Former West Indian all-rounder Phil Simmons has been Ireland’s coach since 2007. The Trinidadian tells The Indian Express why Ireland ( two wins in two games) are no longer pushovers, what needs to be done to help the associate team fulfil its potential and how the growing popularity of cricket has made him a minor celebrity. Excerpts from an interview.

How does Phil Simmons live in Ireland?

Incognito most of the time! Nah, cricket is getting bigger and bigger now. You get people come up to you on streets and say good luck and stuff. Five six years ago it was different. I used to go all over and no one knew who I was. Now lots more understand it. You are recognised on the streets and in shops. You see the kids playing in the parks and stuff. That’s a big change, you know.

Your captain William Porterfield hates labels like associates. What’s your take?

I never liked it. I hate it. Because to me this is the World Cup and we are all international teams. And I have been telling them from 2007. I wasn’t head coach then but I have been telling them from then. First comes self-belief, then the world follows.

The other day, Ed Joyce talked about how well you prepared before you came here. How tough is it to come and play as a unit every four years?

It’s not as tough as it was in 2011. That time we were not fully professional as we are now. This time we have 8 or 9 players who are semi-professionals. We have six full-time pros in Ireland. We came in September-November to Australia and New Zealand for six weeks and the guys did a lot of hard work and when we came back here now for this tournament, the guys know what to do. Preparation was good. It was hard but good.

As a coach, has it got easier these days?

It gets easier. The guys know what I want from them. And most importantly, they know what they want for themselves. That’s the biggest change in this team

How do you get them playing this brand of fearless cricket?

Just get them to enjoy it. If you don’t work hard, you are not going to perform. When we get out there, we need to enjoy. You can’t think about the names you going to play. Just enjoy and you perform better.

Did you have to work hard on getting them to do it?

I’ve been here 8 years now. The first three years I had to make them understand my way of thinking and the fact that I used to enjoy what I did. That’s how I want to see my team playing. The younger players coming in see the older players enjoying it and it catches on. It’s a normal thing now.

ICC is changing the format, making qualification for some teams harder. Does that provide extra motivation?

It is because we have to work harder to qualify. It’s hard to understand what we get from getting promoted. Do we get more games than earlier? In the last two years, we played 9 ODIs against top teams. From next year will we get 15 ODIs a year? If they do that, then it’s brilliant, we have chance. If they are not going to do that then…what’s the point of all this.

How hard is it for you as a team not to have top-flight matches?

It is difficult. If you want us to improve, then you need to give us more games with the top-8. We are not going to improve otherwise. That’s why we keep making lots of noise. It makes no sense to be giving us the 11th ranked team and 12 ranked team in the ODI table… we need more games.

And lastly, you are (West Indian batsman) Lendl Simmons’ uncle. You keeping an eye on him?

He has been batting well. I am glad he got the runs (against Ireland), and happy we won. In the end, I am a happy man all around. He is a good sincere kid. Hope he plays for long and keeps performing.