AGAINST THE ODDS:IT WAS the little details, as Giovanni Trapattoni was so fond of stressing, which impressed Vinny Fitzpatrick as he sat in a plush chair in the reception area of the private clinic at Beaumont Hospital.
The morning newspapers, the complimentary tea and coffee, the water dispensers, these extras all mattered in Vinny’s book.
On this Monday morning, it was quiet, almost church-like, unlike the public clinics. Sick people came to both places to get better, but here they did so in comfort.
Of the ladies waiting to be seen, two wore turbans, another a wig, while the fourth was as bald as a coot and didn’t care who was watching. “Fair play to you, love,” thought Vinny.
Having caught the 104 bus up from Clontarf, Vinny was early for his appointment with Dr Macdara Hume, a ringer for Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter movies.
Outside, the woods were yellowing, drooping heavily with ripened chestnuts as Hallow’een – his favourite time of the year – fast approached. He couldn’t wait to dress up the twins, Oisín and Aoife, now almost two, for their first trick or treat experience on Mount Prospect Avenue.
With “Sam” back home in Dublin, Everton surviving, Bohs in the FAI Cup on Sunday and a fine Punchestown jumps card on Thursday, Vinny had much to look forward too.
After seven weekly courses of radiotherapy for his prostate cancer, Vinny was in excellent spirits. His waterworks were in full flow, he was arrow-straight again with his aim, a bit like Phil Taylor on the oche last weekend in CityWest.
There was no discomfort; no residue of blood, and his morning Niagara Falls was back to its gushing, loamy, finest.
In anticipation of the green light from Doc Hume to resume all normal activities, he had warned Angie to be prepared for some “slap and tickle” on his return home.
Waiting to be called, he picked up a paper and went straight to the sports section, noting with approval what a terrific service there was in newspapers these days.
In his youth, the sport was buried mid-paper and crammed into a couple of pages but now there were huge pull-outs, which was clearly identified by editors as a strong selling point. “Not before time,” thought Vinny.
On this morning, the requiem into the World Cup exit of Ireland’s rugby team was in top gear. There were reams of analysis about where it all went wrong against Wales.
As Vinny turned page after page, he felt the coverage was out of proportion to the event. For starters, the rugby World Cup wasn’t like the football version in his book for the simple reason that so few nations played it. Many that did weren’t even much use, he thought.
He racked his brains to think of more than 10 teams who were proficient at the oval ball game and stopped when he got to nine – New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, France, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Argentina.
Maybe Samoa or Fiji could be added to the mix but no more. “It’s not a World Cup; it’s a top-10 tournament for the same teams every four years,” he thought.
Of the six World Cup tournaments so far, Australia (2), South Africa (2), New Zealand and England were the previous winners. And Vinny would put his house on one of them winning again.
There were 20 teams in the World Cup but Vinny reckoned nearly half of them couldn’t compete with the big boys.
Vinny looked at the scores of the group games and winced – 83-7, 87-0, 81-7, 66-0, 67-3, 67-5. Mismatches, the whole lot of them, he sniffed.
“If a goal in football was the equal of a try in rugby, you’d have games finishing 17-0, 16-1, 13-0. A joke,” he thought to himself.
He’d read somewhere that 91 nations had been involved in qualifying for the rugby World Cup. “God help the sport if there are 71 teams worse than the ones which made it to New Zealand,” he sniggered.
Still, he felt sorry for Ireland if only because Brian O’Driscoll was a Clontarf lad, whose Dad had a surgery near Foley’s. O’Driscoll was a sound fella, and an outstanding sportsman.
But as the Irish team had never gone beyond the quarter-finals in five previous World Cups, why all the fuss over bowing out at the same stage this time, he wondered.
If truth be told, Vinny held a silent grudge against rugby since childhood.
He was a CBS boy where the ball was round, the whip prevalent, and fur-clad mums didn’t jump up and down on the sideline, shouting “kick ahead”, “’Nure, any head” when their sons were getting the lard beaten out of them in Finglas and Coolock.
Growing up, and out, as a teenager, he regarded rugby boys as southside softies born with a silver spoon and a hyphen.
He’d even looked down at his mates who played rugger up the road at St Paul’s in Raheny but noted, smugly, they hardly ever won a match.
He was studying the player ratings when he felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. It was Doc “Dumbledore” Hume.
“Ah, what a shame for our chaps in Wellington,” he said softly. “I felt our approach lacked the intensity and fluidity of the Australia game, wouldn’t you say?”
Vinny was about to say “I just thought we were crap” but checked himself. Doc Hume was clearly a rugger bugger; he was always in possession of the ball.
In Doc Hume’s private rooms, Vinny was ushered to a hard-backed chair opposite an oak-panelled table. All of a sudden, he felt like he was under a Garryowen with a herd of wildebeest bearing down on him.
“Now Vincent, I have the results of your scans and there is good news, very good news. The prostate cancer has been blown to smithereens by the radiotherapy. You are free to resume all, er normal, activities,” he smiled.
As Vinny punched the air with a meaty fist, Doc Hume continued. “However, something else has shown up, on a random X-ray, one we take as a precaution and in this case, it’s just as well. We’ve come across a shadow on your lung.
“It’s possibly nothing, it may be a legacy of some illness in your childhood but we’ll have to go in for a closer look.”
Vinny gulped. His fleshy lips felt dry. Having dodged one bullet with a giant “C” marked on it, what were the odds on dodging another?
“How serious is this, Doc?” he asked hoarsely.
Doc Hume looked over his half-moon glasses. “It’s hard to know. It could be something or nothing,” he said.
“But if something does show up, you’ll be facing a hard road,” he added solemnly.
It was a stunned Vincent Finbarr Fitzpatrick who walked slowly out of the private clinic and around the corner to the front of the hospital where he would wait for a bus, any bus.
His mind was a jumble. He sensed he was about to travel a road far harder, and less travelled, than any he had travelled before.
Bets of the Week
1pteach-way Pádraig Harrington in Portugal Masters (28/1 Coral)
2ptsMichael O'Neill to be next Northern Ireland manager (8/1, William Hill)
Vinny's Bismarck
1ptlay Wales to win Rugby World Cup (6/1, Boylesports, liability 6pts)
