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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Michael Scully

'They'll be gunning for us' - Tadhg Beirne on meeting the All Blacks after Ireland's Triple Crown triumph

Beaming Tadhg Beirne admitted he was "buzzing" after achieving something he didn't think possible with Ireland.

The act of winning silverware at the Aviva Stadium at international level is something that none of Ireland's players had experienced before.

For Beirne, who never thought he would get to this stage after an injury-hit start to his career, it was a special moment.

"Buzzing," the Munster star said. "It's the first trophy for a lot of lads.

"We set the target of winning the Triple Crown. After we lost to France we set the target of coming away from the last two games with bonus points and we achieved it.

"People probably didn't appreciate it for what it was but as we said after the France game, we'd only won it once in over 10 years so to come in here after winning it is an incredible feeling.

"I never thought I'd be in a position to say I've won a Triple Crown, so I'm absolutely delighted, everyone inside is absolutely buzzing.

"We're here to win silverware, that's our goal.

"Ultimately we wanted to win the championship, we came in with the goal to win a Grand Slam. We weren't able to do that and the championship was out of our hands after Paris, but we have done absolutely everything apart from that to put ourselves in position to win the championship.

"A lot of lads haven't won anything with Ireland so to bring a trophy into the dressing-room, we're absolutely buzzing."

Beirne knows that the success provides a good platform for Ireland's next challenge, the formidable three Test tour of New Zealand in July.

And the versatile 30-year-old forward is also excited about what's ahead given the form Andy Farrell's side have shown in winning 12 of their last 13 matches.

"They'll be gunning for us after the Autumn game and we'll be going over there buzzing after how we've finished this championship," said the Kildare man.

"Hopefully we'll be able to continue the process of getting better week on week, obviously everyone will go back to their clubs now and their focus will be there and on getting into the squad for that tour.

"But before that we'll enjoy this win.

"Everyone in here believes in what we're doing, believes in the way we're going forward. Everyone's excited about what's to come and everyone's enjoying the moment that we're in.

"So it's a pretty exciting time ahead.

"We spoke a lot over the few weeks that a lot of the lads hadn't won anything in front of the home crowd, so to get to do that at the Aviva was special.

"We spoke about it all week, and we managed to do it. So it was pretty special to do that for everybody."

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