A good year, yes, but bar set a bit low

Rugby: Speaking at the recent Philips Manager of the Year lunch, the February winner Eddie O'Sullivan repeated his assertion that, by and large, it had been a good year for Irish rugby. You could see where he was coming from, and yet . . .

On the face of it, there was indeed much to celebrate. Ireland extended their record-breaking run of wins to 10 in finishing second in the championship and reached a World Cup quarter-final. All four provinces performed creditably in Europe, as for the first time two of them made the Heineken European Cup semi-final, and Munster also won the Celtic League.

To begin with, Ireland put together four successive wins in the Six Nations to ensure a home Grand Slam decider against England. It was Ireland's misfortune to run into an English team which for once had all their key men, Martin Johnson, Lawrence Dallaglio and co, in harness and were ultra determined to put to rights the wrongs of four previous slip-ups in crunch games for that elusive Grand Slam.

Ireland boldly unveiled a new wide running game à la Gloucester's rout of Munster in Kingsholm. The arguments raged as to whether a tighter, or at any rate more varied, game plan might have put England under more pressure, but the first half that day, especially, was thrilling. Defensively impenetrable in the first period, brilliantly ruthless in the second, England actually played more like the best team in the world that day than they did when winning the World Cup in the autumn.

En route, Ireland had laid the Murrayfield bogey to rest, won handsomely in Rome, toughed it out at home to the French, and survived by the skin of Ronan O'Gara's right boot in the Millennium Stadium. Second was Ireland's highest placing since the Championship and Triple Crown year of 1985. All in all, it had been a very good campaign.

A disappointing rout followed in Perth, after which Ireland put together another eight wins, culminating in that tension-racked 16-15 win over Argentina in Adelaide. It had been the be-all and end-all of Ireland's focus for the best part of two years - longer in some respects given the defeat in Lens four years before.

Ireland had one more big performance in them, against Australia, but mentally, defensively and tactically hardly showed up against France in the quarter-finals. All told, Paul O'Connell came of age, the lineouts were outstanding, Keith Wood was simply inspiring and Brian O'Driscoll came good.

However, the loss of Geordan Murphy and then Denis Hickie blunted Ireland's cutting edge, three big games in a row proved beyond them, and in the final analysis it was a disappointingly anti-climactic World Cup.

Ultimately, Ireland played 16 games in the calendar year, winning 12 and losing four, with a points aggregate of 502-302, scoring 57 tries (Hickie leading the way with nine, followed by John Kelly on six), conceding 30.

Remarkably, 46 players were used.

The provinces, especially in the second half of the year, had to tug the forelock, but the first half was a different story. Munster's Christmas goose looked well and truly cooked when, following a semi-final thrashing of Ulster, they were well beaten in Perpignan. Ah, we of little faith.

Needing to win by a minimum of 27 points and four tries against Gloucester, Thomond throbbed and Munster did just that with John Kelly's last-ditch try and Ronan O'Gara's conversion, without O'Gara realising it all hinged on his kick.

Fate, as ever, was unkind to them in the knock-out stages, giving them a scenic route to the Lansdowne Road final via Leicester and Toulouse, whereas Leinster wouldn't have to leave Dublin again. But avenging the two-time defending champions in Welford Road would be as sweet as it gets. Munster were epic that day, the sweeping, quick-fire multi-phase attack that culminated in Peter Stringer triumphantly touching down in front of the Red Army being the Irish try of the year.

As Mick Galwey said after the triumphant pitch invasion, no one beats Munster twice. Not in a row, anyhow.

The semi-final weekend was as crushing as World Cup quarter-final weekend.

Munster gave it the good fight in Toulouse but by the next day Leinster, and especially Matt Williams, had become far too distracted by Munster's celebrated achievements, despite private protestations to the contrary.

They simply imploded in the home semi-final against Perpignan, leaving Dublin and the ERC with an anti-climactic all-French final. We'll never know how things might have panned out had Reggie Corrigan not asked Brian O'Meara to take an early pot at goal rather than maintain the momentum of an all-guns-blazing start by kicking to the corner.

This isn't being wise after the event. It had been a massive gamble to go with O'Meara as place-kicker given his off-days in Leinster's three previous outings against Swansea, Bristol and Biarritz, when he had average less than 50 per cent, and it should have been a stated policy that his first penalty at goal would be a relatively straightforward one. Otherwise, go to the corners. We'll never know what might have happened had Leinster gone for a lineout and scored off it. Instead of remaining flat and reluctant to make the hard yards, confidence would have soared, a brittle Perpignan might have wilted, O'Meara's shoulders mightn't have sagged, confusion mightn't have reigned in the stands as to when to bring in the likes of Aidan McCullen and Nathan Spooner.

This writer is a firm believer in what the offbeat New Zealand commentator Murray Mexted refers to as the ebb and flow of psychic energy when evaluating the impact of key early moments in a game. Witness the wrongly overruled Mils Muliaina try early on in the semi-final against Australia and Stirling Mortlock's ensuing intercept try. Different game.

In any event, after playing some of the best rugby seen all year anywhere in Europe, Leinster were left to rue the lost opportunity of a lifetime. The Williams reign, which had been so positive for Leinster rugby generally and a host of previously under-achieving players in particular, ended after much bickering and internal player fall-out before he decamped, utterly understandably, to Scotland.

The memories of the grim mid to late 1990s should perhaps make us appreciate the relatively good times of the last four years. But they are still too vivid to forget that in a country of Ireland's size, with such a relatively small playing pool, the conveyor belt of talent might occasionally shudder.

There remains the nagging suspicion that - as with Ireland and Munster - chances such as these mightn't keep coming along for ever.