IT’S NICE to be liked and, after a spell as the outcasts of Europe and the butt of jokes in the City about our economic outlook, Ireland – or, more pertinently, the Irish rugby team – managed to lift the doom and gloom as newspapers in Britain and France extolled the Grand Slam-winning team’s virtues with not a hint of begrudgery to be found anywhere.
Just like old times, really.
If there was the sense generally that Ireland were due a Grand Slam, there was also the acceptance that they had earned it through their own deeds.
Under the headline, “Intestinal fortitude allows Kidney’s men to finally expel chokers’ tag,” Paul Hayward in the Observer wrote: “Strictly, a Grand Slam is a mere adornment to a championship title. Ireland had won four of those since the post-war side of Jack Kyle and co swept the board in the old Five Nations tournament.
“There is, though, a special magic to a perfect 5-0 record, especially to a country smeared by sport’s most unwanted tag: that of chokers.”
He continued: “That insult has been removed, if it was ever right in the first place. At no point in this scintillating game did Ireland lack intestinal fortitude . . . . this was an Irish performance of immense courage and resolve.”
In the French sports daily L’Equipe, Bertrand Lagacherie wrote that Ireland “gave a lesson of courage and selflessness” and made the point that Ireland’s win was “the revenge of a (golden) generation that had previously missed all its major appointments.”
Lagacherie wrote, “this gifted generation, led by the gang of ‘O’ – the O’Driscoll, O’Connell, O’Gara and others – was to lead Irish rugby to the highest level” and made the point that Declan Kidney’s appointment as manager gave “hope to players who seemed not to believe in their collective capabilities”.
In the Sunday Telegraph, Paul Ackford wrote of a “wonderful, wonderful match with a climax as good as any in Six Nations history. The upshot of it all is that Ireland are Grand Slam champions, 61 years of longing ended with a performance of courage and composure. Ronan O’Gara scored the winning points with a drop goal, but this was a magnificent team effort”.
Ackford added: “If anyone still has doubts about the courage of the modern rugby player and the gladiatorial nature of the big games, the first quarter would have dispelled those reservations. The start was fantastically confrontational.”
Patrick Collins, in the Mail on Sunday, was similarly impressed by the manner of Ireland’s long-awaited Grand Slam win. He wrote, “on a Cardiff evening of relentless tension and improbable drama, Ireland delivered their glorious Slam. And the prize which had eluded them for 61 years finally yielded to the force of their will and the scope of their talents”.
Collins called it “a fierce, compelling and frequently brutal contest” which “withheld its result until the final seconds of the final minute”, adding: “A team led by Brian O’Driscoll and bullied into glory by the astonishing Paul O’Connell had passed its final test . . . . these fine players, along with the likes of Stephen Ferris and Jerry Flannery, Luke Fitzgerald, Tommy Bowe and the rest, could take their place alongside the heroes of old. Where the great characters of Irish rugby, from Willie Duggan and Moss Keane to Tony Ward and Ollie Campbell, had repeatedly tried and frustratingly failed, the victors of 2009 would be forever bracketed with the men of ’48.”
And James Corrigan in the Independent on Sunday reckoned that the Grand Slam achievement “was one of the island’s proudest sporting occasions; if not its very proudest”.
Andrew Baldock in Scotland on Sunday wrote that “a new chapter in Ireland’s rugby history had been written in blood and sweat and finally in tears of ecstasy. This is what sport is all about. You might get better rugby matches than Ireland’s 17-15 victory over Wales. But rarely do they come laced with more thrills, more edge-of-the-seat tension and more drama than we witnessed as a Six Nations of mediocrity served up a finale to remember”.
