When Slam doors shut on Irish hopes

Past Disappointments: 1951: Des O'Brien, aged 83, recalls defeat in Cardiff with startling clarity and insists that what cost Ireland most was the lack of a kicker, writes John O'Sullivan.

The clarity of recall is almost disconcerting, the cadence of his speech clipped and the anecdotes laced with humour.

It is staggering to consider that Des O'Brien is a couple of months short of his 84th birthday and the events broached in the conversation took place between 52 and 55 years ago.

His accuracy in fleshing out dates and matches can be partially attributed to the diaries he kept during his playing career and also a sharp intellect despite his advancing years. O'Brien was Ireland's pack leader from the day he won his first cap as a 28-year-old against England on February 14th, 1948, to his 20th and last on March 29th, 1952, against the same opposition.

The former Belvedere College schoolboy was a member of the only Ireland team to win a Grand Slam, in 1948, in a five-year golden period for Irish rugby that also yielded a Triple Crown.

Besides the Slam he won, there was the one that got away, when Ireland, having beaten France, England and Scotland, drew 3-3 with Wales in Cardiff to be cruelly denied in the final match in 1951.

Ireland beat France 9-8 at Lansdowne Road and then England at the same venue, 3-0. Murrayfield was the next assignment against a strong Scotland team. O'Brien takes up the story: "They had just beaten Wales comfortably and we found ourselves playing 65 minutes with 14 men.

"We were five points down well into the first half and we beat them 6-5 and I scored my only try for Ireland and Noel Henderson dropped a goal. It was a tremendous match. Billy McKay went out on the wing and I went wing forward, which in fact was my natural position, where I had played for most of my younger career, but I played number eight for Ireland.

"We played a storming second half and that was one of the best games we had in the whole of that five years. Our full back George Norton broke his arm. He was the first kicker in international rugby, certainly in these islands, that practised for hours and hours and hours; often four at a time.

"That was the tragedy. We went to Wales unbeaten and in the very first lineout William Murdoch, the Scottish referee, whom we had actually played against the previous season (he was full back) decided to show us that he wasn't going to favour us. The lineout was just in the Welsh half - he gave a penalty for barging - and Ben Edwards put the ball down two yards inside his own half and put it over the posts. We were three points down from the kick-off.

"That was Ben Edwards's only cap. He was a big lumbering forward who I'll hate till I die.

"We were really all over Wales that day and Jackie (Kyle) scored a brilliant try just to the right of the posts.

"Unfortunately we didn't have a kicker (Norton was injured) - I think we tried four different people during the match.

"We had three eminently gettable and three more that would be kicked today. Aenghus McMorrow, the first ever Connacht player capped, was in at full back and he was screaming at Karl Mullen to give him a kick. He was a cocky little so-and-so, but Karl didn't trust him because it was only his second cap.

"We walked off the field and I did not even go to the dinner, I was so depressed. We had a Grand Slam there for the taking.

"Cliff Morgan played a blinder that day in defence of all things.

"Cliff had his first game for Wales that day. I was playing for Cardiff at the time. He was down in West Wales and still have the telegram I sent him. It read: 'Congratulations, Cliff, hope your life is insured.' I was trying to intimidate him.

"We did one of our wheels in that game and Cliff went down on the ball. People had to go down on a forward rush in those days. You dribbled because you weren't allowed to pick the ball up with the hand after a tackle. You had to play it with the foot first.

"From a scrum, we wheeled and the back row broke away with the ball at our feet and the rest of the scrum in behind. It was a formidable sight.

"Cliff dived in to try and go down on the ball, which you could do if you immediately got to your feet.

"He was being kicked to hell and I said as I passed over him, 'For Christ's sake, Cliff, get out of there, you'll be killed.' He scrambled out to the right or the left and never went down on a ball again."

And the aftermath?

"I was deeply depressed at the final whistle. I went to a pub I knew and got drunk with some Irishmen. I was living in Cardiff and I knew the dinners were dreadfully dreary because they were in Welsh and English - the Welsh are not great orators. It was the Mitre pub in Llandaff, a suburb of Cardiff.

"Brendan Smith, the great theatrical man in Dublin, the founder of the Irish theatre festival, was with me. He was decorated by the French government for bringing Irish companies to France but was an avid rugby fan.

