We put blindfolds on and marched into a firing squad
In space no one can hear you scream, in sport no one can see the shock coming. It is one of the charms and curses of this sporting life that the hit comes when it's least expected.
No matter how long one has followed, observed and analysed games, there is still no safeguard against complete and total confoundment.
We're not talking about run-of-the-mill surprises either, which are ten-a-penny and usually come with some amount of forewarning: the favourites should win but the underdogs have a chance too.
We're talking about outcomes which in advance have a blanket guarantee and where pundits and punters have reached a state of near-absolute consensus: this team is going to win and the other team is going to lose because there is no other sane way of looking at it.
Thus convinced, everyone is soon shrouded in a fog of complacency, sedated against any lingering fears about the impending result.
And no matter how often we've been punished for such hubris in the past, we forget everything we have ever learned from those bitter experiences.
The game begins and before long things are happening that weren't in the script. But never mind, they'll soon get their game together. Twenty minutes, half an hour, 40 minutes; and now it's becoming apparent that the other team had its own opinion about how this match should turn out. This is a surprise for everyone, but especially for their opponents, who suddenly find their senses scrambled and their composure broken. Final whistle. No one knows anything; everything we knew about this match was wrong.
Last Saturday, that familiar scenario unfolded again and it left us with a nagging itch; not so much over the specific result but a more general irritation that we'd been caught again. We'd forgotten all previous lessons about this situation. The lesson being: if the consensus beforehand is all one way, then that's the time to really start worrying. That's the time to sharpen the antennae, sniff the air, look for signs that the reverse result could well be on the cards. And we didn't. Once again we put the blindfolds on and marched blithely into a firing squad. Dammit! Didn't see it coming, didn't see it coming at all.
And inevitably, it's only when the game is over and the dust settles that one starts to see the signs that were there all week but happily ignored.
There was loose talk about another Triple Crown; it would be the fifth in seven years, but was it really worth getting excited about anymore? There was talk too about the national team playing its last game in Croke Park and how a handsome victory would be a fitting swansong. There wasn't much talk about Scotland and most of it was in nonchalant language. They weren't given a chance and pundits were predicting generous winning margins for the home side.
Then the team came out and started with the champagne rugby before the mandatory bottles of porter had been consumed in scrum and ruck and maul. It was dazzling stuff. Ireland were fizzing through the phases while Scotland looked all at sea. But Ireland couldn't translate the style into substance; try-scoring chances came and went as the handling errors multiplied.
This should have signalled clear and present danger: a period of play like this is generally temporary and frequently artificial -- the real contest has yet to begin. And if chances aren't taken at this time, the normal pattern is that the other side stabilises, gets to the pace of the game and starts to turn the tide.
And suddenly the team that looked like it belonged in a different league is struggling to contain the upstarts.
By the end, that early period of Irish swagger looked as hollow as all the pre-match confidence. In fact, it merely reflected it. And as Stephen Ferris more or less confirmed afterwards, the public complacency had infiltrated the privacy of the Irish team camp.
"There were a lot of things," he said, "a lot of media hype coming into this game. You can't help but pick up a newspaper and have a read of it in the morning and maybe sometimes you need to distance yourself from that." He mentioned also "so much hype (about) the last game at Croke Park."
The thing is, it's no one's fault really. You couldn't get a more grounded, humble coach than Declan Kidney. You couldn't get more pragmatic players than Paul O'Connell or Brian O'Driscoll. The pundits didn't flag the threat from Scotland because there was no real apparent threat to flag. Perhaps the farewell to Croke Park became more of an issue than it should have been.
But that alone shouldn't have been enough to derail the team's concentration. Sometimes complacency becomes a virus that not even the most locked-down squads can repel. It's in the atmosphere, it just seeps through. The laboratory conditions were therefore perfect for an ambush. The Scots planned for it, sat quiet and waited.
We doubt there is another area of human endeavour where the slightest slippage in attitude can be probed for weakness and duly punished. It is human competition at its most ruthless.
The Irish got suckered on Saturday. We've done it to lots of teams in the past. It happens to others, and it will happen again to us -- no matter how much we promise that it won't.
thecouch@independent.ie
- Tommy Conlon
Originally published in
