SIDELINE CUT: Critics of Leinster hear ye: this is an Irish team - featuring probably the best Irish sportsman of our time - in a major final
IN A week when the stains of the Land of Saints and Scholars spilled across news pages throughout the world, it is with relief as much as anticipation we turn our thoughts to today’s big rugby game. After a shockingly bleak few days it is understandable the excitement generated by Leinster’s appearance in a European cup final should be dampened. But even in the best of times, Leinster never earned the plaudits easily. Through no fault of the players, they have never been a greatly-loved team.
Perhaps it is their misfortune to appear in a major final hot on the heels of the national team landing the Grand Slam. Munster, through the hard work and down-to-earth charisma of their players combined with very smooth marketing, have become symbolic of the modern renaissance of Irish rugby. Leinster have had to live in the shadow of the mighty red monster for most of this decade and, as Munster espoused the qualities of doggedness and moral as well as physical courage, the Donnybrook boys have had to listen to thinly-veiled insinuations that they are dandies at heart.
The general perception that the Leinster team was filled with the brightest and the best from Dublin’s most exclusive schools meant they could never claim to be the People’s Team the way that Munster did. And the fact they developed their European Cup pedigree with a thrilling if sometimes unpredictable back division left them open to contemporary variations of Mick Skinner’s old catchphrase for all back line players, “the Jessies.”
Geordan Murphy’s mischievous observations that the Leinster team could not count on the support of the province at large because they were “city boys” was probably just savvy gamesmanship from a man whose skills have been more handsomely recognised in England than in Ireland. But they also reinforced the old stereotype that the Leinster players are a bit too fond of themselves and of the mini carousel of Irish celebrity.
Whereas the Munster stereotype gloried in a cast of “rogues” and characters straight out of JB Keane central casting, Leinster had an assembly line of “chaps” – smooth-talking guys who graduated from plush school to college, played a few seasons at Donnybrook and bowed out for a career in international finance. On the radio on Thursday night, the former Leinster and Ireland flier Denis Hickie felt sufficiently stung to retort that Murphy didn’t seem to care about the origins of the Leinster lads when they made up the majority of those who showed up for his testimonial in Dublin.
Hickie comes across as such a measured and even-tempered individual it was unusual to hear him respond to Murphy’s teasing so sharply. But then, the Leinster lads – past and present – must be pretty fed up of the perception they are representative of more salubrious pockets of Dublin city rather than the province at large.
On Tuesday there was a mildly-entertaining radio debate on the Joe Duffy show concerning a stand-off between security guards and a group of kids, some of them in school blazers, trying to get into a Dublin night club. The teenagers, giddy with that May-time exam fever and out for a night on the tiles, reacted boisterously when they were refused admission. They felt they were being discriminated against because of the crest on their school blazers.
The night club representatives made it clear they had no idea where the group were from until gardaí later informed them. The image of dozens of youngsters from one of Dublin’s most prestigious schools moving through the neon strip as a group struck a nerve and a surprisingly high number of citizens phoned in complaining of a culture which produced kids who behaved as if they owned the world.
Given the importance of rugby in the culture of most of the prized schools in the greater Dublin area, it is inevitable many of Leinster’s rugby stars came through the system. And in the lazy way of these things, the easy interpretation is the Leinster squad is just an extended version of the old-school-tie brigade.
I have a friend – a devout Munster fan who grew up in the truest Gaelic football township imaginable – who teaches at one of the more celebrated private schools in the country. And from time to time, he has introduced me to pupils he has taught and coached – a few of whom have gone on to play rugby for Leinster – and they seemed more or less like school lads you would meet anywhere – the same combination of likeable braggadocio, uncertainty and blossoming acne.
It wasn’t their fault their old men were filthy rich. And if their “background” earned them a few extra breaks in life, well, good luck to ’em. The message emanating from Uncle Joe’s phone-in show was the absolute certainty with which kids like these view their place in society provokes a lot of resentment and that the kids, aware of this hostility, form an even tighter cluster that reinforces the sense that they are apart and elite. And at some level, that superior pedigree has followed Leinster into the era of professional rugby.
Of course, the debate between posh school lads and bouncers with a chip on their shoulder seemed frivolous when those affected by Justice Ryan’s report began phoning the Joe Duffy show in the days afterwards.
The plain stories of ruined lives of the last few days have brought an abrupt halt to the obsessive soundtrack of blame and recriminations into the disappearance of the nation’s financial wealth because suddenly that contemporary trouble seemed shamefully hollow in comparison.
It is almost impossible to conceive there could be a small army of Irish people, born over five separate decades, for whom this country offered nothing but State-sponsored brutality. And it is hard to conclude that the history lessons the luckier majority of us were taught in schools public or private – were anything more than fairy tales.
There are very few prisms through which it is possible to take a positive look at this country right now. It just so happens sport is one of them. The bubble of hype that inflates modern sport is, of course, daft. And more often than not, most sporting encounters that you watch are poor enough fare, mild distractions on a damp afternoon.
But every so often, you get a match that, even after all the Sky hype and the usual nonsense, feels like it has some genuine weight to it. Leinster against Leicester is one such match. And it would be trite to suggest a victory should put a smile back on everyone’s face. But at least it can showcase (with respect to Messrs Elsom and Nacewa) a generation of Irish lads who were blessed enough to have fallen on the right side of the class system and had the gifts and the dedication to make the most of their opportunity.
For reasons beyond their control, this Leinster team have never been fully embraced by the Irish public. That should end now. This is an Irish team – featuring probably the best Irish sportsman of our time – in a major final.
This is not a time to scoff at any crumb of comfort, let alone that.
So collars up for the day, everyone.
