The Irish coach accused his counterpart of a bit of devilment in the build up to today's Six Nations encounter. "He's trying to play the referee the day before the game, " said O'Sullivan. "I wish him luck."

O'Sullivan also confirmed that he's attempted to work his powers of persuasion on referee Steve Walsh not once, but twice this week. "I had the meeting on Tuesday night just to clear the air about last weekend, " he admitted. "That was about finding out what his thoughts were on last weekend, just clearing the decks on that, which we did.

Then we had the standard meeting yesterday."

Then the Irish coach went about attempting to play the referee himself. "I'm not just saying this, but I think Walsh is a good referee, " said O'Sullivan. "He's reffed at a high level. He got more games than any other referee in the autumn. He's consistent. He's a little bit different than Kelvin Deaker, they're all a little different. What you want is consistency and he is consistent.

He's very harsh at the breakdown and he doesn't suffer people lying around or using their hands on the deck, and that's okay. That's his way of doing it. We have to adjust to him as you always do. You want to know where he's coming from, and adjust to his head-set. There's no point in going out tomorrow and spending 15 minutes coming to terms with his interpretation and it takes four or five rucks to find out. That's negligence on our part. What I'm comfortable with now is we know what he wants from us."

On matters historical, O'Sullivan urged those lucky enough to be present at Croke Park today to turn GAA headquarters into a fortress for the Irish team. "Playing at Croke Park will be a big boost because there will be a lot of excitement, a lot of expectation and a lot of hype around.

We've always had that at Lansdowne Road but there's that bit of extra edge there this weekend. It's the first rugby game at Croke Park and that will heighten the intensity.

There will be 82,300 voices, most of them cheering for Ireland for a change. Usually, when we go to the big stadiums in Paris or London most of the crowd are cheering for the opposition.

"We also saw that in Cardiff last weekend. Cardiff has become a very difficult place to go and win because of the intensity that the crowd bring to the game. I hope that we'll create our own little colosseum in Croke Park. That will help us to increase the pressure on the opposition. Maybe they'll become a little bit intimidated, which can happen when you're away from home against a big crowd. That's the type of atmosphere and support we want, that surge of energy that comes from the crowd and that can push the team on."