarter-finals in any of them, believes the continuation of Andy Farrell as head coach will be key.

Farrell took over from Joe Schmidt in 2019 and has now extended his stay until 2031. And that counts, because the Wigan man has a history of winning, guiding Ireland to their first-ever tour victory in New Zealand as well as a Grand Slam and Six Nations triumph in 2023 and 2024.

Now, after a decade of firsts — the first win over the All Blacks, the first win away to South Africa, Ireland's first series win in Australia since 1979 and their first series win in New Zealand — there is one box left to tick.

The World Cup quarter-final box.

Best thinks it can be done.

“When you start to rebase your achievements, everyone expects more and more and more," the Ulsterman said.

“I think if you ask any players that have played in World Cups — and I've been lucky to play in four — it's still the one bit that you kind of go, 'would I change something in my career?'

“No, because I'm somebody that doesn't necessarily deal in what-ifs. But you would have loved to have played in a World Cup semi-final and then been there for the last weekend, whether it was a final or a third-and-fourth, of course you would.

“Because competitive people always want to do better and achieve more. I think our success has led to wanting to achieve more and it's just such fine margins.

“I look at certainly two of the four quarter-finals, or three quarter-finals, I played in that were narrow margins. I was in the stadium in 2023 and that was two teams going at it and one team had to miss out. Unfortunately for us, it was Ireland.

“They're fine margins, but I think there's no harm in having this expectation and this pressure to deliver.

“The same goes going to Australia. There'll be an expectation from the Irish public that this team will finally be the team to get through a quarter-final and I have every faith that there will be. I always do.

“Going into every World Cup, I think that we can win it. For me, it's just that with the achievement comes a weight of expectation and that's what our top players are prepared for.”

Best remembers the darker days of the 1990s when Ireland could not buy a win against middling nations, never mind big ones.

Across that decade, Ireland failed to beat Scotland once, lost twice to Namibia, once to Samoa and three times in a row to Italy.

On top of that they were also winless against South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and France in that decade.

But since then they have been transformed - winning more Triple Crowns and Grand Slams in the 26 years of this century than they did in the entirety of the twentieth century.

And Best puts that down to one thing - great coaching.

And that is why he is glad to have Schmidt back involved in the Irish set-up - particularly as his current role is assisting Best within Ulster Rugby, the province closest to his heart.

He said: “Whenever I think of coaching in my rugby career, I didn't ever have Andy as a head coach, but whenever I think of the best head coach I had, Joe is right up there as number one. To get the opportunity was sort of the stars aligning a little bit. He obviously has a new grandchild in Dublin.

“I knew he might want to add a little bit to Irish rugby without being stuck here all the time.

“So we just got chatting to him quite soon after I came in because he was here with Australia. I just sort of pitched him what my dream of Ulster Rugby going forward would be and how I think we can get a level of sustainability and a level of consistency that we maybe haven't had.

“You know, we were good, then we were bad, then we were good again. We need to be more consistent and that's coaching and bringing players through.

“Having Joe involved will be an enormous help because he is such a top class operator.”

Ireland and Ulster Rugby legend Rory Best embarked on the Republic of Ireland leg of the Rory’s Miles to Mayo – The Trilogy challenge ─ a 378km, nine-day walk around the island of Ireland in support of Cancer Fund for Children.