Irish rugby revels in season in the sun

“Honesty, trust, hard work, the willingness to go the extra little bit. It’s like what I said earlier, nobody was blaming anybody. We had none of that, no cliques, no nothing. We gave it a go in the best way possible. You cannot overestimate honesty.” – Declan Kidney, March 21st, in the corridors of the Millennium Stadium

REWIND 12 months and it’s easy to forget where Irish rugby was. Ireland had just grimly held on to eighth place in the world rankings to secure the last of the second-tier seedings for the World Cup draw courtesy of a forgettable 17-3 wins over an Argentina team further depleted by losing Juan Martin Hernandez in the warm-up.

This had followed New Zealand’s bloodless coup at Croke Park a week before, which had left players and management alike stunned by the lack of confidence within the group as the hangover from the last 12 months of the Eddie O’Sullivan era lingered on.

Entering 2009, Ireland had won just four of its 10 matches in 2008, all at home against the combined might of Italy, Scotland, Canada and the understrength Pumas. All told, in Ireland’s previous 18 matches, there had been 11 defeats, while the other three wins had been a fortunate victory over Italy at Ravenhill and those taut World Cup wins over Namibia and Georgia. Notions of winning a Grand Slam would have had you in a straitjacket.

On the provincial front, admittedly, Munster and Leinster had been restoring pride and self-belief, the former having regained the Heineken Cup and Leinster having won the Magners League, although Michael Cheika’s detractors were still lurking in the long grass.

Munster duly ensured a home quarter-final against the Ospreys by dint of handsome wins over Sale and Montauban, whereas Leinster couldn’t buy a try in the 19-12 defeat to Wasps and 12-3 win over Edinburgh which earned an away quarter-final at Harlequins.

It transpired that the “honesty sessions” just before Christmas in the Marriott Hotel in Enfield were the origins of the Grand Slam. There, famously, Rob Kearney had brought up an elephant in the room, namely about the Munster players’ passion for the red and green jerseys before the squad were gobsmacked, rapt and inspired for two hours by Pádraig Harrington.

Most pertinent of all was the revised game plan, fed to the players and devised by Kidney, Gert Smal, Les Kiss and Alan Gaffney. Where there had been some confusion the preceding November, thereafter there was clarity. They didn’t try to reinvent the wheel. The forwards were granted more licence to take on opposition packs.

As with all Kidney teams, territory was a key aspect, and once achieved, patience became the team’s primary virtue with an emphasis on always trying to return with at least three points.

The more varied and proactive Kiss defence permitted shooters such as Brian O’Driscoll and Jamie Heaslip to leave the line and make impact hits.

First up in the Six Nations were France, who had won the last seven encounters. On that first weekend in February both sides were full of running and attacked from long range, the French ominously drawing first blood with a try by Imanol Harinordoquy.

Just past the half-hour came the first landmark moment in a year full of landmark moments. Ireland attacked from a lineout inside their own 10-metre line, Tommy Bowe wrapping around a decoy shield, Kearney hitting the line, Bowe taking the return offload to give the move its impetus and from the recycle Heaslip finished wondrously.

There was also something revealing about the joyous way the players celebrated. There was rediscovered energy, spirit and even fun for the game in the Irish jersey. It was as if they’d had a collective lobotomy.

Trademark second-half tries by O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy reaffirmed their well-being on an emotional day. With one bound and a memorable 31-20 win, Ireland were reborn.

The wins over Italy, England and Scotland possibly didn’t scale those heights again, but with each game Ireland adapted accordingly. Another trademark of the campaign would be the way they cranked up the intensity, often as not in the third quarter, and come hell or high water, pulled ahead.

Against England Ronan O’Gara’s place-kicking radar had been awry, obliging O’Driscoll to opt for a drop goal at the start of the second half to make it a mere 6-3. The captain was still feeling the effects of a late block by Delon Armitage when his trusted lieutenants, Paul O’Connell and O’Gara, opted to kick the penalty to the corner. The English team must have felt the psychic energy in the green jerseys as much as the tremors in the ground.

It was a seminal moment. Back they went to the corner twice more and then cleverly opted for a scrum after Phil Vickery became one of 10 yellow-carded members of the Red Rose in just four games for slowing the ball down, thereby obliging England to sacrifice a backrower, James Haskell. Down there for dancing! The try which O’Driscoll then scored – from a succession of close-in rumbles – was almost as inevitable as night following day.

And so the Grand Slam roadshow took to Murrayfield and Cardiff. Now also assuming the role of a cardiac team, cue a couple of emotionally draining back-to-back Saturdays. And cue O’Gara. He held his nerve in the horribly taut 22-15 win over Scotland with a 17-point haul to set up the decider with reigning Slam champions Wales.

Warren Gatland, as is his wont, stoked up the embers by revealing Welsh players disliked the Irish the most. It lived up to the hype anyhow, and some.

