‘Golden generation’ could slip out the Trap door
That’s because a quick look at the recent history of our international sides shows they just can’t succeed at the same time.
Since the Rugby World Cup introduced a new four-year cycle into team management, just as the (original) World Cup did for the 11-a-side game, there’s only room for one side to capture the public’s affection. It’s as if the deal with the devil didn’t have its fine print examined: one team in Ireland, or one team at a time, anyway.
Consider this: the first Rugby World Cup, way back in 1987, marked a last hurrah for the 1982-’85 Irish rugby team, who’d won Triple Crowns and given a gloomy nation a boost when it was badly needed.
No sooner had they come home from New Zealand than Ireland qualified for the Euro 88 thanks to Scot Gary McKay’s goal against Bulgaria, kicking off the best of Jack Charlton years as the rugger side declined.
If you’d asked about the pride of a nation back then, to use a popular phrase, there was only one answer. The Boys in Green (association) were contesting World Cups and European Championships, while the other Boys in Green (rugby union) were enduring the wilderness years. Years when they couldn’t beat Italy, for instance.
By contrast, Charlton was the most popular man in Ireland, and his players were adored as they qualified for the 1990 and 1994 World Cups. At one stage we were all giving them the credit for kickstarting the Celtic Tiger years, but the way that period ended, maybe that’s not such a good idea.
They cheered the country up before we discovered that flying to New York because the jeans were cheaper there than in Ireland was a good way to spend your money.
Anyway, enough of the economics. The two paths began to diverge again at the beginning of the last decade, and once again there was a remarkable symmetry involved.
Under Warren Gatland’s coaching Ireland improved — remember when he was popular around here? No? — though that was thanks in no small part to the influx of youngsters like Brian O’Driscoll, and the 2001 international season was a rewarding one until the foot and mouth crisis — remember that? — delayed Ireland’s game against Scotland until the autumn, when they lost. Disaster.
On the round-ball front, things were going a good deal better, with Mick McCarthy managing Ireland to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.
Well, we all know how that went. Least said, soonest mended.
But the soccer team went downhill after 2002. Gatland was sacked as rugby boss late in 2001 and Eddie O’Sullivan came in as manager, improving rugby matters immensely. Triple Crowns were won, southern hemisphere opposition was beaten and the likes of Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara became household names and faces.
Rugby was played in Croke Park and Heineken Cups were won.
While this was happening, football supporters were watching Steve Staunton manage their team. Again, least said, etc.
Now things have changed once again, with the big karmic wheel going through another revolution. And if the mandarins of the FAI could be forgiven for having their eyes light up as the clock ticked down in Wellington last Saturday, were brows wrinkling in the IRFU’s Lansdowne Road headquarters when they thought about Ireland versus Armenia in the Aviva midweek, and the home side’s inevitable victory?
After all, where are the two teams now? The rugby lads have come home to an array of speculative when-will-they-retire articles and heavy hinting about the ages of key players, some of whom are over 30 and have a lot of miles on the clock.
The soccer team, however, have a metaphorical foot in Poland and the Ukraine for next summer. Despite playing a fairly repellent brand of football, they may have to work their summer holidays around the European Championships, as they’re likely to be busy for those couple of weeks.
A cynic could point to the aesthetes’ disaffection with Jack Charlton’s playing style, of course, and balance that with the reaction of the public in the summers the Geordie steered the team to the big show. A rugby supporter with a sense of history might be wincing about the next couple of years.
* michael.moynihan@examiner.ie Twitter: MikeMoynihanEx
