A HUNT FOR MORALE IN MIDLANDS
Mullingar goes mad for Schmidt
THE ATMOSPHERE last night in Mullingar was likened to Christmas Eve, such was the buzz of anticipation surrounding Ireland’s open training session, as part of Joe Schmidt’s latest homecoming to his old Irish roots.
A crowd of nearly 3,000 is expected to attend this morning’s session at the junior league club’s ground in Cullion where the national boss served as playercoach in the early 1990s while teaching out the road at Wilson’s Hospital school in nearby Multyfarnham.
The holding of Ireland training off the beaten track is not a new concept — Mullingar taking the baton on from Clonmel whose 2014 hosting of Ireland training was sadly affected by a winter storm — but in the home of legendary crooner Joe Dolan, there is still no show like a Joe show as far as Mullingar is concerned.
‘It’s astonishing,’ claimed Willie Macken, one of the club officers desperate to ensure the event passes off smoothly. ‘We’re still in disbelief in many ways that Ireland are training here and, it was only in putting a plan together we actually realised how big an affair this is.
‘Tickets were put on Ticketmaster last week and, basically, one second after 11am there wasn’t a ticket to be had. People are coming from all over and it is massive exposure for the club.’
All thanks to Schmidt. No sooner had he started the Leinster job in 2010 than he scheduled a provincial pre-season training session for Mullingar. Now, more than five and a half years later, he is back with his Ireland squad — which assembled at the town’s Park Hotel on Wednesday for the two-day camp they hope will exorcise last Saturday’s loss in France and build morale for a daunting showdown with England in Twickenham tomorrow week.
‘Joe is very much the same person who f i rst came to Mullingar,’ continued Macken, who has taken a 1992/93 team picture off the club house wall to blow it up in size and present it to Schmidt at some stage today.
‘His roots never left here. He has best friends from Mullingar. He came to us as a very young guy and no success and no coaching job since then has taken away anything from the Joe we knew.
‘There is immense pride he has done so well with Leinster and Ireland. Joe was such an affable character, you couldn’t help but like him and to see him succeed was just absolutely wonderful.’
It was apparently Aucklander Len Ethell who planted the seed in Mullingar minds that a sea-change in thinking was needed to take the junior club to the next level. While attending the 1989 Leinster-New Zealand game with Mick Glynn, the former St Mary’s and Leinster player who was Mullingar coach, and club president Michael Walls, Ethell told them: ‘If you want to improve your rugby you need to get one of those young blokes playing there as a player-coach.’
Netting one of Buck Shelford’s tourists was beyond Mullingar (Galwegians wound up with a certain Warren Gatland), but club officials eventually explored an avenue through Ray Billington who worked at FÁS and had been at London Irish.
He contacted his nephew Ross Nesdale, the f uture Ireland hooker who was Auckland’s back-up to Sean Fitzpatrick. Nesdale got in touch with Mark Donaldson, the All Black scrum-half coaching Manawatu.
Not long after, Schmidt, whose claim to fame was blitzing France out wide to score a Manawatu try in 1989, landed in Co Westmeath with wife Kellie.
‘Like most junior sides, Mullingar were playing 10-man rugby. That was their Holy Grail and then suddenly this young, freshfaced Kiwi turns up and shows them there is something called total rugby,’ recalled Ethell. ‘It totally transformed the way of thinking and the way the club was going. It opened up a lot of ideas as opposed to the dreary 10-man game. It was really a spark of inspiration.’
The Schmidts, who had yet to start their family of four, revelled in the experience. They travelled around Ireland, did the Ring of Kerry, travelled over to London for Wimbledon, checked out the continent and even got to the Barcelona Olympics where Kellie’s father was part of the New Zealand delegation.
Friends were made that were never forgotten and the warmth the Ireland coach retains for his old stomping ground was clearly evident when he spoke in June 2015 at the official opening of the 4G pitch his squad train on today with the national Under 20s (featuring Conor O’Brien, a local who came through the Mullingar underage system which caters for in excess of 500 children every weekend).
Schmidt’s speech, aired from the
back of a trailer, may have only lasted five minutes, but his audience were spellbound, hanging on his every word.
‘I still remember painting the tops of those goalposts, marking the lines and they are a hell of a lot straighter than they were when Kellie and I did them. I found that was an advantage for us as we knew where the lines wobbled – and certainly a number of our players wobbled,’ said Schmidt.
‘Even wayward Kiwis got welcomed with open arms, looked after incredibly well despite having the skinniest legs and not quite being the player they thought they were getting.
‘It’s great to see so many friends here. I certainly love to get back to where my Irish roots are… we had a fantastic time here and a community facility like this becomes the hub of the community.
‘The pitch looks fantastic. Unbelievably, so do people I played with over 20 years ago. It’s great to be among friends… I’m sure I will see a lot of you over the coming year and quite possibly beyond.’
Prophetic words now that he is visiting with Ireland just eight months later. No wonder the midlands town is buzzing.