Let’s have one for the road: Winning the perfect Slam
We weren’t so much speaking in the context of his Harlequins team’s clash with Connacht in the Showgrounds the following day as the upcoming Six Nations Championship for which the affable O’Shea will again be offering his insights to the nation from the vantage point of the RTÉ studios. Irish rugby, he believed, was best positioned of the home nations to make an impact in the championship.
To win it outright was a very realistic target for this group of players, and while they were at it, a Grand Slam was there for the taking too.
It was at that point we mentioned to him one of the quirks and trends of the competition. Every year the fixtures alternate; one year Ireland are at home to England, the next we’re away. That means every second year we have both England and France away. We never have one of them at home and the other away in any given championship; the tournament’s tradition is too set and established to tinker with that schedule. And if past results are any indication, then basically what they tell us is this — Ireland realistically can only think about winning the Slam or the Six Nations every second year. We might win in Twickenham but the chances of winning both there and in Paris are minimal.
Even in the O’Gara-O’Driscoll era, Ireland have beaten the French only once outside of Ireland in competitive rugby — and that was back in their debut season of 2000. Since then, we’ve lost five times in Paris in the Six Nations, as well as losing to them in the 2003 and 2007 World Cups. That day in 2000, when O’Driscoll dashed through for that magical hat-trick remains the only time Ireland have beaten the French over there in 40 years. Which means we should essentially forget about a Slam this year, because we can basically forget Paris, right? O’Shea doesn’t agree.
His team might have been foiled in the claustrophobic environs of Galway on Friday night but they also recently won in the cauldron that’s Toulouse and he can also see this Irish team winning on French soil.
“I don’t buy this home-and-away thing at all,” he says. “Do France play better at home? Yeah, they do. Will they be rejuvenated under Philippe Saint-Andre? Yes. But are Ireland competitive and hardened enough to get a result over there? Yes, especially with this group of players. When you go onto that pitch it’s 15 v 15 and when you cross the line there’ll be a manic intensity and physicality there but what you just have to do is concentrate on bringing your own game and physicality to the party, and I feel this Irish team can do that.
“So much hinges on the first game against Wales. If we lose to Wales, suddenly it’s an altogether different championship. But it’s a game we can win. And with England to play on the St Paddy’s weekend, it (a Championship) seems almost written in the stars.”
You won’t find anyone in the Irish camp talking openly about winning a Slam — just as they didn’t in 2009. You won’t find many commentators talking in such terms either, probably because everyone now looks at the old tournament with one eye towards the next World Cup, even though it’s over three and a half years away.
That tournament seems to now dwarf everything in international rugby, and should Ireland beat Wales, there’ll still be a view out there that Declan Kidney’s side beat them in the wrong game.
But that’s only one way to look at it. While beating the Welsh in the Aviva will hardly adequately “avenge” that night in Wellington, it could be the platform for something even greater — a proper assault at winning another Slam. And this one would be particularly special, trumping even the one in 2009. It has been said that after that victory all this side had left to do in international rugby was reach a World Cup semi-final. That’s not true. Winning a Championship and Slam having beaten both the French and the English on the road would top it and the 2009 Slam. Instead of compromising any plans for 2015, it would help them by creating a real momentum.
The real beauty of this season’s Heineken Cup campaign hasn’t been Connacht’s noble resistance or Ulster’s continuous improvement or Simon Zebo’s emergence but rather seeing the likes of O’Gara and O’Connell and Cullen still waging war, still wanting more. They’ve shown there’s life after the World Cup and there’s a whole lot of life and rugby to be lived before the next World Cup. They’re men who crave the next game and next challenge.
Winning a Slam having the big two on the road is just the kind of private goal they’d relish.
And which Declan Kidney in his own quiet way will probably set.
* kieranshannon@eircom.net
