Rugby:It was arguably the best year in the history of Irish rugby. Gerry Thornleysavours the highlights
The day of days in the year of years. It's hard to compare with a Grand Slam over half a century ago, or even with a brace of Triple Crowns and a championship in the first half of the 1980s. But in modern times certainly, there's never been a year like 2006, with the promise of even better to come in 2007. And for that we can largely be grateful to one day in May.
From little acorns and all that. Was it really all doom and gloom at this point last year? It was a remarkable annual graph and as so often, the provinces were the catalysts. Certainly Ireland's autumnal performances had hit something of a nadir in recent times, and the prospects of the provinces advancing in the Heineken European Cup were at best in the balance. But there was still value to be had in dipping into the ridiculously overpriced 80 to 1 about Leinster and the 28 to 1 about Munster winning the Cup.
Munster, after all, had negotiated their way through the pool landmines for the previous seven years in a row, and Leinster had done so in three of the previous four years. Ulster's brace of away defeats to Biarritz and Saracens had effectively put them out of contention, but although Leinster had also lost twice, unluckily at home to Bath and away to Bourgoin, their try-scoring abilities and bonus points had left them with a clear path to the last eight by dint of beating Glasgow at home and Bath away.
For their part, Munster were failing to pick up bonus points and were clinging on to Sale's shirt-tails after their defeat to the cock-a-hoop English league leaders the previous October.
In hindsight, Leinster had probably done Munster the first of about four significant favours the day before the new year began with their thrilling, Felipe Contepomi-inspired 35-23 win at the RDS. Munster respond well when wounded and a seven-try, 46-9 win away to Castres signalled their intent when Sale came calling for one of those end-of-group Thomond Park epics the decaying old ground specialises in.
If there was one moment that kickstarted the revival it was, surely, Paul O'Connell's follow-up hit on Sebastien Chabal from Ronan O'Gara's restart after Charlie Hodgson had kicked Sale 3-0 ahead. Donnacha O'Callaghan was quick to lend his considerable frame and Chabal was frogmarched backward.
Pride, reckoned O'Connell, was the reason The Beast didn't seek the sanctuary of the ground. When he shakily returned to his feet, Thomond Park shook to one of its most seismic roars. The testosterone levels rose in home ranks.
Chabal is a fantastic player whose brutally dynamic game had been a feature of their win over Munster at Edgeley Park, but he was too much of a talisman for Sale's own good.
Adopting the classic underage schools philosophy of "take out the big guy and the rest will fall", Munster queued up for Chabal and by the end he and Sale were beaten men.
Munster left it late - they don't do dull scripts - and David Wallace's injury-time try earned the bonus point to put them ahead of Sale on head-to-head.
Cue Leinster's second favour the next day. Countering off a quick tap under his posts by Contepomi for a pitch-length try by Shane Horgan, they picked up a bonus point win and, by denying Bath one in defeat, so ensured Munster a home quarter-final against Perpignan, with Leinster away to Toulouse.
The feel-good factor was back.
Yet Ireland began the Six Nations with a desultory home win over Italy and were staring down the barrel of a largely self-inflicted 43-3 deficit 10 minutes into the second half in Paris. In the next 30 minutes they swung from the hip, scored four converted tries, possibly saved Eddie O'Sullivan's skin and revitalised Ireland's campaign.
Wins at home against Wales and Scotland sent them to Twickenham with a spring in their step. Ireland should never have been losing 24-21 entering the last throes, but then O'Gara and Brian O'Driscoll played it off the cuff, the latter's gather of O'Gara's chip and Peter Stringer's sublime cut-out blindside pass leading to another of the year's defining images: Shane Horgan reaching out for the line like only he can for a Crown-winning try, his second of the match.
That was fitting, for few players have grown into a position of such value as he did in 2007. He is now one of Leinster's and Ireland's totems, a consistent big-game player, frequently the fulcrum, often the catalyst and now, almost undetected, Ireland's third-highest try scorer of all time.
