The retirements of Conor Murray, Peter O’Mahony and Cian Healy severed the last Irish playing links with the sole defeat at the hands of Italy in the history of the Six Nations. For better or for worse therefore, no member of this current Irish squad has ever lost to the Azzurri. There is no muscle memory of a defeat. No pain to reference.
Since the 22-15 loss in the Stadio Olimpico on the final weekend in the 2013 championship, Ireland have beaten Italy 16 times. They have also never lost to the Azzurri at home in the Six Nations, winning all 13 previous encounters in Dublin.
One imagines that O’Mahony, in particular, might have reminded his team-mates in advance of each ensuing clash he has been part of since that particularly uncomfortable day for him, when he had to play more than half of it on the wing.
Coincidentally or not, Andy Farrell has this week brought in two other Irish players from that day, Healy and Keith Earls. Earls spent Tuesday and Wednesday in camp, be it at their hotel base in The K Club or the IRFU High-Performance Centre at Sports Campus Ireland, while Healy, Ireland’s most capped player, came in on Thursday evening and also spent Friday in camp.
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Neither of them actually made reference to the 2013 defeat when they addressed the squad, but it would be a surprise if they didn’t so in discussions with players. But beginning with his immediate post-match comments after the loss in Paris, and again after his Ireland team announcement on Thursday, Farrell has been more effusive than ever about this Italian team.
Although the Italian team had some evergreen warriors and had beaten France on the opening weekend, going into the final weekend of that championship in 2013, the Azzurri had not beaten Ireland in 13 previous Six Nations encounters and had lost 42-10 in Dublin the year before. Yet it is fair to say that whatever could have gone wrong did go wrong that sunny Saturday in Rome on St Patrick’s weekend.
No doubt Italy’s win was popularly received elsewhere in the Six Nations and even world rugby, as was the case in Ireland last Saturday after the Azzurri’s win over Scotland in Rome. Standing on the terracing outside the clubhouse in Templeville Road while watching the St Mary’s-Terenure derby, the loud roar from the clubhouse bar inside meant there was no need to check the result in the Stadio Olimpico.
But while they be most people’s second favourite team in the championship outside of Italy, woe betide the coach who presides over a defeat against them. Losing to Italy effectively did for Wayne Pivac’s tenure with Wales as well, as Dave Rennie’s with Australia, and that game in 2013 would prove to be Declan Kidney’s last day as Ireland head coach.
No wonder Farrell respects them.
Of course, Farrell has even more credit in the bank and is contracted until the next World Cup, whereas Kidney’s contract was finishing at the end of the 2012-13 season. And, in truth, unlike this team, that Ireland side had limped to the final weekend. Kidney’s luck was already running out.
Back in 2009, when leading Ireland to the promised land of a first Grand Slam in 61 years, Kidney’s squad didn’t suffer a solitary injury. In five games, he started just 19 players, voluntarily making four changes with a clean bill of health for the penultimate leg in Murrayfield, and restoring three of that quartet for the dramatic finale in Cardiff, when Ronan O’Gara’s late drop goal secured a 17-15 victory.
Overall Kidney played just 21 players, whereas that figure would rise to 34 in 2013. Ireland went into the championship without Paul O’Connell, Tommy Bowe and Stephen Ferris, and Jerry Flannery had retired. Even so, back in Cardiff for the opening Saturday, they had started briskly; Simon Zebo’s try and backheel flick illuminating Ireland’s display as they roared into a 30-3 lead early in the second half.
Although Wales fought back to leave Ireland hanging on for a 30-22 win, no one could have foreseen that not only would Wales win their remaining four games and the title, but Ireland would not win another match.
They lost next time out at home to England, when Johnny Sexton was injured and rather than start O’Gara away to Scotland, Kidney surprisingly called up a 21-year-old, uncapped Paddy Jackson at 10, even though he’d been nursing a leg injury which had restricted from taking the penalties to touch for Ulster.
Zebo and Gordon D’Arcy were also injured, meaning call-ups for Earls and Luke Marshall. Kidney had generated debate by installing Jamie Heaslip as captain ahead of Brian O’Driscoll, and following that 12-8 defeat in Murrayfield, the head coach then hastily jettisoned O’Gara altogether, naming Ian Madigan on the bench for a dreary 13-13 draw against a poor French side which would prove something of a wooden spoon decider.
A fit-again Sexton was originally due to start at outhalf in the Roman finale, but he went over on his foot in training on the Thursday. A scan confirmed that he had torn a tendon in his left foot.
This meant Jackson continued in the number 10 jersey, although not helped by missing five kicks out of nine in the previous two games, his confidence was visibly shot by the time of the kick-off in the Stadio Olimpico, where he retreated so far into the pocket that he was almost playing fullback.
The unfolding carnage around him didn’t help. Between the 24th and 26th minutes, Earls, Luke Marshall and Luke Fitzgerald (who had replaced Earls) all departed injured, and rather than put the uncapped Paul Marshall on the left wing, Kidney and his assistants asked O’Mahony to play the rest of the game there.
In the midst of all this O’Driscoll, in his 125th cap, received just the second yellow card of his career. In his biography, O’Driscoll recalled: “Their openside flanker, Simone Favaro, makes a tackle on Ian Madigan. He rolls over on our side of the ruck and just lies there. He flails his arms as if he’s trapped and can’t move.
“He’s slowing down our ball and hoping to get away with it. I get in there and give him some shoe, right in the chest. I’m thinking, Get the f**k out of our ruck!
“My boot is in the vicinity of the ball, but not close enough. I look to see if anyone’s spotted it. If they have, I know I’m in trouble. Romain Poite, the touch judge, has a word with Wayne Barnes.
“Out comes the yellow card. It’s only the second time in my international career that I’ve been sinbinned. Two yellows in 130 Tests for Ireland and the Lions – both against Italy, nine years apart.”
Barnes would also brandish yellow cards to Donnacha Ryan and Murray in the 68th and 79th minutes.
Italy deservedly won 22-15 through the only try of the game by Giovanbattista Venditti in the 49th minute, a conversion and three penalties by Luciano Orqerea and a long-range penalty by Gonzalo Garcia, to five penalties by Jackson.
Watching from his home in Goatstown, Sexton reflected in his biography Obsessed on that day: “A good one to miss. That’s the line I’m getting, in numerous text messages, as I sit watching our Six Nations campaign unravel in Rome.
“Friends and family get in touch to assure me that it would have been very hard to make a positive impression when everything was falling apart so dramatically and players were dropping like flies.
“And it’s true, if we thought we’d had bad luck with injuries earlier in the championship, today was ridiculous.”
As for the Italians, having backed up an opening day win over France, Sergio Parisse and the rest of the Azzurri team celebrated their historic day in tears of joy on the pitch.
Today’s Irish team is better, but then the same is true of this Italian team, and they’re every bit as motivated.
Meanwhile, after that thrilling start in Cardiff, Ireland avoided the wooden spoon above France on points difference (-9 compared to -18). Just 17 days later the IRFU confirmed that Kidney, who had also coached Munster to their only four Heineken Cup finals and only two titles, would not have his contract renewed.
Indeed, the Union ended his tenure there and then, with Les Kiss taking interim charge of the summer tour to North America. Woe betide indeed.
