Rugby Magazine

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XV

FIRST

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THE BEST IRISH RUGBY TEAM OF THE LAST 50 YEARS Thursday 21 February

Sport writing in a league of its own

Sport writing in a league of its own

Sport writing in a league of its own

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02

Monday 22 February 2013

FIRST XV

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Monday 22 February 2013

03

FIRST XV

Welcome to the The FIRSTXV Magazine

I

RELAND is a proud rugby nation with a distinguished, if not always prize-laden, history in the world game.

Since the onset of professionalism especially, our records are up there with the best, Ireland securing Triple Crowns in multiples through the last decade and a first Grand Slam since 1948.

Three of the four provinces have tasted European glory since the inception of the Heineken Cup too.

We asked our panel to bridge the amateur and professional eras, selecting the best Irish players from one to fifteen of the last half century. This, naturally, was a hugely subjective and, accordingly, unscientific process.

The arguments were heated as they struggled to balance the more recent days of glory with those that brought two Triple Crowns in the 80s and, indeed, the occasional wonderful triumph from the 70s.

You can read the outcome of those discussions in the pages of this magazine. But we covet your opinion too and, for that reason, the Irish Independent sports department will now take this debate on line.

The print edition of this Six Nations magazine is complemented by our online iMagazine, which you can access on your computer, smart phone or tablet at www.independent.ie/ rugbyfirstxv.

In addition to the in-depth analysis of Ireland’s best rugby players in each position, you have access to additional photo galleries from the Irish Independent archives, audio clips and video coverage of the players who made the cut, in addition to footage of the panel of Irish Independent journalists debating the merits of the chosen fifteen and those overlooked.

There are social media share functions, which make it easy to pass the magazine on to friends and family, to continue the debate.

We don’t doubt the arguments will rage every bit as fiercely as they did within our panel.

So tweet us your choices at @IndoSport and include and include #rugbyxv in your tweets You can also vote or email us at sportmail@independent. ie or write to us at sportmail@ independent.ie or write to us at First XV, Irish Independent, 27-32 Talbot Street, Dublin 1 This is our verdict, but you can have the final word.

David Courtney Executive Editor, Sport Irish Independent

REMEMBERED FOR:

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ROB KEARNEY 1 5 FULL BACK: (2008-PRES)

Accidental rugby star grew up wanting to play GAA for Louth

I

T’S been rumoured that his high-fielding skills can trigger disconcerting ripples across airtraffic control screens at Dublin airport. His gift for oratory, reputedly, played a big part in the ‘09 Grand Slam.

But Rob Kearney grew up just wanting to play Gaelic football for Louth.

He is, you could say, the accidental rugby star.

Already in his teens by the time he first picked up an egg-shaped ball at Clongowes Wood, he made the Louth minor team in 2003 at the age of 16. The following year, he delayed signing his first professional contract so that he could play in the county final for Cooley Kickhams against St Patrick’s. It would be his final game of football.

Kearney today is one of the few northern hemisphere players revered south of the equator.

His aerial bravery with the rain teeming down in Wellington’s ‘Cake Tin’ startled New Zealand’s rugby critics when Ireland toured in 2008.

And, when he toured South Africa as a Lion in ‘09, Kearney was in the mix for ‘Player of the Series’.

So, in global terms, the man from the Cooley Peninsula has never been short of covetous glances. Yet, within Ireland, there are still those who quibble about the breadth of his counterattacking skills.

That is almost certainly a consequence of Leinster having access to the sublime running and handling talents of Isa Nacewa.

Some of his best moments in international rugby have been followed almost instantly by marginalising reality checks with Leinster.

After that successful tour Down Under with Ireland in ‘08, he came home to be given a berth on the wing for his province, a move he recalls as “one of my most frustrating experiences in rugby”.

Following the Lions tour in ‘09, he was on the bench for Leinster’s first Heineken Cup match.

As Kearney recalls: “What do you do? You just have to suck it up and get on with it. It is a sort of powerlessness. I never really got a true answer from (Michael) Cheika.”

Kearney has suffered too from a succession of untimely injuries, most notably the knee problem sustained against New Zealand in November 2010 that kept him sidelined for the subsequent Six Nations and, most painfully, Leinster’s march to Heineken Cup glory.

Yet he openly bristles at the notion – peddled in some quarters – that his game amounts essentially to a safe pair of hands under attack from the skies.

“It does my nut in, unbelievably so,” he told this newspaper in 2011. “You try not to let it get to you, but I can’t stand it. If I get the ball deep, look up and it’s on, I’ll go. But a huge amount of counter-attacking is having the other 14 players with you. A brilliant counter-attacker might beat one or two, but he’s not going to beat every opponent.”

If anything, Kearney’s range of footballing skills today far transcends the basic requirements of playing 15.

OTHER CONTENDERS • Hugo Macniell • Tom Kiernan • Tony Ensor • Givan Dempsey

Kearney’s physical power, allied to his basic Gaelic football skills, arm him with an extraordinary boot too, seen – maybe at its most glorious – with that enormous drop-goal kicked against Clermont in last year’s Heineken Cup semi-final.

He was last year’s ERC Player of the Year and is considered an international shoo-in for Kidney these days, a far cry from his opening Six Nations experience (‘08) when he recalls “feeling like a passenger”.

Kearney carries himself now with an implacable selfassurance, comfortable in his skin at this level and not afraid to articulate his feelings, however controversial they might prove.

Famously, his was the pivotal contribution at an Enfield training camp in December of ‘08 that many members of the Grand Slam squad subsequently cited as a turning point.

Questioning why Ireland did not display the same team spirit as Munster, Kearney ran the risk of antagonising provincial opponents. His words, however, had the opposite effect.

Strolling back from training later that day, Donncha O’Callaghan lauded the Leinster man for his candour. “Listen,” said O’Callaghan “I think you’ve solved a massive problem for this squad. It’s been festering for years and someone needed to say it.”

Within months, Ireland had won their first Grand Slam in 61 years and would be supplying the bulk of Ian McGeechan’s Lions squad to tour South Africa.

Kearney today lays reasonable claim to being the finest allround full-back in international rugby and a man in pole position to be Warren Gatland’s No 15 for this summer’s Test matches against the Wallabies.

Louth’s loss has been rugby’s gain.

BEING ONE OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST HIGH FIELDERS AND FOR A SPEECH DELIVERED TO THE IRISH SQUAD IN ENFIELD CONSIDERED ONE OF THE KEY, FORMATIVE MOMENTS FOR THE SUBSEQUENT GRAND SLAM WIN IN 2009.

Production:

David Courtney, John Moore, Shane Scanlon, Ciaran Lennon and Aidan O’Hara Contributors: Vincent Hogan, Tony Ward, Conor George and David Kelly Design: INM Design Studio, Craigavon, Co Armagh Thanks to: IRFU, 6 Nations Ltd and Aviva Stadium Pictures: Sportsfile / Getty Images

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Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NO:

Watch Bowe’s Grand Slam try against Wales

14

TOMMY BOWE

RIGHT-WING: (2004- )

Top-class finisher learned to spread his wings at Ospreys ■ Scoring against Italy in last year’s Six Nations.

Right: Racing through the Italian defence in 2009

REMEMBERED FOR: OUTGUNNING HIS

THEN OSPREYS CLUBMATE SHANE WILLIAMS TO SCORE THE CRITICAL SECOND TRY IN IRELAND’S GRAND SLAM GAME IN CARDIFF IN 2009 AND A SUBSEQUENT RENDITION OF ‘THE BLACK VELVET BAND’ AT THE HOMECOMING CELEBRATIONS.

H

E took time to win over the rugby cognoscenti, one deeming him “too slow” for top-level rugby, another once marking him zero out of 10 for a performance that fell short of plucking lightning from the sky.

But Tommy Bowe has defied the orchestra of sceptics to become one of the most coveted wingers in international rugby. He did so by taking a route not strictly to the taste of everyone in the Irish game – stepping outside the zone of centralised IRFU contracts for a rewarding and educational four-year stint in Wales with Ospreys.

It was, in many ways, the making of Bowe. Overlooked for a place in Ireland’s squad for the 2007 World Cup – rugby league convert Brian Carney was preferred – Bowe’s early representative career spoke of a largely unrefined talent, prone to lapses of concentration.

First capped in the November

internationals of ‘04, he had to wait until ‘06 for his Six Nations debut and it didn’t set the most encouraging of portents.

After a try-scoring performance against Italy, Bowe looked a little out of his depth in a classic game

of two halves clash with France in Paris. With Ireland employing aggressive defence from the outside in, he shot up fast during the first quarter and slipped, allowing the French scoot in for a try.

Ireland would trail 3-43 early in the second half and, though a spectacular recovery brought four tries, it wasn’t enough. Taken off after an hour, Bowe subsequently lost his place in the squad. As an international, he was running just to stand still.

“We were blown off the park,” he would subsequently recall. “It was a difficult time and things weren’t going great for me either. What do you think about? Just trying to get back into the game.”

There would be no expressions of outrage the following year when Eddie O’Sullivan omitted the former Monaghan minor footballer from his World Cup squad. If anything, the critics were in unison. Too much of Tommy’s career seemed to be one step forward, two steps back.

He scored two tries in the 34-13 defeat of Scotland in Croke Park during the ‘08 Six Nations, but that was deemed more a reflection of the poverty of the Scots than any blossoming of rare talent. Ireland won just two games out of five

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in that championship. O’Sullivan departed.

It was later that year that Bowe, Monaghan’s first Irish international since the 1920s, decided to remove himself from the comfort zone of Ulster rugby, setting up home at the Liberty Stadium in Swansea. The days of self-doubt were coming to a close.

Early in his Welsh stint, the Emyvale man crossed for a club record four tries in a Heineken Cup clash with Treviso, immediately endearing him to the Ospreys faithful. Suddenly, more was being asked of Bowe and, come to that, asked more often.

With a far greater number of games to play, routine niggles were overlooked.

A packed fixture list demanded the club’s high-earners fronted up, even when a little short of what might strictly be termed matchfitness for an Irish province. As Bowe himself would put it: “You’d never be at full fitness. I was missing training just to be fit to play matches.

“I’d want to play. So there were weeks I was going game-to-game.

You were going out on the pitch not feeling great. Looking from the outside into the Irish squads, they looked fit, looked energetic. You could see them being able to take it up a step.”

The experience, however, seemed to make him a more selfsufficient rugby player. He thrived on the demands, scoring freely in the Ospreys colours and earning the respect of team-mates. Bowe would score an impressive total of 180 points in 77 outings for the star-studded Welsh club, alerting wealthy suitors across Europe.

His new confidence shone like a beacon for Ireland, particularly through the Grand Slam campaign of ‘09. He would play every minute of the journey to Ireland’s first clean sweep since 1948, earning himself a seat on the plane taking Ian McGeechan’s Lions to South Africa.

And it was maybe there that Bowe finally, definitively, confirmed his arrival as one of the world’s best rugby backs. From the outset, he was clearly the best of the less-established players on tour, eventually starting all three Tests, his football intelligence even acknowledged by selection at outside-centre for the third.

Just one year after his confidence was on the floor, Bowe palpably thrived at rugby’s highest altitude.

For a man who once looked over-stretched in an Irish shirt, this was quite a revelation. He would admit later: “I just found an extra bit of confidence in myself, registering the fact that I could go up to the next level again. I enjoy playing at international level and to really test myself, to get into a Lions team full of the class that was there, it helped me massively.”

Suddenly, Irish rugby’s ‘Young Player of the Year’ from 2003 was fulfilling his potential. Indeed, he

would be second only to Jamie Roberts in the voting for Lions player of that series.

Today, his international strike-rate stands at a phenomenal 26 tries scored in 51 appearances for Ireland.

In fact, of the current group, only Brian O’Driscoll registers as a heavier-hitter of the try-line.

He is back with Ulster now and looking a thoroughly accomplished footballer. The Six Nations Player of the Year for 2012, a knee injury has kept him sidelined for this tournament. But nobody mistakes Tommy Bowe as slow anymore.

