Former Ireland out-half Tony Ward has revealed that he almost chose a career as a professional footballer over rugby, and spoken about his decision not to tour Apartheid-era South Africa in 1981.
In a wide-ranging interview on RTÉ Sport's Different Class, Ward spoke about how, growing up in Dublin’s Harold’s Cross, rugby had not been his first sporting love.
“Football was the love of my life when I was growing up, and I was okay at it,” Ward said.
“I played for the Dublin schoolboys, I played for the Ireland schoolboys at under-15 – there was only one, under-15 team then.
“And I played for a club called Rangers [...] in Bushy Park on the south side, and we were the strongest side on the south side of Dublin in those days. St Kevin’s were the same on the north side; Liam Brady was on that side, so Liam and I would have played all the way up.
“And around under-15, when I was doing my equivalent of the Junior Cert, the Inter Cert at the time, Billy Behan and Bill Darby were the scouts for Man U and Arsenal, and they were trying to get me over to do trial and that. And if I had had my choice I would have gone and I’d have done those trials and I’d have given it a go to try to make it in the pro football game.”
Ward said that it was his mother who ensured he stayed in school to complete his inter cert, but reiterated that, but for her interjection, his life could have continued down a very different path.
In subsequent years, he would go on play for Shamrock Rovers and Limerick, combining this with his time playing with Garryowen and Munster.
“Football was, without doubt, my passion,” he said. “I had to be dragged – I won’t say kicking and screaming, because I did like rugby – but if I had a choice [I would have picked football].”
An undoubted highlight of Ward’s career with the oval ball, and the last 50 years of Irish rugby in general, was Munster’s famous win over the All Blacks in 1978. Ward was out-half for Munster that day, kicking a conversion and two drop-goals in a day that was filled with pressure.
“It was special,” he said. “I had bought into and accepted the tradition that went with playing for Munster against touring [sides; that this] was huge.
“And no matter what else happened, you had to perform. If you lost, and went down fighting, as it were, or went down in a very spirited way – and I know we shouldn’t talk about moral victories – at least you were helping embellish the tradition that was there. So that brought pressure.
“The fact that it happened on the high altar of Irish rugby, in Thomond Park, before of a Limerick crowd – a Munster crowd, but a Limerick crowd predominately. The fact that we went back to the pitch. That fact that I can recall people crying that day.
“Everything combined just made it a special occasion.”
Ward would go on to break into the national set-up, where he enjoyed a famous rivalry with Ollie Campbell, and eventually the British and Irish Lions.
He reflected on his decision to refuse to tour South Africa with Ireland after he had visited the country with the Lions the year before.
“I went out without even thinking [about apartheid] because rugby was just all-consuming in my life at that time,” he said.
“I guess if I was to sum up that tour, fantastic and all as it was in terms of the honour, the memories I have of that tour, the friends I’ve made.
“I think my abiding memory was, I couldn’t believe, when you see Apartheid up close. I got a chill down my spine.
“So when in ’81 I was picked to go back with Ireland, I had to make a decision. And it was a moral decision, and on grounds of conscience I decided not to go. And to this day, I will stand by that decision.”
