A fuming Seán O'Brien was the first vital sign of encouragement on All Black Sunday. As the Irish flanker shuffled on his feet and shot back curt, cutting replies about the beating of Ireland in the dying minutes, the words seemed oddly comforting and appropriate. They were, maybe, the sound of the burial of Ireland's great love affair with glorious defeat.
“It’s time lads grew up and know what’s expected of them when they put on an Irish jersey,” said an angry O’Brien, 28 straight defeats later.
Dysfunctional relationships in sports are common enough but Ireland’s past dalliances with the near miss, the stroke of bad luck, the cheat and the mare of a refereeing decision have fed into a collective national psyche that often hankers for the celebration of the average and second best.
Our greatest joys spilled out on the country's streets in 1990 when a "Garrison" game made it to the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Italia '90 was conceived without actually winning a game but nudging past Romania on penalties then losing to Italy.
'Post Conflict'
It was up there with the commemorations of the 1916 Rising in 1966 and the 1932 Eucharistic Congress. Some said it was "Post Conflict".
The concept of the “Home Coming” had taken hold. Cheesy Ireland and showband was reborn as the flatbed backs of articulated lorries were thrown into service.
The reactions said many things, not least of all about a fear of wanting the sporting world. Maybe the it-will-do-ism rubbed off on our athletes. Irish manager and England 1966 World Cup winner Jack Charlton, a man of impossibly simple tastes in life and football, was overwhelmed, touched and embarrassed in 1990.
Four years later, after losing to Holland in the USA, he didn’t want a homecoming. He wanted to stay in America as an analyst. But he got Boyzone in the Phoenix Park.
This week it was instructive to listen to Richie McCaw, the most capped All Black in their history and Irish coach, Kiwi Joe Schmidt. McCaw spoke with a simple eloquence. He said he hated losing.
"Talk calm and have a plan." That was his take on the psychology. The practicality was in team structure, inviolable self-belief, trust, confidence, intelligence, knowledge, ruthlessness, repetition and never, ever looking outside themselves to take the game or for a reason if they lost the game.
'Lot of faith'
"Everyone has a lot of faith in the group," said New Zealand coach Steve Hansen. "We knew if we backed our skill sets and structures we would be okay. We realise that it doesn't matter what the score line says. You do what you have to do at that moment in time, do that with talent, mental fortitude, composure."
Katie Taylor and her father Pete have the attitude. They remove as much as what they cannot control from her tournaments. The media see it as being distant. It's not that at all. Like McCaw she always expects to win. Less than a gold medal in London would have been a life's work going up in flames.
Sonia O'Sullivan had it and while the three-times world and European Champion came second in the Sydney Olympic Games to Gabriela Szabo, her career body of work stands up. Roy Keane oozes it. It drips from his pores and sometimes burns like acid.
In 1992 Dublin lost to Donegal and Dublin captain Tommy Carr found himself on the stage with a microphone in his hand after the Lord Mayor Gay Mitchel had said 30 other counties would have loved to have been in an All-Ireland football final. A lugubrious Carr looked out at the crowd and said no they wouldn’t “because no one wants to be a loser”.
When Cork lost this year in the senior hurling final replay against Clare, less than 2,000 turned out for a celebration of defeat. There are signs that our outlook and our relationship with being beaten is turning.
Want to celebrate
Carr all those years ago was right. Teams that are not used to winning want to celebrate. Successful sides that have learned the knack of closing out tight matches and podium Olympic athletes see any light shining on the lack of victory as a magnification of their humiliation.
Moral victories hang over teams that don't win anything and very seldom is it to do with the hand of a perceived cartoon villain, like Thierry Henry.
Remember Croke Park in 2007, the first rugby match there and Ireland’s shattered Grand Slam dream. The restart, a turn over, a French winger called Vincent Clerc blazing through and Beauxis converting for a French win and all within two minutes of the end of the match.
Are we any different? Have we changed and what rugby game should we believe in this week, the one against the Wallabies or the one with the All Blacks. In O’Brien and Schmidt there are vital signs that it could be the latter.
“A draw is as bad as loss,” said Schmidt after the match. “We haven’t won in 108 years against those guys. There’s been a draw before. We didn’t want to do what had been done before.”
Contrived victory may be good for what Keane said last year during the European Championships about fans getting drunk out of their heads. But ask Taylor, O’Sullivan or O’Brien. Glorious defeat sucks. Always will.
Near Misses: Heroic failures or missed opportunities
Ireland 18 Australia 19 - 1991
Has the energy ever been sucked out of a sporting arena as swiftly as 1991, when the old Lansdowne Road went from heaven to hell in the space of a few short minutes?
Never, before or since, have Ireland advanced to a World Cup semi-final. And never, thanks to Gordon Hamilton’s try five minutes from time, will we be in a better position to reach that rarified air.
Australia responded to Hamilton’s breakaway with the class of true champions, ignoring the ticking clock as they sniffed panic in the Irish ranks. And there was a certain inevitability about Michael Lynagh’s ability to extinguish Irish hopes with the ice-cool detachment of an assassin.
So what to make of Ireland’s efforts that afternoon? Brave? Heroic, even? Sure, but a failure nonetheless
– NOEL O’REILLY
5,000 metres Olympic final -2000
She was European champion in 1994, World champion in 1995, and endured complete meltdown at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. After her fourth place finish in Barcelona, back in 1992, was there an Olympic hoodoo for Sonia O’Sullivan?
She was hardly considered a medal contender come Sydney, not behind the all-conquering Africans and reigning World champion, Gabriela Szabo, from Romania.
Then, after very nearly being dropped around halfway, it was suddenly the O’Sullivan of old, striking brilliantly for the gold medal around the final bend, only to be held off by the relentless Szabo, who took the win in 14:40.79, O’Sullivan just .33 of a second behind, such heroics certainly no failure, and with that demonstrating silver is sometimes as good as gold.
– IAN O’RIORDAN
World Cup play-off - 2009
Much depends on one’s definition of heroic failure but my own does not apply to Paris in November 2009. There was nothing heroic about Shay Given’s decision not to come for a ball dropping yards from his line, or Paul McShane’s willingness to allow it across him to Thierry Henry in the first place.
Martin Hansson’s failure to spot the handball was galling but it prevented us from getting to penalties, not the World Cup. So, perhaps, we heroically failed to get to penalties. Or maybe we didn’t fail at all, because the crucial decision was ultimately out of our control.
Heroic failure should apply when a team or competitor has reached a level never achieved before but still emerges beaten. That wasn't the case in Saint-Denis.
– CARL O'MALLEY
Dublin v Kerry - 2013
They were over the hill, past their prime, and in danger of being given a footballing lesson by their old rivals Dublin.
Instead, Kerry turned back the clocks in irrepressible style, hitting Dublin with three goals in the first half, Colm “Gooch” Cooper at his spellbinding best, the old guard Tomas Ó Sé still mixing seamlessly with the new guard James O’Donoghue.
Then, of the verge of a heroic victory, a point up as late as the 68th minute, Kerry were hit by Dublin's 2-2 in the time that remained, and with that carried out on their shields, the echoing praise of helping to serve up an All-Ireland semi-final for the ages of no relief whatsoever to the gaping wounds of defeat, and even for players like Cooper a complete failure.
– IAN O'RIORDAN
