Ten Years Of Being Pretty Good......

by Brendan Cole 

Amid all the Grand Slam talk (only for the fans – players need to 'stay in the present' and all that), it's worth taking a look at a slightly broader perspective: Ireland's three wins from three have propelled back towards the head of what is for them a rather unhappy leaderboard:

Six Nations 10-Year Total Records:

Team       P  W D L     F      A   PD   Pts  C  GS*

France    48 35 0 13 1312 845  467   70   4    2

Ireland    48 34 0 14 1270 963  307   68   0    0

England  48 31 0 17 1451 764  687   62   3    1

Wales     48 22 2 24 1092 1189 -97   46   2    2

Scotland 48 14 1 33  790  1262 -472 29   0    0

Italy        48  6  1 41  745  1637 -892 12   0    0  

(* Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points Difference Points Championships Grand Slams.)

Ireland, second overall, have no Grand Slams and no Championships. Wales, despite being in overall fourth and with 12 less wins, have two of each. France and England are about where you would expect them to be, though England have arguably underperformed to some extent given their dominance in the first half of the decade.

But Ireland, who could quite possibly end the decade joint top in the 'wins' column, have thus far got nothing to really show for their excellent overall record - those three Triple Crowns aside.

The injustice of it all?

Well, yes and no.

The question is this: "what does the board – and particularly the comparison between Ireland and Wales - prove?"

Of course, any examination will bring you to back to Eddie O'Sullivan, the man in charge for the vast majority of this period. O'Sullivan rarely lost and, perhaps even more importantly, rarely lost heavily.

In hindsight, that can be seen as both a blessing and a curse.

It also proves what for me has always been the case: that O'Sullivan was a good – at times very good – head coach. He just wasn't quite good enough ("right coach, right time, wrong length of time"? - O'Sullivan performed especially badly at World Cups and in the biggest games before flat-lining in the last act of his spell in charge).

Wales, on the other hand, were blessed to have coaches from either end of the scale – either exceptionally good or terrible: from Mike Ruddock and Warren Gatland to Gareth Jenkins.

'Fail Fast' (though maybe not too often......)

'Fail Fast' is a concept from the world of business that says "if it's all going to go pear shaped, it's better that it happens quickly rather than slowly".

Wales have certainly have had more than their fair share of failures these past 10 years – including the belt of a genuine 'no win' Wooden Spoon the year after they won a Grand Slam (2005 and 2006). In fact, the Italian record (6 wins in 10 years, none against Ireland) holds the key to the contrast between the Irish and Welsh decades as much as anything else.

Looking ahead, the flip in our conceptual thinking would be to say that rather than consider these Welsh failures surprising in the context of subsequent successes, we should really see them as being integrally important. Wales succeeded exceptionally because they failed exceptionally. It would also hint that sacking Warren Gatland back in 2001 was the right call.

Ireland failed a little bit over and over, but never quite badly enough for that critical mass to build up and cause the odd revolution. Wales, helped by an unstable political situation within their Union, actually did themselves a huge favour by cocking up repeatedly in spectacular fashion, enabling them to institute root and branch reform and quickly replace underperforming coaches. To be honest, they've also been pretty lucky.

In any case, the lesson for Ireland may be this: medium-good is not good enough……

As an aside, perhaps the fact that Ireland is top of the 'banana republic' list isn't the such a bad thing after all…….