Cue Leinster's next favour for Munster, removing Toulouse from Munster's path to their Holy Grail, putting themselves there instead.
O'Driscoll's stunning line off Contepomi and Horgan through the heart of Toulouse was a statement of intent, Denis Hickie's pitch-length try off another Contepomi tap deep in their own territory perhaps the defining moment of Leinster's season.
Munster rolled up their sleeves the next day against Perpignan far more resolutely than they were generally given credit for, and Lansdowne Road was transformed into a little corner of Munster by the Red Army when O'Connell, O'Gara and co put Leinster to the sword to right New Year's Eve.
Apologies all round for the excesses of the pre-match hype, but it was possibly a once-in-a-lifetime all-Irish affair. Maybe not.
Despite their cutting edge being considerably dulled by the horrible injury Barry Murphy sustained in Ravenhill in February, Munster achieved their Magnificent Obsession the hard way, beating a Biarritz team who would put 40 points on Toulouse in the French final a couple of weeks later.
Trevor Halstead's try rubberstamped another big game from the big Bok, as he'd done in the quarters and semis.
That score, coming after Anthony Foley and his on-field brains trust had elected to go for the corner with a penalty, was proof that this time Munster had turned up to score tries and weren't going to come away with the same regrets they had from 2000 and 2002.
As defining, and even hilarious, an image from the season was surely Stringer's try, akin to a small boy doing a cheeky runner from a sweetshop without paying.
Never has there been, nor ever will there be again, a travelling Irish support quite like that May 20th day in Cardiff. Nor will such raw emotion be so palpably in the air.
Ironically, it wouldn't have been so heartwarming, or anything like the same occasion, had Munster succeeded in 2000 and 2002.
Destiny didn't call them then, and didn't call them on May 20th. They earned everything they got and fair play to them.
As Mick Galwey mixed post-match thoughts on radio and with journalists while watching the celebrations unfold from the steepling heights of the Millennium Stadium, his voice cracked. It reminded you how this had been the culmination of an effort going back seven years and more by a side whose honesty of effort and camaraderie have rarely been equalled, and never bettered.
And it wouldn't have been only former and current players who shared in that. Thousands had made a cumulative investment financially stretching into millions, and it had been great fun along the way, highlighted by epic victories.
Will there ever be a rugby story quite like it again?
In any normal year, David Humphreys's last-ditch drop-goal to clinch the Magners League by a point from Leinster, with Munster completing a one-two-three (perhaps never to be repeated) would have stood out more than it did. It was typical Humphreys and even within Leinster circles there was a widespread feeling that, well, if it had to be anyone to deny them a title by a point, it might as well be the likeable Ulster legend in his own playing career.
After a couple of near misses away to the All Blacks in the summer, so the feel-good factor carried on into November, when Eddie O'Sullivan harnessed the provinces' success to such a level that Ireland have rarely put together such compelling performances as those beatings of South Africa, Australia and the Pacific Islands in successive weeks.
Munster and Leinster move into the New Year pretty well placed in the European Cup too, with Ulster atop the Magners League.
A helluva year, generously sprinkled with marvellous memories, nearly all of them good. It will take some topping, and yet . . .
Ireland in 2006
February 4thIreland 26 Italy 16 ... Lansdowne Road
February 11thFrance 43 Ireland 31 ... Stade de France
February 26thIreland 31 Wales 5 ... Lansdowne Road
March 11thIreland 15 Scotland 9 ... Lansdowne Road
March 18thEngland 24 Ireland 28 ... Twickenham
June 10thNew Zealand 34 Ireland 23 ... Waikato Stadium, Hamilton
June 17thNew Zealand 27 Ireland 17 ... Eden Park, Auckland
June 24thAustralia 37 Ireland 15 ... Subiaco Oval, Perth
November 11thIreland 32 South Africa 15 ... Lansdowne Road
November 19thIreland 21 Australia 6 ... Lansdowne Road
