The 2009 Grand Slam was captured in Cardiff but everyone knows Rob Kearney won it all by himself in Enfield the previous December when, aged just 22, the Leinster fullback broke Munster's inner circle in the Ireland camp.
“If we got the wooden spoon that year I would have been the villain of Irish rugby, banished out, never to play again,” said Kearney yesterday of this weather-beaten conversation. “The fact that we slammed it, people say ‘Aw something must have happened there.’”
He cools it down.
“Look, I think that has been over-talked a little bit.”
Then, in the next breath, he warms it back up again.
“It was a big moment that aided the national team.”
Wondered aloud
All Kearney wondered aloud was how Munster’s B team could scare the life out of the All Blacks in
Limerick
on the Tuesday night before
New Zealand
secured a bloodless 22-3 victory over Ireland the following Saturday in Dublin.
History shows us when Irish men hailing from different parishes are confined to a room it can go badly wrong. Or it can go the other way.
Marcus Horan allegedly went ballistic.
The story grew legs. Chairs were circled into a makeshift octagon before Horan and Kearney stripped down to grapple, UFC style, until the grizzled red prop choked out the handsome blue buck.
Or maybe that’s just Chinese whispers?
“Come to blows? No. I kind of wish we had come to blows because what was said was more awkward. I would have preferred a fight!”
Let’s set the record straight. Basically, Ronan O’Gara saw an opportunity to amalgamate the tribes. Almost six years later, is Kearney willing to say what was said?
"I can say. We had a meeting and went into sub pods. Rog was taking our group. I didn't question the Munster guys' commitment to the national jersey, I just said there was something very different when they were playing for Munster than when they were playing for Ireland.
“Then we went into the big group and Rog read out the findings of our study and Marcus Horan said ‘Listen, I have to stop you there, there is a very big elephant in the room, there is something really wrong here’.
“There was a 10-second silence, which felt like an eternity, so I had to back it up. I just said to the group what I had already said.’”
Ever since, every once in a while, Irish men come together in green jerseys and mine that infinite resource.
Come Saturday night it will be the other way.
