Ireland Harness History to Trample England

As chance would have it, I happened to be travelling on a flight from London Stansted (although 'Sheffield Stansted' would be almost as appropriate a name for it given its location) to Dublin on Saturday morning. Accompanying me were several hundred members of the English rugby fraternity; their pie-and-ale countenances and Barbour jackets gave them away, if their earthy banter hadn't already.

Even as they read their morning papers, which attempted to set the scene for Saturday evening's thunderous events, they can't have known what they were walking into. On the other side of the Irish Sea a nation had been contextualising itself to a standstill, binding itself up in cultural analysis and historical deconstruction.

The country that flight FR296 landed in had been gazing so intently at its navel that it barely remembered that their visitors were looking to watch a game of rugby, not hear a history lesson.
I'm sure England's travelling supporters' eyes glanced through the think-pieces on what this game meant to the Irish and why they weren't going to rackety old Lansdowne Road this time round. But they probably spent more time worrying about whether the green shoots of their team's recovery under Brian Ashton were about to be trampled by the highly-rated Irish team.

They probably fancied that their pack would do alright, possibly dominate the scrum, but feared that they would struggle to translate their ball into points. They probably hoped for a tight game and that Wilko's boot might edge for England.

By the time half past five ticked round, however, these thoughts were lost in the noise of an occasion that inevitably transcended rugby.

For all that, as we found out against France a fortnight ago, the only satisfactory ending to these epic tales comes on the park. Where that day the volume of the preliminaries seemed like so much pointless hot air when Vincent Clerc crossed to deny Ireland the win, yesterday, pace Seamus Heaney, hope and history rhymed.

It was a good day for rugby, the sport associating itself with so much that was positive. Given that our national sport is currently neither hurling nor gaelic football, but rather Discussing Ourselves And, In Particular, How Far We've Come As A Nation, rugby's association with such a good news day will generate decades of goodwill for the sport.

But back to the 15 against 15 business. The English rugby team has long seemed diminished, especially so in comparison to the last time they attracted so much attention during pre-match pleasantries in Dublin: 2003, and Martin Johnson's eyeballing of Mary McAleese across the red carpet.

Ireland have tougher warriors on their side now, while England have never recovered from the Leicester man's retirement. Jonny Wilkinson, Lancelot to Johnson's Arthur, is back. But the outhalf now resembles one of those rock legends of the 1960s still touring even though all his old bandmates are either dead or vegetarian. When he turns around to jam now, all he sees are plodding session players.

But we're not talking about history, or rock and roll, just rugby. That's what this Irish team are all about; that's why the policy of giving it a lash - especially against the English - has long been jettisoned in favour of ruthless pragmatism. And that's what must have made the loss to France so maddening: that an occasion, or rather the peripherals thereof, usurped the careful planning and finely-tuned psychology that made them sure of their ability to win a grand slam.

The intensity and emotion on the faces of the Irish players as their own anthem played suggested that the peculiar endorphins of the day were flooding their systems dangerously and uncontrollably. Thankfully, the players harnessed them in the most clinical manner possible, turning the crude ore of raw emotion into the gold of a devastatingly convincing performance, England's worst points-against tally in Five or Six Nations history.

The Englishmen on flight FR296 had no idea what was coming.

Six Nations Preview: The Rest of the Impertinents

ENGLAND (Saturday 24th February, Croke Park)

By the blood of Michael Hogan, begone from this sacred turf!

The. Big. One. England in Croker. The subject beloved of T.V. and radio discussion programmes desperate for 'divisive controversy'.

TV Vox Pop: "Do you think they should play God Save the Queen at Croke Park?"

Punter: "Don't care."

TV V.P.: "There you have it - this divisive issue continues to prove controversial..."

A few months ago it seemed that we were to have a nice handy afternoon of Saxon-whupping to placate the infamous 'backwoodsmen' who continue to grumble from GAA county board missives. Unfortunately Andy Robinson is gone, Brian Ashton is in, with Rob Andrew upstairs peering through his designer specs at the whole thing. In short, they've belatedly attempted to get their act together.

For all the good vibes coming out of Twickers, much like TSA's dress policy for most social occasions, it all looks a bit too thrown together at the last moment. So much hangs on the three-pronged risk-orgy in the backs. This weekend Jonny Wilkinson starts his first England game since clipping that World Cup winning drop-goal in Sydney in 2003, Jason Robinson starts his first for his country in two years and Andy Farrell, at 31, starts his first international, well, ever, in union at least.

For all Ashton's reknowned ability to coach backline flair, a settled and immaculately prepared Ireland will approach this latest English team with the confidence of a side fully expectant of a fourth victory over the old foe. God Save the Queen might get an airing, but Sweet Chariot certainly won't.

