Peter Jackson: Two new Irish world-beaters a small consolation
Celebrates Jones: After Game Right) South And Me Coach The Felix Inpho/dan Assistant Africa (centre Jones Mr Sheridan
For the last 20 years, Irish rugby has had to make do with laying claim to a pair of World Cup winners: one clad in all-black, the other in all-white.
John Gallagher and Kyran Bracken, the former raised amongst an Irish community in south London by parents from Derry and Limerick; the latter a dentist’s son from Dublin who moved to Liverpool with his family at the age of four.
One went from pounding the beat in the Met Police like his dad to tearing it up with the All Black untouchables of 1987, the other followed 16 years later as England’s substitute scrum-half when they won the pot of gold in Sydney.
Now, in one fell swoop, Ireland’s list of rugby world-beaters can be said to have doubled, not much of a consolation but better than nothing even if the new pair in question represent a team wearing a different shade of green.
Neither Felix Jones nor Jean Kleyn were Munster born or bred but the Red Army will claim that the province made them what they are: Jones, the former Ireland full back, as an integral part of South Africa’s coaching hierarchy, Kleyn, the former Ireland lock, as a born-again Springbok.
How strange that a player declared surplus to Ireland requirements after the Japanese World Cup should end up winning this one throughout the last 22 minutes of white-knuckle time as a substitute for the mighty Eben Etzebeth, just as Kleyn had been the night they lost to Ireland five weeks earlier.
If it hadn’t been for the folly of a flawed draw basing its top four seedings on how they finished in Japan; if it hadn’t been for Jordie Barrett’s burrowing technique, Kleyn and his Munster compadre RG Snyman would have been standing shoulder-to-shoulder in Paris on Saturday night against Tadhg Beirne and, quite possibly, the ultimate Munster warrior, Peter O’Mahony.
Enough of the two most useless words in the English vocabulary: if only… Despite beating the Boks and the Blacks four times at various stages over the last 15 months, Ireland have fallen still further behind both in a table based on the results at all ten World Cups.
It will do nothing to ease the collective anguish over what might have been but it might be useful as a distant challenge come Australia in four years time. Grand Slams are a big deal this side of the Equator but they don’t count for much on the other side as France, England, twice, Wales and now Ireland know to their cost.
Only once has a European team extended a grand slamming of Europe to global conquest in the same year: Martin Johnson’s England in 2003.
Two points for every win, a bonus of 15 for a winning final, ten as runners-up, five for third place and three for fourth leaves Ireland a pitifully long way down the global pecking order, no more than you deserve for losing all eight quarter-finals.
How they stand after ten World Cups:
(Figures in brackets denote the total number of winning matches):
1 New Zealand (54) 191
2 *South Africa (40) 150
3 Australia (43) 144
4 England (42) 137
5 France (42) 125
6 Wales (30) 71
7 Argentina (25) 61
8 Scotland (26) 55
9 Ireland (26) 52
10 Italy (15) 30
*Banned from the first two tournaments because of the country’s apartheid regime.
Over the course of seven matches, only one England wing adorned the World Cup with a try. Henry Arundell collected five during the romp against Chile and promptly disappeared for five weeks, prompting some to wonder if his feat had been viewed as not quite the done thing by a management big into risk-aversion.
Having served his time, one week for every try, the former London Irish flyer resurfaced for the third-place decider against Argentina. England, it seemed, had recognised the need for a bit of pizzazz by way of belated contribution to the overall gaiety of the tournament.
Give Henry the ball in a modicum of space, then admire the view as the slippery little customer dumped Los Pumas on their backsides which only goes to show how wrong you can be. Half-time came without England once giving him the ball.
Never mind, there were still 40 minutes left, more than enough time to give him a run with the ball as opposed to the menial task of running without it to contest a box-kick. Neil Back, less than fondly remembered by Munster fans for his preventative action on Leicester’s behalf during the 2001 European Cup final, proferred the view that ‘great wings go looking for the ball.’ Arundell played as if under orders to do no such thing. An hour passed and he was still waiting with 14 minutes left on the clock when England took him off, no doubt as part of the strategic plan to protect a fragile six-point advantage.
