Following on 61 years and umpteen interviews with Jack Kyle, the great man can retire to obscurity safe in the knowledge that his legacy is secure and that another great back will perhaps face the same yearning questions in years to come. My joy at Ireland winning the slam is confined, perhaps in part due to having had a bug in the run up to the final game and in its aftermath. From Wednesday week ago I was making unscheduled visits to the ‘john’ and by Friday evening I was visiting the wash hand basin and ‘john’ in equal measure, if you get my drift. I was not feeling too good.
Saturday afternoon I had arranged to go into Belfast with my old mate Ron the Spark and hoped to link up in the Kitchen Bar with another fella and his Welsh mate. A hiving Kitchen Bar persuaded me to head for McHughs by the Albert Clock. The basement of this illustrious establishment was choc a bloc but by then I was fading physically and decided to stay put.
With pint in hand the match began and I jostled for a clear view of the screen as two girls in front of me moved about a bit too much for comfort. The presumed boyfriend of one of them also kept up a constant head swivelling movement which contributed to my semi view of the first half. The girls were clearly not rugby fans and one actually spent most of the time handing out drinks to the others in her company from a table nearby, in between frequent trips to the toilets with her mate.
Times change of course as Bob Dylan was fond of telling anyone who’d listen and were once McHughs was a haven of rugby diehards, today it was mainly a young crowd all dressed up in their Ireland shirts, with all the appeal in attitude of Holyland ‘revellers’. When Warren Gatland appeared on screen, hand signals of the miscreant nature flourished in tandem with boos. There was little of the rugby camaraderie that used to permeate these occasions amongst this crowd and I concluded that few of these types will ever appear at Ravenhill, thankfully. Of course they’d been primed through the media to know who Brian O’Driscoll was and a few growled out Athenry. When the match was over, a minority swarmed round the screen blocking everyone else’s view. I retreated upstairs, had another ‘celebratory’ pint and headed home. I watched the second half courtesy of SKY plus and retired to bed early not a well man.
The rest is history and I have actually watched the entire match again and ran the gauntlet of all the hype generated by UTV and BBC Newsline. I’m not entirely clear of this bug and continue to be underwhelmed by it all. Much the same as Jack Kyle it would appear, though for different reasons.
My latter thoughts have been assembled in the cold light of day and seasoned over the entire 6 Nations campaign. Watching Ireland inexorably move towards the Grand Slam was like seeing one of these Tibetan pilgrims whose pilgrimage consists entirely of crawling towards their destination of worship by throwing themselves full length on the ground over and over again. That Ireland have never entirely shaken off a conservative approach and expressed themselves in the manner of Tommy Bowe, post slam, sing a long, is down to a pragmatic gameplan, were defence has been key. It is no coincidence that either Scotland, Italy or Wales breached Ireland’s try line. In American football, defense usually wins the ultimate championship, the Super Bowl.
So it was with Ireland. Along the way there were clearly some strange selections which didn’t stack up when they were explained to the media. Take Paddy Wallace, at inside centre for his distribution skills, which would have made more sense had Stringer been at scrum half. You sensed that a fulcrum of Stringer, O’Gara and Wallace was too much of a defensive weak link for the coaches to adopt given the emphasis on defence. Indeed in the final game. Philips breached the half backs with ease towards the end of the match as the Irish back row tired.
More realistically was the thought that Wallace was keeping the seat warm whilst D’Arcy got match fit. After all with a defensive mindset to your game, distributing the ball is an aptitude not required at 12. As noted on this site in the quotes, BOD’s effusive welcome of Wallace at 12 was followed by an equally effusive welcome for D’Arcy when he replaced Wallace. Jimmy Nelson, one of the old 48er’s remarked that BOD was a good player but that he took too much out of the ball. If BOD takes too much out of the ball then D’Arcy is positively a ball hugger, turning inside at every opportunity.
One wonders how long Ireland can settle for this before they meet a team who will match them up front and in the back row forcing them to play through the backs with ball in hand and requiring plan B. Something they haven’t had to do in this championship.
Looking at the rejuvenated BOD one wonders what has motivated the great man. To be entirely cynical, a Lions tour has banished all those hamstring troubles but it cannot hide the fact that should the Lions spread the ball wide he may not have the speed to keep up. His game nowadays is primarily a defensive one and one which hides the lack of pace so alarmingly demonstrated on the last tour to the southern Hemisphere.
He is media savvy compared to O’Connell and that would stand him in great stead in land of the Boks but one wonders if he would make a Lions team which wanted to move the ball or put another way could he be accommodated in that team. For me O’Connell is the guy that has all the attributes of a captain on the field of play but perhaps does not have the refined media presence off it. He would be my choice of Lions captain.
It wasn’t a classic 6N and France and Wales demeaned it in some ways by fielding either idiosyncratic selections or weakened teams whilst Italy’s Mallet needed hit over the head, malletlike, for his Bergamasco selection at 9. To quote Mallet though, when asked whether he had damaged Bergasmsco, (one presumes psychologically or career ways), the coach replied that people should get a grip, nobody had died. That sums it up, nobody died though the way the physical collisions are generating sheer force, one wonders what long term damage is being done to some bodies.
It’s not a matter of life and death but in my somewhat downbeat state, one could not help but feel a slight sense of exclusion, perhaps expressed by the manner of some of the punters watching the GS game in McHughs. It manifested itself in the flourishing of tricolours draped over player’s shoulders. Of course you could argue that an Ireland player might feel obliged to take a national flag if offered one, but the overwhelming display of nationality at the Millennium stadium left one feeling a tad disenfranchised. It is an all Ireland game and our national diversity is welded together by sport as a welcome change to the two nation split in other sports on the island. So it is disappointing that people revert to their national identity at a peak moment in sporting triumph. The international message to an international audience could not be misinterpreted, this was a sporting triumph for Southern Ireland if the national flag flying was to be believed.
It is back to my beloved Ulster as they face the Leinster Lions at the RDS. I’ll be there in body and more in hope than in massive self belief that we can win.
That’s it for now, chat soon as BJ Botha might say.
Corrections, comments or questions?