The incredible transformation of Irish rugby over two decades

It doesn’t really make sense — how a small country became a big success in a professional sport that hasn’t really worked. Trying to make sense of that story is a nice way to earn a living, though. And a privilege.SEB DALY/SPORTSFILE

The Munster team of the mid-2000s provided the backbone of the Ireland side and plenty of stories for the mediaAnd what a godsend Munster were for the media. They gave us so many gigs in the south of France for starters, but also provided us with so much human interest, so much colour, such a prolonged tale of injustice before they finally conquered Europe in 2006, with so many heroes and a few villains, too: Steve Lander, the touch judge responsible for denying John O’Neill a match-winning try in Lille; the Cardiff pickpocket Neil Back and many others.

DAVID DAVIES/PAIreland’s Six Nations title win in 2009 was the country’s first under the new format – they have won five further titles sinceExcept now I’m walking into my first editorial conference and D’Arcy is dodging my texts. I soon discovered why: Reggie Corrigan, the Leinster captain, had declared me persona non grata.One measure of Ireland’s progress in the previous few years was that 11 of Eddie O’Sullivan’s team would make the Lions tour in 2005, roughly twice the number who’d travelled in 2001. And happily The Sunday Times would be sending me, too, even though the paper was already well represented. At one point there were as many as six of us on tour. That was twice the number of Scottish players there.

I should mention that the press box in the Principality Stadium is at pitch level. When the punters in front stand up, your view is impeded. In my defence, I merely wanted to bear witness to history being made.Leinster caught up with them by 2009 but Munster still backboned the Ireland side that finally won the grand slam in Cardiff, with eight of their players featuring in the shirts numbered one to 10. This was also one occasion where emotion nearly got the better of me at work.

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Reggie had every right to be furious. He was the victim here. What if Woodward had seen that headline? But on that first morning in a new job, I had a more pressing issue. I needed an idea and fast. The late Pat Geraghty was my saviour.Come to think of it, one of the jobs I was given was to find a travelling Scottish fan and interview him. I tracked one down in a bar but he declined my request, and not very politely.Ireland had ambition in 2005 but nothing to show for it beyond that Triple Crown. At the time Munster seemed like the bigger rugby brand, certainly outside the Six Nations bubble. Given how far they’ve slipped in the past ten to 15 years it’s worth recalling that Munster were the prime movers in what we now think of as Irish rugby’s success story. Before they finally dragged a response from Leinster — and what a response — they popularised rugby in this country. They democratised the sport, drew in the casual sports fan with the assurance that this wasn’t purely an elitist game after all.Leinster have stamped their mark as the dominant force in Irish rugby but having so many international players at one club could be a concern for the IRFU

The principles of the job haven’t changed at all, only the public’s expectations. That’s how you get mild public outrage when New Zealand win in Dublin by ten points. It is just a different kind of tension at play, which in turn keeps producing intriguing stuff to write about.And yes, the small touring press pack did toast the series win in Wellington in 2022 and we did salute Ciarán Frawley’s drop goals in Durban last summer — but only after we’d packed our laptops away.

In fairness, Reggie had reason to be angry. The previous week he’d kindly taken a call for a piece in another newspaper. During our conversation he revealed that, unlike many of his team-mates, he hadn’t received a Christmas card from Clive Woodward, the incoming British & Irish Lions coach, as an indication that he was in the mix for selection to tour New Zealand the following summer.

I’d had such great plans. A few weeks earlier I’d lined up Gordon D’Arcy for an interview. We were a month out from the Six Nations and he’d been the star of the previous year’s tournament. I’d be starting the new gig with a bang.P.S. Reggie Corrigan forgave me, eventually. Legend.Being successful doesn’t make things much easier for the IRFU, for example; maintaining a place at rugby’s top table is just as difficult as getting there in the first place. Part of Andy Farrell’s success as the national coach has been the cohesion you get from having one ultra-dominant province, yet the dangers in such a situation must already be abundantly obvious to David Humphreys, the IRFU’s performance director. The kinks in the production line are evidenced by the bizarre imbalance of having five Irish-qualified fly halves at Leinster while Kiwi journeymen are getting regular and valuable game time at Ulster and Connacht.

The press box should, of course, be an oasis of calm objectivity, no matter what’s happening on the pitch. But in the 78th minute, with Ireland trailing by a point at 15-14 and Ronan O’Gara setting himself for a drop at goal, I instinctively jumped to my feet.You might imagine it has been hard not to overindulge in Ireland’s recent successes, especially for someone who remembers well how grim things were for supporters back in the 1990s, and for those of us who endured the platitudes of New Zealanders and South Africans on so many fruitless tours to those countries.

A surprise interview with O’Connell, left, was a major coup in the lead-up to the Lions tourLooking back, I realise how fortunate I was to join a major newspaper just as Irish rugby was embarking on a period of remarkable growth. O’Connell embodied a new sense of self-respect and expectation. The previous year I’d spoken with him for a book about Ireland winning the Triple Crown and I could see he was uncomfortable with the idea of anyone celebrating a Triple Crown. O’Connell was only interested in big prizes, like grand slams, Heineken Cups, even World Cups.

What a relief. O’Connell was big news, a dead cert to tour New Zealand with the Lions that following summer. Still only 25, he was seen as a natural successor to Martin Johnson. Alex Butler, the sports editor in London, was delighted. The interview ran to 3,000 words. None of that was going to wash with my venerable colleague, Stephen Jones, who was working in the seat next to me. At this pivotal moment in Irish rugby history Steve clutched me by the arm and restored me to my seat with the calm instruction to “sit down”. Killjoy? No, in fairness, he was just protecting me. The one thing you don’t want to be called in this game is a “fan with a typewriter”. And that’s what I looked like that day in Cardiff.

BILLY STICKLAND/INPHOIt’s a little scary to think that next week marks 20 years since my first day working for The Sunday Times. That week itself was a bit scary, truth be told. I remember my first morning at the old office on Redmond’s Hill mainly for the stress I was feeling. Imagine a journalist turning up for a new job without a story. That was me.

Corrigan, right, played 47 games for Ireland between 1997 and 2006But this seems a minor matter when you consider the question marks over professional rugby’s long-term sustainability. The IRFU is something of an outlier when it comes to managing its business affairs. It can afford to charge €160 for a seat at Six Nations games in the Aviva, safe in the knowledge that the games will sell out. It has no debt, and owns significant cash reserves and net assets. And yet like so many cash-strapped and struggling unions it depends on the sport finding a way to sell itself better while at the same time reducing the physical stresses that it imposes on its players. Rugby is crying out for clarity and unity, and Ireland’s influence is greater than ever before.Was Reggie upset? Not outwardly. The card may still be in the post, he reasoned. It might not come at all. Either way, he’d survive.