At least not if they can see.

Monday 22 February 2013

05

OTHER CONTENDERS • Trevor Ringland • Tom Grace • Alan ‘Dixie’ Duggan • Shane Horgan Trevor Ringland certainly had his supporters here, serving as Ireland’s first choice right-wing for the Triple Crown campaigns of ‘82 and ‘85 – he scored nine tries for his country in 34 appearances.

The powerfully built Ulsterman had an ultracompetitive streak which, allied to his natural bravery, made him a fearsome opponent if given any

glimpse of the tryline.

Tom Grace is entitled to consideration too, scorer of that famous chip-and-chase try against the All Blacks during the 10-10 draw at Lansdowne Road in ‘73 near the beginning of a six-year stint as Ireland’s regular No 14.

Honourable mention too to that consummate poacher, Alan ‘Dixie’ Duggan, as well as Leinster’s Shane Horgan.

■ Trevor Ringland

■ Shane Horgan

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Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NO:

1 3 BRIAN O’DRISCOLL OUTSIDE CENTRE: (1999- )

Indisputably the greatest player we’ve ever produced REMEMBERED FOR: THAT STUNNING HAT-TRICK OF TRIES AT STADE DE FRANCE IN 2000, A SPECTACULAR TOUCHDOWN FOR THE LIONS IN AUSTRALIA IN 2001 AND A GLORIOUS CAREER THAT FOLLOWED, ESTABLISHING HIM AS IRELAND’S GREATEST RUGBY PLAYER AND ONE OF THE VERY BEST THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN.

■ Brian O’Driscoll is carried shoulder high after his stunning hat-trick of tries inspires a rare victory in Paris

N

O drum-roll required here, no phoney intimation of a debate.

This was a contest without a cast.

No disrespect to any old soldiers who were previous holders of the green No 13 shirt, but Brian O’Driscoll just took the responsibility to another place.

Unequivocally, Ireland’s greatest ever player, he is a revered figure in every rugby clubhouse on the planet.

And it is patently more than coincidence that his career has run in tandem with some of the most storied achievements this country

has witnessed with the oval ball.

O’Driscoll broke the mould, every mould. He played for Ireland before he played for Leinster, chosen – supposedly as a kind of low-key, 20-year-old squad member – for the ‘99 summer tour to Australia. Yet his quality was so instantly visible to all that he made both Test teams, Ireland even pushing the Wallabies hard in the second.

When, two years later, he returned with the Lions as a brewing superstar, certain locals were unsurprised.

Wallaby full-back Matt Burke remembered being asked after

his Waratahs team played Ireland if anyone in green had caught his eye. “I don’t know who he is,” replied Burke, “but the No 13 looked a real talent.”

Within nine months, O’Driscoll was sending flares across the sky with his hat-trick of tries in Stade de France, giving Ireland a first win in Paris for 28 years.

Then his famous Lions score at the Gabba in the first Test of the ‘01 tour added to the sense of carnival building around

an uncommon talent.

O’Driscoll was still just a child in serious rugby terms, yet he’d already won an IRB U-19 World Championship and played in all four Tests for Ireland at the ‘99 World Cup. Could it be his star might already burn too fiercely?

Maybe, above all, that’s been the wonder of O’Driscoll.

For there has been no conspicuous tapering of hunger or achievement since. Injury has been the only recurring impediment to a career that has simply flown into another stratosphere, with every coveted prize won, bar – shamefully – the IRB World Player

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of the Year, for which he has been nominated three times.

Captain for the ‘05 Lions tour to New Zealand, he was infamously removed from the series by a spear-tackle just seconds into the first Test, leaving his shoulder dislocated. At the time, all manner of sceptics doubted he’d ever return as the same player again. They were right, he didn’t.

O’Driscoll came back better.

Through a period in which Ireland were routinely accomplished on the international stage, their captain was voted Six Nations Player of the Tournament in ‘06, ‘07 and ‘09.

And, if not excelling with his country, he began stockpiling silverware for Leinster. When ‘Rugby World’ magazine named him World Rugby Player of the Decade in 2010, there was scarcely a dissenting voice. Even the blue bloods of the southern hemisphere could recognise true genius.

But here’s the thing, maybe the most special thing about the man known across Ireland today as ‘BOD’, ‘GOD’ or ‘Drico’: he has never been infected by the virus of preciousness, never acquired the reflex tone of a smart-ass who’s outgrown his homeplace.

One of the most beautiful images of the ‘09 Grand Slam win was his gentle embrace with Jack Kyle in Cardiff, a portrait of perfect, instinctive respect for the past at a moment when nothing can have seemed more important than his present.

And O’Driscoll’s mother, Geraldine, once told a lovely story of that ‘01 Lions tour in Australia.

She and her husband, Frank, were on a bus packed with Lions supporters after the first Test in Brisbane. Nobody knew who they were but, suddenly, the supporters broke into a rendition of ‘Waltzing O’Driscoll’.

“Frank and I said nothing,” recalled Geraldine. “We just nodded at each other, but it was actually very emotional.”

They’ve lived through countless days of that ilk since, their son being celebrated by a mass rugby public for being precisely what he is: a once-in-a-lifetime talent, world class in and out of battle.

The funny thing now is to remember how people once doubted his longevity. Prior to that first Lions Test, O’Driscoll’s form on tour had been largely pedestrian. He looked rusty, largely because he was. Donal Lenihan, Lions manager for the tour, remembered coaches “scratching their heads at the beginning”.

07

Watch the moments of magic from Paris 2000

But O’Driscoll had arrived in Australia barely into double figures for games played that season.

Between injury, the disruption of the foot and mouth crisis and Leinster’s failure to escape Europe’s pool stages, he was wretchedly undercooked.

Essentially, all O’Driscoll really had to carry him to Australia was a handful of All-Ireland League games. Yet, if there were doubts, they were quickly and clinically obliterated.

It wasn’t just the slaloming, 50-yard run for one of the most celebrated tries in Lions history; the all-round efficacy of O’Driscoll’s play that day in Brisbane set a breathtakingly high standard. He also set up a try for Dafydd James and completed 14 tackles against the World Cup holders. Equally adept in defence or attack, he walked away with the man-of-the-match gong.

If, four years later, an act of skullduggery denied O’Driscoll a fair shot at the All Blacks, his competitiveness was writ large

OTHER CONTENDERS Frankly, there were none.

Brendan Mullin had a terrific Irish career, scoring 17 tries in

Monday 22 February 2013

55 Tests spread over 11 years.

But this contest was a one-liner.

No point pretending otherwise.

in South Africa in ‘09. In fact, his tackle on giant Springbok forward Danie Rossouw will forever stand as a portrait of utter fearlessness.

Intimidation has never worked on O’Driscoll and, that day, he faced it down, a terrier holding his ground against a rottweiler.

The collision left both men concussed, Rossouw leaving the field immediately, just two minutes after coming on. O’Driscoll, typically, tried to shake off his disorientation, only to accept surrender four minutes later.

He had been conceding eight inches in height and four stone in weight to Rossouw, yet had not countenanced a backward step. And maybe, for all the glorious achievement (a record 46 tries for his country etc, etc), that one extraordinary snapshot captured O’Driscoll’s greatness best.

The fight in the dog and all that…

■ Above: O’Driscoll scores a try against Argentina during the 2007 World cup

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Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

Watch archive footage of this ultimate Lion

■ Mike Gibson lines out for Cambridge in 1966

REMEMBERED FOR:

NO:

Watch our panel debate

1 2 MIKE GIBSON INSIDE CENTRE: (1964-79)

BEING THE MOST ADMIRED CENTRE IN WORLD RUGBY FOR MORE THAN A DECADE.

Midfield magician set template for modern professionals to follow

O

N the official Lions website, Mike Gibson is described as “arguably the greatest centre of any era”.

Quite a compliment, yet, if anything, the description short-changes him. For Gibson was, first and foremost,

a footballer, an extravagantly gifted multi-tasking wonder who played for Ireland in four different positions by simple dint of a rare appreciation of angles and the most uncanny gift of timing.

It is universally accepted that he was light years ahead of his time.

For Gibson lived and prepared to

such professional standards that his final Irish cap, collected in the second Test win in Australia in 1979, marked one of his greatest performances.

He was closing in on his 37th birthday that day in Sydney, yet summoned an extraordinary display against the Wallabies.

“It was the first time I ever crossed the dressing-room to shake someone’s hand,” recalled his team-mate Willie Duggan.

The Belfast solicitor was capped 69 times for Ireland, travelled on five Lions tours, was awarded an MBE for ‘services to the game’ and, along with Brian O’Driscoll, was

installed in the ‘Ultimate Lions XV’.

Gibson was the most fluid, intuitive runner with a rugby ball, gifted with magician’s hands and the vision to run scissors, decoy, slingshot – whatever the circumstance demanded – without ever making it look anything but

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Monday 22 February 2013

09 OTHER CONTENDERS • Gordon D’Arcy • Michael Kiernan • Kevin Flynn • Rob Henderson • Paul McNaughton An obvious runner-up here is Gordon D’Arcy, whose world record-breaking midfield partnership with Brian O’Driscoll has been pivotal to some of Ireland’s greatest days in the modern era. After a stop-start opening to his Ireland career, D’Arcy has developed into a wonderfully accomplished international, difficult to ground in possession and defensively reliable.

Another who might have raised a tentative hand for the No 12 shirt was Michael Kiernan, Triple Crown hero of ‘85, capped 43 times for Ireland and a tourist with the Lions in ‘83. Maybe passing mentions too for Kevin Flynn, Rob Henderson and Paul McNaughton.

But Gibson is untouchable.

■ Mike Gibson is tackled during a Lions tour match against the Maoris in 1977 the most natural thing to do.

He is recalled in some parts as the game’s first professional, a work-obsessed, teetotal, student of backline play who – because of Ireland’s habitual limitations – found truest expression when surrounded by kindred spirits in a Lions jersey.

On the ‘71 tour in New Zealand, he formed a wonderful midfield partnership with John Dawes in a backline also boasting JPR Williams, Gareth Edwards, Barry John, Gerald Davies and David Duckham. The All Blacks scarcely knew what hit them.

Yet, even in that chorus-line of stars, Gibson shone like a beacon.

If he never quite had the confident swagger of, say, John at No 10, New Zealanders considered him the more technically accomplished of the two. Dawes, the Lions captain, simply called them the two best players he’d played with in his life.

For Gibson himself, this was the time of his life, the period in which he seemed almost without peer on a rugby field. The Lions coach, Carwyn James, routinely consulted him for advice and Colin Meads, the All Blacks captain, singled him out as the best of, arguably, the greatest backline rugby has seen.

Gibson himself has often alluded to the remarkable telepathy experienced in that team.

He once recalled: “We were playing the Maoris and it was not an easy game. Barry John was at fly-half and John Dawes and I were

in the centre. We called a move, but something happened affecting the way the ball came back and that in turn made the move impossible. None of us said a word, but Barry moved to deal with the changed situation and John Dawes and I moved with him.

“All of us saw that we would have to do something different and all of us identified what it was. The result was it came off as smoothly as the move we had planned in the first place. That was a supreme moment. It would be difficult to explain just how much satisfaction we got from it.

“The understanding between Barry John, John Dawes and myself was such that we felt there was almost nothing we couldn’t do.”

Gibson’s early rugby career took him from Campbell College to Wanderers in Dublin (while studying at Trinity) on to Cambridge (where he won three Blues) then back ‘North’.

He was first capped for Ireland against England in ‘64, admitting afterwards: “I played the first 10 minutes without any idea of what was happening.” Yet the game produced a first Irish win at Twickenham in 16 years.

Much of his early international career was spent at fly-half until the emergence, in the late ’60s, of Barry McGann. His preference was always centre, but Gibson was obedient to circumstance and was picked on the right wing to

play against France in Paris for his 62nd cap, despite never having played there in his life.

