Saint Patrick's Day and Super Saturday on the one day, ain't life a bitch. So i arose this morning at 510a.m as is my usual wont for the last 12 years on the feast of Patrick, to support my now adult children participate in Ireland's premier parade, with pride, in our capital. Wortwhile as this was it was never far from my mind that our national rugby team had last week won the 6 Nations championship for the third time in 5 yrs. In so doing had set themselves up for Triple Crown Glory and a Grand Slam. Except being Irish we decided to take the Road Less Travelled and had to beat the English who were coming off the back of two defeats and we had the pleasure of attending Twickenham, the home of English rugby. So one's expectations were not good. Rule 1 you don't beat England at home, Rule 2, England don't like losing 3 in a row, and will, by fair-weather or foul do everything in their power to win, ( we won't mention assistant referees being in this loop).
So my dilemma, do I try to watch/ listen via social media and not enjoy the youthful exuberance of The Bui Bolg Youth Performers. So I imposed a self inflicted media blackout, and instead enjoyed this young bunch of wonderfully well behaved teenagers and young adults- The CREAM of the Crop- who got up at 530a.m and did not return home til 730pm and somewhere in the middle watch them perform their hearts out to 500,000 people over two hours of street theatre performance in the Parade.
So now I have no idea what is going on during Super Saturday and decide i don't want to know either. I would rather go home and watch as if live. What i didn't know was, the war of attrition that was about to take place. Now the English are divils for playing close to the wind. But one shouldn't be shocked by this. One should not have been shocked by what was to happen on a rugby field in a country where there is a 600 hundred year history of love and hate.
Rugby can be a beautiful game. Flowing lines beautiful hands Wonderful line outs a fast running game. A game of physics chess and brute force. But with 80 mins of playing time, to either put one team into the annals of, history or for the other to have the ignominy of 3 defeats in a row, this beautiful game turned into an ugly affair. It was brutal hard hits late hits taking out players in the air and blunt force trauma in the scrum England had decided that a win at any cost would do, to save them from the shame of 3 losses in a row. But on such occasions the other team are supposed to read the script and fall in with the English opinion of how great they are. And that home turf means We Win You Lose.
Unfortunately for England they forgot to send the script to Ireland. Or more likely as is the case with the history of these two nations there was a miscommunication. With a Championship behind them and a Triple Crown and Grand Slam in front of them these Irish Warriors pretty much decided fuck that shit this is ours for the taking. And that is what they did. 12 months ago they ruined the English dream by defeating them at Lansdowne Road, and denying them overall victory. Then just for fun they said let's show these guys what it means to be champions. They frustrated they bullied they put under pressure they harangued and they gave not a quarter. They played come get the ball, they played pin down, they played high in the air and they gave not an inch. The older ones encouraging the younger ones, the younger ones demonstrating what it means to have heart to the older ones. They all playing with one thing in mind - how small nations can do great things. And great they were. With great skill and a wee rub of the green those at Twickenham watched this Irish side dismantle English rugby piece by piece . With an attitude of you want it well lads you better take it cos we aint giving it to you. So one by one those in green said this may be your turf English rugby but on this day of national Irish celebration we are going to dance all over it and make it our home from home for the day, for the Irish are used to making a home from home. So we set up camp in their field and said we own this for the next 80 minutes. You can push us around, you can come take it back, you can complain about it. You can whine and moan and stomp your feet because your not getting your own way. But while you that we will lead you in a merry dance. We will fall over you fall around you we will kick you into positions you will not want to be in. We will put
the prize at the bottom of your posts. We will have players breaking scoring records. We will even invite you to our party on your pretty green patch of leafy suburban London. But the one thing we will not do is give it up. This is our dream and neither the beautiful game the English can play or the arrogance you can show is going to make a jot of difference. This is our party in your house and for once you may suck it up.
Even at the end it was as if this Irish team said we won't let you score we won't let you score we won't let you score. Then looked at the time and went put them out of their misery. Here's your keys back we don't like your house anymore. And they walked away knowing that 23 Irish men had just bored deeply into the soul of English rugby and said we dont like what we see. We are going elsewhere for our party but we are taking all the goodies with us. And all the English could do was hold their heads in hand and wonder what just happened.
But as the nation rejoiced I sat on a bus with sixty lovely young people who also laid their hearts bare in Dublin yesterday and without a single complaint had fun and chatted and played and when the time came they entertained 500,000 on the streets of Dublin for two hours and they too showed us how to party. But as I sat on that bus with 60 tired young people I some how knew deep down that all was well with the world. And I came home knowing yet not knowing and as the nation rejoiced I sat back turned on my player and just knew that sometimes there are more important things in life than a rugby championship a Triple Crown and a Grand Slam victory. That those 23 men would have been as proud of those sixty young people for saying the show must go on as they were of their heroes on that field of play.
So on the feast of Patrick on Saturday the 17th of March 2018 we were all winners.
And this is the Cat that got the Cream.
