No Borders: Playing Rugby For Ireland is Tom English’s history of Irish rugby, told by the players and coaches.  Whiff of Cordite was sent a free review copy, and this is our review.

The book starts with the Jack Kyle era and finishes with the 2015 Six Nations.  English provides narration along the way, but for the most part the book is made up of the players’ own versions of events.  English lets all the main players speak in their own words and keeps himself off the stage.   The players’ words shape the story, charting Irish rugby’s chequered history from the troubles to peace, from amateurism to professionalism and from failure to a sort of success.

It’s a ripping read.  I must confess I didn’t start at the beginning and finish at the end, but read in a random order, starting with the bits that were of most fascination: in my case the 2007 World Cup and the breaking of professionalism in the 1990s.  There’s interest in every chapter.

Plenty of the material will be familiar to readers of these pages, and depending on your age, plenty of it will be new to you.  As children of the early 1980s, we were too young for the two triple crowns of that era but can remember plenty of the awfulness which followed.  The abiding memories of that era are of Ireland valiantly taking the game to teams before the inevitable late-game surrender.  The Six Nations was an event in Chez Ovale in Bray, and poor Papa Ovale seemed an eternal optimist.  Palla has distant memories of once making a 2p bet with him that France would beat Ireland, and feeling conflicted as the second half saw Ireland lose an enormous lead and France got their multi-phase groove on.  The folly of youth!  Another year, now old enough to know better than to cheer for the enemy in pursuit of a tuppence, we have slightly clearer recollection of a Five Nations in which Ireland led all four games at the hour mark, only to return three losses and a draw with Wales.  Ah, great days they were.

English’s book serves as a reminder of a few things.  The first is just what a quirky sport rugby is in Ireland.  Largely played in a handful of areas in the country; Belfast grammar schools, Dublin private schools, a handful of schools in Cork and – who could forget? – earthy types in Limerick.  Somehow, the elements all have to come together in the green shirt, and more often than not they do. For all the failings of Irish rugby, the players rarely did anything other than try their hearts out.  Trevor Ringland and several other Ulster players give terrific insight into what it was like for Ulster protestants to play rugby for Ireland, especially during the troubles.

The second is just how… there really is no other way around this… terrible Irish rugby has been for most of its history.  Think this season is bad because we lost to Argentina and Munster and Leinster are a bit rubbish?  Try re-winding twenty years.  Thought Kidney’s Ireland were a bit hit and miss, only showing their best when able to feed off emotion after everyone had written them off?  Well, they were only keeping up the traditions of a century before them.  Even the good days feel like a mere temporary blip before normal service is resumed.  Ireland’s triple crown in 1982 is immediately follwed by a winless campaign.  1985’s triumph only proves a cue for Mick Doyle to buy into his own press and isolate the players.  For the most part, Ireland’s history is of being poorly prepared for matches and having teams backboned a handful of warrior heroes but generally lacking enough great players and general fitness to beat the best sides.  And it’s one of being repeatedly hammered in Paris, of course.

There’s no end of great storytelling here.  The uneasy journey from amateurism – days when the players would call into the chipper for a ‘one-and-one’ on the eve of a Triple Crown decider  –  to professionalism is brilliantly captured.  The old farts in the IRFU – a consistent theme throughout the book, it must be said – were militantly anti-professionalism, to the point of farce.  Tony Ward wins the Player of the Five Nations, but is told he cannot pose for the cameras as there is a sponsor involved.  The World Cup is treated with fear, and the IRFU bans the team from training in advance of it.  At times it seems less point of principle, and verges on a ‘they can’t have what we never had’ mentality.  Meanwhile, the advent of professionalism appears to the players through their TV sets, as every ad break is saturated with the Kiwi players advertising farm machinery.

The 1990s are relentlessly grim.  Murray Kidd is an angry ant, and is followed by Brian Ashton who, it must be said, is reticent and fair-minded about where he went wrong.  But go wrong he did, trying to get Ireland to play like his Bath team and failing to get the players to buy in to his ideas.  Things finally take a turn for the better when Gatland comes along, though he takes a while to get going and has to endure the Lens debacle before turning the tide.  Indeed, he is almost down to his last chips, but plays a winning hand in famously blooding ROG, Stringer et al against Scotland.  The players enjoy his pragmatism and more consistent approach to selection, but interestingly, don’t appear terribly put out when he gets the axe in spite of a terrific final Six Nations in which Ireland win four matches.  For the first time ever, it’s the backs who are the kingpins, and they see technical supremo Eddie O’Sullivan as the man who can best improve them.  When Brian O’Driscoll first appears, he is  like a beacon of light, and it’s clear to everyone just what a star he is almost immediately.