For a man of 5’11 and weighing just 12 and a half stone, his tackling was famously destructive, a product no doubt of the endless private hours of conditioning work Gibson would inflict upon his body.

For more than 15 years, he was one of the game’s most coveted and beautiful players, a man – as Brian O’Driscoll once put it – who was “the shining light” for Irish rugby in a time of only the most sporadic on-field success.

Like all the great players, Gibson – above all – made rugby look easy. He kept playing until 42, endlessly drawn to that enduring joy of simply running with a ball.

But the elegance camouflaged a manic will.

Former Ireland and Lions hooker Ken Kennedy, who played alongside him right through from U-11s, once surmised: “Mike would be competitive in everything he did, in cards before the game, in getting the best seat on the bus and in the game itself.

“He would be always thinking two moves

ahead of what would be happening rather than some people who might be trying to remember what they should have done a minute ago.”

Inducted into the IRB Hall of Fame in 2011, Cameron Michael Henderson Gibson was a one-off.

■ Rob Henderso

n

■ Gordon D’Arcy

10

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

REMEMBERED FOR:

NO:

11

SIMON GEOGHEGAN

LEFT-WING: (1991-96)

Electrifying Geoghegan the shining light in dark days Watch our panel debate

Watch Geoghegan’s famous try against England

■ Simon Geoghegan leaves Australia’s Rob Egerton trailing during the 1991 World Cup

SCORING ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED TRIES IN IRISH RUGBY HISTORY WITH HIS SPECTACULAR TOUCHDOWN AGAINST ENGLAND AT TWICKENHAM IN THE ’94 FIVE NATIONS.

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H

E lost twice as many games as he won in a green shirt, he never made a Lions tour and his career was effectively over at just 27, but Simon Geoghegan will forever be remembered as one of the greats of Irish rugby.

The man Bill McLaren so gloriously likened to “a mad trout up a burn” played on the wing for Ireland at a time when that assignment carried the promise of little more than hypothermia.

Famously, he did not receive a single attacking pass in the entire 1992 Five Nations campaign.

Yet, for a small necklace of years, Geoghegan was perhaps the most thrilling rugby back in Europe. A flying blond comet, full of aggression and raw, rebellious spirit who would score a try that charmed the national psyche in much the same way as Ray Houghton’s goals in Stuttgart and New Jersey. Ask anyone over the age of 30 to identify their favourite Irish rugby score and, chances are, Geoghegan’s Twickenham touchdown of ‘94 won’t have a credible challenger.

Maybe part of the beauty of that moment was the sense of him representing a scattered diaspora, this English-born kid with the public school accent who was so devoutly proud to be the son of Pat Geoghegan from a farm in Killimor, Co Galway.

A few days before that game, while training with London Irish at Sunbury, Geoghegan was asked how he felt about the looming showdown at English rugby’s headquarters. “One chance, that’s all I want,” he answered.

One chance was all he needed.

He would play 37 times for Ireland, score 11 tries and leave an imprint utterly disproportionate to that arithmetic. For Geoghegan could electrify an entire stadium with the sheer boldness of his

Monday 22 February 2013

running, the sense of a kid forever seeking some kind of vengeance against a hostile world.

He was unorthodox and, maybe, that was his beauty. A contrary and challenging student in his time boarding at a London school, St Edmund’s, where his taste for cigarettes and beer far outreached any desire to be a serious sportsman.

He played centre for the school’s senior rugby team, once unfurling a giant Ireland banner when they were brought to an EnglandIreland game at Twickenham.

At St Edmund’s, Geoghegan even broke 11 seconds in a 100m sprint (and that on grass), but it was only after he enrolled in Holborn Law School at London University and was invited to try out for the U-19s with London Irish that rugby began to concentrate his mind. For he quickly graduated to the senior team at Sunbury, lining out alongside the likes of Hugo MacNeill, Brendan Mullin and Neil Francis in Division 2 of the Courage League.

The realisation that he could hold his own at such a level, whilst still living a relatively decadent life, convinced Geoghegan to explore the possibilities of a more disciplined existence. And it

was a decision that would catapult him onto the international stage.

He was first capped against France in ‘91, scored a try in his next game against Scotland, then blitzed Rory Underwood to score another in his fourth outing, against England.

Geoghegan’s impact was sensational, but he was flying at an altitude generally beyond the reach of the Irish team.

He enjoyed just one victory in his first 14 international games (and that against Zimbabwe in the World Cup), discovering the preparation of the international team to be some notches beneath what most were accustomed to at the big English clubs.

Frustration began to build.

It came to boiling point at Murrayfield in ‘93 when, after yet another Five Nations defeat, he flung his jersey to the dressingroom floor, challenging teammanager Noel Murphy to “name” the positives he’d just proclaimed to have seen in a dismal 15-3 loss. A week later, Geoghegan aired his many criticisms of Irish rugby in a newspaper interview.

The IRFU were outraged and, after a players’ meeting that Sunday

11

morning, Geoghegan was served with a temporary suspension from the squad. He was walso criticised by certain team-mates who didn’t much appreciate his candour and, ultimately, the controversy seemed to thieve his form.

Ieuan Evans rounded him easily for a try in Cardiff and when the Lions squad to tour New Zealand was later announced, Geoghegan’s name wasn’t on it. For a man accustomed to living off scraps, the opportunity to play with the best players of the home nations would have been exhilarating. But he never got that.

Four years later, the Lions wanted to take him to South Africa but – by now – a chronic toe injury was signalling the beginning of the end.

So Simon Geoghegan slipped away from representative rugby, remembered for one beautifully momentous try and a great, great ocean of disappointments.

Former Ireland and England coach Brian Ashton, who mentored him at Bath, described him at the time as “a world-class winger, an out-and-out strike runner, a man who is going to score tries irrespective of who he is playing for or who he is playing against.”

There were to be no Grand Slams or Triple Crowns in his life then, no exotic Lions tours to the far end of the earth. He once described playing rugby for Ireland thus: “You might get one pass in five matches and be expected to round half a dozen defenders to score a try.”

It was a hard, unforgiving station. But no one ever manned it more defiantly than Pat.

OTHER CONTENDERS • Denis Hickie • Keith Crossan The most difficult call of this whole process was omitting Denis Hickie from our first 15. Hickie had a wonderful Irish career. He was capped 62 times for Ireland in what represented a golden period for rugby in this country.

Hickie suffered his share of heartache though, missing out on Ireland’s Triple Crown of ‘04 because of an Achilles tendon injury sustained at the ‘03 World Cup and then the victory in ‘06 when recuperation from a leg fracture allowed Andrew

Trimble to overtake him.

He scored 29 tries for his country, holding the record until overtaken by his Leinster clubmate, Brian O’Driscoll.

Another outstanding candidate for the No 11 shirt was Keith Crossan, one of the stars of the ‘85 Triple Crown side and a man who scored 12 tries for Ireland in 41 starts.

But both Hickie and Crossan played for Irish teams in which, you have to suspect, Simon Geoghegan would have been unstoppable.

kie

■ Denis Hic

■ Keith Cros

san

12

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NO:

10

OLLIE CAMPBELL

OUT-HALF: (1976-84)

REMEMBERED FOR: KICKING ALL 21 POINTS AGAINST SCOTLAND AT LANSDOWNE ROAD IN ’82 TO SECURE IRELAND’S FIRST TRIPLE CROWN IN MORE THAN 30 YEARS.

■ Lining out for Ireland in Paris during the 1984 Five Nations

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13

Waif of a playmaker whose talent bordered on ‘genius’

T

HE international career of the man playwright Samuel Beckett called “a genius” once looked doomed to confinement in the small-print of Irish rugby history.

Ollie Campbell was first capped as a ten-and-a-half-stone waif against Australia at Lansdowne Road in 1976 and, after a placekicking meltdown, promptly slipped right off the radar. “A perfect kicking record” he called it. Four efforts, four misses. Told to close the door behind him as he left.

Irish rugby moved on without Campbell for the next three years until the summer of ’79 and a tour to Australia that would throw up a narrative to fixate the Irish public like few stories before or since.

Tony Ward had been voted European Player of the Year in ’79, a wriggling eel of a fly-half, whose quicksilver feet made it impossible for opposing back-rows to read his intentions, let alone get to him with an apprehending hand.

Ward went to Australia as a superstar yet, when Campbell scored all of the points in an 18-15 midweek defeat of Queensland, the selectors decided he should start the first Test in Brisbane. The decision wasn’t so much greeted

with surprise at home as mild consternation.

‘Campbell In; Ward Out’ blared the main headline on the front-page of the now-departed ‘Irish Press’. Below it ran a story declaring Pope John Paul’s plan to visit Ireland later in the year. It was that big a deal.

For Campbell himself, the decision was a blur.

The squad had been togging out before training at a school in Surfers’ Paradise when tour manager Jack Coffey began reading out the team. There was speculation that Campbell might be included at centre and, on hearing his name, he presumed that that compromise had been reached.

But Ward immediately reached out to him, saying “Congratulations, you’re in!”

It would, thus, be on that tour that Ireland discovered they were in possession of arguably the best two out-halves in northern hemisphere rugby at the time.

For Campbell proved a revelation as Ireland – remarkably – won both Tests against the Wallabies, the Old Belvedere man kicking 60 points on tour, including an Irish record 19 in the first Test. He would become a virtual ever-present in the No 10 green shirt for the next four

seasons, becoming fulcrum of the team that won Ireland’s first Triple Crown in 33 years in ’82 and gaining Lions call-ups for the tours of ’80 and ’83.

Campbell was a beautifully intuitive runner who, with the sleeves of his baggy shirt rolled up, attacked the advantage line with sometimes startling ferocity.

This allied to his nerveless place-kicking (he kicked all 21 of Ireland’s points the day the Crown was sealed with victory against Scotland in Dublin) made him one of the most respected pivots in the world game.

Ironically, a hamstring injury curtailed his early involvement in the 1980 Lions tour of South Africa, leading to a late call-up for Ward, who excelled in the opening Test. But a fit Campbell was always the selectors’ preference and he was restored to the starting XV once fully recovered A fervent student specifically of All Blacks rugby, Campbell used to trawl Greene’s bookshop on Clare Street for any material linked to the Land of the Long White Cloud. When subsequently selected for the ’83 tour of New Zealand, Campbell said it was “magical” to be finally going to experience the

All Black culture first-hand.

He started all four Tests of that ’83 Tour and was subsequently named as one of the New Zealand Rugby Almanack’s five players of the year. Yet, by now, he was struggling badly with those hamstring difficulties that would, ultimately, cut short his career.

Campbell’s best years for Ireland came between those two Lions tours, following up the Triple Crown success of ’82 by smashing all manner of goalkicking records the following year as Ireland shared the Five Nations Championship with France.

Former Irish prop ‘Ginger’ McLoughlin, described him as “the greatest player I ever played with, in any position, bar none.”

Yet, Campbell’s brilliance wasn’t a simple gift of nature.

He worked selflessly to improve his game, so much so that a perceived weakness when passing off his left-hand was turned into his “strong side” through relentless practice. Typically, the

OTHER CONTENDERS • Ronan O’Gara • Paul Dean • Barry McGann • Jonny Sexton

■ Ollie Campbell walks off the pitch bruised and bloodied after a Lions match against South Africa in 1980

day after a remarkable touchline conversion at Twickenham to complement Ginger’s famous try in ’82, Campbell was to be found practising his place-kicks at Anglesea Road with a couple of kids behind the goal.

His relationship with Ward was never soured by the intensity of their rivalry. As Campbell himself put it: “It never interfered with our personal friendship. In a way, it bonded us for the rest of our lives and we accepted it.”

Campbell’s physical courage made him a formidable defensive presence, while his willingness to take flat ball off the end of a lineout was, he admitted, influenced by a TV clip he saw of Barry John from the ’71 Lions.

For four seasons he was a point-scoring machine for Ireland but had not yet turned 30 when those brittle hamstrings eventually forced his retirement in 1986.