Jerusalem in Croker's green and pleasant land?
As Brian O'Driscoll pointed out last week, for all England's supposed wretchedness in recent years, they have never been given a proper doing, and even a cursory remembrance of last year reminds us how it needed Shane Horgan's telescopic arm to win the day for Ireland in Twickenham.

As Frank Hadden showed last season with Scotland, the creation of a postive working environment and the sense that there is some kind of plan afoot can change a team's fortunes quite quickly. All through England's trough, their forwards continued to win masses of ball, but were scuppered by diffidence behind them.

Coming just a few weeks after Munster were demolished up front by a Leicester pack, five of whom are in the 22 for this weekend's Calcutta Cup game, its safe to assume England will give us a tough day up front.

Last year we had too much guile and nous for them when we had the ball. However if Ashton's talents have had any effect, if Jonny Wilkinson can rediscover a fraction of his ruthless mastery at out-half and if the whole lot of them have even a small amount more confidence about them than we've seen in recent seasons, they might be sending her victorious at the end of the 80 minutes as well as at the start.


SCOTLAND (Saturday March 10th, Murrayfield)

Not so brave now, oh eaters of artery-clogging, deep-fried foodstuffs!
The days of our struggles against the Scots in Murrayfield may be relatively recent - we only ended an eighteen year winless run in Edinburgh in 2003 - but, psychologically, any sense of inferiority to Scotland in rugby feels as remote as, hah!, unemployment and Mike Murphy.

Since we last lost to them in 2001, the Scots have served up a routine victory for Ireland wherever we have played them, only offering mild resistance on our triple crown winning afternoon in 2004.

Scotland are traditionally at their strongest from 6 to 10, ravenous back-rowers and impudent scrum-halves being key to their game. As ever they possess class in these positions this year too. Trouble is, most of it is either injured or just returning from injury. Jason White, last year's player of the tournament, and Alistair Hogg are missing from the back row (although Hogg could be back for the Ireland game), Mike Blair at scrum-half is also out and Chris Cusiter has been bandaged up after a ligament injury to take the 9 jersey.

With an inexperienced tight five and a continuing inability to really spark in the backs - flaws which Ireland do not share - this year should be another business-like trip to Auld Reekie.

They've sent us hameward, tae think again!
Scotland were the big good news story of last season's championship. Frank Hadden proved to be the Walter Smith to Matt Williams' Berti Vogts, reinstilling enough pride and pleasure into performing for the national side to make a stark difference on the field.

That positivity permeated their play in the way that the embarassing error-count of previous seasons was reduced, and with Sean Lamont emerging as an exciting attacking presence on the wing, the Scots were almost able to fill Murrayfield again.

They are also starting to produce quality young players again, Rob Dewey in centre and Ali Kelloch at lock being two currently causing drams to be raised in appreciation north of Hadrian's Wall.

With Dan Parks and Chris Paterson at 10 and 12 they have an experienced creative think-tank and a metronomic kicking presence that could just be a potent fulcrum for the emerging talent around them.


ITALY (Saturday 17th March, Stadio Flaminio)

Get back to organised crime and driving too fast, you immaculately coiffured types!
And no better time and place to win the grand slam than Paddy's Day in the Eternal City, which is how long the wait seems like since Ireland last won one.

We all know the drill here. Italy will batter us about a bit up front, Bergamasco will rampage, Bortolami will rumble. At half time the score will be 6-6 and George Hook will howl in the studio about this being "the poorest performance from an Irish side in living memory."

Then D'Arcy or O'Driscoll will make a line break shortly into the second half, which will end up in Wallace going over after a couple of phases and that'll be that. Cue endless footage of the despoilment of the Trevi fountain.

Rome riddle as Ireland burn!
Or maybe, for once, our traditional first half buffeting by the Italian pack will result in them picking up a few scores, rather than the usual fruitless territorial dominance.

Maybe, after a glorious run to this stage Ireland will come over all, well, Irish and conjure inglorious failure at the moment of truth.

If this happens, as a nation, we should throw our hat it.

Sport's Greatest Losers - Part 1

You have to admire their persistence. With each new day England's intrepid band of cricketing tourists send back ever more humiliating tales of calamitous defeat. In the spirit of ill-fated English expeditions, it is surely only a matter of time before Andrew Flintoff announces to the the dressing room: "I am just going outside, and may be some time". Though given the brevity of their stints at the crease, that wouldn't be such a bad idea.

To put it all in perspective, let's bellow 'shame' at some of sport's other most pitiful losers.

Chicago Cubs 1908 - Present
Starting with the organisation that has explored the concept of losing with such painstaking detail for nearly a century now, such that, if there were a competition for the biggest losers, they would win, except that would be a paradox, thus denying them even that honour.

