2018 Grand Slam built on a culture of success instilled 18 years ago

While witnessing new rugby heroes lift and warm the hearts of the nation this chilly spring, we couldn’t but think of past ones and how this was their achievement too, writes  Kieran Shannon.

As Ireland saw out the match in Twickenham last Saturday with outrageously young backs — Stockdale, Ringrose, Larmour, Carbery, all Grand Slam champions at 23 or younger — the thought occurred to us that a great like Keith Wood never so much as won a Triple Crown.

Having retired at the 2003 World Cup six months earlier, he missed out on the 2004 triumph, the first of four Triple Crowns his country would rack up before that decade was out.