Why pick a wing with pace and panache when the attacking plan is so constipated that it doesn’t extend to giving him the ball just once? As pointless exercises, Arundell’s was hard to beat. And they call it entertainment…
When it comes to Eddie Jones, there is always a whole lot more than meets the eye. This is the same Eddie Jones, remember, who won two Tests out of nine since rejoining the Wallabies in January when Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan acclaimed him as ‘the best coach in the world.’
September 24: The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Jones has been in talks to take charge of Japan post-World Cup. On the same day his feeble Wallabies fall to a landslide pasting from Wales.
October 11: A Japanese newspaper claims that Jones will be taking charge of the Brave Blossoms very soon.
October 17: Jones, asked on returning to Sydney whether he is giving the Wallabies up as a bad job, says: ‘’I’m staying, mate. I’ve always been committed to Australian rugby. I’ve got the foresight to see where we need to go.’’
October 29: Ten months after signing a five-year deal, Jones quits, saying: "I have a major feeling of disappointment.’’
But, as the man himself says, he has the foresight to see where he needs to go, a gift which cannot be extended to the sport at large because even the most fertile human imagination doesn’t stretch that far.
For missing a forward pass when France knocked the All Blacks out in the quarter-finals at Cardiff in 2007, Wayne Barnes was voted the third most hated man in New Zealand, behind Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
Far from congratulating the English barrister on his composed handling of a combustible final, no shortage of Kiwis ganged up on him via social media. They blamed him for giving one captain (Sam Cane) a red card and for letting the other (Siya Kolisi) off with a yellow, conveniently ignoring the fact that neither decision was made by Barnes but by the man in the bunker at the Roland Garros tennis stadium.
Viewers new to rugby and its endless complexities were left scratching their heads at the apparent inconsistency of a law which makes no distinction between the accidental and the deliberate.
Cane, sadly, didn’t have a leg to stand on. Kolisi did, if only just because ‘a change in the dynamic of the tackle’ provided enough mitigation to avoid another red.
No rugby captain can ever have sounded as statesman-like as Siya Kolisi did on the eve of the final, so much so that maybe one day he’ll be the President:
"There is so much going wrong in our country and we are like the last line of defence and we can show that we can achieve so much together. There were people before me who fought for people who looked like me to even be able to play for this team.’’
The ‘bronze medal’ decider having provoked questions as its purpose beyond providing one more match for the organisers to flog to television, ITV didn’t miss a trick in talking up England-Argentina.
At half-time, Clive Woodward kept talking about ‘a great match.’ England captain Owen Farrell offered a contrasting post-match verdict on ‘a scrappy old game.’ Elsewhere it was described, absurdly, as ‘an epic.’ England hanging on to avoid Argentina dragging them into extra-time was not to be confused with the real epics of the tournament: Ireland-New Zealand and France-South Africa, even if that meant the premature elimination of the third and fourth-best teams.
15 Beauden Barrett (New Zealand) 14 Damian Penaud (France) 13 Waisea Nayacalevu (Fiji) 12 Bundee Aki (Ireland) 11 Mark Telea (New Zealand) 10 Handre Pollard (South Africa) 9 Antoine Dupont (France) 1 Ox Nche (South Africa) 2 Mike Tadjer (Portugal) 3 Uini Atonio (France) 4 Eben Etzebeth (South Africa) 5 Tadhg Beirne (Ireland) 6 Siya Kolisi (South Africa) 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit (South Africa) 8 Ardie Savea (New Zealand)
Substitutes: Jamie George (England) Andrew Porter (Ireland) Frans Malherbe (South Africa) Will Rowlands (Wales) Courtney Lawes (England) Aaron Smith (New Zealand) Johnny Sexton (Ireland) Jordie Barrett (New Zealand).