Blast ye, heroes of ’78, ye made our lives a misery
OH YES, the class of ’78, the most famous Munster team of the amateur era. It is hard to believe that 30 years have passed since that famous day in Thomond Park and the mystique that now surrounds that fixture. As a Munster player, living in the shadow of that great side in the years that followed certainly wasn’t easy.
Their legacy cast a big shadow.
Unlike many who have even convinced themselves at this stage that they were in Limerick that day, I can claim with hand on heart to be one of the immortal 12,000 lucky enough to boast “I was there”. The irony as far as I can recall is that the ground was not full. I took my place on the terrace in front of the old stand accompanied by long-time Munster manager and my UCC second-row partner at the time Jerry Holland. Holland was to get his first cap for Munster in the province’s very next game, a win against Connacht, a few weeks later.
Travelling with my father to the match I remember the buzz of anticipation that surrounded this fixture, having also attended the two previous encounters against the All Blacks that decade, the 3-3 draw in Musgrave Park in 1973 when Munster were denied victory by a last-minute penalty from Trevor Morris and the 4-14 defeat in Thomond Park the following year.
What is even more striking looking back is the fact that the sides met three times in a five-year period.
The 1978 game was more significant for me as, having secured a regular starting place in the engine room for College as a raw 19 year old, I had begun to test my wares against the likes of Ginger McLoughlin, Pat Whelan, Brendan Foley, Colm Tucker and Christy Cantillon while playing in the Munster Senior League.
Within two seasons I was pinching myself as I shared a Munster dressing room for the first time with many of the players I had watched from the grass banks of Musgrave and Thomond Park on so many occasions. Over the following seasons I was privileged to play for Munster with all but one of the famous pack who conquered New Zealand: Les White from London Irish being the exception. Yet by 1981, for one reason or another, only five of the victorious 1978 team were still on board when Australia were beaten in Musgrave Park.
Throughout the 1980s, living up to the deeds of the team that conquered the All Blacks proved difficult. Munster traditionally fared better against the might of touring teams from South Africa, Australia or New Zealand than against our domestic rivals. That says something about the Munster mentality: I believe that the combined talents of the Munster clubs at that stage only ever really pulled together with the prospect of lowering the colours of the super powers from abroad. Not unlike the current crop, Munster needed a cause.
After 1978 everyone wanted to beat Munster. The other provinces seemed to take exception to Munster’s superior record against touring sides. More than ever that win over New Zealand and the status that accompanied such a success ensured that Leinster and Ulster, in particular, reserved their best performances for the men in red. In truth, even the ‘78 team itself found it difficult to cope with its own reputation, losing to Connacht in Galway in 1979. The westerners really enjoyed that one.
I can remember retreating from Ravenhill on the back of another defeat to Ulster and overhearing a conversation between the Munster selectors on the train home, with one declaring “that win over New Zealand was the worst thing that ever happened to Munster rugby”.
It was a feeble excuse for the inadequacies that existed at the time.
The simple fact was that the 1978 team was an exceptional group of players, 12 of whom were capped for Ireland at full international level and four of whom played for the Lions. In the two decades that followed, Munster were never in a position to field a side packed with such quality international players.
Yet every time Munster met overseas opposition from that day forward — whether it be provincial sides from Queensland, Transvaal and London Counties or club teams such as Pontypool, Cardiff and Llanelli — the province’s reputation as the only Irish team to beat New Zealand guaranteed a more frenzied response.
At no time was this more evident than when Buck Shelford’s All Blacks arrived in Musgrave Park in 1989 for the first game between the teams since Donal Canniffe’s men made history. It didn’t help that the majority of that All Black team had won the inaugural World Cup in Auckland only two years earlier. Munster fielded a young pack that day with the likes of Peter Clohessy, Ken O’Connell, Paco Fitzgerald, Terry Kingston and Mick Galwey in the early stages of great careers for Munster. I was distorting the average age of the pack somewhat.
As a tribute to past deeds Munster were awarded a Saturday game (prior to 1978, Munster were normally only offered a mid-week fixture) and New Zealand responded by playing the majority of their test side. We were soundly beaten and had reason to curse our historic predecessors for the unrealistic level of expectation that surrounded that game.
Yet there were occasions when the reflected glory from Munster’s famous victory came to good use. One evening in an Auckland restaurant on the Lions tour of 1983, a table of New Zealand journalists, fortified by several bottles of wine, were less than complimentary about the Lions’ efforts in the test series. The man next to me, Ginger McLoughlin, who had overheard enough smart comments from the hacks, rose to his feet and started singing on the top of his voice in his own inimitable style: “Munster 12 All Blacks Nil na na na na na na na”. A stunned silence fell on the journalists’ table as I jumped up in support of my Munster colleague. We were some sight. It was one of the few times on that tour that we managed to silence the critics.
I knew that victory would come in handy some day.
