Who's been laughing at Rugby Country?

It has been a week of uncomfortable introspection in Rugby Country.

Who's been laughing at Rugby Country?

It has been a week of uncomfortable introspection in Rugby Country.

Some of the fretting has concerned matters on the field — problems with the latches at ruck-time and whatnot. Alas, I can offer no counsel on that front. You are in the wrong place for more work-ons.

But the attention of Rugby Country’s elders has also been drawn to a more fundamental concern. It hasn’t escaped their notice that there is some amusement out there, among infidels, at Ireland’s World Cup struggles.

And it is gradually dawning on them that, contrary to advertising messages, not everyone is in. That not everyone is answering the call. That some are, you could say, dropping the shoulder.

Since the mild bout of sniggering that went on, in certain quarters, last Saturday morning, many heads have been scratched, articles have been written, and no doubt focus groups have reconvened.

A hurt, baffled people are wondering what is behind this insurgence. So hopefully I can be of some assistance to them in teasing things out. To offer them succour, if not soccer.

There is a tendency to reach for easy answers. As this week’s Limerick Leader fashion pages put it, in celebrating the resurgence of the rugby shirt as everyday clobber:

“You simply can’t escape its athletic and elite associations.”

No, there is certainly no escaping that. But I don’t think we can simply put a little scoffing at Ireland’s ball-handling down to the wave of persecution elites are encountering around the globe.

No, this might just be a bit more complicated than that.

Look at it this way; what if another minority sport, one most people recall dipping into for diversion a few times a year in their youth, was now forcefed day and night to the nation?

What if, for the sake of argument, this had become Showjumping Country?

What if it was now taken for granted that the only true test of bravery and moral fibre was the puissance high wall?

What if every respectable showing at an Aga Khan was proof we were going to win the Olympics?

And everywhere you turned Eddie Macken and Captain John Ledingham were retreading old glories on behalf of bluechip sponsors?

Imagine the most famous person in the sport was the guy who stands beside the water jump with a flag, and he scoffed ‘this is not horse racing’ at every refusal.

And suppose you were surrounded by people who have never sat on a horse, but were nevertheless using the mangled language of the boardroom to hold court on the best line to take into a tricky combination.

Do you think there would be some chuckling if Cian O’Connor ploughed through a soft opening vertical in tomorrow’s Nations Cup final in Barcelona?

I think there would. So they shouldn’t take it too personally, Rugby Country’s elders. This small bit of dissent could have happened to any runaway bandwagon. We needn’t demonise everyone who refuses to observe its teachings.

Whatever is going on, if it’s any consolation to Rugby Country, it is that this week has underlined, not that it needed underlining, that theirs is the superior way of life. That when we go low, they go high.

Brent Pope came home from Japan marveling at the sportsmanship of Ireland fans in defeat. “Rugby is just a sport. But in those special moments sport has the ability to elevate all of us to become better people.”

We can safely say the 10-15% of the sport-loving population who derive some small joy from our struggles at ‘the egg’ are not becoming better people in these endeavours.

Indeed, they may just be seeking a moment’s escape from the vicious goading and abject despair that are everyday facets of their own sporting lives.

We must spare a thought, this week, for the Spurs fan in every office in the land who will have encountered a long queue of colleagues anxious to greet him on Wednesday, the morning after Bayern slotted seven.

He will have known, even as he put one foot out of his bed, that it was his solemn duty to run this gauntlet of bantz, something Manchester United fans are now beginning to regard as a daily penance.

You will have seen the great existential angst that enveloped these tortured souls this week, as they wrestle with the possibility that Poch must go. Becoming a better person will be the last thing on their minds, at least until three precious points are banked at the Amex this lunchtime.

Rugby Country doesn’t really do that kind of suffering. It has greater bouncebackability. There might be a certain fatalism now about our World Cup prospects. But theirs is a resilient sense of enormous well-being.

It is the same sunny optimism that ensures they are forever taken aback at how “unlucky” a player is to suffer a horrible injury, despite working off a gameplan based on collisions.

In this regard, notwithstanding the fact he doesn’t yet have a podcast, perhaps we can consider Jamie Heaslip’s to be the authentic voice of Rugby Country.

“We just scored a bonus point win. Get over it.” That is how Jamie dismissed Eddie O’Sullivan’s efforts to talk down the rugby economy when the pair were pundits on RTÉ on Thursday. There will be no existential angst on Jamie’s watch.

We see the same fine qualities in Neil Francis, marshalling the troops. On the day after the Japan setback, Franno told Eamon Dunphy’s podcast:

“Had we played this game on a crisp autumn afternoon at Lansdowne Road, I’ve no doubt we’d have won it.”

Ultimately, whatever happens in Japan, Rugby Country will always have its fresh autumn and spring days back in the heartland, where there is no need to worry about ‘the conditions’, where legends are made,and plays are written, and they are all becoming better people.

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