Compiled by JOHNNY WATTERSON
Kidney's roll of honours
We’re a fickle lot. While Declan Kidney is unlikely to rack up 1,000 games with any club as Guy Noves did last weekend with Toulouse (mostly as a manager and coach but also as a player), if all goes belly up for Ireland, a coach with better credentials than his is highly unlikely to come in.
Who else can bring this to the party?
Munster: Heineken Cup: (2) 2005/06, 2007/08; (1) Celtic League: 2002/03.
Ireland: Six Nations Championship: (1) 2009 (Grand Slam); (1) 2009 Triple Crown; (1) IRB Under 19 Rugby World Championship: (1) 1998 Churchill Cup.
Individual: (1) IRB International Coach of the Year 2009.
Roaring success with Lions
These are Lions watch days and everyone is looking at Brian O’Driscoll, the modern-day tale of rugby success. But it’s worth looking back. The centre is hoping for his fourth Lions tour this summer but Tony O’Reilly, like O’Driscoll, was always a man in a hurry. It took 18-year-old O’Reilly only five senior club appearances with Belvedere to play his way into the Irish team (20-year-old O’Driscoll played for Ireland before Leinster). Between 1955 and 1970 O’Reilly won 29 caps. Not a great return for a Five Nations career of 15 years and 23 days but it was, for a while, the longest in history.
After four caps O’Reilly became a teenage Lion. His 16 tries in South Africa in 1955 still stands as a post-war record in that country and his 17 tries in New Zealand four years later was equalled by John Bevan in 1971, but has yet to be bettered. His 38 tries is the highest tally by a Lions player.
Mr Blue Sky Gilroy in tune with JCB Jackson
Players debuting for Ireland go through a ritual when they gain their first cap and are asked to sing a song on the team bus. When Ulster winger Craig Gilroy won his first cap recently he sang Mr Blue Sky by the Electric Light Orchestra. And don’t you know, it’s a beautiful new day hey, hey . . .
Paddy Jackson declared yesterday he would be singing either the JCB song by Nizlopi, an acoustic version, or else a rap tune. I’m Luke, I’m five, and my dad’s Bruce Lee. Drives me round in his JCB,” says the JCB song. “And I’m so glad I’m not in school, Boss. So glad I’m not in school.”
Well, Jackson is only 21 years old.
There’s no love lost between Ireland and Scotland women’s rugby teams, who meet on Saturday. Coming off the back of their fine win against England last week, Ireland go in this week as favourites. But it wasn’t always that way for Fiona Coughlan’s team.
The match not only marks the mid-point of the championship for both sides but also the 20th anniversary of Scotland Women’s first international fixture, which also happened to be against Irish opposition, on St Valentine’s Day, 1993. That day the Scots won 10-0.
