WE may have lost to the English at Lansdowne Road last Saturday but we won at Sydney Parade. Shown left are the opposing captains, Fine Gael TD Jimmy Deenihan of the Oireachtas XV and hereditary peer Lord Addington of the Westminster XV. The Oireachtas, which as well as deputies Michael Ahern, Simon Coveney, Billy Kelleher, Brian Hayes and Deenihan managed to press-gang former international Fergus Dunlea and Kerry GAA champion Stephen Stack into the special green and navy strip, won by 15 points to seven.
One deputy who cried off, Conor Lenihan, says he has been named wimp of the week. He tells Quidnunc that faced with the ferocity of the English pack and that of his wife he chose to go to the antenatal class instead. It was a very competitive game according to spectators. One compared their ability to kick for touch from every area of the field to their facility for referring contentious matters to committees. Three balls were lost, one flying over the DART and another heading towards Ailesbury Road, and replacements had to be found, on the last occasion from neighbouring players. It was agreed in advance that there would be four quarters of 15 minutes but in a classical political fudge an emergency motion passed at half-time turned it into a game of three quarters.
Then as Ireland hung on, someone in the crowd demanded "a bit more passion" from the Irish captain. This was a joke. Deenihan played as though the Opposition were wearing Cork jerseys, and on at least one occasion he was penalised by ref John Dardis for going over the top. So when Lord Addington said at the end how much he had enjoyed playing with "good friends, who are still friends," the former Kerry player was having none of it: "We wanted to win - this was tribal".
In all, about 200 people cheered the teams on, among them the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation. James McDaid joked that he was there in both his ministerial and medicinal capacities. He had specific instructions from the Taoiseach to ensure that Deenihan didn't field any players from marginal constituencies and to take all steps possible to avoid a by-election resulting from play. While they were all very good, he said, Warren Gatland might not have been impressed.