Zebo’s magic will be missed from Thomond
Damian Stack looks at some of the stories making backpage news over the past seven days
MOMENTS of magic were hard to come by last Saturday evening. The remnants of Storm Brian saw to that. Conditions were horrendous. Gusts of wind, gales really, howled through the place, whipping in from the nearby Shannon, bringing rain along with them.
It turned what could have one of the great days, a clash between European royalty, into something more like a slog. To a certain kind of rugby fan that’s just a-okay. The technical stuff excites and fascinates them.
They’re as likely to be as stirred by excellence in defence as excellence in attack and that being the case the weekend’s clash between Munster and Racing 92 was the game for them.
Levels of concentration and discipline were incredibly high as both sets of defences held out scoreless until well into the second half and did so despite periods of sustained pressure from red and light blue alike. Not even Reggie Corrigan could question the level of intensity on view.
The up the jumper stuff is fine, as far as it goes, there’s a time and a place and this certainly was that time and was that place. Still to a more casual fan of the game of rugby – such as ourselves for instance – it left quite a lot to be desired.
To us lot in the cheap seats it’s the moments of magic that do it – the sidestep, the shimmy, the feint, the skip pass, the ability to think around problems, to see around corners, to think two steps ahead of everybody else – and Saturday evening, out of necessity, provided very few if any at all of those moments.
Probably the slog made the moments which did emerge all the more special. Conor Murray’s try was a work of individualist brilliance. It was as visionary as it was opportunist. As well executed as it was evidence for the Patrickswell man’s sheer will to win.
After an hour of huffing and puffing, on a ground hog day for the ground hogs on either side, it wasn’t brute force which broke the deadlock, it was a little piece of Murray magic (a technically flawless piece of magic we hasten to add).
Up until Murray’s block down and try there wasn’t much to lighten the mood, except for a break just moments before by Simon Zebo. Now there’s a magician if ever there was one.
From nothing he created something and did so with a smile upon his face. Had his pass to Keith Earls been completed the Limerick man would surely have got over the line. That’s what Zebo is capable of and that’s why the news this week hit so many so hard.
His move to (reportedly) Racing
92 was hardly unexpected, French clubs had been keeping tabs upon him for years. He speaks French, his father competed for France in athletics, but regardless of that he’s a special talent, who wouldn’t want him on their books?
Zebo is box-office. Zebo is marketable. Zebo is the Munster player the causal fans know, that back heel flick in Cardiff his calling card. Nobody but him could pull anything remotely like that off.
A singular talent, his loss to Munster will be keenly felt. Simon Zebos don’t come along every year or even every couple of years. Little wonder Munster and their CEO Garrett Fitzgerald were willing to push the boat out in their contract negotiations with the Cork man.
On this occasion, however, the financial muscle of the Top 14 proved too much for the Munster branch and the IRFU to overcome. It’s inevitable that from time to time an Irish player will decide far away fields are greener and, as noted above, Zebo is possibly a special case.
His departure isn’t necessarily indicative of an approaching mass exodus of talent to Britain and the continent. The draw of the green jersey will be too strong for that to happen and the indications are that, having decamped to Paris, Zebo is unlikely to feature for Joe Schmidt’s men during his time with Racing.
It might even be possible that we’ve seen the last of Zebo in an Irish shirt in the medium term. If he’s not going to be domestically based for the 2019 World Cup, might Schmidt opt for other players for the autumn internationals and the Six Nations with an eye on the future?
Hopefully not, because as we say, the magicians are a big part of the reason why we watch in the first place. We’ll still see him in the Top 14 and the European Cup, he might even make a return to Thomond Park in Racing colours.
It won’t be the same though, of course it won’t. In a way it’s a shame, home town heroes are the best heroes of all. Not, of course, that you could in any way begrudge the man. He’s doing what’s best for him, for his family and fulfilling a dream along the way. More power to him.
All the same Thomond won’t be the same without him. He lit the place up countless times. His departure will make new coach Johann van Graan’s job all the more difficult when he arrives. All of a sudden it looks like the South African will have a bit of rebuild job on his hands. Tough break.