Hugo MacNeill and Trevor Ringland reminisce with CIARÁN CRONINabout Ireland's ill-prepared for participation at the inaugural tournament in New Zealand
THE OPENING ceremony of the inaugural 1987 World Cup in Auckland couldn’t have had a more appropriate soundtrack. With the rain spitting down, as it generally tends to in New Zealand’s capital, and the dancers and marching bands preparing to make their entrance to the Eden Park pitch, the attention-grabbing opening bars of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra echoed around the ground. The German composer’s most famous work might be recognisable without further reference by any classical music buff, but most others will more readily associate the dramatic melody with the opening scenes of Stanley Kubrick’s seminal science-fiction movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
An odyssey the very first World Cup most certainly was. It wasn’t quite outer space, admittedly, but not all that far off given the contrast between the world the amateur game of rugby union inhabited, and where it was headed. That the tournament took place at all was a minor miracle.
The New Zealand and Australian unions, determined to ward off a threat of a professional rugby “circus” proposed by David Lord, put forward the concept of a rugby world cup, to be held every four years, at an IRB Council meeting in Paris in March, 1985. Of the eight unions entitled to vote, six were in favour and two against. One dissenter was the Scottish Rugby Union; the other was the IRFU.
Ireland’s preparations were symbolic of the union’s lack of interest. Long before Mick Doyle’s side took the pitch at Athletic Park in Wellington for their opening game in Pool Two against Wales, the World Cup didn’t have the feel of anything special about it. There was a colours match, Blues against Whites, in advance of Doyle selecting his squad for the tournament, but no official warm-up games. And besides, whatever preparations there were were scarred by the IRA bomb that injured Nigel Carr, Philip Rainey and David Irwin as they travelled from Belfast to Dublin to take part in a pre-World Cup training session just one month before the tournament. All told, the World Cup was an add-on to Ireland’s season, not to focus of it.
“Our one aim that year was to win the Grand Slam,” says Hugo MacNeill, who played in all four of Ireland’s games in the tournament. “The World Cup was merely tagged on at the end. For a professional player today, a World Cup year is completely different to any other but back then things were different.”
They certainly were. When the players boarded the first of many flights on their 32-hour journey from Dublin to Wellington, they turned right to the cheap seats. There were no warnings to keep hydrated, or to move about every once in a while to prevent the onset of deep-vein thrombosis. Within an hour of landing, the squad were out training in attempt to blow off the cobwebs, rather than being offered a massage or heading for a swim. And then, Mick Doyle collapsed at the end of training with a heart attack.
“He was out training with the backs, and he took a big part in the session,” recalls MacNeill. “To be honest, at the time it happened we didn’t really know how serious it was.”
A few hours later, Donal Lenihan and Brendan Mullin visited their coach in hospital, with the Munster man delivering the immortal line: “Well Doyler, is it a boy or a girl?”
Syd Millar took over the coaching duties in advance of the Ireland’s first two games but, according to MacNeill, the absence of Doyle can’t be used as an excuse for Ireland’s efforts in the tournament. “I don’t think it impacted on our performance in the tournament. Even before that, things weren’t going well for us and it was such a pity. We were concerned about him, obviously, but we weren’t at our best anyway.”
Far from it, in fact. That opening game against Wales, played in windy conditions at a half-full Athletic Park, saw Ireland defeated 13-6 in what is widely agreed to have constituted a rugby horror show. “It was one of the worst games of all time without doubt,” says Trevor Ringland, who lined out on the wing in a game where anyone beyond first centre was redundant. “It was down to sheer rustiness, to be honest. But it really was awful.”
The startling XV that Monday afternoon weren’t roused by Ireland’s new anthem either. “I can remember standing there wondering what would come on and it was the Rose of Tralee. We were stunned. It’s not the kind of song you’d want to go out and lay down your life for. We weren’t expecting it – well, I certainly don’t remember anybody telling me about it beforehand.”
The first half against Canada in Dunedin wasn’t much better, but a much-improved second-half effort saw Ireland eventually emerge 46-19 winners, with both MacNeill and Ringland crossing for tries. And so on to Brisbane, Australia – with Doyle back in charge of the team – where a decent performance and 32-9 victory over Tonga set up a quarter-final against the tournament co-hosts in Sydney.
And in between all that?
