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The days when Ireland couldn t buy a win against Italy
The story of Ireland’s hat-trick of Italian humiliations in the mid-90s is one of farce and bad planning. Garry Doyle By Garry Doyle Saturday 27 Feb 2021, 8:36 AM Feb 27th 2021, 8:36 AM 22,673 Views 13 Comments
WHEN NICK POPPLEWELL stood in the car park of an Alan Partridge-type hotel in May 1995, a bitter reality dawned. Professionalism was on the way into rugby but the bus to bring Popplewell and his Irish team mates to the Stadio Comunale di Monigo in Treviso, was not.
Time passed. The players stood still. The man from the IRFU made a series of frantic phone calls. No joy. No bus, either. Kick-off for Ireland’s fifth international of the year – a crucial warm-up ahead of that year’s World Cup – was fast approaching. And the Ireland international
The recent meeting of Leinster and Munster – each at full-strength, for once – so close to Ireland’s championship opener, along with the variety of selection sub-plots in Limerick, evoked for many of a certain vintage the era when there truly was a final trial.
Few recall these as halcyon days. They ruined Christmas. They heightened the pomposity of those selecting the team rather than those who coached it. The matches were predominantly dour affairs. And after all the fuss, the IRFU remained so historically blinkered that they rarely influenced selection.
Their affected arrogance was such that they didn’t even advertise the matches as ‘possibles’ versus ‘probables’ but rather ‘whites’ versus ‘blues’.