He’d been capped just 22 times for Ireland, but Campbell’s impact was unforgettable.

If honours won amounted to the sole criteria for selection, Ronan O’Gara would have been untouchable at No 10.

The Munster man’s record is astonishing over 15 seasons of representative rugby, with four Triple Crowns and a Grand Slam won for Ireland and two Heineken Cups for his province.

O’Gara has also figured on three Lions tours and was voted, in 2010, the player who has made the greatest contribution in the first 15 years of Heineken Cup rugby.

For years, he vied for international recognition with, arguably, the most underrated of Irish out-halves, David Humphreys.

Another deserving of mention is Paul Dean, he of the quicksilver hands that so electrified European rugby as Ireland won the Triple Crown in 1985.

Tony Ward’s European Player of the Year award gives him a remarkable status in Irish

rugby too, while, before him, Barry McGann was a pivot with real presence, football nous and outstanding courage.

Of course, the Paris-bound Jonny Sexton may yet prove best of them all if his current career trajectory is maintained. A magnificent temperament and beautiful distribution certainly give him a fighting chance.

■ Ronan O’Gara

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Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NO:

09

COLIN PATTERSON

SCRUM HALF: (1978-80)

■ Lining out for Ireland in 1980

REMEMBERED FOR: SCORING TWO TRIES IN THE RECORDBREAKING 27-12 FIRST TEST VICTORY AGAINST AUSTRALIA IN BRISBANE IN ’79 AND BEING THE BEST SNIPING NO 9 EVER SEEN IN AN IRISH SHIRT.

Patterson – the Mighty Atom that could split any defence

H

E had the shortest career of anyone on these pages, there are no Grand Slams or Triple Crowns to his story, but the man nicknamed ‘Mighty Atom’ was our jury’s emphatic choice for scrum-half.

Why? Because Colin Patterson was maybe everything you least expected of an Irish rugby international in the late ’70s. The Instonians No 9 had palpable swagger, was lightning quick around the scrum and could mix it physically with opponents twice his size.

In other words, he played like someone reared on rugby in the southern hemisphere.

His career, tragically, ended in Kimberley near the end of the 1980 Lions tour to South

Africa, when he badly damaged medial knee ligaments while tackling his opposite number in a game against Griqualand West.

Patterson had just 11 Irish caps to his name at the time.

If he’d stayed fit, the Irish shirt was his to keep for another decade.

The Ulsterman had played in all three Lions Tests up to that point of the ‘80 tour and with his (unique at the time) wrist-driven pass off either side and – maybe most pertinently – his ability to break, Patterson was becoming one of the most exciting backs in world rugby.

That said, he didn’t explode on Irish rugby like a sudden sunburst. There was serious competition for that Irish shirt through the mid to late ’70s, with other talented No 9s around like

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OTHER CONTENDERS • Johnny Moloney • Robbie McGrath • Michael Bradley • Peter Stringer Plenty of men to feel hard done by here, not least Johnny Moloney, capped 27 times for his country between ‘72 and ‘80 and one of the most naturally gifted athletes to wear an Irish shirt.

A try-scorer on his debut in the famous Five Nations victory against France at Colombes, he was one of those almost certainly deprived a Triple Crown, if not Grand Slam, that year by the Welsh and Scottish decisions not to travel to Dublin because of the Troubles.

Consolation of a kind came in ‘74 with the Championship win and inclusion in the Lions squad for South Africa.

Honourable mention too to Robbie McGrath, Michael Bradley and the man with the almost perfect delivery, Peter Stringer.

tringer

■ Peter S

■ Lions scrum-half Patterson in action against South Africa in 1980

■ Michael Bradley

Johnny Moloney and John Robbie.

Patterson studied law in Bristol and would play for the British Universities before returning to his native Comber and settling into rugby life with Instonians.

The progression from club to province and, finally, international rugby was a gradual process with the Ulsterman being capped at ‘B’ level in ‘77.

He was 23 when he finally got a first senior cap in November of ‘78, debuting against the All Blacks at Lansdowne Road, a game in which Ireland performed heroically, losing 10-6. From that moment on, he became an everpresent.

Ireland’s stock in Five Nations rugby was, however, poor at the time. They’d won just two games

from 12 in their previous three seasons but Patterson’s arrival culminated with a splendid effort in ‘79, Ireland beating England and drawing with France and Scotland. Their only loss was a narrow 24-21 setback against Wales in Cardiff.

And that summer they would startle the rugby world by winning both internationals on their tour of Australia, Patterson sniping two tries in the recordbreaking 15-point first Test demolition of the Wallabies in Brisbane.

His size made him an obvious target for opposing back-rows, but Patterson’s confidence and irreverence became infectious. As he himself would put it years later in John Scally’s ‘100 Irish Rugby

Greats’: “I prided myself on my ability to take punishment. The tougher it got, the better I liked it. Whenever I got crushed by somebody, I got up immediately and said to him, ‘good tackle soldier’. That really annoyed them.

“At internationals, there were a number of efforts to verbally intimidate me. I never let that sort of bulls*** get to me. The more a player tried to intimidate me, the more I wound him up by waving at him in the line-out and so on. Apart from the fact that it helped me to win the psychological war, it’s the only fun us small fellas get!”

He was a player intent upon doing things his way, a man reared in Unionist country yet content to sing the national anthem with gusto before a game.

Tony Ward, he revealed, taught

him the first few lines and “I discovered I could sing it to the tune of ‘The Sash’“.

“I sang the first half of ‘The Soldier’s Song’ and the second half of ‘The Sash’, just to give it a political balance!”

Patterson’s former Ulster and Ireland team-mate Stewart McKinney once described him thus: “Apart from his passing ability and searing pace, he was a cocky little b*****d.”

It was precisely that cockiness that endeared him to the Lions selectors in 1980 and, though those first three Tests had all been losses, Patterson was having a wonderful tour until that fateful, penultimate game in Kimberley.

To begin with, the seriousness of his injury escaped most of those present after what looked an innocuous collision with

Gawie Visagie. Indeed it was only the alertness of his own Lions and Ireland team-mate, Dr John O’Driscoll, that eventually triggered the requisite care.

Patterson himself recalls: “I was screaming in agony, the pain was so intense. But my situation wasn’t helped by the fact that the referee tried to play amateur doctor with me and started poking around with my leg.

“I was stretchered off, but they are so fanatical about their rugby out there that two fans rushed on. One took my discarded boot.

Another took my sock and asked me if I would give him my shorts.”

Prior to the injury, Patterson planned playing in Australia for a season to further his rugby education. But Kimberley, cruelly, had now ended his career.

And Colin Patterson was just 25.

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Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NICK POPPLEWELL

LOOSE-HEAD PROP: (1989-98)

NO:

W

01

HEN you’re living through a depression, escape can bring a strange and unfamiliar energy.

Nick Popplewell bawled like a child in the playground with scuffed knees when he won his first game in the Five Nations Championship.

It was the ‘93 contest against Wales in Cardiff and he was collecting his 17th international cap.

A kindly cameraman handed him a handkerchief as Popplewell gulped back the emotion of finally winning a significant game in green. The ’90s had begun as a decade of such wretched angst in Irish rugby, it became a period in which the players associated the international game with feelings of guilt.

“The Irish public had had enough and the players did not know which way to turn,” he reflected in ‘Lansdowne – Through the Years’. “We honestly didn’t.

There was not much fun left in playing for our country. Confidence was almost at nil.”

Popplewell won 48 caps for

REMEMBERED FOR: CRYING HIS EYES OUT IN CARDIFF, HAVING FINALLY WON A FIVE NATIONS GAME IN HIS 17TH INTERNATIONAL.

Ireland despite being a late (and relatively slow) starter, making his first start in green against New Zealand at the age of 25. This was the famous day in November of ‘89 at Lansdowne Road when Willie Anderson chose to face down the All Blacks’ Haka, dragging his team forward until they were all but nose-to-nose with the visitors.

For Popplewell, that brought him into slightly un-nerving proximity with Wayne Shelford’s teeth, and things didn’t get much better from there, his debut lasting just 18 minutes as three broken ribs forced him out of the action.

He would describe the experience of trying to scrummage in that condition as “like standing on a nail”, yet the Gorey man delayed reporting to hospital until the following day so that he might avail of the post-match hospitality.

These were, of course, preprofessional times, an era when Monday newspapers’ social diarists would regale their readers with stories and pictures of tuxedoed rugby players enjoying the basement charms of Leeson Street’s wine bars deep into the early hours of Sunday morning.

Popplewell’s consumption of “more than a few pints” that night did not maybe signpost the most auspicious of international careers ahead, but he would become one of the great Irish props and a man destined to play wonderfully in all three Test matches during the Lions ‘93 tour of New Zealand.

It was a slow-burn story, mind. He did not play for Ireland again until the following autumn, against Argentina, and subsequently slipped right off the radar again until the summer tour of South Africa in ‘91.

The fraught state of Irish rugby

‘Poppy’ blossomed during bleakest days of Irish rugby

■ Taking on the All Blacks during the 1995 World Cup at the time is reflected in the fact that, during his eight-year international career, Popplewell would play under six different coaches. Starting under Jim Davidson, he was also guided by the voices of Ciaran Fitzgerald, Gerry Murphy, Murray Kidd and Brian Ashton before bowing out of the international game in ‘98 when Warren Gatland was in his first season.

“There was a huge transition,” he once recalled. “We nearly went through as many coaches as players. Every year, it seemed to be a different coach. That was desperately unsettling.”

Once settled in the Irish frontrow, however, the man nicknamed ‘Poppy’ became virtually indispensable.

His first Five Nations campaign (‘92) brought an embarrassing whitewash, the muffled euphoria of a wonderful World Cup quarterfinal effort against Australia the previous October quickly dissipating.

Popplewell would particularly remember the home defeats to Wales and Scotland. The Scots

arrived in Dublin shorn of their two marquee forwards, John Jeffrey and Finlay Calder, yet ran out 18-10 victors. Popplewell recalled the crowd booing every time Irish out-half Ralph Keyes took possession. “It was a sad day for Irish rugby,” he would recall.

Little wonder the ‘93 win over Wales triggered such emotion and, when England were subsequently hammered 17-3 in Dublin (Ireland’s first triumph against the Red Rose in six years), the sense of a corner finally having been turned was palpable.

The Irish front-row that day was made up of Popplewell, Terry Kingston and Peter Clohessy, and Popplewell admits that they enjoyed the occasion at the expense of England’s notoriously opinionated hooker, Brian Moore.

“What do you think Claw, will we push them back a bit?” was just one of the little jibes directed towards a man Popplewell recalled “would be the very one who would be rabbiting on and laughing at us normally”.

Eric Elwood’s precision enabled Ireland ease into a 12-3 advantage

before Mick Galwey sealed victory with a late try in front of the north terrace.

The following year, most pundits expected England to exact brutal revenge at Twickenham, only for Simon Geoghegan’s storied try to secure a shock 13-12 victory for Ireland.

But the victories were sporadic, the defeats essentially habitual during Popplewell’s time in an Irish shirt. The slow hand-clap was a common acoustic at Lansdowne Road especially and, in his career, ‘Poppy’ would experience defeat against Italy on three occasions.

His final involvement with an Irish squad would be at Twickenham on the last Saturday of the ‘98 Five Nations. At the age of 34, Popplewell travelled to London as cover for the three props in Ireland’s match-day 22.

By now, the game was professional and he’d enjoyed a little of the privilege of the paid sportsman during a short stint with Newcastle.

But his body had been creaking for some time and, deep down, Popplewell knew that he was in no condition to play had the occasion required him to. Thankfully, it didn’t.

Having helped carry a few bags to the changing-room and set up a physio’s bench in the warm-up room, he took himself out of the stadium, found a payphone and arranged to watch the game with his brothers in a Kilburn pub.

It would be nine years before Popplewell saw an Irish rugby team in the flesh again.

