A tale of two cities
WHEN Munster run out against Stade Francais in Thomond Park this Saturday, one exiled Munster man will observe their progress from his London home with particular interest.
Darragh O’Mahony is 31 and has been working as a professional rugby player in England since 1996.
Currently out with injury, he has been with Saracens for the past five seasons, one of their most consistent performers during an extremely turbulent period for the London club.
In his time across the water, O’Mahony has developed a reputation as an intelligent, footballing wing and a prolific try-scorer.
“He is a quality winger and one of our most consistent players week-in week-out,” is the opinion of England and Saracens flanker Richard Hill.
“Darragh is a very good footballer, you know when you give him the ball that he will do something good with it,” says Thomas Castaignede, Saracen’s mercurial French playmaker.
Yet, although highly regarded by his club mates and fellow professionals in England, O’Mahony has long since vanished off the IRFU radar, winning the last of his four caps as long ago as 1998.
A return to Ireland, and to his native Munster, would have undoubtedly have helped his international chances. There were opportunities to come back but, for various reasons, it never happened.
The contrast between franchise-driven Saracens, who have had signed some of the biggest names in world rugby but have had precious little success, and the earthy unity of Munster, a side that has developed a consistency all of Europe has learned to fear, could not be greater.
And, as the winger watches his home province take on the might of France this weekend, he can be forgiven for wondering, as he has often done in the past, about what might have been ...
O’MAHONY grew up in Rochestown in Cork City and was educated in the non rugby-playing environment of Rochestown College. He learnt the game in Cork Constitution, figuring on the same underage sides as future Munster and Ireland stars David Corkery and John Kelly. At that stage, he was an out-half and could not break through onto any of the Munster underage sides. It was not until his second year at UCC that things began to happen.
“David O’Mahony was out-half in UCC at the time and I couldn’t get into the team. But before one pre-season game, there were a few withdrawals and the coach, Finbarr Dennehy, asked me would I mind filling in on the wing. I’ve been playing there since.”
Progress was swift after that and he was recognised representatively by the Munster U20s, Irish Universities and Irish Students. When he left UCC to do a two-year diploma in UCD things really began to happen.
“UCD were going well and there was an injury to Tyrone Howe and I got called up to the Ireland A side in 1995. I held my place and next thing I was winning my first cap in a World Cup warm-up game in Italy.”
An ignominious defeat against the Italians could not prevent an on-fire O’Mahonybeing called up for Ireland’s World Cup squad for South Africa.
“It all happened so fast. I couldn’t get on the Irish U21s in 1994 and then, 12 months later, I was in the World Cup squad.
“Those were totally different times,” he laughs. “It’s hard to imagine now but I went to the World Cup in South Africa without ever lifting a weight in my life. Bizarre.”
A second cap was won in Durban for the quarter-final against France.
“I hadn’t been involved for the group stages but Richie Wallace was dropped for the quarter-final and I got in. Unfortunately, there was a definite air of ‘mission accomplished’ after we got out of the group and we weren’t at the races against France.”
Returning from South Africa with a higher profile, O’Mahony joined Lansdowne. “The All-Ireland league was flying then and there were offers from Con and from Garryowen but I enjoyed living in Dublin and Lansdowne looked like a good proposition. However, the 1995/96 season was a terrible one for me. I declared for Munster and used to travel up and down for training but Richie Wallace and Kenny Smith were the established wings and I couldn’t get in. My form wasn’t good and I was struggling with injuries. I did get a call-up for the inter-pro with Ulster and that was my chance to make my mark with Munster but I got injured again.”
The following season, still with Lansdowne, he declared for Leinster and played in the interprovincials and the European Cup, a competition still trying to establish itself. Then O’Mahony got an offer from Moseley, an English second division club, and jumped at it.
“Professional rugby had yet to take root in Ireland. I was working 9-5 in the bank and playing rugby in my free time when Moseley came in with an attractive offer. The game was exploding over here but was still amateur in Ireland. I didn’t even know where Moseley was, but it was decent money and a chance to play full-time and develop my rugby. A lot of us went at that time, there was a mass exodus to England.”
O’Mahony remembers his time at the Birmingham-based club very fondly.
“Moseley went very well for me, everything just clicked and I scored a bundle of tries. It was a old-fashioned family club and I had a wonderful time there.”
The club spent heavily in a bid to win promotion and when that bid failed, they were forced to offload their best players. O’Mahony joined the newly-promoted Bedford where his try-scoring continued unabated but could not prevent the club’s swift return to the second division.
“We had good players at Bedford, Scott Murray, Junior Paramore and Rudolf Straueli among others but, behind the scenes, the club was in chaos.
“Frank Warren, the snooker and boxing promoter, was in charge and he had got into rugby to make money, when he realised there was none to be made, he lost interest and the players suffered.
“You’d be waiting weeks to get paid, then you’d be handed a cheque, lodge it, and a couple of days later the bank would ring up and tell you that it had bounced.”
Predictably, Bedford were unable to avoid the drop but O’Mahony’s form was such that London aristocrats Saracens moved for him in 1999, and he has been there since.
