Comparing the above two photos is key to determining where Irish rugby is right now.
The one on the left is from St Patrick’s Day, 2007. Going into the final round of the Six Nations, Ireland were well poised to add the championship to the Triple Crown they had already secured…what they needed was a hefty win over Italy followed by a not-so-hefty one for France over the Scots.
Although Ireland did win by a 27-point margin, O’Driscoll’s reaction from the touchline above is to Italian full-back Roland de Marigny’s last-second try which had us all wondering would we be regretting it later. Turns out we did…thanks a controversial last-second try from French sub Elvis Vermeulen that got “sent upstairs”.
I remember the despair I felt that day. But it wasn’t a despair that was faulting our defensive frailties in the closing stages, even though de Marigny’s try was the second we let through in the final five minutes.
It was a despair that came from being unused to success…the Triple Crowns were great and all but somehow it seemed finishing top of the pile was just out of our reach. Still…the only Irishman involved in rugby I was cursing that day was that feckin’ TMO in Paris.
Move the clock forward six years. Once more we see Brian O’Driscoll on the sidelines in Rome with his hand over his mouth. But as we all know, the circumstances were very different.
There’s no excusing what he did…call it “uncharacteristic” and “born from frustration” all you want but someone who’s praises I was singing on msn.com just a few days earlier should know better. There certainly won’t be any objections from me if he is cited.
Needless to say, I felt despair watching that Italian match as well. But apart from the fact that there was also a last-second score from the home side, that’s where the comparison ends, because it was a totally different kind of despair altogether.
Consider what happened to the Irish team in between those two moments above. We went on to the 2007 World Cup…you don’t need reminding of what happened there. Then came a 2008 Six Nations campaign where we only won two matches and as fans we thought that was the lowest our fortunes could possibly drop and surely Eddie O’Sullivan must be shown the door.
He did leave the post, and Munster’s Heineken Cup hero Declan Kidney was appointed. Almost immediately the dizzy heights were reached at international level, as they were also reached on a provincial one for Leinster fans a few months later in Edinburgh.
From there the paths of success at the two levels went their separate ways. Leinster continued their European dominance while Ireland slipped back into the inconsistency that had dogged them before.
But now that we Irish fans have tasted the sweetest of success, the despair we feel with each failure is much different.
Now we’re looking at performances with deeply critical mind-sets…every lost lineout, every knock-on, every missed placekick is put under the closest of scrutiny from the blogosphere to the broadsheets to the RTE studios. And in the majority of cases, our finger of blame is pointing in a direction as far from our own beloved province as we can get.
When the full-time whistle blew in Rome on Saturday, I longed for the day when I could watch an Irish rugby match the way I did back in 2007. When we just wanted that bit of old-fashioned luck of the Irish to get us over the line for a win. When all mistakes were forgiven because I was a fan first and a critic a very distant second.
I got the chance to be that very type of fan yesterday, thanks to the Irish Women’s team over in Milan. I know this is meant to be a writeup of the men’s match, but can you blame me if I’d rather write about the women and their Grand Slam glory?
All I felt for the entire 80 minutes was a desire to see Fiona Coughlan, Joy Neville, Niamh Briggs & the girls get the win, but even if they hadn’t I would have been full of praise for their dedication, for their desire and for the passion they displayed from the singing of the anthems all the way to the final whistle.
And one thing was for sure…I certainly didn’t give a damn which province any of the players came from. They were all Irish, and to a woman they all did us proud on our national holiday.
I want to feel that way about the men’s team again. Is that too much to ask?
There really would be no point in my making this writeup all about the actual 80 minutes in Rome, because in the most part I’d be repeating myself from the four matches which preceded it…decent start, horrendous finish, nuff said.
Of course the injury crisis reached loony-tune proportions on the day, but as I have already pointed out, the critical eye of Irish fans has gone way past looking for excuses…take this second-half tweet from your truly as an example.
It would be remiss of me not to congratulate the Italians for their first competitive win over us. When they joined the tournament in 2000, everyone wanted them to integrate well, but of course nobody wanted them to beat their own nation. Well now they have finally done it against us and it is yet another success story for their talismanic skipper Parisse, who also played on that day back in 2007.
And the success of the game in Italy hasn’t just been on the pitch…on Saturday there were three times the amount of spectators than six years previously…you have to assume that if they can, they’ll make the Stadio Olimpico their permanent home…hopefully they don’t suffer from the same contractual madness that keeps us out of Croke Park.
Still, back home we have to ask…where does Irish rugby go from here? There has been much success. There has also been much misfortune. But there has also been much mis-management, and not just over where we play our matches.
I have absolutely nothing against Declan Kidney personally. And especially in times like these, nobody wants to talk about anyone losing their job. But I don’t want him to lose his, I just don’t think he should get a new contract. This new low we have reached, that being our worst 5/6 nations finish since 1999, means that it doesn’t matter if there is no obvious replacement to hand…the only course of action now must be “shoot now, ask questions later”.
And those who award the contracts have a lot of big-picture thinking to do as well. First up, I believe we need to handle the retirements of two of the game’s greats, BOD & ROG, with some semblance of dignity, and I reckon the next series of Autumn Internationals are the time to do that.
With a bit of planning ahead of the curve, there wouldn’t be this massive black hole in the public domain over their futures. Things on the PR front MUST improve – the new Director of Communications Stephen McNamara certainly has his work cut out for him.
That’s not to say we fans don’t have our own part to play as well. Sure, now the Six Nations is over we will all now retreat into our respective provincial cocoons…in fact, some of us started early – as well as I thought Ian Madigan played through the adversity in Rome, I have to admit I was more concerned with him coming a cropper than I was with him having a shocker.
Of course those feelings are understandable…I just renewed my Leinster season ticket for next season so naturally I’m going to care about their fortunes. But if we are so keen on the powers that govern the national side to change their ways and means, we too must find a way to show a united front when the time is right.
There is no doubting Irish rugby has come far in the last six years, but perhaps somewhere along the line we strayed down the wrong path and now is the time to take a few steps back and find the right one. JLP
PS – Congratulations to Wales on retaining their 6N crown! Definitely the Lions team should be built around them…the way they bounced back after that first half against us shows their players are just the personnel Gatland will need if we need to regroup after the First Test.
I was asked yesterday to give my “team of the tournament” – I scribbled this down on Saturday evening (in brackets are Lions choices where a French/Italian was picked)
Halfpenny, Cuthbert, O’Driscoll-c, Fofana (Roberts), Visser, Sexton, Phillips. Jenkins, Hibbard, Adam Jones, AW Jones, Hamilton, Warburton, Tipuric, Parisse (Morgan). Bench : Best, Healy, Cole, Evans, Picamoles (O’Brien), Parra (B Youngs), Farrell, Masi (Hogg).
Also this weekend
