Former Ireland captain remembers the chaos behind the first World Cup, from the manager’s heart attack to the bomb that cost them their teammate and being treated like cattle.
Declan Bogue THIS WEEK, THE Irish Rugby team conducted a press event in the Hôtel de Ville de Tours, the town hall of the charming Loire Valley town of Tours, where they have based themselves ahead of their opening fixture against Romania in Bordeaux.
Hosting the World Cup is estimated as bringing an economic impact of £3 billion to the French economy. And by God, could they not use some bread and circus over there.In the pages of the Irish Independent, the first match report was by Sean Diffley and it didn’t amount to a third of a page.
“The unfortunate thing was that Ireland didn’t want to embrace the World Cup. They were hesitant, The IRFU,” he explains. In between the two competitions however, came a devastating act. On 25 April, an IRA car bomb caught Lord Justice Maurice Gibson and his wife Lady Cecily as they were returning across the border after a break and a crossing that morning on the Liverpool ferry.
And then, well, it’s hard to believe now, but it involved head coach Mick Doyle and perhaps it’s better that Anderson relates the day they arrived in New Zealand.“I got up and I could hardly walk. Guys were in pieces. And then we were straight out to training. The gregarious Doyle had a loose plan to do some training himself but at the opening dinner, a formal occasion to welcome all the teams that could make it, he suffered a heart attack. While he was able to recover sufficiently to act as coach for the tournament games, he had long lost a deep belief of his players in him and his methods during the hangover that followed the Triple Crown in ’85.
Instead, the air had been gently squeezed out of the balloon ever since. The failure of Doyle and the IRFU to arrange warm up matches, the bombing that robbed them of three Ulster players and the insane travel and training arrangements was topped by Doyle’s misfortune. “It was historic, but you weren’t made feel that it was historic by the IRFU. We were on the cusp of professionalism. They weren’t sure about it but they knew the floodgates were going to open up at some stage.
“Rugby wasn’t even part of sporting culture there. It barely caught the imagination. You had rugby league, cricket and Aussie Rules. It was somewhere well below all of that.“It was a fantastic experience to be a part of. But it certainly wasn’t embraced by the IRFU. Wales and Scotland did well enough out of it and that was our sort of legacy out of it. Competing for a World Cup is a different ball game altogether. It’s totally different and a level playing field for all sides.
One early trip in Davidson’s managerial stint was to France. Shorn of some of his more recognised players and facing the Barbarians and France themselves, he leaned on Anderson to engender some camaraderie.“Jimmy Davidson . . . My greatest friend, mentor, a fantastic coach. He asked me what I wanted to do.
“There were five players in the back seat. Three in the boot. And three in the passenger seat, all getting out and spilling onto the street outside the nightclub.” With his province, he enjoyed unprecedented success. They simply gobbled up the Provincial title year after year. Even though the sport was amateur, Jimmy Davidson had high standards.
“And here was another thing; anybody who played for that team, was from Ulster. It was an unbelievable generation of players but they were all Ulster men and they would have died for each other.” Behind the scenes, they had their own unique way of bonding beyond false friendship. Martin Toye was a wily old campaigner and a loyal servant to Armagh. In front of him was Tony McEntee, barely out of his teens but already renowned for forthright views. Asked to make a criticism of Toye, McEntee looked him in the eye and bluntly stated, ‘No harm to you Martin, but you were finished as an inter-county player five years ago.’
It became an issue, his way of coping, after he knocked down an 11-year-old boy, Glen McLernon, while driving home. He passed away from his injuries. The inquest showed that Anderson was blameless and could do nothing after the boy ran out onto the road. “I know it’s an old-fashioned thing that people didn’t say that. But Thomas says it to his kids, so it’s a legacy that we have in this house. Our kids won’t have to be asked to do it. It’s just part of their values. It’s a natural thing. It’s become a natural part of our family.”
When LeBron James is slumming it in a hoodie, it’s by JW Anderson. At home outside the Loup, the walls are bare of anything relating to Willie’s rugby career but there is one small picture of the family after one of Jonathan’s shows. At the end of the row is Dan Levy, the actor who played David Rose in the global comedy, ‘Schitt’s Creek.’
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