Ireland out-half Johnny Sexton was in upbeat form at the Tokyo Stadium today ahead of tomorrow's Rugby World Cup quarter-final against New Zealand.
Sexton was the only player to take to the match venue, practicing his kicking as the rest of the squad trained at their local base.
Thousands of Irish fans have made the trip to Japan for the last eight tie which begins at 11.15am Irish time.
The Leinster talisman missed the knockout game against Argentina four years ago because of injury, so he is determined to grab this chance with both hands:
"It's been a long time in the back of our minds, this quarter-final. We're here now. It's a little bit surreal. This time four years ago I was a supporter like you guys and it's not a great place to be. We're really looking forward to getting out there on the biggest stage and trying to show what we can do against the best team in the world, a team that haven't lost a World Cup game in two World Cups. It's going to be an enormous challenge, but one that we're excited about and that we're really eager about and we want to make the people at home really proud."
Johnny Sexton said that Ireland's players will enter this game in a good place having recovered from the defeat to Japan:
"We've just been day by day focused. You can't play the game on a Monday or a Tuesday. We'd have done okay if we played Tuesday because we trained brilliantly. You can't win it during those, but you can prepare really well and you can put yourself in with the best chance of doing it. We've done that all week, we've had a good week's preparation, guys are going in fresh and ready to go. Nothing really counts until kick-off time and we have got to produce the goods then."
Sexton expects a ferocious physical challenge from the All Blacks, but one that's mindful of the rules:
"I'm sure they will bring that physical edge that they always do and I'm sure that's what they'll be speaking about leading into the game. I think they had a game where they went down to 14 against Australia, so I am sure their discipline will be very good on the day."
Sexton says he's developed a great partnership with scrum-half Conor Murray:
"When we started off together, you wouldn't have believed that we'd have gone on and played this many games together. It was like two strangers; we were almost introducing ourselves to each other in the first few games. Look, we've gone from strength to strength. He's a top-quality operator, his quality of pass, his kicking game, the basics - what world-class scrum-halves are and he's up against one again tomorrow in Aaron Smith. It's been a pleasure to play alongside him and I hope that we get many more days together. We hope we have a few more years together, yeah."
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