How the world has changed since 1987

The first Rugby World Cup was also in New Zealand (and Australia) and our own Donal Lenihan was Ireland captain. We asked him to rummage through the attic for memories and mementoes from a bygone era. This is what he found.

WHEN the Irish squad left for New Zealand last week, they did so having completed months of intense preparation with every tiny detail catered for. Declan Kidney’s players and management enjoy the full backing and financial support of the IRFU in their quest for ultimate glory at the World Cup. But it wasn’t always that way.

When the amateur equivalent of the current squad entered unchartered waters for the inaugural tournament 24 years ago, the IRFU were less than enthusiastic about the concept. Preparations for the competition suffered as a consequence. The real pity was that Ireland had a decent squad of players at the time, with the bulk of the team that won the Five Nations championship two years earlier still on board.

The international season building up to that first World Cup was a decent one with a world record 60-0 victory over Romania (remember they used to be a handful in the amateur days as most of their players were in Ceausescu’s army and police), followed up with a comprehensive 17-0 defeat of England in Dublin. Wales were also accounted for in Cardiff but a narrow defeat to Scotland in Murrayfield deprived us of another Triple Crown.

As captain of that side, I was less than enamoured when it was decided by the IRFU that we should not play any games for a seven-week period building up to the competition while, even more bizarrely, we had very little collective squad preparation organised. Things got so bad that the forwards got together off our own bat to hold scrummaging sessions against Lansdowne.

The kernel of the problem was that the IRFU had very little appetite for the tournament as a whole, fearing that it marked the first step in the push towards professionalism. In that much at least, they were proved 100% correct. When the idea for a global competition was first mooted in 1983 by Australian rugby president and respected former international Nicholas Shehadie, he was backed immediately by the New Zealand union. Suffice to say their counterparts on this side of the globe were less enthusiastic.

When the concept was voted on by the IRB two years later, Ireland and Scotland voted against it but it was narrowly carried when France supported it with both Wales and England undecided. Money was extremely tight in those days and the structure and organisation of that inaugural tournament left much to be desired. Yet for a young and talented squad it marked a great opportunity for adventure and a break from the economic misery that gripped Ireland in the mid 1980s.

However, by the time we had landed in Auckland, that sense of excitement had been drained from the squad by a nightmare journey.

Our trek to New Zealand was less than straightforward as the organisers sought the cheapest route possible, which meant departing Dublin for an overnight stay in London and on to Auckland via Los Angeles and Hawaii. In addition to travelling steerage at the back of the plane, we were joined by the Scottish and Welsh squads along with Canada, who joined us in LA. Given that we were drawn in the same pool as both Canada and Wales, it all felt a bit too close for comfort.

To make matters worse after 33 hours travelling and within sight of Auckland it was announced by the pilot that a heavy fog obscured the airport. After two hours in a holding pattern, we were re-routed to Christchurch. There we were kept on the plane for refuelling before eventually landing in Auckland over four hours after the pilot’s initial announcement. Suffice to say, everyone on board was pretty pissed off.

When Brian O’Driscoll’s squad landed in Auckland nine days ago they did so in the comfortable surrounds of business class with all their requirements specifically catered for on the journey. We were not so lucky. Our squad had already faced serious disruption in the build up to the tournament when three players — Ulster’s Philip Rainey, David Irwin and Nigel Carr — were injured in an IRA bomb attack which killed Lord Chief Justice Maurice Gibson and his wife Cecily.

The players were heading to Dublin at the time for one of our few squad sessions and were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Carr’s injuries deprived him of the opportunity of playing in a World Cup and finished his international career. Thankfully, Irwin and Rainey recovered and made the trip. Carr, however, was a massive loss as he was one of the top open-side flankers in the game at the time. In addition, first choice hooker Harry Harbison was injured prior to the opening game. To make matters worse our coach, the late Mick Doyle, suffered a mild heart attack on only our second day in New Zealand.

