The Irish rugby team has work to do, but so do we, the fans.
Of course as Irish fans we will be looking for wins from both our remaining Six Nations matches to make our record look more respectable, but after all that has gone on over the past few weeks I'm starting to wonder if we should also turn our attention on ourselves.
After the defeat to England at the Aviva Stadium, former Munster & Ireland flanker Alan Quinlan bemoaned the poor atmosphere in the ground from the home fans in a newspaper article. I was a bit annoyed at the time as he seemed to be deflecting attention from the performance on the pitch and even in some way putting some of the blame in the hands of fans as well.
But if the amount of opinion on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook is anything to go by, there is definitely something we Irish fans can do when it comes to supporting our team, and that is learning to put away our provincial blinkers and just as Phil Coulter's anthem suggests, stand shoulder to shoulder and support our team.
Instead we have a situation whereby it seems to be non-Munster fans “attacking” either the coach Declan Kidney when results are poor, or Ronan O'Gara when his own form is poor. In response we have Munster fans criticising Jamie Heaslip's captaincy or suggesting Cian Healy deserved a longer ban for what he did against England.
It's not to say that in all the above cases the criticisms aren't justified, I have made them all to various degrees myself on my blog, I'm just more concerned with the mentality that goes with it, as well as the reactions it can provoke.
All of that negativity has come to a head this morning with the news that Cian Healy is receiving “hate mail” delivered directly to him in the Irish training camp. Now I have no idea where the mail came from and of course it's not the only time it has happened to a professional sportsman, but maybe it can serve as a reality check to the majority of us.
When I started following what was then called the Five Nations Championship in the early 80s, those springtime matches were pretty much the only top-flight rugby Irish fans saw throughout the course of a rugby season. There were inter-provincial matches but they really only served as trials for the full Ireland squad.
Nowadays the season spans from early September all the way to the end of May and although the Six Nations is still Europe's premier tournament, it is buried in a schedule of Pro12 and Heineken Cup fixtures and in some ways it's understandable for fans to find it difficult to appreciate the difference between the players' provincial commitments and their international ones.
But appreciate it we MUST. The words of Ireland's Call send a clear, vital message :
“We have come to answer our country's call from the four proud provinces of Ireland”
We can't merely watch Ireland to see Leinster players doing well, nor can we for Munster, Ulster or Connacht. Rugby is a complex sport that requires players to work well together all over the park, so for the team to succeed we need them to come together for the green jersey. Perhaps we should start doing the same.
Just for a second, forget who is coaching or even playing for Ireland right now. Our immediate future is this : two more matches in a Six Nations Championship where all hopes of a trophy are gone, then in June we go on a tour of the USA & Canada. After that it's two more sets of Autumn Internationals & Six Nations series before the 2015 Rugby World Cup.
Personally, I believe the team needs to use that time to prepare a side for that World Cup – because that is the only tournament where we get to see where we stand compared to all the other nations playing the great game.
Some big names will be retiring between now and then, but as the provincial success in recent times has shown us, there is much talent across the country ready to take their place, all with plenty of time ahead to make themselves the legends of the future.
While they get on with that task, maybe we can set about getting firmly behind them. Sure, we'll all have our opinions on who should be either in the team or running it, and no doubt our provincial allegiances will have something to do with those opinions.
But not only do we need to know where to draw the line, we need to recognise when someone else has crossed it and make it clear that it's not in our name.
Once the whistle blows for kickoff, we are Irish fans first and foremost, and great and all as the trophies have been for the provinces in recent years, we need to do all we can to show them how much we'd dearly love them to repeat that glory more often on the international stage.
So what say wherever you are this Saturday evening shortly before 5pm...be it in the Aviva Stadium, at your local rugby club, in your local pub or at home in your living room, whatever you think of the team selection, the coach, the RTE pundits or even the actual song “Ireland's Call” itself – try singing it with full voice and stand with the boys in green.
And most importantly, whatever the result against France, do it all again the following week before the Italian match. Because that's what following sports is all about. No team can win absolutely every match, but with the right attitude the fans can be winners for ever. JLP
