Former England and Lions winger Ugo Monye has bluntly dismissed Ireland's chances of winning the Rugby World Cup despite their world number one status.
Monye pointed to Leinster's recent Heineken European Champions Cup final defeat to La Rochelle as proof of Irish struggles against powerful opposition.
Ireland have never made it past the quarter-finals of a World Cup, but their recent Grand Slam success under Andy Farrell points to this being their most successful tournament yet. They do, however, have to navigate a 'pool of death' featuring South Africa, Scotland and Tonga, while they will face one of France or New Zealand in the last eight.
Speaking in Dublin at a World Rugby EventsCo function reported by RugbyPass, Monye said bluntly: “Ireland won’t win the World Cup. They just won’t. If you saw Leinster against La Rochelle here a month ago, Ireland’s biggest weakness is how they deal with power games. Rugby 20 years ago, 50 years ago, the one common denominator which you absolutely need in a physical game is power.
“When they play against South Africa, play against France, play against New Zealand, they struggle, hence why they have never made it beyond the quarter-finals in the World Cup. They are the No1 team in the world and with Andy Farrell, who is incredible, they learn lessons.
“In 2018 they were world No1, Joe Schmidt won world coach of the year, Johnny Sexton got player of the year, they went to Japan in 2019 and got bombed out in the quarter-finals. How can they use that as fuel? What lessons can they learn to be able to convert it?
“If you look at the side of the draw they are on, it is really difficult. I’d be surprised (if they won). For me, the favourites to win the World Cup are South Africa. Because of the displaced nature of our (northern and southern) seasons, we are not really talking about the southern hemisphere teams because we are obsessed with the rugby that we have seen which has been European."
France are the bookmakers' favourites for the tournament, followed by New Zealand and then Ireland. Wales are ninth favourites.
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