Our sporting heroes have raised the bar — on and off the pitch
We are living through a golden era of ambition and hard work that has led to real achievement. Even as the economy goes into a tail-spin, there remains conviction that we will continue to have much great sport involving Irishmen and Irishwomen to watch, enjoy and admire for years to come. The new standards that have been set will deliver that.
Amid all the economic gloom it has been an exceptional year of achievement by Irish sportsmen that has given great pleasure. Padraig Harrington’s achievement in winning two of golf major tournaments — the British Open and the US Open — is almost certainly the greatest ever by an Irish sportsman.
Munster’s regaining of rugby’s Heineken Cup confirms it as the most successful Irish club team ever in any sport. Horse racing trainer Aidan O’Brien is setting incredible standards as he dominates Group One and Classic flat-racing, arguably surpassing even the achievements of the legendary Vincent O’Brien in the same world-class Ballydoyle stable. Three Olympic boxing medals in one year is an excellent return for such a small country and the performance in the Paralympics is even better.
In Gaelic Games, the Kilkenny team has elevated performance in our wonderful game of hurling to a whole new level — much as it pains any Corkman to admit it. Even disappointed Kerrymen would have to concede to the excellence of Tyrone in Gaelic football this decade.
Three excellent sporting autobiographies released in recent weeks demonstrate all of this. The books are by Munster and Ireland rugby stars Ronan O’Gara and Anthony Foley and Olympian great Sonia O’Sullivan. They brilliantly reveal and detail the ambition and dedication of these heroes and help us to understand why it requires far more than mere natural talent to succeed.
They exemplify the greater maturity of a new generation who released that the old Irish way of “giving it a lash” simply doesn’t cut it at the highest level. They all detail how a serious, almost obsessive work ethic has to be applied if goals are to be attained. They attest as to how failure has to be endured if success is to be achieved and then appreciated.
And yet the rugby books in particular emphasise that the sense of community in Ireland remains alive and well. The Munster rugby team, for example, may be a professional one and run in a commercial fashion to generate income, but the players have not become detached from the people in the communities in which they live. They remain aware that they are representatives of these people as well as of themselves, in much the same way as inter-county GAA players remain rooted and much the better for it.
While we have always had internationally successful sports stars in the post World War II era — think of athletes such as Ronnie Delaney and Eamon Coghlan and a range of footballers from John Giles to Liam Brady and Paul McGrath — there is something different about those of the modern generation.
They are looking for more and are prepared to work harder for it. This goes against the myth that older generations often like to peddle, that those following them are softer and somehow feckless.
Anthony Foley — whose love and admiration for his father Brendan, also a former Irish rugby international and Munster legend, is one of the more touching aspects of his book — told me once that Munster’s 1978 achievement of beating New Zealand surpassed Munster’s 2006 Heineken Cup win.
That legendary victory — and Brendan was one of its key figures — has passed into folklore. The dedication of the amateur players of the time is wonderfully captured in Alan English’s exceptional book Stand Up and Fight. But without taking anything away from those men — who are looking forward to the 30th anniversary of that achievement and the return of New Zealand to Thomond Park — it was a one-off, of the type that occasionally happened in Irish sport in the past. What Munster have achieved in Europe’s top rugby competition, winning it twice, losing the final twice and qualifying for the knock-out stages year after year, is a far greater achievement because it demanded consistency of achievement and effort over a much longer period.
While the present generation show respect for those who went before it is one of the recently retired generation who set the benchmark.
Footballer Roy Keane is the hero for so many, including O’Gara who recounts one meeting in his book. Keane’s work ethic and desire led to the achievements in his career. While he had plenty of ability on the football pitch it was his mental strength that was defining. That was rarely said about Irish people in the past. Read O’Gara’s excellent book and it is what stands out: as the out-half matured as a person and player he was able to overcome physical shortcomings in his overall play to become not just the outstanding Irish out-half of modern times but one of the best internationally too.
I look forward to Padraig Harrington telling his story in a similarly open fashion in years to come because his achievements more than any other are illustrative of the best of his generation’s can-do attitude. It is the same attitude we have seen from Tyrone and Kerry footballers and Kilkenny and Cork hurlers this decade, higher standards than have ever been seen before in the GAA. Even if purists would argue that the football of previous decades was of higher skill and better quality it is doubtful if it has ever been played by competitors as fit, especially as the number of games required to win the Sam Maguire is more than it ever was.
These amateurs have dedicated themselves in a fashion that would do many professionals shame. Not that the professionals mentioned earlier have been made soft by all of the money available to them in the modern professional era. They see it as proper reward for their endeavours — and as enabling too — but they have not lost sight of the love of sport that attracted them to their professions in the first place.
Ronan O’Gara’s book has attracted much attention for the candid manner in which he deals with the cruel unfounded rumours that have surrounded the state of his marriage and the extent of his gambling. O’Gara is to be congratulated for the way he has dealt with these. But sports fans will be more interested in the charting of the progression from boy to man, as they will be with the journeys embarked upon by Foley and O’Sullivan.
None of it came easily to them which is what made their achievements so worthwhile. Contrast their achievements with some of the business multi-millionaires — particularly in property development — to whom it all came too easily in recent years for only a fraction of the effort.
These stars will always have achievements to remember on which a price cannot be put.
The Last Word with Matt Cooper is broadcast on Today FM, Monday to Friday, 4.30pm to 7pm.
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