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17

OTHER CONTENDERS • Phil Orr • Cian Healy • Syd Millar • Marcus Horan A strong case could clearly have been made here for Phil Orr, an extraordinary rock-like presence in the Irish front-row from 1976 right up to and through the inaugural World Cup in ‘87.

Orr won 58 caps for his country and was a Test player for the ‘77 Lions in New Zealand. A wonderfully technical prop, Orr maybe just comes up short of the rampaging loose play shown consistently by Popplewell and, in more recent times, Cian Healy.

Syd Millar’s best period on the field was maybe played just outside the 50-year window and a case might have been made too for Marcus Horan but, in time, Healy may well be the standout No 1 in modern Irish rugby history.

■ Phil Orr

18

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

‘Uncle Fester’ set standard for golden generation’s glories

H

E was famously described by one eminent English sportswriter as “like a potato on speed”, but there have been few more thrilling sights in Irish rugby than a rampaging Keith Wood.

His hairless head and easy gift of self-deprecation fostered a kind of cartooning process in the career of one of Ireland’s greatest rugby men. Team-mates nicknamed him ‘Uncle Fester’ because of his likeness to the bald, barrelfigured character of that name in ‘The Addams Family’.

Yet no man gave more to the green cause, no player dipped deeper beneath the floorboards of their talent. Wood’s career seemed endlessly snared by injury – he had to undergo 15 operations throughout his playing life.

And here maybe nothing quite became him like his departure.

For the remarkable Clareman put himself through such torture to play in the 2003 World Cup

NO:

REMEMBERED FOR: BEING ONE OF THE TRULY GREAT IRISH AND LIONS FORWARDS AND FOR SCORING A WONDERFUL TRY AT LANSDOWNE ROAD TO DENY ENGLAND A GRAND SLAM IN 2001.

that, when he announced his retirement after Ireland’s eviction at the quarter-final stage, there was scarcely a dry eye in the room.

Ireland’s coach, Eddie O’Sullivan, confessed in his autobiography that even he “welled up” on hearing Wood

02

KIETH WOOD

HOOKER: (1994-03)

Watch Wood’s try against England in 2001

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Monday 22 February 2013

19

OTHER CONTENDERS • Ken Kennedy • Ciaran Fitzgerald • Jerry Flannery • Rory Best Ireland have, historically, been extremely well served in the number two shirt, with the likes of Ken Kennedy, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Jerry Flannery and Rory Best all performers of the highest quality.

A hugely fit player, Kennedy liked to play in a head-band and was never slow to put his body on the line. He won 45 Irish caps between

‘65 and ‘75, played with the Lions in ‘66 and ‘74 and was a controversial omission from the ‘71 tour.

Fitzgerald, of course, became Ireland’s most successful captain since Karl Mullen, leading his men to the Triple Crowns of ‘82 and ‘85 as well as captaining the Lions in ‘83.

■ Jerry Flannery

announce to the media: “That’s it, I’m finished now.”

Quite apart from the neck and shoulder injuries which, effectively, put him through a year of hell in the build-up to the tournament, he’d lost his brother, Gordon, and mother, Pauline, within weeks of one another in the autumn of ‘02.

Yet, his single-mindedness was inspiring to those around him.

As O’Sullivan wrote subsequently: “I can’t honestly think of anyone I have worked with in rugby that I admire more.”

In many ways, it was Wood’s misfortune to be in his pomp at a time when the national team lurched from one crisis to another. By the time O’Sullivan took over towards the end of ‘01, Wood’s body had begun to slowly break down. In his last two years of international rugby, he managed just a single Six Nations appearance.

He’d played his first Five Nations game against England at Lansdowne Road in ‘95, a heavy defeat. At the subsequent World Cup, a dislocated shoulder ended his tournament before it had even begun.

That autumn, Wood was made captain of his country, but Irish rugby was spinning out of control. A hammering by Western Samoa was followed by a January loss to Italy at Lansdowne Road. That defeat cost Murray Kidd his job, throwing into motion a period of flux in which Ireland went through five coaches in four years.

Wood’s performance levels through that spell, given the routine off-field instability, were extraordinary. And they earned him a place on the ‘97 Lions tour to South Africa, thus allowing him emulate his father, Gordon, who had been a prop with the ‘59 tourists in New Zealand.

If the Lions management had a single worry about the barnstorming Irish hooker, it concerned what was perceived to be a flaw in his line-out throwing. Extensive video analysis highlighted the need for a steadier body position on releasing the ball.

Wood took the information on board and proceeded to have a wonderful tour.

His greatest contribution,

however, was in the loose, endlessly charging forward in broken play, seeking out points of Springbok weakness. He started the first two Tests (both won by the Lions) only for injury to rule him out of the third.

And, off the field, Wood became a central character in what is remembered as one of the happier tours of recent times.

He was one of seven senior players that manager Jim Telfer and coach Ian McGeechan would consult on strategy. And, when the rugby was done, he would preside as judge over the traditional players’ court.

One of his most memorable tasks in that capacity was to have the honour of taking a razor to McGeechan’s head at tour’s end, the coach having pledged to have his hair shaved off if the Lions won the series.

Four years later, Wood was back in a Lions shirt, starting all three Tests in the series defeat to Australia.

If he is best known for one single moment on Ireland duty, it would have to be his try against

England at Lansdowne Road in October ‘01. Clive Woodward’s team arrived chasing the Grand Slam in a delayed Six Nations tournament only to be humbled by the fired-up home side.

The key moment of the game was a first-half try off a lin-eout by Wood that sent the stadium into raptures. Simple in construction, it was executed with devastating authority. Essentially, Wood threw to Mick Galwey at the front and Galwey transferred to Anthony Foley, whose perfect, weightless pass allowed an invisible Wood to peel around, running right over Neil Back to get to the line.

The English were shell-shocked and would make a conspicuously quick exit from the pitch when it was over. All, that is, bar one man.

Wood and Jason Leonard were Harlequins team-mates and the Englishman now sought out his club colleague to congratulate him on a momentous victory. “I remember saying in my speech that night that that was the mark of a sportsman,” Wood would recall later.

Keith Wood never won a

■ Rory Best

Triple Crown or Six Nations championship in an Irish shirt, but he did play a fundamental part in raising the standards and expectations of those who subsequently did.

Speaking to Edward Newman for his book, ‘Lansdowne Through the Years’, in 2006, Wood observed: “We’re still tainted by the fact that we lost an awful lot of games while this present crew has won an awful lot. But I take great pleasure in the fact that they win and I would like to think that I had something to do with it in that a lot of things had to change.”

It’s a pleasure he is entitled to.

■ Keith Wood singing the national anthem in the 2007 World Cup alongside Marcus Horan, John Hayes and Paul O’Connell; Wood bowls over Australia’s George Gregan during the 2003 World Cup; Celebrating victory over Toulouse in Toulouse; On the charge for Ireland in 1999

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FIRST XV

NO:

03

RAY MCLOUGHLIN TIGHT-HEAD PROP: (1962-75)

Pack leader and trailblazer transformed Ireland set-up REMEMBERED FOR: Watch our panel discussion’

See McLoughlin’s try against France in 1972

BEING THE MAN WHO SHOULD HAVE CAPTAINED THE ’66 LIONS ON THEIR TOUR OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.

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R

AY McLoughlin spent most of his playing days making men in blazers feel uncomfortable.

The cold arithmetic of his representative rugby career goes nowhere close to reflecting his influence on the game internationally. Originally from Ballinasloe, he won a then record for a prop, 40 Irish caps between 1962 and ‘75 and toured with the Lions of both ‘66 and ‘71.

He also played for the Barbarians on that famous day in ‘73 they put the All Blacks to the sword so thrillingly in Cardiff.

But McLoughlin was far more than just the technically smart front-row forward those figures imply. He was an innovator, a deep, deep thinker on the game who changed how Ireland and – ultimately – the Lions prepared for and went to battle.

He was appointed Irish captain in ‘65, immediately interpreting the honour as a licence to do far more than just make an entertaining speech when circumstance demanded. He had a vision of how forward play should develop, focusing on unit play and the coherent expression (and understanding) of tactics.

Essentially, McLoughlin was a radical who got Ireland to train like they’d never trained before.

In his first season as captain, the team improved from bottom of the Five Nations in ‘64 to a respectable third. The committeemen should have been happy, but they weren’t.

The UCD graduate’s forceful personality put certain noses out of joint and, as Ireland faltered in his second season, McLoughlin had the captaincy taken from him just one game before the ‘66 Lions party to tour Australia and New Zealand was selected.

This act essentially precluded

him from being named Lions captain (he had been favourite for the job), the honour instead going to venerable Scottishman, Mike Campbell-Lamerton, who would not make the Test sides.

This move was widely acknowledged subsequently as a mistake, even Tour manager Des O’Brien remarking years later that “Ray should have been captain of that side. He would have made a hell of a difference; he has a tremendous brain, very mathematical in working things out. But he just decided to be a foot-soldier and that was it.”

McLoughlin played in three Tests on that tour, the Lions romping through Australia before then coming up against a brick wall in New Zealand.

His involvement was restricted by hamstring trouble and, the morning of the second All Blacks Test, a soaring temperature.

Former Irish and Lions hooker Ken Kennedy expressed the view that had McLoughlin been captain in ‘66, the 0-4 Test whitewash suffered in New Zealand might even have been transformed into a series victory.

Yet his international career effectively stalled after that tour as back and knee injuries meant McLoughlin did not win his next Irish cap until facing France at Lansdowne Road in January of ‘71.

His form in that year’s Five Nations meant that he would return Down Under a few months later as a vital, albeit unofficial, member of Carwyn James’s Lions brains-trust. McLoughlin himself is inclined to suggest that his influence was overstated, particularly by a fictitious story doing the rounds at the time that he’d produced a 26-page document for James and captain John Dawes to study.

But McLoughlin was

Monday 22 February 2013

undoubtedly perceived as pack leader on that ‘71 tour and captained the side in several midweek games, including the infamous Canterbury bloodbath that would end his campaign one week before the first Test.

Attempting to strike Alex Wylie, he chipped a bone in his thumb, ruling him out of the remaining games. McLoughlin recalls the Canterbury match as one carrying an “unacceptable” level of intimidation from the locals.

He would recall: “I was captain that day and I was tempted to take the team off the pitch on the basis that it was the best way of making a protest and, properly handled, could be presented as not being afraid, but as requiring more courage than not doing it.

“Maybe I chickened out, but I felt that with the macho approach New Zealanders had, it would be seen as weakness.”

That game also ended the tour of another Lions prop, Sandy Carmichael, as a vicious match left half a dozen tourists in casualty. When it became clear that McLoughlin could play no further part in the tour, he was contractually compelled to leave the party. But he stayed on for the next month, as he put it “doing my own tour”.

Dawes would recall “a palpable sense of loss” as McLoughlin left the touring party, suggesting: “Ray was the wise head, the intelligentsia of forward play.

He and Carwyn would spend hours together, Carwyn trying to learn from Ray the intricacies of forward play.”

He won his last cap for Ireland against Wales in Cardiff in ‘75, a 4-32 thumping for the man Willie John McBride would describe as “the best” of all Irish Lions.

McLoughlin was, above all, a man before his time.

■ Ray McLoughlin prepares to tackle Terry Moore during an Irish training session

21

OTHER CONTENDERS • John Hayes • Des Fitzgerald • Mike Ross • Peter Clohessy • Sean Lynch • Paul Wallace FOR an age, there was no more important figure in Irish rugby than John ‘Bull’ Hayes.

The big Limerick man became the most capped forward in the country’s history, playing 105 times between 2000 and 2011.

Only England’s Jason Leonard was capped more times as an international prop.

Yet, with a dearth of tight-head alternatives in Ireland, the instinct of most rugby people was to wrap ‘Bull’ up in cotton wool between big games.

He won four Triple Crowns and a Grand Slam with Ireland; two Heineken Cups with Munster and toured with the Lions in New Zealand ‘05 and South Africa ‘09.

