Eddie O’Sullivan has revealed that hearing Irish journalists cheered a French try during this year’s Six Nations was the 'low point' of his Ireland coaching career.
Speaking to Eamon Dunphy on his 'Conversations with…' programme on RTÉ Radio 1, O’Sullivan said: 'If you asked me what about my low point as the Irish rugby coach, it was the week after the Six Nations. We came home from Paris and we’d played very well (Ireland lost 26-21) – we had an opportunity to win that game and we didn’t take it.
'On Tuesday (after the game), I got a phone call from a rugby journalist and he said to me: "I just want to disassociate myself from what happened in the press box last week in Paris."
'I said: "I don’t know what you’re talking about."
'He said: "Well I’ve nothing to do with this, and I was ashamed, but when France scored, a couple of Irish journalists jumped up and cheered."'
O'Sullivan added: 'It's hard to describe how I felt, but if that’s where those journalists were at that point in time when it came to Ireland, there wasn’t much chance of getting a fair crack of the whip there.'
O'Sullivan also revealed that he and Wales coach Warren Gatland had patched up their relationship, which had soured in the aftermath of Gatland being fired from the Ireland head coach job in 2001 and the appointment of O'Sullivan, who had been his assistant for two years.
Asked about his time as Gatland's assistant, O’Sullivan said: 'My role was to be as good an assistant coach as I could because ultimately, like every job, the time will come when the (head) coach is leaving.
'If you’re the assistant coach your hope is that you’ll be the first guy that they turn to to take over. I think some people saw that as ambitious and I suppose in Ireland maybe ambition is a dirty word.'
On the takeover, he said: 'What people forget is that Warran tried to negotiate an extension to his contract and they (the IRFU) decided not to extend it, and they asked me to take it.
'I was literally brought into a room one night and the (IRFU) President said to me, "would you coach Ireland?" and I said, "yeah, absolutely, thank you".'
'We were good buddies and we got on well. He’s a good guy and I like him but when he left, unfortunately, it was pretty ugly in that some of the media decided that there was a "night of the long knives" that happened. We never spoke for years and he felt that I was part of that.'
O'Sullivan added: 'I had that discussion with him after the Wales game this year, which was the first time we really spoke, and we had a beer and we cleared the air.'
In the hour long interview, O'Sullivan comments extensively on his background in rugby and coaching, the 2007 Rugby World Cup preparations, Ireland v England at Croke Park, and his relationship with the media, and selects three pieces of music (U2's 'Desire', Paul Brady's 'I Only Want You' and an operatic piece sung by Luciano Pavarotti).
Click here to listen to the full interview.
