Ireland facing daunting task

It has been difficult not to smile at France’s sporting plight over the past fortnight, first losing to Argentina in the Rugby World Cup and then at home to Scotland in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. It was not that long ago that the Scots struggled to draw with the Faroe Islands while the French were champions du monde. If France get knocked out of their own World Cup by losing to Ireland then national humiliation would be complete.

It makes the task of the Irish even more daunting. Having been stationed in Bordeaux for the past fortnight or so watching Ireland has become something of a soap opera. It’s been high drama on the field and if reports are to be believed even more so off it.

It’s fast unravelling. You have just finished digesting one extraordinary rumour when another one comes along to hit you between the eyes. Ronan O’Gara is apparently a heavy gambler, Geordan Murphy it has been suggested went AWOL after being unceremoniously kicked into touch by Eddie O’Sullivan. The coach himself is firefighting on several fronts, while several members of the squad are supposedly unhappy stationed out in no-man’s land on the edge of a conference centre 20 minutes from Bordeaux. They have gone stir crazy.

This may go some way to explain the poverty of Ireland’s two games versus Namibia and Georgia against whom their failure to secure a bonus point could well prove to be their undoing.

Sporting history though shows that the sort of problems Ireland may or may not be facing are not new. Bad behaviour in the olden days, especially on Lions tours, was almost de riguer, leaving behind a trail of havoc. It’s just that they were never reported and totally ignored. That was before rugby went professional and became entertainment.

With players being paid, its participants are public property and the media ever more purient with its obsession for revealing the personal foibles of individuals.

If a reporter had been on the boat that took the MCC cricketers to Australia in 1946 together with 300 war brides heading for a new life Down Under he would have had a field day. This time with the stake so high you wonder whether the French journalist who peddled the crap initially was part of an orchestrated campaign designed to destabilise Ireland.

It is a real shame that we have reached this situation. Can anyone honestly put hand on heart and say they have never done anything wrong. What should it matter what they get up to. The perfect riposte from O’Gara would be to lead the charge against the French, let rip all his pent up fury at Frederic Michalak and help lead Ireland to glory at Stade de France. Their supporters deserve it.

Last weekend in Bordeaux, tens of thousands appeared out of the mist to soak up the sun, drink the ale and enjoy the craic. One lawyer who I had the pleasure to meet, Martin Howe, had driven down overnight from Calais in a giant Winnebago motor home with his brother, a friend and three children who were getting their first taste of touring.

They were back in London on Sunday night. Some commitment. They’re due back this weekend too.

We spent a happy hour or two putting the world to rights outside the temporary Guinness tent. Martin’s is a fascinating story in itself. He is leading the campaign back in Britain to get justice for the Ghurkas who, having been willing to lay down their lives for the country in countless wars now find themselves up against a government unwilling to recognise their loyalty to the Crown and hell bent on denying them entry into the UK for much-needed medical treatment as well as insisting they live on a pension worth 2s 6d a week.

It’s a scandal. Some governmental twerp said one VC hero couldn’t come in because he had not shown close enough ties with Britain. Excuse me. Yet the immigration door for every Tom Dick and Harry from Eastern Europe remains wide open. As they say though, don’t get me started.