No Going Home for Wood and Co.

the  CATHAL  DERVAN column

A FRIEND of Mick McCarthy’s, Tommy is his name, came out with a great saying one night during the soccer World Cup finals a couple of summers back.

We were in Seoul at the time, about 24 hours before the last 16 game against Spain, and we were out for a few pints in a city captivated that night by the performances of South Korea’s very own Red Army.

It was approaching 1 a.m. in the particular bar we were frequenting when the owner, a very delightful man aside from the fact that he liked Manchester United, informed us that his fine establishment was about to close.

It was earlier than we expected to hear last orders but late enough in the evening, so one of our party suggested we call it a night and go back to the hotel that was our temporary abode.

“Are you mad, man!” said Tommy. “We didn’t come out to go home.”

I laughed at the comment back then but I knew exactly what he meant. And I thought of Tommy on Saturday morning as I watched Eddie O’Sullivan’s bravehearts battle it out with Australia in rugby’s version of the World Cup down in Melbourne.

I wasn’t in Oz when I thought of Tommy. I was in the bar of a hotel on a road somewhere between Huddersfield and Leeds in England, the first establishment I could find with a television showing the big game as I made my way to the Leeds-Arsenal mis-match later that afternoon.

I watched the big rugby game with two compatriots, fellow wanderers on the road to the Premiership’s match of the day, and a couple of locals happy to take advantage of the earlier than normal opening time.

And we were, one and all, enthralled by the action in front of us as Keith Wood, not for the first time in this competition, led from the front and Ireland put the World Cup hosts on the back foot.

They didn’t win of course, eventually going down 17-16, but it was not for the want of trying. From Girvan Dempsey all the way through to substitute out-half David Humphreys, the man who almost drop-kicked the goal of a lifetime, this was an Irish team straining at the leash, an Irish team prepared to get down and get dirty with the pompous Pom bashers.

It was, as I said to my new found friends afterwards, an Ireland side that, like the aforementioned Tommy, didn’t go out to Australia to come home early.

You could see that from the kick-off as the men clad in green tore into a side that assumed the role of tournament favorites, in their own minds that is, long before a World Cup ball was kicked in their fine land.

Australia, New Zealand and England, according to common myth, are the only three teams capable of winning this competition, the highlight of the rugby calendar when it is played every four years.

Well, I have news for them. A week ago little Samoa gave England the fright of their lives in their penultimate pool game. On Saturday, morning time where I was, Ireland gave Australia a real run for their money before finally going down by just a point in Melbourne.

And on Sunday, Wales had the audacity to run in four tries as they went down to the All-Blacks in a game that was far closer than the scoreline might suggest.

And there is plenty more to come. Looking at it realistically, there is no way Ireland are going to win the World Cup. 

But they have plenty of life left in them yet as they look forward to Sunday’s quarterfinal date with the French in Sydney – and we can dream.

The good news is that Ireland have beaten France three times in their last four meetings, a statistic improved when you consider that Irish provincial sides have won 11 of their last 14 games against Gallic opposition.

And the one thing we can be certain of ahead of the showdown for a place in the semis, and a clash with England or Wales, is that Ireland will give their all in the green shirt come kick-off on Sunday morning, Irish time.

They did just that on Saturday and came very close to the shock of the tournament so far. Surely they will discover a change in fortune if they reproduce those heroics against the French. They deserve that much at least. 

And, by the way, if the Irish players beat France on Sunday I will even forgive them “Ireland’s Call” and never moan about it again. I promise.