Comment
My father was a proud Ulsterman from Belfast and a staunch Ireland rugby fan.
As I grew up during the ‘70s and ’80s, we watched Ireland countless times in the televised Five Nations and it was always the same story — the men in green shirts were fast and furious in their endeavours but they lacked structure and finesse. It was always with hope and little optimism that we tuned in to watch the headless chickens lose. Again.
Neither of us would have predicted in our wildest dreams that one day Ireland would be Europe’s best team for a significant period, albeit between World Cups, and that their success would be underpinned by an impregnable game structure.
Ireland would no longer be “have-a-go” merchants who lost with a shrug of the shoulders and smiles on their dials as they headed off for a Guinness.
Even tougher to predict was that when sustained success came to the Ireland rugby team, it would be crowned with arrogance. It wasn’t the case at first but as the Six Nations titles accumulated, the happy-go-lucky Irish became entitled and full of themselves.
During the last World Cup, Eben Etzebeth called the Irish out for their cocky comments after they had beaten the Springboks in a pool game. Etzebeth was taken aback when the Irish players told him, ‘see you in the final’.
They expected to be there and win it, and their conceited comments dripped with hubris. Sure enough, the All Blacks wiped the smug smiles off their faces, but Ireland and their supporters did not eat their humble pie. That quarter-final loss was seen as an aberration and this was confirmed in their eyes when they won the first Six Nations after the World Cup.
A week before this last weekend’s showdown in Dublin with France, Brian O’Driscoll made a telling statement. O’Driscoll, arguably Ireland’s greatest player, said belief in the national team had now gone beyond simply confidence.
When asked if there was an Irish arrogance, he said: “For sure, not like maybe.”
“You have to remember, with teams that have gone well, and Leinster would be the same, I don’t think there’s much love for Leinster across Europe. People will say that’s because the fans are hard to deal with,” O’Driscoll said.
“I hear that from my (TV) work colleagues over in the UK, there’s not much love for Leinster and there’s less and less love for Ireland around being good winners.”
The subtext to O’Driscoll’s comments is that pride comes before a fall, and against the fired-up French, the Irish took a mighty tumble.
But the Irish arrogance runs deeper than crowing fans and self-satisfied players. A universal fact in sport is that successful teams are hard to like because they tend to get away with murder. It was like that when the All Blacks were imperiously sweeping all before them. Referees seemed afraid to penalise them and authorities tended to rule only in their favour.
It was just like this a few weeks back when Ireland centre Garry Ringrose and France flyhalf Romain Ntamack committed the same tackling offence in Six Nations matches but received different sentences.
France asked World Rugby for an explanation. They are still waiting for an answer from the governing body’s headquarters in Dublin. Yes, Dublin, maybe it is all too close to home.
And at the weekend French rancour went through the roof when their treasured Antoine du Pont was recklessly cleaned out at a ruck by Tadgh Beirne and Andrew Porter. Dupont has suffered a season-ending knee injury but French pleas for justice have fallen on deaf ears. There was no citing during the match and none after.
France emphatically won on the scoreboard, though, and hopefully this sparks serious introspection in the Emerald Isle. They should look at what happened to the Australia cricket team when arrogance got ugly.