“THE bad times of the Irish team are over. We proved it last year that we can go against the best and get the job done,” said Irish show jumping team manager Rodrigo Pessoa at Tuesday’s Horse Sport Ireland press conference at Punchestown Racecourse.

Some 12 months after meeting the Irish media for the first time, Pessoa returned to Ireland on the opening day of the Punchestown National Hunt Festival to launch the 2018 Longines FEI Nations Cup season which kicks off in Samorin, Slovakia this Sunday. He was joined on the panel by international show jumpers Cian O’Connor and Michael Duffy.

Representatives from team sponsors Devenish, The Underwriting Exchange, Equiline and Gain Equine Nutrition were also in attendance, as were Pessoa’s backroom team of Gerry Mullins and Taylor Vard.

Discussing the possibility of winning a medal at September’s World Equestrian Games in Tryon, Pessoa said the state of mind this year will be similar to 2017, when his team won the gold medal at the FEI European Championships in Gothenburg.

“When you pick up a job like this you have to be confident, you have to have confidence in your men, but you have to be realistic as well and know what your possibilities are. I was confident but very realistic about the situation. Despite not having the best year as a team – we couldn’t win any of the Superleague Nations Cups – I could see the development of the horses and I could see that if everything went our way, which it did, we could play a major part in this championship,” he told the gathering of about 50 media and sponsors.

Pessoa continued: “The state of mind for this year will be more or less the same. A lot of people will have big expectations. We will try to deliver a double mission which is to bring a medal home and also qualify the team for the 2020 Olympic Games.”

The three-time Olympic medallist has competed at the WEG venue in Tryon, North Carolina. “I’ve been to Tryon, it’s a spectacular venue. There is not much to do around there but we are not going to play around, we are going to win a medal so all that matters to us is that the venue is good and the footing is good. We are confident we can do well,” Pessoa said.

aga khan

Show jumping fans in Ireland will be glad to hear that Pessoa is eager to get his hands on the famous Aga Khan trophy at this year’s Dublin Horse Show after a disappointing performance last August. With a gap of six weeks between Dublin and the WEG, Pessoa will field the strongest team possible at the RDS.

Asked about the pressure last year, Pessoa said: “I felt that (the pressure) at Dublin. I felt it, but that is understandable when you have a venue like the RDS in Dublin – its normal, the fans are unbelievable.

“I had been to Dublin and competed a couple of times before but this time I really felt the pressure and enthusiasm of everyone there, and then after the Nations Cup, the disappointment of everyone there.

“Unfortunately with the calendar last year we couldn’t really bring the top horses but I think this year the calendar will allow us to do it differently and have horses that are in really good shape and to go for that very special event which is the Aga Khan,” Pessoa explained.

Despite taking a lot of criticism after Dublin, Cian O’Connor, who flew in from his German base to be at the press conference, backed up Pessoa’s decision. “There is always pressure, everyone likes to come home and go well in Dublin. But I think what Rodrigo did last year was correct. He didn’t try and do both jobs, he made the championships the sole goal. This year hopefully the best team will be able to do both,” O’Connor said.