Friends hail Grand Slam hero Jim McCarthy

Former teammates of Jim McCarthy, the Grand Slam-winning Irish rugby international, have paid tribute to their colleague’s dedication to the game, after his death this week at the age of 90.

A slight back-row forward, McCarthy was one of ‘Jack Kyle’s outriders’, providing protection for the prodigious out-half alongside Bill McKay and Des O’Brien. However McCarthy also supplied a considerable try-threat, with his eight tries in a green jersey a record for a forward at the time.

As Dolphin stalwart Brendan Murphy recounts, ‘Jim Mac’ fondly remembered gathering a Kyle garryowen for a try in the Five Nations. The press dubbed it a pre-planned move, such was the precision on show but McCarthy admitted it was nothing of the sort; rather the try came from his knowledge that Kyle would sooner kick the ball away than be caught by the looming gang of forwards.

That understanding with Kyle was a valuable asset for Ireland but McCarthy’s scoring innovation started at CBC, where he won the Munster Schools Senior Cup in 1943.

“Johnny Harness was our out-half in Christians and he’d always know that Jim would be backing-up inside,” says Murphy, a fellow CBC player. “So my brother Ted would give a long pass out to Johnny Harness but Johnny used slip it inside to Jim Mac, which was very unusual at the time as it’d usually be out the line to the wings.”

Pearse O’Leary, captain of Dolphin’s 1948 Munster Senior Cup side, remembers the Ballintemple native as a man devoted to the game.

“He was 110% committed. You’d be giving instructions to fellows and you knew he wasn’t listening; he was just concentrating on the game. But he was a marvellous player.

“Somebody in Cork put out the rumour that Jim McCarthy and his father used to be out passing a rugby ball at half-six in the morning. [It was] complete rubbish but he was a most dedicated trainer and the fittest man I ever met on a rugby team.”

In light of his Munster Senior Cup successes with Dolphin, McCarthy made his first of 28 international appearances on New Year’s Day, 1948, in France, adding a try to the momentous occasion.

“McCarthy marked his first international by displaying the greatest vigour in the loose,” noted the Examiner match report. “His red hair made him all the more prominent when he was in the van of Irish forward movements, and his backing up was a great asset to Ireland.”

Seven years later, his international career came to a close as captain in a 6-6 draw against England.

He led Ireland four times in his final year, becoming the first ever Munster man to receive the captain’s honours.

“Because I was small, I felt I had to score more tries and tackle more often if I wanted to count,” said McCarthy in 1982. “The golfer Gary Player once remarked that the most significant factor in his life was that he was small. And, as Sammy Davis put it – if you were small in his trade, you would have to sing better than Sinatra, dance better than Astaire and act better than Olivier.”