Doubts linger over Ireland ahead of Six Nations
SOMETIMES in sport, you just have to bite your tongue. We did it a few years ago when people who had never previously mixed martial arts into any conversation assured us they were long-standing fans of a ‘sport’ that would sweep the nation, while claiming Conor McGregor was the ‘finest athlete this country has produced’.
Where have they all gone? We bite the tongue every year when the Cheltenham Festival showcases the attending Irish at their florid-faced, boorish worst whilst, back home, spewing up a host of Ted Walsh-wannabes who urge us to ‘lump on’ various nags because ‘the going’ suits them.
Cheltenham devotees have been very quiet since the sport/industry ‘of kings’ disgraced itself by deciding the festival was so special it merited special privilege when the pandemic struck last year.
And we do it when inter-county GAA managers are regularly announced as signing ‘three-year deals’ while Croke Park trumpets amateurism as a defining principle. Managers undoubtedly deserve reward for their commitment, as do the players, but the notion that all ‘compensation’ provided is within GAA’s self-imposed rules is laughable – just pretend everything’s kosher and move on.
Rugby has its share of bite-thetongue scenarios, beginning with the quality of the product itself.
Amid the horrendous modern trend of whooping players back-slapping every minor event to impress ‘process’-obsessed coaches, no one involved is admitting that the vast majority of modern matches are rugby league-influenced muck.
Let’s be honest, watching one line of players monotonously charging at another line of players (with space and expression neutered by the offside rule being constantly ignored) is mind-numbing stuff.
But rather than talk about the mess rugby has become, it’s all shielded by ‘learnings’ and ‘fine margins’ and enthusiastic, arrowheavy graphics showing how lads target the ‘inside shoulder’.
However, while that is arguably rugby’s biggest problem, the tongue-biting issue that intrigues most is national jerseys becoming a parody of what they are supposed to represent amid the continuing blight of imported players suppressing homegrown talent.
World Rugby reluctantly agreed to increase the residency-rule qualification period from three years to five way back in 2017 but we are still waiting in vain for that change to kick in.
In the meantime, Irish talent suffers while overseas journeymen maximise career dividends.
Jamison Gibson-Park is a prime example. Nothing against the bloke personally (Kiwis are generally sound) but how he is in the Ireland Six Nations squad ahead of Luke McGrath and, especially, John Cooney is mind-boggling.
Gibson-Park is a decent scrumhalf – energetic and savvy with a sharp pass – but nothing exceptional. These types of No9s are a dime a dozen in his native New Zealand but have more currency up here – as the Leinster man has discovered.
Cooney has proven himself to be
exceptional but you wonder what he has to do at this point to be recognised as such. In terms of individual impact on his team, no player has been as influential in Irish rugby over the last two years – a demi-God around Ravenhill, Cooney has been truly inspirational for Ulster while, outside Ireland, the scrum-half had been tipped as a Lions Test starter.
Yet Ireland consider him inferior to Gibson-Park, as they do McGrath in spite of his excellent display in the win over Munster last week.
Aside from the corrosive, cultural implications of these decisions, there is a starker bottom line for the players affected. At a time when contracts are up for negotiation and futures clouded by pandemic uncertainties, Irish players are seeing their careers compromised by overseas opportunists.
Losing out to Irish rivals would be upsetting enough in these circumstances – being forced out by an import passing through should have Cooney fit to be tied.
He is likely to be tongue-tied until he is safely retired. Speaking out now would damage future Ireland aspirations although, given how Cooney’s outstanding claims on selection have been repeatedly
ignored, he’d be perfectly entitled to throw his hat at it by this stage and have a major rant.
Stuart McCloskey is another with every reason to have a go. The giant Ulster centre may have made this Six Nations squad but the fact he has only won four caps over five years is hard to justify.
How many more would McCloskey have next to his name were it not for Bundee Aki?
The Kiwi is a deserved icon of Connacht rugby but he’s a player whose limitations have been consistently exposed at international level against the better teams.
Over the years, too many Irish players (known to be fuming privately) have had to bite their tongues and, while we can rail away from the outside at this demoralising ‘project’ practice, it will require someone who is directly affected cutting loose for true impact.
Luke Fitzgerald, post-retirement, has been the most vocal after suffering at the residency-qualified hands of Jared Payne and it was encouraging, too, to see
Rory Best
have a pop in his autobiography, when he questioned adopted South Africans getting emotional during the national anthem.
This backdrop set the tone this week for a distinctly underwhelming Ireland Six Nations squad – as Brian O’Driscoll noted when claiming you had to search for ‘positives on a postcard’.
One definite positive was the selection of Craig Casey as the third scrum-half alongside Conor Murray and Gibson-Park. Casey is steeped in the Irish game, obsessed with playing for Ireland from his toddler years through his family links to Shannon and Munster. He sets a fine example for youngsters taking up the game here – just as the policy of promoting blow-in imports might deter them. Why work all your life to reach the top of the game only to be blocked by a Kiwi or a South African parachuted in? Casey’s was exactly the type of progressive selection that should pepper the squad
if Ireland hope to progress out of the mire of their latest World Cup failure.
As France are proving. While Ireland coach Andy Farrell remains bonded to the stalwarts of the Joe Schmidt era, regardless of form, France have laid out a successful template, backing homegrown youth now to have them battleready by the next World Cup.
If the French were picking this Ireland squad it would undoubtedly include tyros like Ryan Baird, Thomas Ahern, Gavin Coombes, Ben Healy and Jack Crowley (having given Ahern and Crowley far more exposure than they have been allowed in the Irish system).
Baird loses out to a South African, Quinn Roux, who can shunt a scrum but is not in the same league as an all-round player, while Coombes has been playing far superior rugby to another one-time wannabe Springbok, CJ Stander – yet not in the eyes of the Ireland selectors.
Hit-and-miss former England Under-20 out-half Billy Burns has made the cut, a player not even on the radar for Eddie Jones before switching career paths to make belated use of his Irish roots while valid Irish options are ignored.
The import-first policy across international rugby remains a source of deep frustration for many and, while there are no degrees of acceptability, it’s especially galling when rewarding inferior players.
A penny for the thoughts of John Cooney when he watches GibsonPark in the Six Nations – if he can even bring himself to do so.
This Ireland squad leaves a sour taste on the tongue, bitten or otherwise.
‘IRISH CAREERS ARE BEING COMPROMISED AT A TIME OF HUGE UNCERTAINTY’