The last time the Cubs won the World Series was 1908, the year in which Henry Ford produced his first Model T automobile, Robert Baden Powell began the Boy Scout movement and the women's suffrage movement was in the midst of a strategy of civil disobedience. Oh, and Australia regained the Ashes with a 308 run victory over England (England did manage to win one test however).

World Series would be a fine thing - this crowd can't even get their hands on a National League title, last winning a 'pennant' in 1945, when Frank Sinatra was getting chased by bobbysoxers and it was still ok to nuke a city.

This empire of failure appointed a new high-priest of haplessness in 2003, when, a mere two outs from getting to the World Series in the NL championship game against the Florida Marlins, fan Steve Bartman attempted to catch a foul ball instead of allowing outfielder Moises Alou take the catch to get another out. The Cubs subsequently collapsed, the Marlins won the World Series, and the world returned to its axis.

Manchester United 1968-1993
Although currently being slavishly imitated by Liverpool with their take on the Crumbling Empire/Subsequent Famine trick, the Reds of Merseyside have some way to go before matching the years in the wilderness endured by United between the glorious seasons of 1966/67 and 1967/68 in which they won the league and European Cup, and their return to the pinnacle of English football in 1993/93.

United were an object lesson in the problems of succession: Matt Busby's retirement in 1969 saw a succession of manager's fail to match the achievements of the Scot's 24 years in charge. Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell were too meek, Tommy Docherty too mad, Dave Sexton too defensive and Big Ron too tanned. Famously, it took Alex Ferguson almost seven years to drag the club to a title.

The nadir was a relegation in 1974, which Liverpool have, as yet, failed to match. Perhaps as heartbreaking was the failure to win the 1992 title, the last First Division championship they would compete for, which Leeds won after United lost 2-0 against, ahem, Liverpool. Still, they've rather made up for it since.

2005 British & Irish Lions
New Zealand could hardly have been a less hospitable place for the 2005 Lions to visit had the host country arranged a tour match against some Orcs left over from the filming of Lord of the Rings. The test results were by no means the worst ever either, the tourists having gotten smacked up four times in 1966 and 1983, rather than the mere three whippings they took in 2005.

But the way the tour was conducted, when added to the whitewash on the field, sets this tour up for particular derision. This was Clive Woodward's Heaven's Gate, the folly to end all follies. From the whole 'Power of Four' nonsense (which included a specially commissioned and immediately forgotten anthem) to the vast massed ranks of backroom staff that shuffled along in their wake, verily this was a carnival of cluelessness.

Being exactly the kind of Englishman whose superciliousness plays poorly in the Antipodes, Woodward was always up against it. But when his tactics consisted of the dusting down of a manual entitled "England 2003 - Biff, Bash and Wilko" observers were entitled to wonder whether more time had been spent on assembling the 26-strong backroom staff than in devising a remotely cogent gameplan.

If Willie John McBride had issued his famous '99' call in 2005, this lot would looked around for the ice-cream van.

Aussie Victorious is A Matter of Pride

If you've found recent media coverage of the Ashes excessive, both in that which has spilled over from the cross channel outlets, and also the fact that it gets any attention at all in this country, then you'll be delighted to have seen the English wickets tumble this morning, in that familiar way they had of doing so in the not-so-distant past.

The loss of the second test and the destruction of an English nerve that snapped under the irresistible weight of Shane Warne's genius should see English cricket's giddy garlands of the summer of 2005 folded up and put away, to be looked back on only in quiet moments of repose.

The shellshocked English cricketers will be feeling bad enough today, as that prized urn and those happy memories slip further away. The full force of Australia Victorious, however, will only worsen their demeanour.

There is, probably, no worse place to be a loser, and no worse loser to be, than an Englishman in Australia. England as a nation does not have its enemies to seek, and there would appear to be far more rancourous historical foes around than the Aussies, whose original flowering was, after all, from relatively recently planted British seed.

But it is precisely that closeness that infuses the bile into the nations' sporting conflicts. The shared language only allows the insults to be more easily understood.

Any young nation - and there are few younger than Australia, for whom the tragedy of Gallipoli as recently as 1915 is regarded as the source wellspring of their national identity - must establish itself and its independence as distinctly as possible from that of its 'mother' country, or that which had previously dominated it.

In Ireland, Eamon De Valera's controversial policy of economic self-sufficiency and total diplomatic independence from Britain was conceived to bolster and iron-cast the new nation's separate status. By remaining neutral in the Second World War and, in the process, enraging Winston Churchill through his refusal to allow the use in that conflict of the so-called 'Treaty Ports', De Valera intended to underline to the world the distinctiveness of the Irish nation.

Australia's disengagement from Britain, on the other hand, was gradual, bloodless and incomplete, the country coming into existence in 1901 as the Commonwealth of Australia, retaining to this day, of course, the Union Jack on its flag and the Queen as its Head of State.

