Mick Doyle is believed to have received around €75,000 in settlement of his High Court libel action, writes Joe Humphreys
In the chummy world of Irish rugby, one's reputation means a lot - as proved by Mr Mick Doyle's decision to sue his former employers over an article which raised questions over his standing with his peers some 15 years ago.
Speaking yesterday following his out-of-court settlement with the Sunday Independent, he described how he felt reading the article published two years ago last February.
"I looked at the sports pages and. . . it just hit me . . . I could see that that piece was totally offensive and very hurtful, and totally wrong, and I said, yeah, I got to sort this out."
The article was written by the newspaper's rugby correspondent, Brendan Fanning, a week after a particularly heavy Ireland defeat by England at Twickenham.
The journalist wrote, in comparing the then team coach to his predecessor, that within two seasons of winning a Triple Crown in 1985, Mr Doyle "had become ostracised by the decision-making core among the players. Nobody was making a realistic case for him to stay."
These words would lead Mr Doyle, the Sunday Independent and a host of former rugby internationals to the Four Courts in Dublin this week.
Among those due to give evidence in the High Court were Tony Ward, Philip Orr, Paul Dean and Ciarán Fitzgerald - all of whom played under Mr Doyle while he was coach of the Irish team between 1984 and 1987.
Central to the case was what happened in the home changing room at Lansdowne Road on March 15th, 1986, just before Ireland played Scotland.
The home side had just suffered three successive defeats (and would suffer a fourth before the day was out). The pressure was mounting on both the team and its management to turn their fortunes around.
In court, the Sunday Independent was to argue that Mr Doyle had been asked by the then team captain, Ciarán Fitzgerald, to leave the dressing room - a claim which Mr Doyle strongly denied.
Ironically, the claim had been made in an interview with another player, Des Fitzgerald, in 1992 in the Sunday Independent - an interview over which Mr Doyle did not sue. Mr Doyle explained outside the court yesterday that because he had been writing for the paper at the time, and liked his employers, he had said, "I won't say any more about it as long as you don't repeat it."
He said he took exception to the more recent article because it was "stated, written as fact" that he had been ostracised.
"If this is opinion saying 'Mick Doyle's a plank, Don't like the guy.' That's fine. It's a different story. But if you say 'Mick Doyle was put out of a room', that's it - fact. You have got to stand over that. I knew that didn't happen."
Proclaiming to be "happy now this is finished", Mr Doyle declined to reveal the terms of the settlement, although he clearly regarded it as a victory. The Sunday Independent is to publish an apology tomorrow, and is to pay Mr Doyle an undisclosed sum, believed to be in the order of €75,000.
Mr Doyle said he was precluded from revealing the figure but noted it was "different . . . in a big way" from the newspaper's original "derisory" offer."But that wasn't the major point," he said. "The major point was vindication of name."