"We were both in school together in Belvedere and he and I got gently drunk."

O'Brien played squash for Ireland 14 times and was a final trialist in Welsh hockey but still retains a keen interest in rugby, returning at least once a year to Lansdowne Road.

"I watched last weekend's Welsh game on the television at home.

"It was fantastic. My pacemaker was going like a bomb, under severe pressure. My wife and I are very keen supporters but (at my age) we learn the result first and then watch it (the match) peacefully these days."

And what of tomorrow?

"I think this present day team is the first Irish team since then (1948) that I would consider is worth a Grand Slam. This is a great team and I hope they'll prove it."

O'Brien is looking for a little company in the pantheon of excellence.

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1982: Paul Dean tells John O'Sullivan why Paris still gives him nightmares.

Asked to exhume his recollections of March 20th, 1982, Paul Dean concedes that it is an occasion he tried to expunge from memory. That day Ireland trotted out onto the Parc des Princes pitch as Triple Crown champions, the whiff of a Grand Slam in their nostrils.

France hadn't won a match in the Five Nations Championship that year but had a plan to counter the rampant Irish and not an edifying one for the visitors. They brought back a few "veterans" noted for their "physicality" and set about knocking seven bells out of Ireland.

By the end of the afternoon in Paris, France had triumphed 22-9, and Irish bodies littered the park.

There were mitigating circumstances. Ireland's Triple Crown win had been achieved a full month earlier, on February 20th, with a 21-12 victory over Scotland at Lansdowne Road. And teak tough number eight Willie Duggan cried off on the eve of the match, offering Wanderers' Ronan Kearney the dubious pleasure of a Paris debut.

Dean's memory of the match is deliberately sketchy: "I remember we got the crap kicked out of us. I still have nightmares about it. They absolutely walloped us. I was in tatters after the match, feeling a bit like the boy with his finger in the dyke.

"They set about the softening-up process up front in the first half. They literally beat us up physically and their backs played some fantastic rugby. I remember these huge forwards marauding through the centre, spending the entire afternoon on the back foot."

Ireland actually led 6-3 at the interval, outhalf Ollie Campbell having kicked a brace of penalties, a concession from France's tactical approach. The physical onslaught obviously had its effect on the team as within nine minutes of the restart peerless French full back Serge Blanco had grabbed a try.

Ireland's diminishing resistance created a half chance for Campbell but he could not hold Slattery's pass. Three further French penalties to a single riposte from Ireland's outhalf allowed the home side to edge 16-9 in front and they stretched further away before the final whistle ended Ireland's agony.

Dean, who played in the centre that season, recalled: "We just wanted to get out of there after the match. It was a beautiful day in Paris. The sun was shining and because Parc des Princes was a municipal venue and soccer was played there, the grass was cut short, making it a very fast pitch.

"When the French got their tails up they were awesome. We didn't bring the form that we had showed in winning the Triple Crown to Paris. We didn't compete, couldn't compete and suffered the consequences. It was hard to sustain the momentum having had to wait a month for the final game.

"I must confess that we probably went on the beer big time as was the case in those amateur days, so preparation wouldn't have been the best."

It's safe to suggest that the word "probably" is a euphemism in the above sentence. Irish Triple Crows weren't 10-a-penny so the celebrations were understandable, although Dean and Ireland would go on to win another three years later, in 1985.

At that time in Irish rugby the Triple Crown was the prized commodity and once the circumstances militated against Ireland doing well in Paris, there would have been an acceptance of the fate that befell the team. To put the visitors' task in context, Ireland had not won in Paris for 10 years and history would subsequently record that no Irish team would ever win in Parc des Princes.

Ireland's last victory was in Stade Colombes in 1972 and their next triumph on French soil in a championship match would be that famous day in Stade de France when Brian O'Driscoll bagged a hat-trick in 2000.

One final recollection for Dean was of the atmosphere. "The stadium itself was unique. The sound used to reverberate off the huge stands, making it very hard to concentrate, let alone hear when the French were in their pomp. It was a most unusual sound."

The sepia-tinted recollections stop there. "It is definitely one of those games that I don't want to remember." We can only hope Sunday won't result in similar nightmares for the current Ireland team.