The double whammy by Bowe and O’Driscoll early in the second half appeared to have steered Ireland to the promised land whereupon, it seemed, the players Wayne Barnes disliked the most were Irish.

O’Gara’s drop goal – he could probably have taken Peter Stringer’s pass blindfolded – and his ensuing celebration will forever be the defining image of the year, but it could just as easily have been Stephen Jones’ ensuing penalty with the last kick of the game from halfway. Had that gone over, examination of Barnes’ performance and his 15-5 penalty count (8-1 in the second half, affording Stephen Jones six penalty shots at goal to one by O’Gara) would have sparked greater examination and a sense of injustice lasting for aeons.

“It’s a special time, but it’s everybody’s team, and I genuinely mean that,” said Kidney afterwards. “It’s everybody’s. Ye had a part to play in that as well. We want to be honest with one another. We’ll celebrate in a balanced way hopefully . . . ah to hell we won’t, we’ll make the most of it. We’ll continue to do that, and hopefully we’ll make Ireland proud of us.”

That they did, and in a time of greed, wastefulness, and then gloom, the open invitation to jump aboard and celebrate too was warmly embraced.

And the big days kept coming. Perhaps, in hindsight, Munster were too good for their own good in their Euro quarter-final rout of the Ospreys, in contrast to the grit Leinster showed in withstanding Harlequins’ best and worst intentions.

Come the sea of blue-and-red in the Croker semi-final and it was Leinster, assailed by former players in time-honoured fashion, who harboured all the grudges and the revenge motives built up over years.

Their gifted backs also rediscovered their mojo in that 25-6 semi-final win and Jonathan Sexton bookended the final with a mammoth drop goal and his grinning accompanied a slightly mishit match-winning penalty in the victory over Leicester.

A little corner of Edinburgh was turned into a different hue of blue that day.

Helped by some bloke called Rocky, the new generation of Leinster kids groomed by Cheika had helped the old guard – O’Driscoll, Shane Horgan, Malcolm O’Kelly, Leo Cullen, Bernard Jackman, Gordon D’Arcy and co – to finally reach their Holy Grail.

The only pity was that the likes of Denis Hickie, Keith Gleeson, Victor Costello, Reggie Corrigan and Shane Byrne weren’t part of it, but they were there in spirit nonetheless. And with that Felipe Contepomi and Chris Whitaker headed off into the sunset as well.

About the only blemish was the curse that afflicted Munstermen after their record representation on the Lions and that Paul O’Connell’s superb leadership didn’t lead to the ultimate prize of a Lions’ Test series win for a core group of Irish and Welsh players. That it didn’t was largely down to the Lions starting the first Test with the wrong team (whereas the Springboks finished with the wrong one). But in a Ian McGeechan-friendly British media, the head coach escaped virtually any flak.

Recompense came by way of the November win over the world champions, thus ensuring an unbeaten calendar year for Ireland and a year-end ranking of fourth. Oh yeah, and Munster won the Magners League and an Irish A team comprised primarily of provincial fringe players beat an English Saxons team in the Churchill Cup final.

You couldn’t have scripted it. The year ends with Irish rugby at an all-time high. Kidney and his brains trust were the key, but the provinces fed into Ireland and vice versa, and credit has to go to the IRFU’s player management.

It’ll take some equalling and could only be bettered by a World Cup. But after the year of all years so far, without being greedy, we can dream.

MOMENTS OF THE YEAR:Geordan Murphy catching Stephen Jones' penalty with the last play of the Six Nations and running gleefully toward touch-in-goal before hammering the ball into the crowd. And with that a 61-year-old monkey had been removed from the collective backs of Irish rugby players. No one looked more relieved than Jack Kyle.

Ronan O’Gara’s drop goal. You know. That one.

Jamie Heaslip’s try v France. Meeting French brilliance on the day with some of their own, from that moment it was clear that Ireland were enjoying playing rugby again and that, maybe, something special was being brewed.

Brian O’Driscoll’s try v England. Semi-conscious, perhaps he thought he was a forward.

Rocky Elsom’s rumble in Murrayfield. Just hit by the Tigers’ 13 point salvo, trailing 16-9 seven minutes into the second-half, Elsom fielded a kick by Geordan Murphy, set off, rounded Tom Croft, dummied Alesana Tuilagi – see you later – and handed off George Chuter. Re-energised by that, Leinster were level within two minutes and Jonny boy did the rest.

Luke Fitzgerald’s try v Munster. Having turned around 11-6 ahead, the sheer quality of that score, the Malcolm O’Kelly lineout take, the go-forward generated in turn by the three frontrowers and the textbook handling through 9, 10, 15, 13 and 14 for Fitzgerald to step inside Warwick was sheer Leinster.

In that moment, you knew there’d been a seismic shift in the balance of power.