Sifting through some old rugby material while conducting a spring cleaning at home recently I came across a letter I wrote to the tournament’s chairman, England’s John Kendall-Carpenter, on my return home after our experiences Down Under. It was only then I was reminded of the other major issues that impacted on our performances.

In the professional era, much attention is paid to welfare issues and the demands placed on the modern player in terms of frequency of games and proper recovery time between matches. If the schedule demanded of the amateur player 24 years ago was presented to the current squad there would be uproar. Rightly so.

Forced to stay in Auckland for two days to attend the opening ceremony dinner, we then travelled on to Wellington for our match against Wales. Given that we had beaten them in Cardiff only two months earlier we were confident of victory but the quality of our preparation took its toll — as did those injuries to Carr and Harbison. Early in the game we lost Philip Matthews to yet another injury and succumbed to a seven-point defeat. Given that Wales went on to finish third in the tournament, beating Australia in the third-fourth play-off, that was hard to take.

Five days after that Welsh opener, we were playing Canada in the South Island city of Dunedin before travelling on to Brisbane in Australia — via Christchurch and Sydney — to face Tonga only four days later. My abiding memory is that everybody felt completely knackered all of the time. The scheduling was crazy, something that I made Mr Kendall-Carpenter acutely aware of. Within four days of that Tongan encounter we faced Australia in the quarter-final in Sydney and were unceremoniously dispatched. Our reward? Within 18 hours we were on a plane home.

Staging the tournament in both New Zealand and Australia placed massive demands on some teams, not least Ireland, as did the frequency of the matches. This time Ireland get eight days off between games, the exception being the six-day turnaround between the Tongan and Australian games. Ironically, the largely amateur sides like America and Canada have only a four-day turnaround in some cases. That is wrong.

Another major difference between now and 1987 is the seismic advances in the area of communication. The world has become a very small place. While various World Cup squads have been forced to set out their policy for the use of Twitter and Facebook for this tournament, we had no such issues back then. In an era before mobile phones, email and Skype, my abiding memory of that defeat to Australia was being interviewed by RTÉ on the pitch at Concorde Oval immediately after the game.

Due to the serious economic recession back home, many of my generation had been forced to emigrate to Australia in pursuit of a job. Having travelled to support Ireland that day, they were quick to spot their opportunity.

Gathered behind me on the field, many seized the moment to wave to their families and friends at home and offer a glimpse of themselves for the first time in over a year. An enterprising group of Shamrock Rovers supporters in exile also captured the moment to make their feelings known on a controversy that was brewing at home when they brandished a banner declaring ‘Keep Rovers in Milltown’.

It was an emotional time for all. I remember the great Con Houlihan enveloping me in a massive bear hug after that final press conference and declaring his great wish that he could head home with us instead of having to stay on for the conclusion of the tournament. Con would have been far happier at home following the fortunes of his native Kerry in the championship at that stage. Somehow I don’t see any members of the current Irish press core hugging Brian O’Driscoll or any of the players if Ireland depart before the final stages this time out. Changed times indeed.

The other issue that caught the eye when reviewing my recommendations to the tournament’s chairman looks somewhat naive and indeed ironic given my current role as a rugby analyst with this newspaper and as a commentator with RTÉ. While acknowledging that television was a vital ingredient for the game and for generating sponsorship, I chastened that its interference in a competition of this nature was growing intolerable. The Irish team, along with our Canadian counterparts, were held side by side in the tunnel for three minutes and prevented from running on to the pitch for that game in Dunedin. When we eventually got on, the kick-off was further delayed by another four minutes leaving me to snort that I never thought I would see the day when a referee would be dictated to by a television producer. How times and priorities change.

However, I did have enough foresight to acknowledge that the tournament, with some badly needed tweaking, did have a big future and was indeed here to stay. At least I got that bit right.

World Cups and Ireland have not made very good bedfellows since the events of 1987 and one can only hope that O’Driscoll and his current squad make up for all the disappointments of the six tournaments to date. How appropriate therefore that a first ever World Cup semi-final appearance should finally be delivered back where it all started more than 24 years ago. That would give me no end of pleasure.