I CAN'T quite remember the exact year of the first great Keane rugby expedition, but I certainly won't forget the day.
Seventy schoolboys huddled in the pouring rain of a February morning at Cork railway station while I fumbled desperately for our tickets. "They're here somewhere, lads," I called out as the mutters grew louder.
I had left home that morning carrying exactly 70 tickets for the Ireland v England game at Lansdowne Road. Now, with the train just minutes from lurching out of the station, I could find neither match nor rail pass.
About five weeks previously I had the bright idea of organising a trip to Dublin for the opening game of the Five Nations' championship. Because I went to a fanatical rugby school there was an immediate wish to book places on the "Keane Express". I cannot remember what delights I promised, but access to large amounts of beer and the absence of parental or teacher control must have been chief among them.
Now, on the damp tiles of Cork station, the mutters were building into a growl, and boys I had known as friends began to press me towards the wall. And then a kindly female face appeared, her rich Cork voice calling my name. "Is there a Mr Keane here, a Mr Keane from Presentation College?" she asked. Uncertain in the face of this symbol of authority the mob parted and allowed her through. "Young man, I think you left these on the counter over there," she said, handing me the tickets and freeing me from the rough hands of my associates.
We swept on to the train, a gangly, spotty and raucous crew. Within seconds the conductor had descended on us with a warning: "Any messing and the whole lot of aye are off. Do ye hear me?" Somebody made a farting sound and the entire group erupted in appreciative sniggers. The conductor became red in the face: "Ye think ye're smart. If I catch the one of ye that did that I'll wipe the smile off his face." Sensing the potential for being thrown off at some remote rural station, the mob adopted a submissive pose.
I can remember only snatches of the rest of the day. We were beaten by England and laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the referee. If I remember correctly, Dusty Hare was our particular bete noir as we made our way back to the train station. He had a particularly good game and tormented the uninspired Irish back line.
Overall it had not been a spectacular match. In those bleak days of the 1970s, Irish rugby was in the doldrums, awaiting the golden boots of Ward and Campbell and the inspirational leadership of Ciaran Fitzgerald. Triple Crown glory was a dream carried into every season, a dream endlessly deferred. But what I did not realise as we made a very drunken progress back to Cork was that among our number were several "Pres" lads who would finally end the Triple Crown blight in 1982.
Most notable among them was Michael Kiernan, who as a winger and a centre was one of the outstanding talents in the school. Other schoolmates who would bring glory to Ireland included the scrum half Michael Bradley and wing Moss Finn. Yet in those days our rugby horizons were infinitely more limited. Winning the Munster Schools Senior Cup was considered a far greater achievement than Ireland beating England or anyone else, for the sidelines of schools rugby matches glittered with the diamonds of our city's convent schools.
Rugby had about it the whiff of sexual tension, or in our case at least, the raw aroma of teenage lust. Making the first team was a recognised pathway to female adulation.
Thus it was I took up the game, not with dreams of Triple Crown glory in my head, but in the hopes of inching my way closer to the heart of a girl whose family were rugby fanatics. She did end up taking quite a liking to me, but not for my rugby skills. They were embarrassingly bad. I loved the game, but it did not love me.
For winter month after month I ploughed around the training field on Cork's famous Mardyke walk. Mud and winter green and cold showers and the relentless dread of waiting for teams to be posted, knowing always that your name would not be there.
One evening, as the rain swept up from Cork harbour and spat into our faces, I simply kept on running at the end of a set of laps. I ran until I reached the pavilion, where I quickly changed and vowed never again to make a fool of myself. From that point, I was free to enjoy rugby without the strain of incompetent participation.
There was of course "social rugby", an easy going business where one cantered around the pitch, working up a thirst. One of the most memorable of these games was against the girls of Mount Mercy convent, whose piety and prettiness made for a discomfiting combination.
They proved robust opponents but we began from a weak position. One of our number, a large fellow nicknamed "Horse", had passed around a bottle of poitin in the boys' dressing rooms just before kick off. We went out with fire in our bellies, quite literally, and several players had to rush behind hedges, vomiting furiously.
After leaving school I kept up my association with rugby. When I became a reporter on the Limerick Leader 1 volunteered the information that I was interested in covering the occasional game. The sports editor, a legendary, cigar chomping figure known as "Mr Liffy", decided I could be trusted with schools rugby. "Make any, mistakes and you'll have all their parents in on top of you," he warned me.
I know now that I embarked on the whole business with a little too much confidence. As a Corkman I should have realised that rugby in Limerick is a very different business to rugby in my home town. This is the city that has produced prop forwards who have struck terror into players across the world - Tom Clifford, Ginger McLoughlin and, more recently, Peter Clohessy are just a few who have earned the fear and respect of players from Twickenham to Loftus Versveld. It is not for nothing that the home ground of one of the city's leading clubs is called the Killing Fields. A single mistake in your copy about even the smallest, most insignificant of games, would bring a chorus of protests. They were always followed by a muttered: "Sure what would he know about rugby in Limerick and he a blow in from Cork?"
They were right, of course. Limerick rugby was a creature of vastly greater passion and commitment to the game than I had become used to watching at home in Cork.
After a few months Liddy - I as now allowed to call him by his first name, Cormac - decided to promote me to the position of rugby correspondent. If I thought the schools lobby was difficult to deal with, I was to face a mauling on a much rougher scale covering the senior game. To add to my woes, several of the printers at the paper - the men who set my copy - were prominently involved in local clubs. "Jesus you're not puttin' that rubbish in the paper?" they would frequently roar, as I scurried back to the newsroom as, fast as my legs would carry me.
Being rugby correspondent had many downsides - not least having to spend every weekend shivering on the sidelines and avoiding the hate filled glances of those I had offended the previous week. But there was one great perk: travelling at the paper's expense to all Ireland's games, home and abroad.
I HAVE written elsewhere about my disastrous experience in Paris when drink did for me and my photographer and we neglected to pick up our press tickets. That unhappy episode does not need re telling. My first overseas trip was in fact to Twickenham for the England v Ireland game. We had gone expecting defeat. That was the habit of those times. What we were given was a stunning victory helped along by a remarkable try scored by the red headed, bull from Shannon - Ginger McLoughlin. One of the great prop forwards, he crashed through several English defenders to score in the right hand corner.
Later, I was privileged to see Ireland win the Triple Crown and bury the memory of those barren days of the mid to late 1970s. The Five Nations championship had in those days an atmosphere quite different from any other sporting series: there was intense competition but a warm atmosphere, a sense that while people took winning seriously there was also an obligation to have as much fun as possible. I am not sure whether this spirit can survive the new professionalised era.
From a purely chauvinistic point of view I worry about whether Ireland will continue to make the grade at top international level. The humiliation at the hands of Italy at the start of the season filled me with foreboding. Our best players are now moving en masse to English clubs and this cannot be good for the development of the game in Ireland.
I must resist the temptation to be an aunt sally, however. With any luck there will be a train heading to Dublin today carrying on it perhaps four or five schoolboys who will become Ireland's stars of the future.
As for my own prediction: I really want Ireland to win but I know the odds are stacked heavily against us. Maybe that's for the best. Ireland only ever play like winners when nobody gives us a chance.