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Gerry Thornley: From the Algarve to France, it’s hard to ignore the World Cup memories

It was a familiar week for Ireland with a pre-tournament training camp in the Algarve followed by a trip to Marseille

Ireland's Calvin Nash and Joe McCarthy during the captain's run ahead of the Six Nations meeting with France in Marseille. Photograph: Dan Sheridan/Inpho

Gerry Thornley's face
Gerry Thornley
Fri Feb 2 2024 - 09:20

It’s a new tournament, thank heavens for that, and a new challenge, beginning with a new venue, a new captain, three new-ish faces and the newness of a Friday night start and a potential championship decider to boot. Yet there’s also a whiff of déjà vu in the air, not least being back in France.

Some of us have been to France so often in 2023-24 that we could almost be tax exiles. Even a week’s summer holidays in the south-west was a precursor to another week in the Basque country for Ireland’s warm-up win over Samoa, which was in turn followed by a month or so in Tours with weekend ventures to Bordeaux, Nantes and Paris from a base in Tours, followed by a month in the French capital.

This week, Andy Farrell seems almost to have recreated the World Cup in microcosm. Whereas he took a 33-man squad to the Algarve for a pre-World Cup camp before matches in Bordeaux and Nantes, last Wednesday week he took a squad of 34 (plus three additional training players) back to the south coast of Portugal for some relatively warm weather training, if not as hot as last August.

Whereas there were no media engagements in the Algarve then, there were for the pre-Six Nations camp prior to the Grand Slam campaign. The big advantage from his and the squad’s perspective is simply the guaranteed good weather. The HPC in the Sports Campus in Abbotstown is a high class facility, with an indoor pitch, but the latter is not a full-size pitch and whatever about the rain, more disruptively, there is no protection from the wind on the outdoor options. And the HPC is so exposed the Government could plant some windmills there.

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Quinta do Lago, where the squad were based, exceeded expectations, in the first few days after their arrival, with temperatures reaching an unusual high of 22/23 degrees. Even one of those Irish golfers who has been visiting that part of the Algarve for many years said it had never been so warm.

Alas, come Monday, and the first media day, there were clouds and cooler temperatures. Compared to January a year ago, there seemed to be more renovations and new ‘houses’ being built. One says houses, but most of them are more akin to miniature hotels.

So apparently wealthy are the owners, nor do they need to justify their outlay by using these magnificent villas unduly. Quinta was extraordinarily quiet. Several restaurants, such as Glorias, were closed in the evenings as was the Bold Octopus, owned by Eoin O’Malley, the former Leinster centre, and his brother and business partner Brian, and group director Stephen Cooney.

That said, the trio’s bar The Cheeky Pup qualifies as the epicentre of Quinta and had some life. Maria’s, a fish restaurant on Maria’s beach, had just half a dozen of the Irish media for an 8.30pm sitting on Monday night, in an otherwise empty restaurant with more staff than clientele.

Even The United Kitchens of India, a different and memorable culinary experience, had several empty tables, but if it was good enough for the Irish management so it was good enough for us (thanks in large part to the local knowledge and recommendations of the video analyst Vinnie Hammond).

But if you find Quinta a bit too ‘golfy’ and soul-less, then a mere six miles up the coast there is Quarteira, a blue collar town which the Portuguese decided should be given a nice new promenade a few years ago to lead onto its beach.

On the promenade all ages and all types, be they locals or tourists, can be found walking up and down, and chatting. Two experienced Irish tourists were there recently and, as an example of how it is off the beaten track, noted that two lattes and two patisseries in one of the many pleasant cafes in Quarteira, came to an extortionate €5.50!

All in all then, after Wednesday’s team announcement, it was good to move on to Marseille, even if this entailed a three-hour stopover in Lisbon, a near midnight landing in the airport, and an interesting shuttle to the hotel by the old port down dark, windy country roads with access to the motorway blocked off.

Thursday was mostly a day in the Orange Vélodrome for the Captain’s Run and Peter O’Mahony’s first Six Nations pre-match press conference as captain.

To complete the cycle, we had another large pre-match gathering in a fine, cheery Italian restaurant, Boccascena. It is owned by Andre, whose brother Jose runs a camp site in the south-west and is a buddy of a good friend, Yannick, who runs an Irish bar, Bar O’Basque, in Soustons.

Spend enough time here and you can even make France seem like a small country.

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