For a man widely considered too tall for a front-row posting, the longevity and sheer lustre of Hayes’ career was astonishing.

Another remarkable Irish tight-head was Des Fitzgerald, father of current international Luke. Perhaps not the most mobile around the field, but few forwards anchored a scrum better.

True to the tradition of the position, the Irish incumbent today – Mike Ross – has become a virtually indispensable figure. Like McLoughlin so many years before him, Ross is a passionate student of the position, determined to travel every avenue of advantage against his direct opponent.

Peter Clohessy, Sean Lynch and Paul Wallace were other exponents of the art good enough to get Lions recognition.

■ Peter Cloh

essy

ce

■ Paul Walla

■ Des Fitzgerald

22

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NO:

04

WILLIE JOHN McBRIDE

SECOND-ROW: (1962-75)

REMEMBERED FOR:

■ Willie John McBride calls the shots in the First Test against New Zealand during the 1971 Lions tour

INITIATING THE CONTROVERSIAL ‘99’ GET-YOURRETALIATION-IN-FIRST CALL AS CAPTAIN OF THE ALL-CONQUERING ’74 LIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA.

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23

Monday 22 February 2013

Unlikeliest of rugby heroes became greatest Lion of all

M

AYBE the greatest of all Lions, it is remarkable to think that Willie John’s 63 Irish caps did not decant a single Triple Crown.

The farmer’s son from Moneyglass, near Toomebridge, Co Antrim, only started playing rugby in his late teens, yet would become one of the most iconic figures in the world game with a scarcely credible 17 Lions Test appearances claimed over five tours.

He was also, of course, captain of the all-conquering ‘74 side that has gone down in folklore for its controversial ‘99’ call that was, essentially, a signal to pole-axe the opponent nearest to you.

McBride was worshipped by those Lions, a group that remained unbeaten for the entirety of a 22game programme.

He was the ultimate leaderfrom-the-front type, a no-nonsense lock who overcame any technical limitations with a kind of fearless dignity that endeared him to rugby communities the world over.

Willie John was never considered the most athletic of line-out jumpers, but he had a remarkable physical presence that concentrated opponents’ minds, and his ability to dig ugly ball out of a ruck was legendary.

Yet McBride was the unlikeliest

of rugby heroes. His father died of a suspected blood clot when Willie John was just four years old, and his childhood would be spent supporting his mother’s work to keep the family farm alive.

“When school was done, we came home and went to work,” he once recalled.

“Feeding the pigs, collecting eggs, cutting turf. We’d milk the cows before we went to school. It was all horses, no machinery.

“That’s how you build strong men. Not in a gymnasium. I was never in a gym in my life.”

McBride began playing rugby, first with Ballymena Academy and subsequently Randalstown before joining Ballymena RFC. He was first capped against England at Twickenham in 1962, an experience that educated him on the IRFU’s famously tight housekeeping.

“I got the loan of a jersey and a pair of green Irish socks from the Union,” he recalled. “I was to use the same one (jersey) for every game I played. If it was ripped or torn, it was up to me to patch it up. And, if at the end of the season, I’d played the four games, they’d give it to me.”

As it happened, McBride would be a fixture in the Irish second-row for 14 consecutive Five Nations tournaments, eventually leading his country in 1974 to their first

championship in 23 years.

His first Lions recognition came with the ‘62 tour to South Africa, an experience he recalls for its mildly comedic lack of organisation.

“We didn’t even have a team tracksuit, the whole thing was a joke,” he remembered. “They picked guys because they thought they might be good ambassadors, not because they might win. What rubbish. No use when some bloody forward was carrying your head off.”

He was on the five-month marathon through Australia, New Zealand and Canada in ‘66, and then the ‘68 return to South Africa for which members of the travelling party received a letter advising them to take a pullover as “it could get very cold in the Transvaal in the evening.”

So three tours and three series thrashings into his Lions career, Willie John had lost his appetite for touring.

Now working in the bank, he turned down an invitation to make himself available for the ‘71 tour of New Zealand. When head coach Carwyn James called to enquire why, Willie John responded: “Because I’m sick of losing.”

James replied “But we’re not going to lose.”

They didn’t either, becoming the only Lions team before or since to win a Test series against the All Blacks, with McBride a dominant pack leader, despite many believing him to be ‘over the hill’ – he turned 31 that summer.

Incredibly, he was then named captain for the ‘74 trip to South Africa, a tour that would carve his name in the folklore of Lions rugby.

McBride himself believes that the ‘99’ call has, as he puts it, been “overplayed” in stories of how the Boks were humbled on their own patch. “We were physical, yes, but certainly not dirty,” he said.

He did believe that the Lions had been openly intimidated on previous tours, suspecting it to be linked to the old culture of prioritising good ‘mixers’ in travelling parties rather than the best rugby players.

“It was this thing of the taking

part that counts,” he recalled. “Well I’m an Irishman and I don’t bloody do that. South Africa certainly didn’t. I knew they’d target key players like (Phil) Bennett and (Gareth) Edwards so, when it came to the East London game, I said ‘Right, I don’t want people running around the field for 15 minutes, chasing some guy to pay him back’.

“I’ve seen too much of that in rugby. We’ll deal with it and deal with it together. You’ll belt the guy beside you, which will shake them.

We had three or four punch-ups in 22 games, but we scored more points, more tries on that tour than ever before. That’s not a sign of a dirty team.

“We sorted out the nonsense and got back to playing rugby. In many ways, the fighting stuff is a myth.”

The ‘74 Lions presented McBride with a silver water-jug after that tour, inscribed with the words “To Willie John, it was great to travel with you.”

He won his final Irish cap against Wales in March of ‘75, having scored his only Irish try a few weeks earlier against France at Lansdowne Road. He subsequently managed the Lions in ‘83 and coached Ireland to a championship whitewash in ‘84.

McBride was, as Cliff Morgan put it, “One of the most unbelievable men you’ll ever meet in your life.”

OTHER CONTENDERS • Moss Keane • Donal Lenihan • Malcolm O’Kelly • Mick Galwey • Jeremy Davidson Talk of great Irish locks seldom gets very far without mention of the remarkable Maurice Ignatius Keane. ‘Moss’ was the Gaelic footballer from Currow in Co Kerry who only discovered rugby in college, yet went on to play a remarkable 51 times for Ireland.

He became only the third Irish forward, after Willie John and Fergus Slattery, to claim a half-century of caps and toured with the Lions of 1977. Perhaps no player in Irish rugby history has been more capable of

generating a response from the crowd, Moss’ surges in the loose invariably triggering giddy explosions on the terraces.

Keane’s partner for many of those internationals was the exceptional Cork secondrow Donal Lenihan, another wonderful player who would himself be capped 52 times, while other great Irish second-rows were Malcolm O’Kelly, Mick Galwey, Jeremy Davidson and Donncha O’Callaghan.

■ Jeremy Davidson

■ Donal Le

nihan

24

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV REMEMBERED FOR: BEING LIONS CAPTAIN IN SOUTH AFRICA IN ’09 AND FOR HAVING NO MEMORY OF SCORING A TRY ON HIS IRISH DEBUT AGAINST WALES AT LANSDOWNE ROAD IN ’02 BECAUSE OF A CONCUSSION PICKED UP EARLY IN THE GAME.

Watch Paul O’Connell leading the charge for Ireland’s Grand Slam

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25

Monday 22 February 2013

OTHER CONTENDERS NO:

05

• See Willie John McBride.

Watch our panel debate

Monday 22

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PAUL O’CONNELL

22

Monday 22

February

2013

FIRST XV NO:

04

WILLIE JOHN McBRIDE :

SECOND-ROW: (2002- )

OW SECOND-R (1962-75)

February

2013

23

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eroes of rugby h Unlikeliestgreatest Lion of all became

“Well recalled. counts,” he don’t bloody part that n and I three series I’m an Irishma Africa certainly tours and career, So three do that. South they’d target key into his Lionsappetite thrashings t and didn’t. I knew had lost his (Phil) Bennet it came Willie John players like so, when . he father died Edwards I said for touring (Gareth) heroes. His g in the bank, of rugby London game, running clot when Now workin invitation to make ed blood greatest to the East an years old, want people a suspect down of AYBE the four tour don’t ‘71 I just turned it is was minutes, ‘Right, le for the be spent field for 15 him back’.

Willie John of all Lions, od would himself availab . When head coach to around the to guy to pay and his childhomother’s work remarkable of New Zealandcalled to enquire his Willie chasing some much of that in too alive. supporting think that Carwyn James responded: “I’ve seen it and deal Irish family farm we John deal with keep the John’s 63 was done, the guy why, Willie sick of losing.” rugby. We’ll not r. You’ll belt them.

“When school went to work,” he I’m caps did not “Because and shake with it togethe “But we’re Crown. which will came home .

James replied single Triple beside you, or four punch-ups recalled decant a lose.” ng the collecting s son from Co once going to the pigs, We had threebut we scored more The farmer’ either, becomi to milk the “Feeding Toomebridge, didn’t since We’d near or They It in 22 games, tries on that tour Moneyglass, started playing rugby eggs, cutting turf. team before the All went to school. only Lions not a sign points, more Antrim, only ery. would become cows before we series against nt before. That’s teens, yet no machin win a Test McBride a domina than ever figures in in his late was all horses, you build strong team. se and most iconic Blacks, with despite many in 23 years. of a dirty a scarcely one of the – out the nonsen many “That’s how ium. I was championship recognition game with pack leader, to be ‘over the hill’ “We sorted in a gymnas rugby. In appearances the world g him men. Not His first Lions tour to South to playing my life.” r.

Lions Test in a myth.” believin 17 back is ‘62 gym summe got a the credible rugby, 31 that never in fighting stuff ed McBride named five tours. he recalls came with he turned began playing ways, the experience he was then claimed over of course, captain present McBride Academy lack of Africa, an Incredibly, ‘74 trip to South The ‘74 Lions after that comedic Ballymena side that He was also, the stown water-jug first with uering ‘74 “To for its mildly its captain for that would carve ently Randal He with a silver d with the words of the all-conq in folklore for tour and subsequ Ballymena RFC. organisation. even have a team of Lions down Africa, a was, tour, inscribeit was great to travel joining has gone England in the folklore “We didn’t ‘99’ call that thing was the before capped against his name Willie John, the whole controversial signal to pole-axe an “They was first that tracksuit, a rugby. cap ham in 1962, d him on with you.” remembered. thought essentially, you. himself believes it, been final Irish at Twicken a joke,” he McBride educate nearest to ‘75, He won his as he puts because they ped by nce that March of opponent ly tight househow the picked guys good ambassadors, ‘99’ call has, Wales in try a was worship remained experie of e the Irish famous against be McBrid in stories his only the IRFU’s win. What they might a group that France at “overplayed” 22on their own a having scored they might those Lions, the entirety of a humbled jersey and keeping. earlier against some bloody ently not because l, yes, but for Boks were loan of a few weeks He subsequ unbeaten . No use when your head were physica from the “I got the Road.

“We me. socks rubbish wne g patch.

Irish he said. carryin Lansdo use in ‘83 and game programultimate leadernot dirty,” the Lions pair of green the Lions . “I was to forward was onship certainly that managed a champi He was the type, a no-nonsense Union,” he recalled th for every Ireland to off.”

He did believe intimidated al the five-mon ia, coached one (jersey) ripped or from-the-front any technic openly the same in ‘84.

He was on ing it Austral If it was overcame had been Morgan whitewash it of fearless through lock who s tours, suspect in ‘66, game I played. to me to patch was, as Cliff marathon with a kind culture on previou McBride and Canada him to rugby torn, it was up to the old limitations of the most of the season, New Zealand ‘68 return to South endeared to be linked good ‘mixers’ in put it, “One men you’ll ever meet if at the end the they’d dignity that the world over. sing up. And, rs of the and then than the of prioriti the four games, unbelievable which membe a letter communities was never parties rather I’d played Africa for travelling in your life.”

