The warlike sport of rugby, which will be watched with interest this weekend as Ireland take on Scotland, is being used as an improbable peacekeeping tool by Irish troops serving in Bosnia.
The Irish soldiers, who are serving as monitors and military police with the multinational peacekeeping forces, are helping to coach young players in one of the country's two rugby-playing centres, north of Sarajevo.
Few people realised the sport had a keen, though small, support base in Yugoslavia before the civil war, and it is beginning to resurface now that peace is coming about.
The Irish involvement began last October as Comdt Johnny Molloy, who used to coach the Army rugby team, spotted a number of young men playing tip rugby in a field outside Zenica where he was stationed with the European Commission Monitoring Mission.
"I went over and introduced myself and asked them what the situation was. I asked if they wanted anyone to get involved in coaching and they were happy to have me. I had been here a few months and I had no idea anyone had ever played rugby," he said.
Comdt Molloy learned that rugby had been enthusiastically played and followed in Zenica, which was formerly the country's main steel-producing centre. There were five clubs in the town, composed mainly of Muslim members but also containing Croats and a small number of Serbs. The only other rugby-playing area is on the Croatian coast around Split.
He found that the teams had virtually no training equipment and played on rented soccer pitches. Soccer and basketball are the principal spectator sports in Bosnia. He applied to Army Headquarters for help as rugby was one of the few activities in the region that was entirely non-sectarian and brought different ethnic groups together in an - almost - entirely peaceful way.
The Army sent out a consignment of training equipment including tackle and rucking bags, balls, cones and training bibs before Christmas. Comdt Molloy was helped in his coaching sessions with the Zenica teams by his fellow monitor, Comdt J.J. O'Reilly, Sgts John Carroll and Bernard Higgins and Cpl David Fagan.
"The local guys really appreciated it very much. For once, somebody was doing something with them rather than talking about it," Comdt Molloy, who is now based in Sarajevo and travels to Zenica at weekends, said.
His experience as a qualified IRFU coach and player at provincial level is being used to help draw together a Bosnian junior team to play at an International Rugby Federation championship in Switzerland later this month.
The national junior team, bringing together former Muslim and Croatian protagonists in the civil war, needs more coaching and playing experience. Comdt Molloy is trying to raise funds to bring two leading Irish coaches and hopes that the informal English touring team, the Penguins, will come to Croatia later this year as part of a tour of Europe.