On St Patrick's Day, 2012, Ireland lost 30-9 to England at Twickenham. It's definitely not a collectible in terms of auspicious Irish memories in the Six Nations Championship, but for one player the date carries an added resonance because it was the last time that Tommy Bowe donned a green jersey in the tournament.
That statistical footnote is likely to change this Saturday when Bowe takes his place on the right wing for Ireland's opening game of the 2015 Six Nations against Italy at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome. Injury has precluded his involvement in the last two campaigns, the Ulsterman reduced to looking on wistfully as Ireland won last season's Six Nations title.
Absence has made his heart grow fonder – he contributed handsomely during the November test series of 2012, 2013 and 2014 – for a tournament that captured his heart as a youngster. He smiled: “Missing the last two Six Nations has been tough. I’ve been fortunate enough to play in November internationals, which is super. With the southern hemisphere’s teams coming to Ireland, there’s always that buzz.
“It doesn’t compare with the Six Nations. It’s what you grow up watching, the excitement of it and the buzz around the country certainly shows that.”
Hat-trick
A tiny part of Bowe’s enthusiasm might stem from the fact that he’s on a hat-trick, so to speak, having scored tries in each of his last two test matches, the victories over
South Africa
and
Australia
. He’s only played against Italy on five occasions since making his debut in 2004 – including a 2011
World Cup
match in Dunedin – scoring four of his 28 tries for the national team in those matches.
The Italians won the last time Ireland travelled to Rome and, on the previous occasion in 2011, it required a late drop goal from Ronan O’Gara to wrest a victory. Bowe didn’t play in either match but knows that having finally beaten Ireland in the tournament for the first time, Italy will be keen to do so again in front of their adoring public, which is likely to number in excess of 70,000.
In 2013 they also beat France at home and have previously accounted for Wales and Scotland; England is the only hurdle left to vault. Italy's French coach Jacques Brunel said recently that he wants to accelerate his side's evolution from a team that relied heavily on grunt to one capable of more nuanced rugby.
It’ll be interesting to note if he pursues that ambition. Italy will bristle with intent on the opening weekend in Rome, something to which Bowe alluded when offering an overview of the upcoming clash. “It’s going to be a tough match for us, [as] we have struggled there against them the last two times we’ve played over there, so we know exactly what threats they have, what match it will be.
“In the first game they always come out of the blocks. We’ve looked at quite a lot of them over the last week, [as well as] knowing quite a lot from playing against the Italian teams in the league. Certainly, in the backline, they have some exciting players. The winger [Leonardo] Sarto and [Michele] Campagnaro in the centre, they’ve quite a lot of threats and, obviously, we know quite a lot about their backrows [Alessandro] Zanni and [Sergio] Parisse and how physical they are up front.”
The building blocks in performance terms for away teams are universal: most players talk about quietening the crowd, establishing momentum on the pitch and the scoreboard and sustaining that intensity through to the final whistle.
Bowe works his way through the list but stops short at the suggestion that Saturday’s result would have deep-rooted ramifications when the two teams meet at the pool stage of the World Cup later in the year. “I suppose looking from the outside in, maybe it does, but certainly for us as a team we won’t be really taking that into consideration. How it’s going to line us up for the World Cup isn’t something worth thinking about.”
Intelligent pragmatism
There was an intelligent pragmatism to the way Ireland played in November, as Ireland coach
Joe Schmidt
tailored a game plan to suit the players at his disposal, exposing areas to attack the opposition. But Bowe asserts that it shouldn’t be mistaken for conservatism.
“I don’t think we’ll be going out there with much caution, I think we’ll be going out there to win. We’ll have plays and ideas of how we want to attack when we get into the opposition half; there won’t be anything negative in how we play.”
With each passing week there is greater depth to the roster as the injured return; those in possession of a green shirt on Saturday in Rome understand that all performance-related issues pertain to the present tense.
