Rugby crowds at Lansdowne Road have been criticised for not making enough noise in recent games. But of all the people attending today's international, one man could be excused for a lack of enthusiasm.
Victor Connell was a rugby player himself until last October, a fixture in the front row for Longford RFC. Then, scrumming down in the dying minutes of a game against Roscrea, he suffered an injury that changed his life.
"I heard a crack in my spine," he recalled from his bed in the National Medical Rehabilitation Centre yesterday. "Then I just felt all the power drain from my body."
He shouted and the referee broke up the scrum. But the damage was done. The 25-year-old collapsed, knowing that his rugby career was over. He still has some power in his left arm and has recovered enough in his right to shrug his shoulders. But he knows that's probably as far as his recovery will go.
The surprise is he has lost none of his love for rugby.
"I'd go back in the morning if I could," he says. "I love the game and that's that."
His positive attitude to life in general has also survived the catastrophic injury: "You have to get on with things, or you'd do nothing."
His former team-mates feel just as positively towards him, and have set up the Victor Connell Trust Fund to help pay for his care.
Today's game will mark the first fundraising drive, with collections outside the stadium. More information about the fund is available at www.4victor.com
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