In praise of Irish rugby

Two threads run through my early experiences of Irish rugby. Tommy Hennessy, of London Irish and Munster, was a form teacher. A bruising, televised encounter with England’s Phil Blakeway at Gloucester saw him call the register on Monday with a shiner so large he could barely see who was answering. A friend chided him. Vengeance was swift and unanswerable.

London Irish featured again playing in a Colt’s match (U18) for Blackheath when the referee, sporting an accent straight from the Wild West, failed every single one of us visitors at the mandatory pre-match stud check. “Can we buy some studs?” asked our captain. “I’m a referee, not a feckin’ salesman!” was the helpful answer. As it turned out, he was neither. Endless extra time, we conceded a penalty just to go home. Match drawn.

London Irish it was again who a few years later set about Roland from Kilkenny with all the vim his countrymen reserve for the informer when he cracked their line-out code by virtue of being able to count in Gaelic.

Meanwhile, John Gallagher, full back at our school, qualified for the green, chose the black of New Zealand and won a World Cup. Jimmy Staples, at local rivals Saint Mary’s, wore 15 for Ireland and didn’t.

And there the two threads intertwine. Irish rugby was a fierce broth. A raging storm. Which, if you could weather it, the boot at the break down and the thunder of hoofs in pursuit of the Garryowen on a rain-sodden day, soon petered out. England – going into a golden period of back-to-back slams and a World Cup final – didn’t win like that. And New Zealand never had.

An early match at Harlequins on the morning of an England Ireland international over the road at Twickenham later in the day. The caretaker grudgingly opening the changing rooms and switching on the boiler. The crowd? What crowd? All eyes over the way. “Mixed loyalties?” I asked a teammate as we warmed up. So many from “down our way” seemed to have them. “Yeah, you too, I should think Pat.”

But he was wrong. Ireland were brief provincial glories against touring giants, occasional up-setters of the odds, defiant, proud gestures as Willie Anderson led his men into the middle of the haka. And lost.

Nobody broke the stranglehold of “the big five”; New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England and France. Nobody from outside that exclusive gathering ever contested a World Cup final and only four of them won it. Ireland’s glories came in the red of the Lions. And my support was strictly white. The hand of Ulster might have lain heavy on one side of the ancestral line but this London lad swung low.

But how things have changed. As England have ventured unsupervised and ever further into the dead-end labyrinth of Eddie Jones’ ego, the Irish were coming up hard on the rails like one of their endless string of Cheltenham champs.

Having not won a Grand Slam since 1948, they took one in 2009 and again in 2018. Still not quite enough, a golden generation often thwarted, as is the frustrating way of the Six Nations, at the last.

However, in the game’s ultimate acid test, matches against New Zealand, Ireland had never come close, conceding even in 2012 a record 60 points to the “winningest team in sport”. Since then, five victories including a series win in the Land of the Long White Cloud itself.

In European club competition, Munster have won the Heineken Cup twice and Leinster four times as the focus of all domestic effort went into the four principal provinces including Ulster and Connacht.

With that underpinning, Ireland, ranked one in the world beat France, number two 32 -19 last weekend and where once the team was a pie crust deep fifteen, one injury from a terminal crumble, it was their bench, including a third-choice scrum half, that emptied onto the field in Dublin to smash the last of exhausted French resistance.

It is a remarkable achievement leaving them in prime position for another Slam and, notwithstanding the glorious vagaries of the Six Nations, a declaration of intent for the upcoming World Cup in which competition they have so often flattered to deceive. 

Nor is it just the natural pendulum swing of sport. The best talent has been funnelled and nurtured. While England’s has been spilt across the clubs of the Premiership, Ireland’s has been marshalled through its provinces. Where England’s management has still to recover from the departure of Sir Clive Woodward some twenty years after the fact, Ireland’s has grown in quality, stature and success with Wigan rugby league great Andy Farrell in looks and surname entirely at home amongst his charges.   

Neither is it a question of superior resource. Ireland, with a playing population of approximately the same size as New Zealand has emulated both them and Australia – which competes against strong domestic favourites cricket, rugby league and Aussie Rules – in defying the simplistic maths of success.

All of which is laudable enough. But if they can win a Grand Slam, conquering Europe, and go onto France and take a World Cup – prising the Big Five hands off the Webb Ellis Trophy, as England did in taking it from the Southern Hemisphere – it will be seismic for a sport blighted by predictable cosiness and seemingly endless crisis.

Once Ireland were about ferocity, heroic failure and the craic. “The boys from County Hell”, all fist and 50 minutes. No longer. They are rugby’s new hope. And, for anyone, that should demand mixed loyalties.

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