PADDY WALLACE INTERVIEW:He may be an outhalf in centre's clothing but at his third tournament Paddy Wallace is relishing his first World Cup start, writes GERRY THORNLEY
FINALLY, AT his third World Cup, Paddy Wallace can tick a previously empty box. It would have been cruel beyond cruel if the 32-year-old had gone through another World Cup campaign without a game, though you always sensed Declan Kidney was as mindful of that as anyone.
In 11 previous matches at World Cups, dating from the 2003, through ’07 and into this tournament, despite being on the bench in all four pool games four years ago (when things didn’t exactly go swimmingly for Ronan O’Gara and Ireland), Wallace was confined to a three-minute cameo in the endgame of the opening 32-17 win over Namibia.
Even in the last throes of the campaign, when 30-15 down against Argentina and Gavin Duffy had replaced Denis Hickie, he was not brought on as a token gesture. “I think me and Bryan Young were left holding hands that day,” he says with a chuckle.
Needless to say, he’s fairly relieved and excited about his belated first World Cup start. “Yeah, I’m delighted. The third time here at the dance and finally getting a run.”
To come home having been confined to just training sessions for a month or more would have been worse this time. “He’s shown faith in giving me a run and other guys a run, and that makes for a good dynamic within the squad. I’m sure you’ve seen yourself that it’s a very happy squad at the moment, very buoyant, and obviously it helps when you’re winning big matches against tough opposition, but I think the fact that Declan is mixing up the squad is a big show of faith in the rest of the guys.”
Wallace knows there’s a responsibility on this team to maintain momentum, confidence and competition for places, and, as they’ve trained to do, to score tries as well. Not that it mattered a toss last week, it was the fourth blank in six games.
“We want to score tries. We have weapons everywhere and we should be scoring tries, and there’s going to be more opportunities to score tries in this game than others provided we earn the right,” he says, and it must be stressed that this is said without a trace of arrogance. That just wouldn’t be Wallace’s style.
Back in Australia in ’03, Wallace was a talented 23-year-old late call-up after Jonathan Bell suffered an Achilles injury. “I didn’t go over there with any great expectations, and it was great to be at the World Cup, but my motivations are different this time around.”
He recalls recovery swims in the waves in Terrigal, and after the win over Argentina and the one-point loss to Australia, Ireland being “blown away in the water early on and I think there was a bit of shock” against France in the quarter-finals.
“I’m not sure how well the squad was rotated, there may not have been that many fresh legs on the pitch,” he says diplomatically (only 21 players started in the five games). “So from that point of view it was disappointing. It was a quarter-final, but you’ve seen Ireland’s record over the years in World Cups against top tier teams hasn’t been great. That’s why it was nice to win that match on Saturday.”
By contrast, for Wallace, the first aspect of Bordeaux that strikes him is the sheer boredom of staying in the Sofitel du Lac. “I roomed with Bossy and we used to walk half an hour through this industrial estate to find a coffee shop. It was pretty torrid. Our performances didn’t help things either, expectations were high.”
Ironically for Wallace, the kind of treatment he received at the ’07 World Cup had previously prompted David Humphreys to retire at the end of the ’06-07 season.
Three minutes against Namibia? “You can’t achieve anything,” he says placidly. “It’s a token gesture almost. Yeah, you can understand when you hear stories of Humphs being told with a couple of minutes to go, take off your tracksuit and him saying ‘ah, no thanks’. You can understand why people do that. That’s not to say you’re not 100 per cent committed to play for your country. You obviously are. You want to have a chance to have some sort of say on the game.”
That said and done, Wallace was a little resigned to his fate. “Rog had earned the right to be the confirmed starter and Eddie wasn’t going to change that. So there was an acceptance from my point of view but it was high-level frustration, though for the good of the team you don’t want be running around bitching and moaning. That achieves nothing and I think it’s very important for squad morale that when things don’t go your way, you don’t drag everyone else down by the tone you set as far as being a professional.”
The previous season, Wallace had begun to play at inside centre for Ulster, though with Ireland he was still seen as an outhalf. A fortnight after his debut as a sub in the win over South Africa, he scored 26 points as the starting outhalf in the last Test at the old Lansdowne Road, the 61-17 win over the Pacific Islands.
But his stylish performance in the warm-up win over Connacht, his first at 10 for Ireland in over four years, was a reminder he is still something of an outhalf in centre’s clothing. “It’s obviously where I played all my rugby up to ’06. It was the first time I had played 10 in a long time, it was a nice wee run out and I enjoyed it.”
It is partly because he himself understands the switch from 10 to 12 that he can see merits in the O’Gara-Jonathan Sexton axis, even if that means there’s less of a case for having him on the bench.
As pleasant and polite as ever, Wallace is one of three players, along with Brian O’Driscoll and Donncha O’Callaghan, who was part of the Irish team which won the Under-20 World Cup in France in 1999 under Kidney. But though he only has the rest of this season under contract, he doesn’t intend finishing playing for a while yet. “Not by a long shot.”
Wallace has often seemed to have been slightly put upon, whether it’s having more than his fair share of critics or, indeed, his fair share of facial batterings. Through it all, he has always seemed a very even-tempered lad, and despite being away from Christina and their kids, Paddy Jack (nearly five) and Leila (almost two), more than ever he seems to be in a good place nowadays.
“It’s nice, because I was a bit worried about the possible boredom of being away from my family. That was concerning. But I’ve really enjoyed it and the management have got it spot on. Everybody has bought into it. All the committee are doing their jobs, there’s craic and banter every day on the bus.”
There’s only one downside. “I have to grow a feckin’ moustache on the rest of the trip. We had our lottery yesterday. The first five have to roll the dice and if you roll a six you pull a card where everybody has written a punishment. I got a six today on the bus and I have to grow ‘a Kurtley Beale’ on the rest of the trip or else pay $250. But I’ll give it a go for a few weeks.”
For once going into a World Cup weekend, he has plenty of reasons to be happy.