Willie John most athletic of r g party received e would it to me.” players. give pullove taking a rugby McBrid travellin the ed, best had a thing of the them to take considered second-row As it happen in the s, but he advising “It was this that in the Irish get very cold line-out jumper presence Nations be a fixture as “it could the evening.” physical tive Five in remarkable opponents’ minds, for 14 consecu eventually leading Transvaal out ents, concentrated to dig ugly ball their first tournam in 1974 to and his abilitylegendary. his country was unlikeliest of a ruck e was the Yet McBrid

M

TENDERS ble OTHER CON a remarka on to play

FOR: REMEMBERED

calls the McBride ■ Willie JohnFirst Test against shots in the during the 1971 New Zealand Lions tour

A fearless leader the world would gladly follow into battle

■ O’Connell rules the air against Italy

P

AUL O’Connell was the youngest member of an Irish pack heading to Paris in February of 2004 when made captain of his country.

It said everything about the Limerick man’s status within the group that, with just two full seasons in an Irish shirt behind him, he was Eddie O’Sullivan’s pick for an assignment against opponents who had recently butchered them at the ‘03 World Cup. Brian O’Driscoll was absent through injury and Keith Wood retired, so ‘L’Equipe’ newspaper branded the visitors ‘Les Irlandais Orphelins’ – ‘The Irish Orphans’.

Yet, O’Sullivan turned to the then 24-year-old Young Munster lock to lead Ireland out at Stade de France because of what he later described as “a presence in the group that defied his youth”.

Experienced heads like Anthony Foley, David Humphreys, Ronan O’Gara and Reggie Corrigan had – like O’Connell – also been vice-captains in that group, yet there was not a hint of discord at O’Sullivan’s choice.

O’Gara would write in his autobiography that the selection of O’Connell simply reflected “the respect he commanded already” and recounted how the new captain “gave a brilliant speech before the match and called a rake of line-outs on himself, leading from the front like he always does.”

There are many adjectives that attach themselves readily to O’Connell the rugby player, prime among them words like ‘uncompromising’, ‘ruthless’ and ‘fearless’. Yet, none of these come to mind away from battle. For outside the white lines, O’Connell is a resolutely gentle type, humble and understated in expression, content to see the lighter side of life.

In this, perhaps he inherited much of Mick Galwey’s rugby

THE INITIATING SIAL CONTROVER ‘99’ GET-YOUR-IN-FIRST RETALIATION IN OF CALL AS CAPTA ERING THE ALL-CONQU SOUTH ’74 LIONS IN A. AFRIC

psyche, the sense of a furious competitor always mindful of the need to decommission his fury at the sound of a final whistle.

O’Connell certainly attributes his value system to time spent working with the remarkable Kerryman at Munster. “I think every player on the Munster team has a bit of a Mick Galwey in him,” he once observed. “‘Gaillimh was very similar to Peter Clohessy, in that he was old school. He liked his pints, wasn’t very fond of training but, when it came to Saturday, there was nobody who put themselves on the line more or gave more on the pitch.”

O’Connell claims too to have been hugely influenced by Ciaran Fitzgerald, also “very Gaillimh-like”, who coached him with Ireland U-21s.

He made his senior Irish debut in the opening game of the ‘02 Six Nations campaign against Wales in Dublin, scoring a try that he could not remember afterwards because of a concussion sustained just five minutes in. O’Connell would eventually be replaced on the halfhour, disoriented and in tears.

Given the ferocity with which he plays, it’s hardly surprising that injury has cost him many big rugby days since. Just now, he is recuperating from surgery on a back problem that has – essentially – stalked him throughout his entire international career.

Yet, O’Connell has grown into one of the world’s great secondrows too, a man who has won all the big prizes on offer in northern hemisphere rugby and was even shortlisted for the IRB Player of the Year award in ‘06, the only nominee from this side of the equator.

His physicality is legendary, once highlighted in comical terms at the ‘03 World Cup. During the tournament, Ireland took up base in Terrigal for a fortnight, an idyllic setting with their hotel just 50 yards from the

went for Ireland. third 51 times only the He became after Willie , , to Irish forward Fergus Slattery John and tury of caps Lions of claim a half-cen with the in and toured no player been 1977. Perhaps history has ing Irish rugby of generat crowd, more capable e from the a respons in the loose giddy Moss’ surges triggering invariably on the terraces. many explosions for Keane’s partner tionals was secondof those interna onal Cork the excepti Lenihan, another row Donal player who 52 wonderful be capped seldom Irish would himself Irish locks n other great Talk of great without mentio times, while were Malcolm far gets very second-rows Galwey, Jeremy ble Maurice of the remarka ‘Moss’ was O’Kelly, Mick Donncha and Ignatius Keane. ler from Davidson footbal the Gaelic who only O’Callaghan.

Co Kerry Currow in rugby in college, yet discovered

e • Moss Kean an • Donal Lenih lly O’Ke • Malcolm ey • Mick Galw dson • Jeremy Davi

■ Donal Lenihan

■ Jeremy

Davidson

ocean. Routinely, the Irish players would cool off after training on surfboards. O’Connell was a particularly enthusiastic beginner, but his search for the big wave quickly led to a broken board.

Observing the damage, an incredulous instructor was heard to grumble: “I’ve been surfing 30 years and I’ve never broken a board. This guy’s been surfing for 30 minutes!”

He would captain Ireland – again in O’Driscoll’s absence through injury – for the historic Croke Park game against France in ‘07 and, having led Munster to the ‘08 Heineken Cup and won a Grand Slam with Ireland the following spring, he was then Ian McGeechan’s choice as Lions captain for the tour to South Africa that summer.

Despite playing some wonderful rugby, the Lions lost the opening two Tests and, according to O’Gara, the “tour just got on top of him”.

Yet, writing in his autobiography, O’Connell’s Munster and Ireland colleague also alluded to the resilience within his make-up.

“He didn’t play as well as he would have liked and morale in the Test team was poor,” wrote O’Gara. “He was still up for that bit of slagging, though. There were no shortage of performance-based stats being thrown at us and Paulie had bad numbers for knock-ons.

I took my opportunity to put the boot in but, with Paulie, you never get the last word. “‘Yeah,’ he says, ‘and you’re leading the stats for the most tackles on Casper the Ghost!’”

Playfully nicknamed ‘Psycho’ by his Munster team-mates, O’Connell is still considered an outside bet for Warren Gatland’s Lions squad to tour Australia, despite being out of commission until April at the earliest.

A measure, surely, of the esteem in which the rugby community holds him.

26

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

■ John O’Driscoll gets ready for a line-out during the 1983 Five Nations clash with France

REMEMBERED FOR:

NO:

Watch our panel debate

BEING THE ONLY LION TO SCORE MORE THAN ONE TEST TRY DURING THE 1980 TOUR OF SOUTH AFRICA.

06 JOHN O’DRISCOLL

BLIND-SIDE FLANKER: (1978-84)

Gentleman prankster who relished being on Lions duty

T

HOSE who played against John O’Driscoll remember him as a faintly terrifying force when running at full pelt.

For O’Driscoll’s knees would be almost shoulder-high, jolting up and down like pistons and perfectly set to break the noses or teeth of any opponent foolhardy enough to offer his body as a roadblock. His unconventionally leggy style of running wouldn’t perhaps have been to the purists’ taste but, through the late ’70s and early 80s, it provided an image to thrill Irish and Lions supporters alike.

He was very much the junior partner in a back-row that brought Triple Crown success to Ireland in ‘82, then fell en bloc on

their swords after a Championship whitewash two years later.

No 8, Willie Duggan, believes that – whatever the merits of deciding that he and Fergus Slattery were ripe for that knacker’s yard in ‘84 – a 30-yearold O’Driscoll was discarded by Ireland illogically early.

“It was as if the selectors wrongly had him in our agebracket,” surmised Duggan, nearly four years O’Driscoll’s senior.

At his best, O’Driscoll was a colossus at blindside, rewarded with a seat on both the ‘80 and ‘83 Lions tours, ironically by which time both of his old back-row partners had decided they were done with touring.

During the first of those tours in South Africa, the man christened by Ray Gravell as “Dr

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O’Desperate” also operated as the group’s unofficial doctor, his skills called upon most hauntingly when Irish full-back Rodney O’Donnell broke his neck in the tour’s penultimate game.

O’Donnell went down after tackling the powerful Springbok, Danie Gerber, and might have been paralysed but for O’Driscoll discouraging the medics from moving him to the side of the pitch. Two vertebrae in his neck had dislocated and fractured.

O’Donnell never played again, but understood the debt he owed his Irish and Lions team-mate. He subsequently described himself as: “lucky to have my life, lucky not to be a quadriplegic.”

Having first come to prominence in the late ’70s as captain of London Irish, O’Driscoll was seen as the calm intellectual of a fiery Irish pack.

Like so many of that generation, his breakthrough was sealed by the ‘79 Test wins in Australia.

Thereafter, he was an ever-present through the ‘80 Five Nations, his performances rewarded with a seat on the plane to South Africa.

A ferocious defender, a strong line-out presence at the tail and a rampaging bull with ball in hand, O’Driscoll visibly shone on pitches far firmer than those at home. He was the only tourist to cross the Springbok line twice in the Test series and, according to O’Donnell, “became a world class wing-forward on that tour”.

A rib injury sustained in the opening game against Auckland restricted his appearances three years later in New Zealand and O’Driscoll himself would admit that the experience was never quite as enjoyable.

“I preferred playing in South Africa because I liked the hard ground,” he would reflect later.

“Playing in New Zealand was like playing at home. I liked going out training in a T-shirt and going back and having a swim afterwards.

“South Africa and Australia are more relaxed off the pitch because of the climate. And in South Africa, while everybody is interested in rugby, you can still get away from it. In New Zealand, everybody thinks about rugby all the time and there’s no way to escape or be off-duty.”

If O’Driscoll was maybe never quite as glittering a figure in the constellation of international rugby stars as his famous nephew who features elsewhere in this magazine, he was a man hugely respected and appreciated by his peers.

Routinely quiet off the field, he still had the requisite tourist’s appetite for mischief and one of his party-pieces in South Africa was to dangle precariously from the window ledge of a high-rise hotel.

He was also an inveterate prankster with room-mates, specifically tormenting the chronically superstitious

27

Monday 22 February 2013

OTHER CONTENDERS • Philip Matthews • Stephen Ferris • Sean O’Brien • David Corkery • Simon Easterby The man who loses out by a whisker here is Philip Matthews. A lynchpin of the ‘85 Triple Crownwinning side, Matthews had the most wonderful side-step for a man of such size and was renowned too for his defensive intelligence.

He toured with the Lions in ‘89 and, maybe, suffers by comparison with O’Driscoll only because the latter was part of such a formidable Irish back-row as well as a star of what Syd Millar has described as one of the greatest Lions packs (1980).

Others deserving of mention too include the ultra-dynamic duo, Stephen Ferris and Sean O’Brien of current fame, David Corkery – who had such an outstanding World Cup in ‘95 – and one of Eddie O’Sullivan’s most trusted lieutenants, Simon Easterby.

■ Philip Matthew

s

■ Stephen

O’Donnell on that 1980 tour. And Ollie Campbell recalled how, in New Zealand three years later, O’Driscoll presented him with a bottle of milk one day “in honour of my milk coloured legs”.

His wicked sense of humour tended to be concealed by an inherently gentlemanly disposition, the dry wit accessible only to those he would have considered close.

During the 1981 Five Nations, Ireland’s selectors – trying to accommodate two world-class outhalves in the same team – took to selecting Campbell at inside centre with Tony Ward at No 10.

Campbell was uneasy with the decision.

The morning of the game against England in Dublin, he took his customary stroll around Stephen’s Green alongside O’Driscoll, desperate for some words of reassurance. Just as they arrived back at The Shelbourne,

O’Driscoll turned to him, observing: “For what it’s worth, I think they’re right to play you in the centre.”

