HISTORICALLY, IRELAND don’t do Rugby World Cups – but they appear to be doing one now.
Declan Kidney’s squad and the Blarney Army now move on to Wellington for a quarter-final against Wales on Saturday after beating Italy in Dunedin yesterday, to make it four wins from four. No Irish squad has done this in six previous World Cups.
Victory on Saturday offers the carrot of a first semi-final, against England or France, the following Saturday in Auckland. It is set up beautifully. As was the case after the win over Australia a fortnight ago, Enda Kenny is understood to have sent a congratulatory message to Irish coach Kidney, along the lines of “when the spirit is right, Ireland can be unbeatable”.
Once again the Irish fans turned Dunedin green, notably in the sun- kissed downtown Octagon, from early in the day. Come the 8.30pm kick-off and their chants, singing and cheering reverberated off the closed roof, Italy’s pocket of supporters must have felt more outnumbered than even for a Six Nations game in Dublin. One of the Azzurri fans ruefully reckoned there were “about 220” Italian supporters in town. “And that includes the team,” he added dryly.
Fittingly, in this student town, there were quite a number of green Kiwis, as it seems pretty much all of them have adopted Ireland as their second favourite team in the tournament, especially since the night Ireland beat Australia.
Again they seemed to come from all four corners of the world, ranging from honeymooners to unemployed youngsters en route to lands of further opportunity to ex-pats.
It made for another riotous mix of wigs, flags, outfits, boiler suits, leprechaun hats, Tricolours et al. Heck, even Ireland's Callis starting to become catchy.
By the end, as the PA system blasted out a litany of Irish sounds, from A Beautiful Dayto Whiskey In The Jar,the squad's lap of honour may have looked prematurely celebratory, but they were morally obliged to do so really. You can't play it too cool with support like this.
“That was the best, seeing rows of green everywhere you look,” said captain Brian O’Driscoll afterwards. “It was like Lansdowne Road – in fact, I have played in Dublin before when it hasn’t been that good.”
More ruefully, Italy’s South African coach Nick Mallett also said it was “like playing in Lansdowne Road”, adding: “I think every New Zealander had a green shirt on tonight, because I don’t believe there are that many Irish with enough bloody euro to come over here.”
The one sour note at the World Cup is that the All Blacks have lost Dan Carter, the world’s best player, due to a torn groin.
Yesterday’s televised 10am press conference, akin to a state of the nation address, confirmed the worst and, while the nation of four million people isn’t quite in mourning just yet, they people are in trepidation.
