Unprecedented Paris shambles hard to fathom

FROM THE BLINDSIDE:Even at the humblest level of the game you never got to the point where a game was cancelled with the teams ready in the dressingroom, writes ALAN QUINLAN

SATURDAY NIGHT in Paris was a situation completely out of the ordinary. Even going back to the days of club rugby, I’ve never come across a situation where you’re in the dressingroom stripped and ready to go when the game has been called off.

The Irish and French players had their preparation done, taken all the carbohydrate drinks, eaten all the right food, got themselves into game-time mode. To be left high and dry like that just minutes from kick-off just wouldn’t happen even at the lowest level of the game.

Even in the days when I was playing with Clanwilliam you never got to the point where a game was cancelled with the teams in the dressingroom.

Games went by the wayside for the weather several times but it was usually done with a couple of days to spare. Now, there’s a good chance this was occasionally done so that fellas could be free to enjoy their Saturday nights safe in the knowledge there’d be no game on the Sunday morning but the principle still stands. You don’t put people out if it can be avoided at all.

For players, it’s an odd place to find yourself in. I wasn’t a bit surprised to hear Jamie Heaslip say to Imanol Harinordoquy while they were standing on the pitch that he’d see him later for a drink.

Since long before any of us had laces in our boots, that’s what rugby players have done. Game’s off? Where’s the bar? That’s as sure as night follows day.

I was in the Ireland squad in 2001, the year the Six Nations got broken up by the foot-and-mouth crisis. In fact I was in the team. We’d won our first two matches, beating Italy away and France at Lansdowne Road and we were all set for the Wales game.

We were based in the Glenview Hotel in Wicklow and although there was talk that this foot-and-mouth thing might cause problems, we were all full sure they wouldn’t call off a Six Nations game because of it.

The team was announced on the Tuesday around 5.30 and I was delighted to find out I’d kept my place from the first two games. It was my first Six Nations campaign and I was enjoying it and doing well. We all went back to our rooms to kill a bit of time before dinner but, within the hour, we all got called back down to the team room.

Warren Gatland and Brian O’Brien were there and they told us the game had been called off and there was no date set for it to be played. And then the magic words – we were going to be released out of camp the next morning.

Everybody took a minute or two to process this, to deal with the shock of the game being called off. Warren and Brian went through the details of when we’d meet up again for training. Then there was a near stampede to the door as everyone went to their rooms to get their gladrags on and we were in Dublin city centre with pints in front of us before 7.30.

The night ended with Peter Stringer driving seven or eight of us home in Mick Galwey’s car in the small hours, with the team masseur Willie Bennett in the boot because that was the only place there was room for him. Every once in a while, we’d bang on the back seat to check on Willie and as long as the bang came back, we knew he was alright.

You don’t always have that sort of leeway though. I remember a Munster game being called off a couple of years ago in the Heineken Cup away to Montauban. We went to the south of France on the Friday for a Saturday game but found ourselves in the middle of a hurricane over there. We still thought the game would probably go ahead when we had the captain’s run but that night the weather was ferocious.

I was rooming with Ronan O’Gara and neither of us got much sleep with all the noise from outside. Trees were being pulled up in the howling wind and you could hear all sorts of things clattering and crashing around the place.

We had the TV news on in the room and there were reports of accidents happening all over the area and people being hurt. We knew there was a chance the game would be called off but it wasn’t until after breakfast that we found out it was gone for sure.

This time, there was no mention of the bar because, unlike the Six Nations, the Heineken Cup has contingency plans for this sort of thing. If it’s possible at all, they get the game played on the following day.

That still left us with a day to kill that we hadn’t been expecting. What do you do when you have nothing to do? It can be hard to fill the time.

Somebody very quickly organised a school gym somewhere in Montauban where we could go and have a game of indoor soccer, partly to get the nervous energy out of our bodies but mostly just to have a bit of fun and kill the boredom for a while. The game went ahead the next day and nobody was too put out.

But killing time can be hard. It changed a bit over the years because as video analysis became a bigger part of the game, there was always some bit of film you could be viewing. But you had to have your down-time too and after a while, there’s only so much TV you can watch or so many books you can read.

I was always more of a sleeper than a reader, mind you. If I had a chance at all, I’d be back in bed with the covers over me and I had no trouble dozing off during the day. Some guys couldn’t do it at all and they’d be bored out of their minds and looking for things to entertain them. Some played cards a fair bit but I stayed well away from that.

I got the sense they’d have been delighted to get me involved but somehow I don’t think it was for my company.

Sometimes your surroundings will help you out. When we were staying in the CityWest hotel with Ireland, the golf course was right on our doorstep so we could go and happily kill a few hours there.

Anthony Foley was mad for playing golf whenever he could and, funny enough, he used play with Eddie O’Sullivan a lot. John Hayes always said it was no wonder Foley always kept his place on the team.

You’d go stir crazy if you didn’t find something to do so it was only natural your more childish side would come out from time to time. I once had a room in CityWest that turned out to be just overlooking the first tee. When Hayes found this out, he got very excited. He went straight down to bagman Paddy “Rala” O’Reilly’s room to get the blowhorn we used for training.

He was like a little kid at the window waiting for Foley to tee off. Axel was halfway through his backswing when Hayes blew the horn and ball went skittering along the ground. Hayes actually became so pleased with himself he stayed there for an hour, blowhorning any random golfer who stepped up to the tee. So if you were playing in CityWest back around the early 2000s and you’ve always wondered who yer man with the blowhorn was, now you know.

It mightn’t sound like the most high-minded carry-on to be getting up to but that’s what the life is like a lot of the time. You train and you play and those are the times you live for. But when you’re in camp or you’re away from home, a lot of the time you’re just doing nothing.

Scott Gibbs said that long days in hotels were the one thing he didn’t miss when he retired and I can totally relate to that. I hope the Ireland and France players enjoyed their night out on Saturday – the way the fixture list is looking, they mightn’t be seeing one another for a while yet.

PSOn a sad note, I was very sorry to hear of the death of John Flanagan on Saturday night in Paris. John and his wife Irene have been following Munster and Ireland far and wide for years and a lot of the players would know them very well. John had a heart attack in the Stade de France just as he was taking his seat. It's awful news and I'd like to send my condolences and best wishes.