FROM THE BLINDSIDE:But I suppose that's the life of any player who lives on the fringe of the squad, although I did pick up a medal for the Grand Slam win in 2009
WAY BACK in the mists of time, you used to find out whether or not you were in the latest Ireland squad by checking it out on teletext. You’d be there with your remote control trying to find the right page number, waiting for it to come up, scanning down it to see could you find your name.
Things are different now obviously – generally you’ll get a text from the team manager informing you of your selection and telling you to assemble at such-and-such a hotel on such-and-such a date. But the one thing that never changes is the sense of anticipation.
It’s a nervous time and you can beat yourself up waiting for the nod. You don’t know what people are saying or thinking. Obviously some guys know they’re going to be picked but that group is still small enough each time a squad is announced. For everyone else, it’s a time when you just don’t know. You might be in, you might not. You might have been in the last few squads but you might still only be 75 per cent sure you’ll make it. You’re never certain.
For most of my Ireland career, I was in the group that just didn’t know. There was probably a two-year period in and around the 2003 World Cup where I was confident of being named each time there was a squad announcement.
After I got injured at the World Cup, I lost ground and other guys came in ahead of me. From that point on, I was one of the ones who would always be on tenterhooks. The news gets gradually worse as the years go by. If the guy who comes in for you when you’re injured makes a big impression – as Simon Easterby did in my case – then it’s the team announcement that has you nervous. You’re still making the squads but you’re worried about making the 15.
After a while, you’re worried about making the match-day 22. Soon enough, it’s the pre-tournament get-togethers and the summer tours. You’re always hoping but you’re always worried. It plays on your mind. You’re nervous but you’re excited too. Each announcement becomes a target. You tell yourself you’ll go all out to make it into the Six Nations squad and sure anything can happen once you’re there.
You convince yourself you’re only an injury away from being a regular. That might be true or it might not but it keeps you going. And you have to keep going. You’re no use to anybody if you let it weigh on you too heavily.
In the lead-up to the 2005 Six Nations, I was doing everything I could to get back into the Ireland team. I’d missed the previous year through injury but I’d gone on the summer tour to South Africa. I made it into the 30-man squad for the Six Nations and we were to be told on a Monday night who would be named in the match-day 22. Simon, Denis Leamy and Anthony Foley would be in the team but I really thought I’d done enough to make it onto the bench.
Eddie O’Sullivan rang me before the announcement to tell me I wasn’t going to get in and that Eric Miller was going to be the replacement backrow.
I’d come close but I hadn’t made it. I was actually annoyed with myself afterwards for getting into the frame of mind where I thought I had it. I had let myself look forward to the Six Nations because it had been two years since I’d played in one. But when you don’t make it into the match-day 22 for the first game, it’s generally a case of the manager saying: “This is my team for the rest of the competition unless there’s an injury.”
That particular one was very hard to take, mainly because I’d got my hopes up. I didn’t know it then but I would never actually get to play another game in the Six Nations. I hung around on the fringes of Ireland squads for the rest of my career without ever getting the nod. I still went on tours and made the squad for the 2007 World Cup but I couldn’t force my way into the team. That’s a lot of squad announcements and a lot of sleepless nights spent wondering.
What made it that little bit worse in 2005 was that I was still part of the 30-man squad so I spent the whole tournament being right there in amongst it all. That can be a killer. You’re there for training on a Monday and a Tuesday and then you’re done for the week while the guys you’ve been training with get ready for the match at the weekend. You can have the best attitude in the world but you’ll still find it hard to stay motivated because you know it’s pointless. You can try your hardest to be in good form but you’re still filled with envy.
I always told myself I was happier to be there than not be there. That it was better to be the fifth-choice backrower in the country and be only an injury away from getting a game than being 10th choice and not even be involved at all. But there were definitely times when I had to convince myself that this was true because when you get that close, you’re able to see what you’re missing. There were times I thought I’d be far better off not being in with a shout at all. It wouldn’t hurt as much.
But you can’t be thinking that way. Or if you are, you can’t show it. Those weeks were tough but you had to front up and train away as if it had taken nothing out of you. You join up with the team on Sunday and train hard on Monday, hoping there’ll be a change but knowing there most likely won’t be. Then the team is named on the Tuesday morning before you get on the bus to go training. So you basically have the length of the bus journey to stop feeling sorry for yourself.
The immediate aftermath of that squad announcement is a delicate time for everybody. Everybody in that circle is fighting their own little battles and some of them have just had a victory and some have just had a defeat.
There are always little handshakes going on and guys catching each other’s eye to say well done. But everything is done kind of quietly and under the radar because for everyone who has made it, there’s another guy who hasn’t. If you congratulate someone too loudly, you’re only rubbing it in the face of the player he’s in ahead of.
Leaving camp on the Tuesday night was always very tough. You didn’t want to do the whole saying-goodbye routine with everyone because you didn’t want to be a nuisance about the place. And anyway you’d be back up on Sunday to go again for the next match. But it killed me to get into the car and head for Limerick because I knew I was leaving a little bit of my Ireland career behind each time.
I really loved playing for Ireland and for those few years I was just touching it without holding onto it. You definitely miss it more the closer it is.
Later on, I was 23rd man all the way through the season when Ireland won the Grand Slam and I didn’t feel nearly as bad about it. I suppose you get older and you get calmer and you’re able to see the woods for the trees. I knew in 2009 that I just wasn’t quite at the same level as the guys who were ahead of me. By now it was Stephen Ferris, David Wallace and Jamie Heaslip, with Leamy on the bench. I was able to accept it better. I was near the end of my career and was basically delighted to be involved.
It was probably because I had stopped wondering. I knew the reality. When Eric was named on the bench ahead of me in 2005, it was a 50-50 call that was in doubt right up until Eddie rang me. But this time around, I knew there was no hope of a game unless somebody got injured. So I was able to relax a bit more.
In saying that, I do remember that the closer the team got to that Grand Slam, the more restless I got being on the periphery. The routine had changed a bit under Declan Kidney – you still headed off on Tuesday night but you came back on Wednesday for training Thursday morning. You felt every bit of tension and excitement even though you weren’t going to be part of it on the day.
That was especially true the week of the last match against Wales. I got it into my head that I was going to go hell-for-leather in training even though there wasn’t a hope of forcing my way into the team. There was a few of us on the fringes who were tired of holding the pads and having guys run through us and over us. I did a bit of fairly enthusiastic counter-rucking on David Wallace at one stage, which didn’t go down well. Wally got up and had a go at me and next thing you know, the pair of us were standing there throwing slaps at each other.
I probably should have known better at that age but what can you do? You’re still dying to be involved, you’re still just looking to be given that one chance to show the coach he’s made the wrong call – even when you accept that he’s made the right one.
Between one thing and another, I felt I had an unfulfilled Ireland career and I always thought that if a few things had gone differently I would have won more caps and contributed more. But I suppose that’s the life of any player who lives on the fringe of the squad.
In the end, I actually got a medal out of that season. All 30 players in the Grand Slam squad were given one and I remember being pushed into the team celebration photo on the podium the day we beat Wales. I felt a bit of a fraud, like I hadn’t earned it.
And of course, you can never be let away with anything. Later that summer, the squad met up in Castletroy for the official Grand Slam photo and I was one of the ones asked along. No sooner had I arrived than I ran into Marcus Horan and John Hayes. The two boys made a big show of coming over to me with puzzled faces. “What are you doing here Quinny? Sure you didn’t play a game . . .” Bastards.