According to Ringland, the first World Cup did have a different feel to your average summer tour. “There’s an impression out there that in the amateur era we were out drinking all the time but whenever we were on tour, we’d train every day of the week,” says Ringland. “The World Cup was no different in that respect but it did have a different feel in other ways to a normal tour.
“When we went to New Zealand, for example, and travelled around the country to play provincial matches, each town or region we’d play in would want to make sure we had the best few days in their area. And I don’t mean taking us out drinking and stuff. They’d want to take us to golf courses, on mountain walks, deer hunting, you know, whatever the region had to offer. That didn’t happen in the World Cup, and it obviously couldn’t because there were more teams around than just the one. But I believe it signalled a change in the game.”
Not that everything changed overnight.
“There was some socialising,” says MacNeill. “We were good friends with a lot of the Welsh players at the time, the likes of Jonathan Davies, Ieuan Evans and so on, and we got to know the Australians pretty well too. There was an opportunity at the time to really get to know players from different teams at after-match dinners and other events. I’m always interested to know whether the guys from today get to know their opponents as well as we did back in the day.”
Unfortunately, Ireland got closer to Australia at the after-match function than they ever did during their quarter-final. The Wallabies, who would go on to lose an epic semi-final to France, won 33-15 and Ireland’s World Cup journey ended just 14 days after it had begun. It was symbolic, as much as anything else, of the differing attitudes towards professionalism in the respective hemispheres.
“I don’t think any of Northern Hemisphere teams had really got their heads around the concept of the World Cup,” says MacNeill, “while the likes of Australia and New Zealand were laser-focused on what they wanted to achieve.”
Ringland saw things in a similar light. “It was the beginning of the professional era, no question,” he says. “You could see it in the Australian team that beat us, and New Zealand. I’m not suggesting they got paid or anything, but they were able for some reason or other to get chunks of time off work so that they could train as professionals. I was on the 1983 Lions tour to New Zealand and I got to train as a professional for 10 weeks. By the end, I was fitter, faster and better built and Australia and New Zealand seemed to have done that in advance of the first tournament.”
Members of the Irish press corps present at the tournament recall, after that Australian defeat, Doyle sitting at a press conference with a can of beer in front of him, munching on a bag of crisps, proclaiming himself delighted Ireland had at least won the second half.
Ireland’s World Cup exit, however, wasn’t viewed in such positive light by all.
“We didn’t do ourselves justice at all,” says MacNeill. “We had players who had won Championships and Triple Crowns, and who had been on Lions tours, and I do regret that we never got to test ourselves at our best against the likes Australia and New Zealand.”
Ringland’s regrets centre around Ireland’s preparations for the tournament.
“Looking back, there are many things you’d do differently, but that’s with hindsight. One of the main things for me was that we had no warm-up matches, and even after the end of Five Nations we were told to stop playing for a while so that we wouldn’t pick up injuries before the tournament. So we were extremely rusty going into the tournament but I wouldn’t criticise any of the management team for that. It was a learning curve.”
And the overall experience?
“I can remember walking out for that first game against Wales,” says MacNeill, “and the stadium wasn’t even half-full. From my point of view, New Zealand is the most fantastic country, the most beautiful place I’ve ever visited in my life and playing there is the biggest test any rugby player can ever face. But they’re interested in the All Blacks and New Zealand rugby, not any other teams. The World Cup then wasn’t what it is now. I’d love to have played in a proper World Cup, but then again I’d love to have played for Leinster in the Heineken Cup, too.”
THEN AND NOW
The format
1987: 16 teams broken into four pools of four 2011: 20 teams broken into four pools of five.
Total number of matches
1987: 32 2011: 48
Players in Irish squad
1987: 26 2011: 30
Management/Fitness staff
1987: 5 2011: 18
Travel time to New Zealand
1987: 32 hours 2011: 27 hours
First four games played in ...
1987 :14 days 2011: 22 days
Anthem
1987: Rose of Tralee 2011: Ireland's Call
World Cup exit
1987: 15-33 to Australia quarter-final 2011: ???
THE 1987 SQUAD
Forwards: W Anderson, P Collins, D Fitzgerald, N Francis, J Glennon, T Kingston, J Langbroek, D Lenihan (capt), P Matthews, J MacDonald, J McCoy, D McGrath, P Orr, S Smith, B Spillane.
Backs: M Bradley, K Crossan, P Dean, T Doyle, D Irwin, M Kiernan, H MacNeill, B Mullin, P Rainey, T Ringland, T Ward.