Gratefully, Campbell responded: “John, thanks very much. But what makes you say that?”

“Well, we need an out-half who can tackle,” said O’Driscoll, promptly striding through the hotel door.

Campbell recalls being left standing “absolutely dumfounded”. He says: “I didn’t move for about five minutes. Talk about re-assurance!”

Ireland lost all four games in that Five Nations.

Today, O’Driscoll works as a dermatologist in Manchester and has expressed concern that the professional era is filtering a lot of the fun out of elite rugby.

“I would have liked to have played in a World Cup,” he said some years ago. “But not at the expense of being a Lion”.

Ferris

■ David Corkery

28

Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

NO:

10

FERGUS SLATTERY

OPEN-SIDE FLANKER: (1976-84)

Slattery’s ferocious work-rate earned him place in Lions greatest back-row ■ Slattery leads Ireland out during the 1984 Five Nations

REMEMBERED FOR: BEING ONE OF THE MOST EXPLOSIVE FORWARDS IN WORLD RUGBY AND A STAR FOR THE BARBARIANS DURING THEIR STORIED DEFEAT OF NEW ZEALAND IN 1973.

F

ERGUS Slattery had to, literally, argue for his right to play before winning a first Irish cap in 1970 and would spend the next 14 years making opponents wish it was a debate he’d never won.

Unequivocally Ireland’s greatest open-side, the Blackrock College man was at UCD that January morning, a 20-year-old commerce student arguing the merits of welcoming a Springbok team to

Dublin with vice-chairman of the anti-apartheid movement, Kader Asmal.

On leaving the debating hall, he immediately linked up with his new team-mates for a controversial game played within a security ring of steel at Lansdowne Road.

Ireland and South Africa drew 8-8 that day, launching Slattery into the international rugby firmament like a shooting star. Within weeks, he was part of a team to devour the great Welsh side of Gareth Edwards

and Barry John Barry 14-0 in the Five Nations.

One year later, the Welsh exacted revenge, the peerless John instantly moving every ball away to first centre, Arthur Lewis, so that Slattery did not get the opportunity to lay a glove on him.

He was the quintessential No 7: fit, courageous and armed with such explosive pace that, at UCD, he trained with the backs to make the exercise more competitive.

In later years, Slattery became

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Monday 22 February 2013

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■ Slattery leads Ireland out during the 1984 Five Nations so quick off the back of a scrum, he was able to target opposing centres if the fly-half did not offer a conventional moving target.

By the early 1970s, Ireland had a formidable pack with a backline Slattery himself would describe as “solid, if not spectacular”. They were undeniably the most efficient scrummaging unit in the Five Nations and, by ‘72, seemingly on the precipice of big things.

But the political situation in the North was boiling over and both Scotland and Wales refused to travel to Dublin because of safety concerns. Ireland, meanwhile, won both away fixtures against France and England. In other words, they ticked the two most difficult boxes only for circumstance to then deny them what many believed would have been a Grand Slam.

“It was the biggest tragedy of my career,” Slattery would recall later. “I always thought I had loads

of time. I was just so young, but I felt really, really sorry for the likes of Tom Kiernan and Mike Gibson and Willie John (McBride). Those chances are not going to come around too often.

“We hammered Scotland and Wales two years earlier and we’d have hammered them if we got them that year. There’s no doubt about it.”

By now, Slattery was a fullyfledged Lion, having toured New Zealand in ‘71, selected for the third Test only to be forced out on the day of the game by a sore throat and climbing temperature.

He also played in the infamous Canterbury game, having three of his teeth dislodged by a punch that concussed him.

“I have never been worried about violence in rugby, but I was worried by that Canterbury game.

The problem was not so much the punches being thrown as the

OTHER CONTENDERS • Nigel Carr • David Wallace

Maybe the most intriguing was Nigel Carr, a wonderfully dynamic No 7, whose career was so brutally cut short by an IRA bomb just weeks before the inaugural World Cup in 1987.

Carr had been one of the

absolute refusal of the referee to assert his authority,” he later observed.

Three years later, he would form what many consider – to this day – the best back-row ever to wear that famous crimson jersey with Roger Uttley and Mervyn Davies in the triumphant march through South Africa.

Yet, the physical toll of Slattery’s robust, all-action style would result in him missing the entire Five Nations tournament of ‘76 and he made himself unavailable for the following year’s Lions tour to New Zealand, citing – among other things – the boredom of a long tour as a reason.

McBride, who captained Slattery on the ‘74 tour, described him thus: “I’ve never seen such a work-rate from a player in my life. I don’t know what I would liken him to, maybe a retriever dog that goes out and never stops.”

Undoubtedly, Slattery was helped by a ferocious work ethic that enabled him become one of the fittest rugby players of his age, a man Gareth Edwards would describe as a “put-another-batteryin type of player, non-stop.” In this, he certainly would not have looked out of place in the professional era.

He was captain of Ireland’s most successful touring side ever, the one that won both Tests against Australia in ‘79 and three years later Slattery finally fulfilled his ambition to win a Triple Crown with a so-called ‘Dad’s Army’ outfit.

That ‘82 Irish back-row of Slattery, Willie Duggan and John O’Driscoll is still regarded as the best ever to wear the green. The clinching victory over Scotland triggered extraordinary emotional scenes in Dublin that, to this day, Slattery regards among the most coveted memories of a gilded career.

most exciting breakthrough players of Mick Doyle’s Triple Crown winning side of 1985 and was travelling to a national squad session in Dublin with Ulster team-mates David Irwin and Philip Rainey when they got caught up in the Border atrocity that killed a senior judge and his wife.

While all of the rugby players escaped with

relatively minor injuries, Carr’s were sufficiently serious to end his career at the age of 27. He remains, to this day, maybe the closest Ireland have come to another Slattery.

David Wallace certainly deserves consideration too, capped 72 times for his country and twice a tourist with the Lions.

“It was like Jack Charlton’s two World Cups,” he said years later.

“It was so important to the dignity of the Irish people. We see that Gaelic games and Munster winning the European Cup have had an enormous effect on people.

“But winning that in Lansdowne Road was so important for Irish rugby.”

The last of Slattery’s 65 Irish caps was won in a 25-12 loss to France at Parc des Princes in January of ’84, just two months before Duggan and O’Driscoll were also guillotined as Ireland slumped to a Five Nations whitewash.

Three greats downed in one season.

■ Nigel Carr

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Monday 22 February 2013

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FIRST XV

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WILLIE DUGGAN NUMBER 8: (1975-84)

Rab C Nesbitt image masked steel of ferocious competitor

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ARSTOOL historians have taken more than a few liberties across the years with the story of Willie Duggan’s maverick life in rugby.

“I’ve heard all the things I supposedly did in my life and I wish I had done half of them,” the granite-hard Kilkenny man once remarked.

In popular caricature, he became a kind of Irish Rab C Nesbitt figure, chain-smoking, fond of a beer and famously reticent about training.

The tales are legion. When Willie John McBride was Irish coach, Duggan reputedly turned up late for training one day, lighting up a cigarette on arrival.

McBride, it is said, suggested a warm-up, only to be waved away.

“Sure I’ve had the heater on in the car, I’m warm enough,” sighed Duggan.

An apocryphal story, maybe, but the former No 8 was never sufficiently disconcerted by such tales

Monday 22 February 2013

to mount a protest about their authenticity.

It is said, for example, that his primary concession to prematch dietary care was the ritual consumption of up to a halfdozen raw eggs on the morning of a game. That he had legendary appetite for sleep, even that Blackrock College once moved a training-session to Kilkenny to ensure his attendance, only to be disappointed as he ‘slept in’.

All stories to feed the caricature and, to some degree, the myth.

For Duggan was a ferociously serious competitor who, for a time, was recognised as the finest No 8 in Europe and, with John O’Driscoll and Fergus Slattery on either side, the spine of probably the greatest back-row ever available to Ireland.

He also toured New Zealand in ‘77 with the Lions, having already put down a marker there in a green shirt the year before.

Duggan excelled in all four Tests, one of the few Lions forwards to earn the open respect of their hosts for his ability to give and take punishment.

His physical courage sometimes bordered on the reckless and, with his unruly, tousled hair and a demeanour that radiated – above all – irreverence, he was never someone likely to be cowed by local acts of intimidation.

An immense presence at the back of a scrum, he could be a dominant figure in the line-out and had a surprising turn

of pace when scattering bodies in the loose.

Famously, he was also – along with Wales’ Geoff Wheel – the first player to be sent off in a Five Nations game, on January 8, 1977 when Scottish referee Norman Sanson decreed both to have been guilty of foul play. Wheel had been widely considered the instigator, having lashed out at Stewart McKinney only for Duggan to react by “taking a swing” at Alan Martin.

The two men joked with one another on the line after and Sanson, was subsequently widely pilloried for not adhering to what would have been the conventional approach of the era, ie letting the players sort it out among themselves.

The scores were tied 6-6 at the time (38 minutes) of the dismissals, Wales – the reigning Grand Slam champions – becoming increasingly frustrated by a rampant Irish pack, in which Duggan was dominating the line-out.

The Welsh subsequently won easily, Wheel in no doubt that Ireland had suffered the harsher penalty.

“We definitely got the best of it, because he (Duggan) was having a really good game at the back of the line-out,” said Wheel. “Willie was a great character and an exceptionally good player. They ended up losing their best player.”

Moss Keane joked after that Duggan disputed the view that he’d ever been sent off

by Sanson. On the contrary, he was merely asked would he “mind” leaving the field, to which Willie replied, “Sure not at all, I was b****ered anyway!”

He won 41 Irish caps in

OTHER CONTENDERS • Anthony Foley • Ken Goodall • Donal Spring • Jamie Heaslip Perhaps the nearest Ireland have come to a dominant No 8 since Willie Duggan was Munster’s Anthony Foley, a man with a wonderful football intellect to marry his warrior ways.

Foley became the brains of many a famous Munster victory while, in terms of sheer dynamism, Victor Costello was a virtually unstoppable ballcarrier in his prime.

Ken Goodall appeared to

have everything in his game before defecting to rugby league in 1970, while Brian Spillane was an unorthodox revelation in the No 8 shirt during the Triple Crown march of 1985.

Others like Donal Spring, Michael Gibson, Noel Mannion and Brian Robinson had their moments too.

But the man now in possession of the jersey, Jamie Heaslip, might just prove himself Ireland’s next great No 8.

■ Anthony Foley

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REMEMBERED FOR: HIS INCREDIBLE FEARLESSNESS, LIKING FOR A SMOKE AND SHARING THE DISTINCTION WITH WALES’ GEOFF WHEEL OF BEING THE FIRST PLAYERS SENT OFF IN A FIVE NATIONS GAME. total between ‘75 and ‘84, an elemental presence at the back of the scrum, who steadfastly refused to allow physical pain to impede a ferocious will to win.

New Zealanders warmed especially to this trait, likening him to another great Irishman, Bill McKay, who’d toured in 1950. He could shrug off the most wretched of thumpings to be instantly ready for battle again. Duggan played in 16 of the Lions’ 25 matches in ‘77, despite playing with a heavily strapped back that only those closest to him knew was a problem.

Ollie Campbell recalled of Ireland’s tour to Australia in ‘79: “His back was so bad that he was literally sleeping on the floor and struggling from match to match. He would play a match and basically be flat on his back until he would get up and play the next match.

“He was a genuinely hard man, one of those sort of players who you didn’t really appreciate until he wasn’t there.”

Duggan – who always smoked during his playing career – subsequently gave up cigarettes in retirement. He was captain on his last day in an Irish shirt, a 32-9 whipping by Wales at Lansdowne Road in 1984, the core of a great Irish team having grown old together.

How good was Duggan? Donal Lenihan considered him the best allround forward he ever played with.

How good could he have been? Another former Ireland and Lions colleague, David Irwin, remarked: “If you could have got him fit, he would have been the best No 8 in the world!”