Chips with everything: Triple Crown revisited

Sports Books 2004/Rugby:Of all the sports literature out there in our book shops, rugby is one of the mostly poorly served - unless you dig deep. Somewhat tired and jaded, and often premature biographies crowd the shelves with little in the way of variation, although the sport's increasing popularity and higher profile is beginning to prompt a change in that regard.

Ireland's Triple Crown success earlier this year, following on from England's World Cup victory the previous autumn, have already given rise to a couple of welcome additions to the genre. The former is celebrated in Peter O'Reilly's account of Ireland's first Triple Crown success since 1985, entitled The Full Bag of Chips; Ireland and the Triple Crown (published by O'Brien Press, price €19.95); the title having been borrowed from one of Eddie O'Sullivan's colloquialisms.

"The Full Bag of Chips" is a taut, tightly-edited account of the season as O'Reilly, rugby correspondent of the Sunday Tribune, takes an anecdotal approach as opposed to writing a straightforward historical record. And it's all the more interesting a read for that.

Confined to just five chapters, the first puts the Triple Crown into context by recounting the previous six by way of anecdotes. To begin with, the 1985 success is recounted through the eyes of Fergal O'Gara, who had his two sons, Colin and Ronan, with him in the Lansdowne Road as the final leg of that campaign against England was being dramatically played out and had a train from Heuston Station to catch.

Des O'Brien also tells O'Reilly of the remarkable night Ireland clinched the 1948 Grand Slam, when he, Paddy Reid and the late JC Daly ended up in a police cell, basically for high jinks after a run-in with members of an Orange Flute Band.

In the remaining chapters, which chart the 2004 Six Nations championship, there are plenty of contributions from current players, who provide the focal point for the stories surrounding each match. There is a revealing input from Gordon D'Arcy, who began the campaign as a surprise call-up in midfield after his burst of form in that new position for him during January with Leinster, and all this after missing out on the World Cup squad of 30 altogether.

Even more revealing is the admission from his room-mate Shane Byrne that he was petrified of being dropped at the start of the campaign. Ultimately, there's an ironic twist to his story when Keith Wood, his long-time adversary, is obliged to don a "mullet" wig on BBC's Rugby Special after Byrne's two-try, man-of-the-match performance against Wales. Wood had more or less backed his fellow Munsterman Frankie Sheahan as his successor.

Paul O'Connell gives an insight into being the captain of the team and how the whole Irish operation works from management down, and the victory in Twickenham is in part looked at from the perspective of Malcolm O'Kelly, who came back from the dead (suspended for his tardy arrival at a pre-championship training session, he temporarily lost his place) to pull off that tackle from the edge of the earth on Mark Regan.

Sport's place in the greater scheme of things and the clinching Triple Crown victory in particular is put into context by the author's account of the death of Irish under-19 flanker John McCall earlier that same day in an Under-19 World Cup match against New Zealand in Durban. Philip Browne, the IRFU chief executive, and other members of the union's hierarchy hardly saw any of the game as they spent most of the afternoon trying to make contact with Irish officials in Durban after being notified of the tragedy half-an-hour before the kick-off against Scotland.

"What had been planned as one of Irish rugby's happiest days was already one of its saddest," writes O'Reilly, who relays how messages were sent out over the Lansdowne Road tannoy before John Callaghan, a member of the IRFU Committee, eventually contacted McCall's father Ian on his mobile phone during the half-time interval. He had been watching the Ireland-Scotland game at home on television. O'Reilly dedicates his book to the memory of John McCall.

A far weightier tome altogether is Clive Woodward's Winning (published by Hodder & Stoughton, price c €29), a biography of sorts but mostly the story of England's rise to World Cup glory. One would be tempted to say it is for devotees only, although it is a very detailed account of the Woodward's extraordinary attention to detail in creating the environment for England's triumph. Although comparatively longer and less anecdotal, it is an often intriguing insight into how that World Cup win was achieved.

Also out there is Will Greenwood's autobiography, simply entitled Will (published by Century, c €26.10), as befits one of the most engaging and self-effacing players on the rugby circuit.

His rugby story is still unfinished, although sadly one suspects Jonah Lomu's is. His autobiography (Jonah Lomu, the autobiography published by Headline, c €27.55) celebrates the first truly global star of the professional game, and couldn't but be a fascinating for anyone who was entranced by a player who took the label game-breaker to a new level.