But the Australians have a special enmity for the English, and it is clearly that of the younger sibling towards his elder, or the troubled teenager toward his overbearing parent.

None of this stops them sending their youthful population to work in English pubs, or from engaging enthusiastically with English culture - The Bill is phenomenally and mystifyingly popular in Australia, as, more understandably, are the traditional British sitcom and the meat pie (which they have perfected into a artery-solidifying wonder).

But the gory glee taken in their sporting defeats of the English speaks of their own Treaty Ports: the unbending and bitter pride they take in their excellence on the sports field, and the values they celebrate therein.

The scorn heaped on the invariably whinging Poms is intended to 'barrack' - a quintessentially Aussie term for vocal support - for what the Aussies see as positive in themselves: manly athleticism; a steely, hardbitten character; the uncompromising pursuit of victory.

Social anthropologists might speculate on how the taming of that harsh continent imbued these virtues, but however they came about, the sight of a bunch of Englishmen whimpering and folding to defeat this morning will have enthused any Aussie worth his salt.

Ian Bell's dithering dismissal - run out when seemingly caught in a funk as Paul Collingwood called to him for a single - and Ashley Giles' greasy palmed drop earlier in the test would have been seen as encapsulating everything the lack of which made Australia great.

There might not be much more attention paid to these Ashes around these parts now that the series is effectively over, but those unfortunate Englishmen will hear plenty about it for the next few weeks.

Its a matter of national pride.

Reliving the Spirit in the Ashes

Unless you're the kind of person who, when reading his chunky English broadsheet of a Sunday, skips impatiently through the cricket pages, or who flicks his remote control unthinkingly at the sight of a white jumper on Sky Sports, you will be well aware that the Ashes got under way last night, our time, in Brisbane.

Delightfully bereft of any sponsor's name, governing body acronymous prefix, or focus-branded ersatz moniker, the aged simplicity of the Ashes concept is clearly resolute in its interest and excitement for cricket followers in the two participating countries.

Of course, as far as the English are concerned, the extraordinary summer of 2005 didn't half help the cause of the ancient rivalry's profile. The explosion of enthusiasm that that series incited almost paralleled the socio-cultural thrill-spikes usually only engendered by World Cups.

The reference to football is both useful and misleading. While the crossover interest in the success of Michael Vaughan's team and the elevation to the superstar class of Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff fitted the model of the modern soccer/celeb interface, a large part of the affection the England team won - aside from the fact that they actually won, unlike the much derided teams that preceded them back to their previous success in 1986/87 - was due to the very fact that they were so clearly not like their counterparts in the Premiership.

The wonderful, twisting narrative of the 2005 Ashes, with its daily epics of heroism, sportsmanship and sheer nail-biting excitement struck a powerful chord with many and provided the nation's media with a blanket editorial line: that these fine examples of men were a welcome relief from the overpaid, preening, morally bankrupt species which usually inhabited the back pages during the rest of the year.

Flintoff was the epitome of this long-lost, Boys Own ideal, his reputation not only burnished by his swashbuckling batting and rip-snorting bowling, but by his sporting consolation of Brett Lee after the Australian's valiant innings had only just failed to prevent England winning the second test. Even Flintoff's astounding display of celebratory inebriation won plaudits, the hero clearly a likeable, amiable drunk rather than a brawling, roasting embarassment.

Of course, there was much more to the Ashes fever of 2005 than its protagonists' good natures. Cricket resides deeply in the English psyche, rarely eliciting the feverish passion of football - despite the terracing-style carry-on of the 'Barmy Army' - but representative of a broad and wholesome sort of Englishness that, suddenly, seemed to strike the zeitgeist like a Flintoff full toss on an Aussie wicket.

At a time when the concept of Englishness is the subject of endless, beard-stroking debate, when Celtic nationalism, immigration problems and post-imperial guilt seemed to leave the English nation struggling for positive representative symbols, the cricket team provided an unquestionable affirmation of the sort of national character that English people could recognise, but also feel good about.

It is the nature of such sporting festivals as that created in England by the last Ashes series that their passing should take with them much of the bunting and brio that they brought with them. The Premiership behemoth had already heaved into view by the time the famous urn had been won, and it was soon followed - and dwarfed - by the World Cup. Twelve months after Flintoff consoled Lee, Ashley Cole was spilling his heart about the ignominy of being offered a wage of £55,000 a week.

So perhaps that summer of 2005 was - like a summer holiday should be - just a glorious and restorative break from reality. Countless cricket fans and those who fondly recall the thrill of England's Ashes win will spend the next weeks in bleary-eyed observation of their attempt to retain them. It won't be the same, of course: injury and form problems and the formidable Australians will make it hard for England and the time difference will do for the party atmosphere. But this series' curious power to fascinate and resonate will, undoubtedly, remain undimmed.