Judging by their various social media accounts, it's fair to say the Irish rugby squad were rather excited about the opportunity to meet Usain Bolt. The fastest man in the world dropped into the team hotel in London after the defeat to England for a bit of dinner, a quick chat and plenty of photo opportunities.
At the time, we weren't privy to any of the Jamaican's words of wisdom but now Rory Best has changed some of that. Speaking at the Irish press conference yesterday, the Ulster hooker let us all in on the main thing that the Irish squad was taking away from the meeting with Bolt.
The big thing, from our point of view, was just that he says that when he goes into championships and he feels good, he knows he's going to perform.
It's not necessarily about how events leading into it have gone. It is about how he's feeling himself.
Given the softening of expectations following two disappointing results against Wales and England that bit of advice could prove to be very helpful. For all we know, Joe Schmidt could have planned to lose those games (not likely but you never know) but if not, it's not hard to imagine how poor performances like those could affect confidence heading into the World Cup.
Bolt's preparations for the World Championships led many to question how much he had left in the tank. As we all know, he blew those doubts out of the water. Now, if Ireland can do something similar that would be just swell.
