When asked to consider the prospect of three Tests in New Zealand, Declan Kidney’s response had a forced jollity about it: “It’s brilliant. It’s like bungee jumping. It’s the best place to go,” he beamed. Okay, the troops need to be re-energised at the end of a long season and as commander-in-chief, Kidney has to appear keen. But then he went overboard: “Pity we’re not playing them four times,” he said. With a straight face, too.
The reality is that Kidney is under enormous pressure. Even allowing for mitigating factors like the absence from the tour party of Paul O’Connell and Stephen Ferris, plus the fact that Mike Ross will struggle to make the first Test in Auckland next Saturday, if Ireland take three hidings, then the coach will be in lame duck territory with under a year remaining on his contract.
You have to feel a degree of sympathy for him to be landed with such a schedule.
For all that enthusiasm, Kidney would privately concede that this is a horrifically demanding end to what has been an arduous year. By the final week of the tour in Hamilton, Ireland will be preparing for their 17th test of season 2011/12.
It was at the IRB Council meeting of May 2010 that the SANZAR nations argued successfully for the introduction of a three-test series between north and south in the June window. Best-of-three would be easier to sell than one-off games, they explained. At that stage, when Ireland were ranked fifth in the world, and had gone the previous calendar year undefeated, it must have seemed a reasonable idea.
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But since the annus mirabilis of 2009, Kidney’s Ireland have lost more games than they have won, with a success rate of 46.7%. Beating England in the final game of the 2011 Six Nations papered over an ordinary championship. Victory over Australia at the World Cup, memorable though it may have been, was achieved in favourable conditions against a cocky side who’d been robbed of three key players, most notably David Pocock.
With Ireland going through their pool unbeaten, the campaign was presented by Kidney’s apologists as Ireland’s ‘best-ever tournament’ but given the manner of their quarter-final exit, it must also go down as one of the most disappointing. Damagingly for Kidney, Ireland were not just outplayed by Wales but out-thought, out-strategised.
The Six Nations offered the chance of a reprieve which never came and for the campaign to finish on such a shambolic note in Twickenham has severely dented morale. Ireland find themselves where they were when Kidney first joined them in 2008 — desperate to hold onto eighth place in the rankings with the pool draw for the 2015 World Cup due in December.
The tour seems an ideal point at which to introduce a new backs coach, for this group needs a fresh voice — some of the Munster players have been hearing Kidney’s team talks for more than a decade now. As for his popularity in the other provinces? The Ulster contingent must be wondering how Munster have more representatives (eight) than they do (seven) despite the way the provincial season panned out. In Leinster, they wonder how Donncha O’Callaghan, by now a bench player with Munster, gets to tour ahead of Leo Cullen or Devin Toner.
In terms of representation, Leinster are Kidney’s greatest strength but they are also his biggest problem. For although Ireland remain the biggest rugby brand in terms of TV revenues and commercial contracts, the European champions have surpassed them in the perception of the rugby public. Not only are the province enormously successful, they are a more entertaining team to watch, a better team.
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It hardly helps Kidney’s profile that Joe Schmidt — and recently Conor O’Shea — receives so much positive press. One of the more telling images of the season was the passionate embrace between Schmidt and Jonathan Sexton after the final whistle of Leinster’s Heineken Cup semi-final in Bordeaux. It has been argued that Kidney is at a disadvantage to club coaches because they have greater access to their players but in a World Cup season, the point seems less relevant. However, if Leinster are Kidney’s problem, they can also be his solution. Borrow some of their brilliance in attack, some of their positive attitude, and the tour can avoid being a disaster. It can be productive and in the process buy Kidney some breathing space.
It’s in attack that Ireland need Leinster’s influence most. During the Six Nations, some of Ireland’s attacking patterns in their opponents’ 22 were highly effective, for which Les Kiss deserves credit. But the way they go about breaking down opposing defences in other parts of the field is laboured and lacking in imagination.
Let the Leinster contingent ignite Ireland. All of the key decision-making positions are occupied by Leinster players – openside flanker, No 8, scrum-half (so long as Kidney picks Eoin Reddan), fly-half, both centres and full-back. They key man is reinstated skipper Brian O’Driscoll, who has sufficient authority to direct his coach on strategy and game plan. Judging by O’Driscoll’s comments elsewhere in these pages, he aims to do just that.
According to reports in New Zealand, ticket sales for next Saturday in Auckland are merely “steady”, though it’s hard to foresee too many empty seats for what is the world champions’ first game in Eden Park since winning the World Cup there last October. A decent crowd is also expected for the following week in Christchurch, seeing as the All Blacks haven’t played in that quake-torn city for nearly two years.
Yet nobody is expecting this to go down to the final Test in Hamilton. A few days ago in the New Zealand Herald, one columnist pleaded with Ireland to win the first Test, but did not sound remotely convinced it would happen. This is hardly surprising. They have played 18 summer tests in the southern hemisphere since the game went professional and have lost every one.
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The best Kidney can hope for is to give valuable experience to players like Dan Tuohy, Donncha Ryan, Peter O’Mahony and perhaps Declan Fitzpatrick and also to give the All Blacks a scare by playing bright, adventurous rugby. To do this, he must turn to Leinster. It might stick in his craw, given he has a troubled history with the province, but he does not have much of an option.
Rugby opens new chapter
Irish rugby’s boom-time has inspired a spate of books, most of them ghosted autobiographies or pictorial celebrations. We never expected a novel, until Ger Siggins’s Rugby Spirit hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago.
Admittedly it is targeted at the children’s market, specifically the 8-12-year-old sector, along the lines of the successful GAA stories by Joe O’Brien and Dave Hannigan, also published by O’Brien Press, but its existence is a gauge of how much rugby’s popularity has grown.
So how does it work? Leinster fan boy meets Munster fan girl in the best Montague/Capulet tradition? Not quite, though there is a strong cross-cultural element, as a lad from a Munster GAA background joins a rugby-obsessed boarding school in south Dublin. The story is ideal for young rugby addicts and newcomers to the sport, as Siggins manages to weave in a basic explanation of how rugby works, clarifying some of the technical jargon as well as giving some historical background, and also throwing in an element of mystery.
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Rugby Spirit (O’Brien Press, €7.99) is available at all book shops and at Elvery’s on Lansdowne Road