`I Firmly Believe That We Would Have Beaten Them if We'd Have Got the Opportunity' - John Mooney

Following Ireland's unlucky exit from the Twenty20 World Cup in a frustratingly rain affected no result against the Old Enemy England, RTE's Darragh Moloney talks to a clearly disappointed Irish Cricket Team Player John Mooney.


Darragh Moloney: Now Ireland in cricket went out of the Twenty20 World Cup in Guyana last night following a no result in their match against England. Ireland restricted England to just 120 runs before the rain denied Ireland the chance to properly chase the target. Irish All Rounder John Mooney is on the line now. The squad have just arrived in Barbados on their way home. John how are you?

John Mooney: Not too bad, and yourself?

Darragh Moloney: Ah grand thanks. Thanks for joining us. The match had to be abandoned John, it's got to be one of the most frustrating experiences you've had in your time playing with Ireland, that you didn't get a proper chance to chase that English target?

John Mooney: Yeah well that's it exactly, you know we're never going to know, you know, we're going to be, we could have joined an elite band of people who could have knocked England out of a world cup. But yet we'll never know, because of the weather.

Darragh Moloney: Yeah, you gave yourselves a great chance to do it though, to at least put yourselves in position, by restricting England to 120 from their twenty overs, and you were a big part of that in the field. I think you ran an English player out and you had two catches as well, including Kevin Peterson?

John Mooney: Yeah well you know yesterday, we had such a disappointing night on Friday, and yesterday we gave, we couldn't have gave anymore than what we gave out there. And it wasn't just me, you know there was some superb performances with the ball, and you know I did my bit in the field, which is what you have to do. It doesn't get any bigger than playing England, and in a World Cup, you know, you have to just put your body on the line, and put everything on the line to do it. And unfortunately the weather came and kind of stumped us, you know, excuse the pun.

Darragh Moloney: Ha, ha, ha, it was a bad pun all right John, we'll let you away with that one. After the defeat against the West Indies, I think you lost by 70 runs, you guys were very very down. So you wanted to restore some pride, you did that last night, but that attitude is going to be very important for all of you with Ireland going forward to the next challenges?

John Mooney: Yeah, you know we're going into these games as underdogs every game. And there is going to be nights where unfortunately it's not going to happen for us, like on Friday night, and we're going to be shown up. But you know we know that 80% of the time when we turn out there, 90% of the time, we're going to be able to mix it with these lads. And that's what we're fighting towards with the ICC, is to try and get ourselves as one of these top playing nations. And you know, we know we can mix it with these lads, we've done it before and we'll do it again. But you know England, we don't fear them and we don't fear any of these other sides. And Friday unfortunately was a bad day for us, but we knew that we could bounce back, and we knew that we could beat England, and we gave it everything that we had, and I firmly believe that we would have beaten them if we'd have got the opportunity.

Darragh Moloney: John thanks very much for joining us live from Barbados. Good to talk to you. John Mooney from the Irish Cricket Team. Such a shame they didn't get to properly chase that target of 121 to beat England in the Twenty20 World Cup. It would have put them through to the next phase of the competition, but as John was saying at the start of the piece, we'll never know.