Nah, Kidney ain't going to drop the Bull on 99 caps

JOHN HAYESwill hate all the fuss that might accompany the historic landmark of becoming Ireland's first Test centurion

JOHN HAYES wouldn’t often beat Brian O’Driscoll in a foot race of any kind, but pending confirmation of the Ireland team announcement today then he is set to pip the great man as Ireland’s first ever Test Centurion. Then, perhaps, it will be official.

The Bull can be conferred as, indeed, “a legend”.

There’s a small school of thought that Hayes struggled badly in Paris and that he may be demoted to the bench or even off the 22 this week. But a review of the tape of Ireland’s defeat in Paris shows all four lineout steals were while he was on the pitch, that the scrum actually went pretty well while he was there and when Ireland were at optimum strength, and he carried a couple of times and made his tackles.

Tom Court’s progress since being rescued from Ulster’s scrapheap by Matt Williams has been impressive – and as a more dynamic late developing prop with more room for improvement who can notionally pack down on both sides, it comes as no surprise to learn French clubs have taken an interest in him.

Yet he has started all 12 of his games for Ulster this season and is just that, a loosehead who can pack down on the tighthead side in an emergency. To start him for the first time this season at tighthead against England at Twickenham seems highly unlikely.

Nah, Kidney ain’t going to drop the Bull on 99 caps.

Hayes will hate all the fuss that might accompany this historic landmark. Ideally, he’d prefer the profile of a limbo dancer – ie no profile at all. That’s the way it’s been for the last 10 years since his debut as one of five new caps in the 44-22 win over Scotland which, at a stroke, launched all their careers and revitalised the Ireland team.

Indestructible, invaluable and indispensable. Apart from a groin injury in 2003, he’s only ever missed Ireland games through being rested or Lions tours. This will be his 51st Six Nations game in succession, all of them as the starting number three.

He has started all bar three of his 99 Tests to date, and by my calculations has completed the 80 minutes in 71 of those games. So it was that Nicolas Mas had a the rare sight of Hayes leaving the fray early a fortnight ago and deduced that Ireland weren’t just losing a tighthead but “a monument”.

Maybe they’ll build a monument to the Bull one day.

Quite where Irish and Munster rugby would have been without this veritable rock is a thought scarcely worth imagining. Ireland’s generally superb lineout over the years has in large measure been down to his lifting skills. His professionalism and memorising of calls is legendary. He has hardly ever missed a lift.

Hurling and football with Doon CBS and then with Cappamore were the only sports he played until he was 19, whereupon “curiosity” sparked by the 1991 World Cup and especially the Ireland-Australia quarter-final, took him to rugby. His debut, in the backrow, was a 0-0 draw with Bruff against Newcastle West.

Legend has it he was applauded off the field, though he maintained it was just some of his team-mates and it was after training the following Tuesday.

As Bruff didn’t have an under-20 side at the time it was Willie Conway, now the Bruff RFC president, who suggested Hayes go up to Shannon, where he came under the wing of Niall O’Donovan.

Of all the many legacies bequeathed to Irish rugby by the ex-Shannon, Munster and Ireland forwards coach, none have eclipsed the way he nurtured Hayes all the way up the representative ladder. A season with Marist in the mid-90s saw him go to Invercargill a boy and return a man, according to himself.

He was fast-tracked on to the 36-man Ireland squad to tour South Africa in 1998 by Warren Gatland at the behest of O’Donovan. By prompting Peter Clohessy to switch to openside, the latter reckons it extended his career by three years – ditto Mick Galwey for Hayes’ lifting skills.

A gentler giant and more likeably genuine and modest man you’d struggle to meet. It’s been extraordinary how seldom he has lost the rag in the furnace of the frontrow and likewise, as Declan Kidney has noted, that Hayes never once won a man-of-the-match award. Mind, he’d probably prefer it that way.

A Grand Slam winner and three-time Triple Crown winner, a four-time Heineken Cup finalist, and two-time winner, a two-time Lions tourist, multiple AILs and now this. A legend, all right.

ON Friday Shane Byrne and Martin Corry will lead Ireland and England Legends sides at the Stoop in the first ever Stuart Mangan Memorial Match.

The match, sponsored by the Byrne Group, will be in aid of the Matt Hampson Trust and Keith Wood’s Paralysed Rugby Players’ Fund, in Ireland. Tickets cost £10, concessions £5, unreserved seating, and are now on sale, from the following website www.englandirelandlegends.co.uk. Peter Clohessy, Reggie Corrigan, Victor Costello, Anthony Foley, Richard Wallace, Paul Burke, Justin Bishop and Rob Henderson are all due to play for Ireland. England’s most-capped player, Jason Leonard, will return to his former home ground, to take part along with other English heroes of 2003.

Though paralysed in a training accident with the England Under-21 team, in March 2005, and unable to breathe without a ventilator, Hampson leads a full and active life and is the Ambassador for the Rugby Players’ Association Benevolent fund.

Stuart Mangan was just 26 when he passed away, on August 7th, 2009. In April 2008, he’d suffered the worst possible spinal injury, while playing for Hammersmith and Fulham RFC, in London. After spending seven months in hospital, he returned to his specially adapted flat in Bayswater and resumed life.

Like Hampson, he never allowed his injury to affect his love for rugby and life – he was a proud son of Cork and Munster. Like Matt, he was always cheerful, positive, determined and forward-looking.

When he died, suddenly and unexpectedly, he was full of plans for the future. He and Matt had become close friends, and had often discussed doing some joint event, in aid of their respective trusts. The idea for this game was conceived while Stuart was still alive.