Do we want to win or watch attractive rugby?
A satisfied customer is the best strategy of all. That’s according to Michael LeBoeuf, the American business author and professor whose ideas have sold two millions books, been translated into a dozen languages and whose ‘bon mots’ have been sought by some of the biggest companies in the world.
You would wonder what LeBoeuf would make of Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team right now. Unbeaten in nine games, selling out the Aviva Stadium and attracting bountiful business partnerships for the IRFU with blue-chip companies — yet one of the core narratives this week has been the lack of attractive running rugby they are producing.
Schmidt himself has been listening to this for a few weeks now and he has responded in part by pointing out that his Ireland were the leading try scorers in last year’s Six Nations. It’s a fair point and it’s also worth remembering that the recent hand-wringing is based pretty much exclusively on just two recent games.
The opening round trip to Rome — when the visitors won comfortably, let’s not forget — was hardly the first time Ireland had found Italy a handful, especially in the Eternal City.
In fact, Ireland have stuttered over the line against the Azzurri as often as they have mauled them, but more intriguing is that people are grumbling after a win over the French.
The French!
These are the same guys who ruined the opening party at Croke Park and who, for as long as anyone can remember, have rained on Ireland’s parade. Never more so than in 1999, when this columnist stood on the old South Terrace at Lansdowne Road on a day so wet that three layers weren’t enough to stop even your underpants from getting soaked.
Then again, that maybe had something to do with a thrilling end-game when Thomas Castaignede kicked a late winning penalty on a day when the sponsorship logo on the pitch ran to such an extent that even Ireland looked like they were playing in red, white and blue.
The point is that maybe we are being a bit quick on the draw here. Let’s give this year’s Six Nations vintage enough time to really breathe and, while we’re at it, recall what Leinster coach Matt O’Connor had to say almost three months ago when his side was shipping similar criticisms despite a succession of winning performances.
“Just a question for you blokes,” O’Connor asked the media last December. “How do you guys categorise form? Is it winning games, is it scoring tries? We’ve scored the most tries in the league. I’m asking the question. What’s form to you guys? Because you ask about it a lot.
“The five seasons I was at Leicester we scored the most tries in the Premiership hands down in four of those years. I want to play with the ball in hand. Our philosophy is finding a competitive advantage against the opposition to win the game. That’s our style of rugby.”
It’s a legitimate point. Do we, as observers, prioritise the journey or the destination?
If we look back to the 1990s, we will remember a time when Ireland were regularly able to put it up to the big boys for the guts of 60 minutes. It was wild, exciting stuff filled with passion, blood and guts, if not silky skills, but they invariably lost. This was at a time when another Irish team was playing football by numbers and winning everyone over.
Many were the trips up from the midlands to watch the Republic of Ireland play before Jack Charlton arrived in 1986 and the abiding memories of those times are of the vast swathes of empty seats at Lansdowne Road or Dalymount Park, unless there was someone like Italy’s world champions in town.
There were grumbles doing the rounds about the fare on offer then, too. Legitimate ones. Yet the vast majority of fans jumped aboard the bandwagon and enjoyed the ride regardless of the aesthetics. Winning was the essence of customer satisfaction and we are seeing that again now, even as the rugby team grunts and grinds its way through the latest campaign.
Two weeks ago, a missive arrived from Examiner HQ. The mission was to set up shop outside the Aviva Stadium and do a number of video vox pops with fans on their way to the game. What stood out was the number of people who turned out to be from, as Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh might put it, not from traditional rugby strongholds.
Wolfhill in Laois, Cong in Galway and Ballinderry in Derry were among the place names revealed. These were, by and large, the people bedecked head to toe in green. You can be cynical about that all you like, but they will be there in their thousands again tomorrow. New converts to an old game now that Ireland are winning.
Like it or not, winning is more than enough for most people.
Email: brendan.obrien@examiner.ie
