Things are likely to warm up for Scotland on Sunday when they head to tropical Townsville for their opening game with Japan but for Ireland, at their beachside resort in Terrigal, a 90-minute drive from Sydney, their first fortnight Down Under has been decidedly wet and chilly.

The forecast does not suggest the weather conditions will improve before O’Sullivan’s side tackles Romania at the Central Coast Stadium in Gosford tomorrow and the Irish coach feels that will only benefit the under-rated Eastern Europeans.

“We don’t want wet and windy weather for this game,” he revealed.

“Romania are a very physical team and they believe they have a big enough pack to upset a number of teams in our pool.

“If we get really wet conditions it could turn the game into a bit of a lottery, just a slugging match up front and that certainly wouldn’t suit us.”

O’Sullivan knows even if the pitch turns into a quagmire, Ireland should still emerge triumphant, although maybe not by quite the margin they would hope for.

It would certainly make it harder for fly-half David Humphreys to convert the single penalty required for him to become the 14th player in the game’s history to reach the 100 mark.

However, in a group which also contains heavyweight duo Australia and Argentina, O’Sullivan is right to be concerned at anything which could undermine his team’s march to victory.

Having settled on his strongest line-up from a squad in which Eric Miller’s sore ankle was the only marginal injury concern, O’Sullivan is expecting the kind of performance which has seen his team rise to number three in the world over the past 12 months.

Australia may challenge that claim given their 45-16 hammering of the Irish in Perth just three months ago but O’Sullivan knows that even if his team cannot defeat the hosts in the final Pool A meeting in Melbourne on November 1, the draw is structured in such a way that a semi-final spot is a distinct possibility.

O’Sullivan may prefer to play down such talk but nothing has happened over the past two weeks to suggest his team are not capable of living up to such lofty pre-tournament hopes, even without the fast ground conditions Ireland would prefer.

“Training has gone really well,” said O’Sullivan.

“I expected some of the players to be off it for a couple of days given the distance we had to travel to get here but we seemed to hit the ground running.

“We had quite a bit of discussion about the starting line-up but that is only because we are in the happy position of having such a strong squad to choose from.

“But with a place in the side comes the pressure of having to deliver. It is the first game of the World Cup and every player in every team wants to do well.”