Anyone who has had even cursory professional contact with sporting administrators, managers or coaches will know that their attitude towards all things media tends to range from the gruffly neutral to the actively obstructive. As a general rule the wagons are circled first and questions are answered later. Willie Anderson is and always has been an exception to that guiding premise and the success of his Dungannon side at Lansdowne Road last Saturday is refreshing proof that good guys do sometimes come first.
It was also vindication for Anderson. For whatever reason his star appears to have been in the descendant recently when it comes to international matters and of late his expertise has been deemed surplus to requirements. His response was to dig in at his spiritual home at Dungannon and set about moulding an Ulster club side capable of scrapping with the big boys at the business end of the All-Ireland League.
His cause, of course, was greatly aided by the quality of the players he first attracted to the club and then shaped into a side with genuine national ambitions. The pairing of Ryan Constable and Johnny Bell has been a revelation as they provided stability and a platform on which the rest of the edifice could be built. On Saturday, as he has been all season, David Humphreys was the driving force in front of them and in Tyrone Howe and the Cunningham brothers, Jan and Bryn, he has found willing and able attacking accomplices.
If rugby is to compete at all in an already crowded marketplace for the affections and allegiances of young people bombarded with sporting opportunity, it has to be a sport which is both accessible and enjoyable to watch. Forward power and efficient ball retention has its place in Anderson's Dungannon but it is not allowed to dominate at the expense of stifling the creativity of the backs. In the latter part of this season Dungannon have consistently played the sort of rugby that any young boy or girl starting out would want to be a part of. Again Anderson's input cannot be overlooked.
None of this has happened by accident. The former Ireland captain has always been on the evangelical side of rugby's broad church. Years ago, and when it was distinctly unfashionable to do so, he was pushing back the boundaries and taking the game down new and different avenues.
Much of this was born out of necessity because when it comes to Dungannon's geographical location and the pool from which it draws its players and supporters, the numbers simply don't add up. Despite the presence of an excellent feeder school in the town, the club has no extended rugby hinterland from which it can draw recruits. And even when the bodies are there, many drift off to Scotland and England when it comes to choosing a university, never to return.
The figures bear this out. The estimated attendance at last Saturday's final was pitched at around 10,000 but given the vast empty expanses at Lansdowne Road it could be that this was on the optimistic side. No matter. The point can still be made because a week before the Ulster championship Gaelic football game between Tyrone, Dungannon's home patch, and Armagh attracted a crowd of three times that number. And the following day a crowd twice as large was at Casement Park to see Cavan play Down. Even the Irish Cup final between Linfield and Glentoran attracted 12,000 to Windsor Park earlier this month.
AND it is not as if we are comparing like with like. The Dungannon-Cork Con game was ostensibly the biggest club occasion of the year in Irish rugby while the Ulster championship games were merely opening salvos in an ongoing campaign. Rugby here is very much starting from the back of the grid when it comes to winning sporting hearts and minds.
To his credit, this has always been something which Willie Anderson was acutely aware of. Training and coaching camps have been run in Dungannon on an ongoing basis in an attempt to widen the catchment area for new players beyond what would be considered the traditional Protestant feeder schools. And as rugby clubs go, Dungannon is very much at the less stuffy end of the market when it comes to welcoming both visitors and novices.
As well as all of this, Anderson was one of the driving forces behind an annual game between local rugby and Gaelic players in which a half of each code is played. In real terms it may not make a huge difference to the sporting preferences of those involved, although Anderson has wondered wistfully about the type of outhalf Peter Canavan would have made had things worked out a little differently.
But the occasion as a whole is hugely symbolic as it sends out the message that the perceived boundaries between sporting codes may not be as insurmountable as popular wisdom would have it. And in a sporting culture as segregated as this one, the significance of that cannot be overestimated. Anecdotal evidence from Munster, and to a lesser extent Leinster, indicates the degree of cross pollination that is going on at present between Gaelic football and rugby there.
The exigencies of the situation here mean that is not even on the agenda yet but with the efforts of Willie Anderson and others that may come sooner rather than later. For so long sport here has been about bans, the closing of doors and the blocking of career paths. Any move towards a degree of ecumenism is to be welcomed enthusiastically.
An emotional attachment to rugby and its local sides may, of course, take a little longer to bed down but there is at least a palpable sense that there is movement in the right direction. The worth and contribution of far-seeing individuals like Willie Anderson is inestimable in all of this. In time perhaps there will be a few more like him.
