Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
DAY THE WALLABIES HIT THE WILD WEST
Connacht shook mighty Aussies by the Atlantic
The Wild Atlantic Way may have latterly been dreamed up by an overenthusiastic PR machine.
But, hail, rain, wind, sleet, gale-force winds and blizzards have been central to Connacht rugby and its mindset stretching back to the 19th century.
There is no European rugby posting quite as open, quite as bloody cold as the one nestling at the continent’s westernmost point.
The t houghts of playing Connacht in their eyrie mightn’t just metaphorically make the blood run cold, it can literally hit the circulation too!
By times, there have been eleven different national teams who have pitched up to ride the westernmost province’s storms, including the big three, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
The first two came as 1987 and 1991 Rugby World Cup champions respectively, the lastnamed would be Rugby World Cup champions two years later in 2009.
Maybe you haven’t truly tasted life as a rounded rugby player without a Webb Ellis medal
AND a visit to The Sportsground!
Footnote
Moreover, while the footnote might be the All Blacks, the Springboks and the Wallabies have all won in Galway.
This afternoon’s guests, England’s champions-elect Leicester Tigers, might like to note just how close Australia came to being shocked by a resilient Connacht thirty years ago in 1992.
“It’s windy, swirling, rain is still coming down hard…enough to make it miserable out there,” opened George Hamilton’s TV coverage before a ball had been kicked.
“He wasn’t wrong,” noted a then 12 year-old ball boy and current Galway Corinthians club administrator Kieran Dolan.
“We had been herded into a shed on arrival, thrown a T-shirt to wear and when we went out on the pitch it was impossible to stand along the sideline because of the wind, so we went down behind one of the goals.
“I saw nothing of the match, I was huddled behind a hoarding along with the rest of the ball boys trying to get out of the rain and the freezing cold.”
As it was, the Connacht players might have been freezing making their way into the Sportsground that morning but they were hot about their chances once inside the dressing room.
“For those of us on the Connacht team and not on the Ireland team, it was the biggest match we were ever going to play,” says then full-back Aidan Whyte, who would go on to make the 1993 Ireland Five Nations panel.
“We just fancied our chances and Munster, remember, had beaten them the week before, showing the whole country what was possible, leaving us thinking, yeah, we can rattle them.”
“We were really looking forward to it because most of us were involved in 1989 game against the All Blacks — World Champions at that point too — and we got a thumpin’.”
There had, the squad felt, been some fundamental changes in the intervening years.
“The AIL had kicked in 1990/91 and players were a lot fitter then they were in 1989.
“The standard at club level was pretty high at that point, very close to interprovincial stuff; we all had trained harder, we were all fitter.
“So, it was kind of, we had learned in a lot in 1989 and I remember thinking that morning of the Australia game ‘ the weather is going to be the same as the All Blacks game’, really wild and windy and wet!”
By the time Connacht took to the pitch the weather was, well, ‘Sportsground’: the rain squalling, the clouds low (the ball boys so cold they were hiding from the elements) so the plan?
“The plan was the same as it always was, to take the game to them, not least because we had a really good pack of forwards, they were aggressive, for the want of a better word.”
Pack
Connacht’s pack had Irish internationals in prop Tom Clancy, back-rows Noel Mannion and Mick Fitzgibbon, while Steve Jameson and Tim Coughlan were a fearsome second-row pairing.
For recently-appointed Connacht coach Eddie O’Sullivan, the tall timbers of Mannion, Jameson and Coughlan proved key to some invention.
“Prior to this job I had been fundamentally seen as a backs coach and I r emember the Connacht forwards looking at me as if I had two heads …
“I was nervous, but I wanted to innovate. I also felt I had a plan and it worked this way:
“We had three jumpers and as a one-off I wanted to stack them, put the three of them in the same place.
“Remember there was no lifting back then. I felt if Billy Mulcahy threw to the three of them, be it at front, middle or back, one was bound to get it and that’s exactly what we did.”
Also for good measure, Connacht used new line-out calls, screamed down the wind as Gaeilge!
Says O’Sullivan: “On the day, the Australians just couldn’t handle it. If they stacked the front, we would stack the back.
“The key was doing at the last second, so they didn’t have time to react.”
The 6-14 scoreline, looks a very ‘Connacht-in-Galway’ scoreline as, indeed, just the one try was scored in the game.
Moreover, there are those who would suggest if it was known the world champions would be held to 14 points, there would be an upset on the cards.
“We we didn’t cross the line for a try that day, which was a
‘It was clear Campese felt he was the big star and he didn’t want to be there...’
massive disappointment for us because we had opportunities and I would reject the old ‘ah didn’t Connacht do well’ thing from back in the day.
“The lads were disappointed as we made a few decent chances, had a good break where our right winger Colin Leahy almost chased down a kick through on the right.”
Infamous
And that’s before mention of the most infamous penalty in the black history of Irish rugby’s wrong decisions, a perfectly struck early Whyte kick some 35 metres out and with the score still at 0-0.
The linesman on the left-hand post raised his flag immediately, the linesman on the right side followed suit…and to the entire
Sportsground’s astonishment the referee overruled both.
“It was 100 per cent between the posts, there is absolutely no doubt about it,” insists Salthillnative Whyte to this day.
“That kick was over all day, it sailed through the posts and then the wind kind of caught it behind and blew it outside the back of the posts — it only looks like it has missed when viewed after the gust has taken it.”
There was some subs bench hilarity too as, in the days before tactical substitutions David Campese was summoned from the bench.
Continues then ball boy Dolan of ‘Campo’:
“He had been rude to everyone all week at their training, wouldn’t sign autographs or pose for pictures or anything.
“It was clear he felt he was the big star and he didn’t want to be there.”
Signs on he was unimpressed at s uddenly having to get stripped: “We were waiting for him to come on,” remembers Whyte, “and he had a big face on him as he was taking off his tracksuit and we could hear the rest of the Aussie bench slagging him unmercifully!”
As it was, the game got away from the Irish province when Wallabies tight-head Matt Ryan scored from the back of a maul following a line-out late on.
“Momentum can count for a lot, that disallowed penalty could have helped, had we managed to get away into a bit of lead … three-nil and then six-nil …”
Rattle
Much of the same logic, of course, applies to this afternoon’s game, and Connacht’s talent, tactics and heart can rattle the Tiger’s cage, insists Whyte.
“Pat Lam brought things to a very high standard building on what Eric Elwood had created.
“But there is no doubt that Andy Friend has done so well, he has the team playing a wonderful style and standards are up again.
“I watched Leicester Tigers against Wasps last week and Wasps got the better of them on the day but from previous outings we know Leicester are back to what they have been in the past.
“So for me this is not dissimilar to us playing the world champions in 1982 because a Connacht team will always fancy their chances against a big name team in Galway.
“It’s an exciting time at the Sportsground, it is a good time to have a ticket.
“I think it is going to be a great day and it is a pity that it is not going to be a full house.”