He won two further caps in that 1996-99 period. The third, under Brian Ashton, was another appalling loss to Italy in 1997. Then, his try-scoring exploits with Bedford saw Warren Gatland call him up for a World Cup qualifying clash with Romania in November 1998 at Lansdowne Road.
“I will never forget that match,” he says ruefully. “Gatland gave me a chance to stake a claim and I completely blew it, I had the worst game of my life. We beat Romania but they scored a few tries and we had a nightmare defensively. For their last try, the ball came out and myself and David Humphreys tackled the same man. He got the ball away and as I watched my man touching the ball down, I knew my chance had gone.”
Consolation came with the move to Saracens where he quickly won the respect of the management and the supporters.
“Things went well for me in Saracens. they were a big, high profile club. I was making the team and scoring tries in a very competitive squad. Saracens had the likes of Dan Luger, Brendan Daniel and Ryan Constable but I held my own.”
And what of Munster? Did they ever approach him during that period? “You have to remember, the Munster bandwagon had yet to really get rolling. In hindsight, if there was a time to come home, it was when I left Bedford. In fairness, since I’ve been over in England Munster have always said ‘if you’re interested, we’re interested’, but there was never a firm offer on the table.
“Jerry Holland, the manager, has been very good for keeping in contact over the years and looking back, I do have certain regrets, but I had made my bed, Saracens had shown faith in me and I was committed to them.”
IN the 1999/2000 season, Saracens and Munster were drawn in the same pool for the Heineken Cup and played out two classic encounters.
“Those were amazing games. Munster scraped home in the first one at Vicarage Road and we were determined to get our revenge in Limerick. An Irish paper rang me up the week before the game and asked me about Thomond Park. I said that I loved the ground and the atmosphere and that I had told the Saracens boys about it and they were all looking forward to playing there.
“Next thing, I’m in Thomond Park, about an hour and a half before kick-off and I look into the Munster dressing-room and there’s a newspaper article pinned up with the headline, ‘Thomond Park holds no fears for us, says O’Mahony’. I remember thinking, ‘This could be a very long day’.”
It was. A try by Keith Wood set up the winning injury-time conversion for Ronan O’Gara in one of the most dramatic Heineken Cup matches to date.
“It was an incredible occasion. We had a very good team at that point and would have fancied ourselves for Europe. Francois Piennar, Danny Grewcock, Kyran Bracken and Scott Murray were all on that side but Munster played very well that day and we just couldn’t shake them off.”
O’Mahony’s position as an exiled Munster man gives him a unique perspective on the differences between Munster’s achievements and Saracens struggles over the past five years.
“I’m committed to Saracens but it has been a frustrating experience. To be honest, if I wasn’t playing for Saracens I’d probably hate them. They are the ultimate franchise club, the Chelsea of English club rugby.
“We have no base. We train in two different venues and then play our games in Vicarage Road in Watford, which is 25 miles away from our traditional support base. You compare that with Munster. If Munster win a big game, their players will walk down the streets of Cork and Limerick and people stop them and talk about rugby, they are local heroes.
“Here, we finish a game and we all go our separate ways, the players are dispersed throughout London, we have no identity with a community or an area and ultimately, I believe that costs us.
“There is a parochial element to the Munster team, they are representing the parish, the people of Munster and they draw on that, it gives them strength. I think they have done fantastically well, they have what we yearn for at Sarries, a committed group of players who have grown up together. They are a talented, settled squad who trust eachother and that leads to consistency of performance.
“In Saracens, we seem to be in a constant state of flux, big names come and go but there is very little consistency which is why I believe we have struggled.”
SO, if he could turn back the clock would he have done it differently? O’Mahony pauses, trying to find the right words.
“It’s hard to say. I know my place in the pecking order. Returning to Ireland might have helped my Irish career but after the Romania game, I decided to focus on doing well for the club.
“When you are young you would try and showboat, go on an eye-catching run but as you get older you become more of a team player, work on your defence, the less glamorous side of the game.
“The thing that has given me the most satisfaction in my career is the fact that I have developed a consistency to my game and have always been worth my place at Saracens. Coaches have come and gone but I have always got my game. There is also a satisfaction when you come through against the best, the Robinsons, the Tuigemalas and the Cohens. I am proud of that, this is a very difficult league to survive in.
“So, in that sense I have no regrets but then you look at what Munster have achieved and, being from the province, there is a strong emotional link. It is hard not to wonder ‘what if I had gone back in the late 1990s?’.
“That being said, I think Munster have been brilliantly served by Anthony Horgan and John Kelly, they are two excellent wingers.”
O’Mahony’s contract runs out in the summer of 2005 at which point he will be a couple of months off his 33rd birthday.
Would he consider returning then?
“It is unlikely. Of course, if there was an offer I would look at it but the time to go back was when I was at my peak. I would like to stay in the game, possibly at an administrative level, rugby has been good to me and I’d like to put something back.”
He does not wish to put a hex on them, but O’Mahony genuinely believes this could be Munster’s year. “Having seen their players perform so well in the Six Nations you have to be optimistic. Then you have Christian Cullen. By all accounts, he has struggled a bit so far but the guy is pure class and he’ll come good. It would be fantastic if Munster lift the Heineken Cup in Twickenham. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.”
Except, one suspects, being out there with them.
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