Ahead of Sunday's (4 October) Rugby World Cup match against Italy, Ireland lock Paul O'Connell spoke on Saturday (3 October) about his World Cup experiences and the virtues of modern rugby.

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English) Paul O'Connell, Ireland lock:(Question - Are you enjoying the build up to the Italy game as much as previous matches?)

"Training is really competitive. Training is very enjoyable. You kind of prepare for training the same way you prepare for a match - you want to be error-free, you want to tick all the boxes, and that's one thing I've enjoyed over the last two years about training. But, in terms of the games, this World Cup in particular has been very enjoyable. I think the competition has been brilliant to watch. It's nice playing on Sunday but it's a bit...it's like those European cups, when you play Sunday afternoon, you watch all these big games on Friday and Saturday and I suppose the nerves build and the excitement builds a little bit."

SOUNDBITE (English) Paul O'Connell, Ireland lock:(Question - What do you make of the modern game 20 years after it became professional? Is it a better product?)

"We would have done one hour, 40 minute sessions twice a week, 90 minutes on Thursday and 45 minutes on Friday, we rarely go over 60-70 minutes now. Even though we do way less, there's way more detail to what we're doing. I don't know how other teams play but a lot of our moves, we work hard and long at them and put them in place through repetition and working hard at them. I think back in the day you won your line-out ball and whatever happens after that you'd play away. You might have a few little sneaky moves down the front of the line or the back of the line that you'd rehearsed, but by and large there wasn't a whole lot to it more than that. Even though that's the way we played, we trained way more for it. Is it a better product? I don't know. I think so, I think so. I think this World Cup has been pretty incredible to watch."