Throwing open the doors of St Margarets Tavern, more gastropub than boozer, in the well-heeled hamlet nestled between Twickenham and Richmond-upon-Thames in London on a weekday lunchtime 21-years ago next month, offered two diverse vistas.
The first centred on two men, clutching pints and feeding a slot machine with a speed that suggested the coins were threatening to burn a hole in the hand never mind the pocket.
Over in a corner, slightly detached from the general footfall, Andrew Dunne, Gavin Duffy, Simon Keogh, Paul Burke, Mel Deane and Ben Willis, either Irish born or holding Irish passports, waited patiently to discuss the “greening of Harlequins”.
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Later that season Harlequins beat Connacht over two legs by a skinny four points – they lost the second game in Galway – in the 2004 European Challenge Cup semi-final. And in the final, they squeezed past Montferrand, who many will know under their current iteration as Clermont Auvergne.
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‘Quins won 27-26, all the points contributed by the Irish contingent. Burke kicked four penalties, Dunne one, and the match-winning conversion, while Duffy and Keogh scored tries.
Deane, London-born, Longford-raised, who among other things post rugby became a personal trainer to former Manchester United soccer player Rio Ferdinand, played with Connacht. So did Duffy (twice), Burke with Munster (twice), Keogh at Leinster (twice), ditto Dunne (twice) and New Zealand-born scrumhalf Willis also wore the Leinster colours.
Harlequins’ most famous Irishman to that point, Keith Wood, had retired from rugby following the 2003 Rugby World Cup, along with other famous names like Will Carling, Laurent Cabannes and Thierry Lacroix. But there was still a surfeit of glamour on the roster of the self-styled “Good Time Charlies” with the “City” boy following.
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Dunne, a brilliant schoolboy outhalf and age-grade player, left Leinster to join ‘Quins in the summer of 2003, coming from an environment that was a bit more “prescriptive and workmanlike even at that stage”, despite the talent.
“There was a cosmopolitan feel to living in London,” he recalled. “I found it uplifting, it suited my personality. I had a bit of a ‘Good Time Charlie’ in me as well because I was young, and I loved that environment. It was the happiest time in my career. I adored those years, every minute.
“The way the coaches coached was quite joyful. Time away from training was valued time for players, whose views were sought on how the team should play. Creativity was encouraged, skills really encouraged.
“I walked into an environment with Jason Leonard, who at the time was the most capped international of all time, the first international centurion. Pat Sanderson was a future England captain, Andre Vos, the current Springboks captain at the time, Will Greenwood a World Cup winner, Ugo Monye coming through as a young lad.
“You had Samoans, Fijians, Tongans, Australians and there was quite a French influence that had come on the back of Laurent Cabannes. Woody would have been part of that, but he had left the year I arrived. They were a cosmopolitan side. It wasn’t a forced, stylistic thing, there was a natural way about it, embedded in their culture.
Marc Evans and John Kingston played a part in Dunne’s rugby evolution, but it was a former Wales and Newport outhalf Paul Turner, known to his charges as “Tommy”, who changed the young Irishman’s way of thinking in a manner that still resonates to this day.
Dunne said: “He was just brilliant. He taught me about game appreciation, game management. He made my skills better from month to month, which brought a lot of joy, because the training was fun. He was very different in his approach, but we just clicked.
“He would have challenged me to be able to place-kick with both feet, pointing out that I was a full-time professional. He could do it when an amateur. But it didn’t come as a sacrifice to game management. He was very good at that too. He wasn’t just a happy-go-lucky guy, coaching skills.
He’s currently caught between stools. It’s very, very hard. I was that exact person 20 years ago in Leinster. I left and I would say that Ciarán Frawley should do the same
— Andy Dunne
“He would have phrases like ‘learn how to put your foot on the ball, drop down a few revs, step out of the intensity of the environment that you’re in, realise what’s going on in the game and start to boss it’. He was able to get his message across.
“Watching the likes of [Sam] Prendergast and [Jack] Crowley now, they are the type of phrases that I would hear Turner saying in my head. Who is putting their foot on the ball, who is stepping out of the chaos and saying, ‘what’s going on in this game now, based on the score, based on where they are on the field?‘”
To do that requires time in situ, afforded to Crowley and Prendergast but not Ciarán Frawley, whom Dunne thinks has been short-changed a little at Leinster but not Ireland, by being shunted from pillar to post or fullback to centre and with minimal game time at outhalf, the player’s preferred position.
Dunne explained: “Frawley is in this no man’s land, and I really feel for him. He is supremely talented and capable of running the position.”
He points to Frawley’s courage when coming on and nailing a penalty in last season’s Champions Cup final to take the game to extra-time, missing a drop goal by a whisker but then nailing two of them to help Ireland draw the Test series against the Springboks later in the summer. “He did that with very little time in the seat.
“He managed to show those things with almost no exposure. I just think if he was backed and given exposure, he would relax into the role. He’s currently caught between stools. It’s very, very hard. I was that exact person 20 years ago in Leinster. I left and I would say that Ciarán Frawley should do the same.
“A common thread in Irish rugby – go back to the Tony Ward/Ollie Campbell thing – is that the most successful 10s were probably the least instinctive. People with instinct in that position tend not to be overly trusted to run the game, and for a reason.
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“Instinctive 10s will often see what’s on for me first, and what’s on for the team after. The game-managing 10s will be, ‘how do I manage the team around the park first’. If there is something on for me later [then great]. Teams respond to that for a reason.
“Not every environment or every cycle produces a Rog [Ronan O’Gara] or a Johnny Sexton or an Ollie Campbell, whose actual nature is to be strategic.” Dunne argues that Prendergast, Crowley and Frawley are instinctive players by nature and inclination.
On Saturday at Croke Park Dunne will take time out from his day job as a physiotherapist with his company, Personal Health, to commentate on Newstalk. He is a superb in-game analyst. He’s looking forward to watching Harlequins’ run-and-gun offence under outhalf Marcus Smith.
Dunne is a fan. “I saw him three years ago and he lit me up. ‘Quins back him to be himself, creatively brilliant.
“The Leinster rush defence is a defence that instinctive players generally love playing against. The likes of Rog and Sexton preferred to play against drift defences because they could methodically break those defences down, whereas the instinctive player can’t because they’re quite orderly; they’re maintaining the line in front of you.
“Whereas the rush defence plays into the hands of instinctual people because of the gaps and holes and if [an outhalf is] on his game, sharp and opportunistic enough, he can rip that [defence] up. Finn Russell is a master against this type of defence.
“When Ireland take their foot off the gas [and play a drift], Russell never does anything against us. When we start rushing him, he causes us trouble. Leinster have bought into this rush defence, and it is exactly the type that Marcus Smith with a point to prove could rip open, two or three times.
“I would describe myself as a bit of a neutral on Saturday, even though I am from Dublin. Where I had the most joy in my rugby career was at Harle’ and I was given more opportunity there than I ever was in Leinster. I will be fascinated to watch the Leinster defensive system go up against an instinctive 10 in Marcus. It is kind of a culture clash too.”
He argued that you don’t have to sacrifice flair and creativity for more prosaic rugby qualities. Dunne said: “Toulouse teams are fearsome, disciplined and rigorous. They are all those things when they need to be, but they still have this culture that fosters creativity, and they allow expression. [I’m] not quite seeing that in Irish rugby and certainly not in Leinster rugby.”
