Ireland Under-20 head coach Richie Murphy had to rely on feel, instinct and feedback, listening to the players and drawing on support of parents and the back room team, to negotiate a pathway through the trauma of the past seven days in Cape Town. It was about finding coping strategies on the run.
The deaths of teenagers Andrew O’Donnell and Max Wall on the Greek Island of Ios, a tragedy that resonated sharply with the players, especially the six of them who attended St Michael’s College, and the paragliding collision that claimed the life of Greig Oliver, father of scrumhalf Jack, introduced a sense of shock and grief that temporarily subsumed any rugby considerations.
Only a brief period of mourning was possible before the practicality of the situation intervened, as on Tuesday lunchtime Ireland faced Fiji in their final pool match of the Under-20 World Championship. The routine of rugby served as a crutch on which to lean, a pause button to press on the heartbreaking emotional toll.
The Irish contingent pulled closer to provide guidance and support once the decision was taken to go ahead with the game. Team manager Tom Kavanagh, Murphy and his assistant coaches, Mark Sexton, Andrew Browne and Aaron Dundon, lead physio Ed Mias and his cohort George Dennison, Gareth Rossi and Stephen McGrath, doctor Barry O’Flanagan, strength and conditioning coach Micheál Devane and nutritionist Gary Sweeney, gently returned rugby to the forefront of the players’ minds.
Murphy made 10 changes to the starting team, reflecting suspensions and the physical legacy of the games against England and Australia. Jack Oliver was listed to be on the bench. He wanted to participate but arguably showed as much courage to take a step back and instead accompany his team-mates to the ground without a playing portfolio.
Black armbands and a minute’s silence pregame would offer a tangible reminder of lost lives, the challenge then being to maintain an even emotional keel through the anthem.
Ireland triumphed 47-27 but nine minutes into the second half the gap had been four points, and the Fijians had the momentum of scoring three unanswered tries either side of half-time. If there was a potential tipping point when the events of the previous few days might have caught up, this was it.
The response, though, was typical of the character shown this season. Ireland are Six Nations Grand Slam champions for a reason. They possess several traits to supplement talent, including resilience and a deep-seated resolve to find a solution to a playing problem.
They have lost two players to red cards and suspension in this tournaments and another to a postgame disciplinary process. The hits kept coming and still they have found durability and remained intransigent amid adversity. They had already displayed these virtues in three of the five matches in the Six Nations campaign.
In their opening game against Wales in Colwyn Bay, Ireland trailed 15-7 early on and 20-14 after 52 minutes before surging to a 44-27 victory. France came to Cork and threatened to besmirch the unbeaten home record; they led 24-23 and 31-30 with six minutes left before Sam Prendergast’s penalty rescued a win.
England took a 7-5 lead in the Grand Slam game in Cork and three times they headed Ireland in the opening pool match of the Under-20 World Championship at Paarl Gimnasium. Ireland’s goal line defiance in the nerve-shredding conclusion while a player down enabled them to hang on for a 34-34 draw.
Even against Australia, the omens weren’t good initially. Their opponents blitzed them early on to lead 10-3 but again Ireland rediscovered their equilibrium.
The players spent time with their parents on the night of the Fiji game and were given the option to take the following day off to spend more time with their families. But they elected to stay together and go up Table Mountain as a group. Easily distinguishable in their Irish livery, they endured a procession of questions about the tragedy earlier in the week.
If that was intrusive, the kindness of the hotel staff and the South African rugby union has been noted. World Rugby, too, were accommodating to a few requests earlier in the week.
On Thursday the Ireland players returned to training in advance of the semi-final against South Africa at the Athlone stadium on Sunday (3.30pm). Perhaps there is a touch of serendipity about the venue because for many years the home of the Ireland under-20s, and the under-21s, was Dubarry Park in Athlone, the venue of many a famous victory. Mind you, the Cape Town stadium won’t have the bone-seeping cold of a wet, wild and wintry Irish night.
Jack Oliver, his mum Fiona and sister Ciara, left to return home on Thursday night, to begin the preparations for Greig’s funeral, another emotive touchstone for the group. UCC’s Andrew O’Mahony has flown out to Cape Town as a replacement, having previously played for Ireland in last year’s summer series in Verona, a tournament in which South Africa beat Ireland 33-24, the last team to do so in a competitive fixture.
Ireland, who travelled to Italy without 14 of the 2022 Grand Slam panel, had lost their opening match to France when they encountered the Junior ‘Boks. South Africa have three survivors from that game in their current squad, captain and flanker Paul de Villiers, prop Corne Lavanga and scrumhalf Imad Khan.
Murphy will be able to call upon Prendergast, prop George Hadden, secondrows Conor O’Tighearnaigh and Charlie Irvine and secondrow/flanker Diarmuid Mangan. O’Mahony isn’t in the match-day 23, while flanker James McNabney, who also played in Verona, is suspended for Sunday’s semi-final.
Ireland’s head coach had to figure out a way to “normalise” the tail-end of the week, and as cold and heartless as the words may seem, the focus had to be exclusively on rugby, to put in place on Thursday and Friday the scaffolding that will allow them to build a detailed performance.
Harnessing emotion is an integral part of any sport, but Ireland will need to rely on the cold-eyed pragmatism of the playbook, the patterns to engineer the result that they covet. It’s about the minutiae, fixing the lineout, addressing discipline, managing the game with more control, kicking with greater accuracy, improving all those component parts to allow them to be their best iteration.
They have stood up. They have fought. And they must do so once again. The journey is not over.