The tension between Gatland and O’Sullivan simmers on the pages, and it’s not the only time Eddie’s quotations seems at odds with the words of others.  The 2007 World Cup fiasco makes for fascinating reading.  Eddie is still clinging to his idea that all the team needed was a couple more warm-up games, but it’s clear from the players words that the problems ran far deeper.

There’s plenty of comedy in there too.  Neil Francis gives expectedly sweary copy (‘that fucker Eales is untouchable’) and takes the credit for the tactical smarts in the almost-win against Australia in 1991.  Andrew Trimble describes trying to get some meaningful critique out of Uncle Deccie on the numerous occasions he is dropped from the team, but can’t get anywhere.  And you can picture Cian Healy pulling his dad’s car around the beach as a teenager.  Needless to say, the amateur days feature plenty of revelry and regular trips to O’Donoghue’s for post-match recovery aids.

Finishing up in 2015 means we get a happy ending, but this sort of book can only ever finish ‘in media res’, or ‘in the middle of things’ to those less versed in the classics.  Which means, if history is anything to go by, Ireland’s next failing can only be around the corner.

No Borders is a terrific read, recommended to any Irish rugby fan.

Ireland’s new defence coach is… Andy Farrell.  Farrell won’t join until after this year’s Six Nations but has a contract which will take him up until after the 2019 World Cup. Welcome aboard, Andy!

It’s an appointment that’s interesting for a handful of reasons.  First of all, rather than drip-feeding the appointment out to the usual conduits in the media in advance so that they could get the broader public used to the idea, the news arrived as, well, news.  It’s hard to remember the last time any bit of news arrived hot off the press.  Even mundane stuff like team selections have been fed to Thornley and his chums for the last number of years almost without exception.

Another interesting element is that Andy Farrell does not appear to have been born in any of the following countries: New Zealand, Australia or South Africa.  Lordy!  What’s all this about?  Irish rugby has long adopted the stance that the southern hemisphere is the place where the best coaches come from, and it is they who they tend to employ.  There’s some history of English coaches – think Brian Ashton, which went well, right? – working in Ireland but not much.  The Irish public as a rule has little respect for the English way of playing.  English rugby is perceived on this isle (and beyond, to be fair) as being a samey, unimaginative sort of game, built on a forward pack which is powerful, but not Bok-powerful and sprinters on the wings but nobody who really has the imagination or skill level to give them the ball.

Andy Farrell goes even a step beyond that, completing a terrific hat-trick of associations that will immediately prove off-putting: Saracens, rugby league and the English World Cup effort.  That’s the holy trinity right there.  Rightly or wrongly, for who really knows, Farrell found himself being fingered with the decision to about-turn on England’s catch-and-pass gameplan and the move to revert to a more traditional bosh-and-kick strategy which backfired dismally and proved itself to be embarrassingly out of step with the approach of the better countries in the tournament.  Meanwhile, any mention of the word Saracens is enough to make Irish rugby fans groan. He’s also being blamed by angels like Bruce Craig for sending Slammin’ Sam back to Souths with his tail between his legs.

None of that will matter much to Schmidt however, who will see Farrell as a hard-nosed and experienced operator.  It won’t have gone unnoticed that Ireland’s defence – while generally the bedrock that has delivered two Six Nations – was passive and meek in the games against Italy and Argentina in the world cup.  Farrell might trade off some of Ireland’s love of the choke tackle for more aggressive line-speed.  Saracens’ famous wolf-pack defence, led with some degree of ferocity by Jacques Burger, focuses on the simple dynamic of coming up in a hard, straight line at such speed that they can suffocate teams at source.  Paul Gustard has been heralded for its implementation but Farrell had the team working in a similar fashion before moving on to Team England.  Farrell is also credited with the generally decent defence put up by the Lions in 2013.  While the games were so terrible only the pro-Gatland elements of the UK media will remember much of the specifics, for sure they didn’t win the series based on their attack, so the defence has to have been halfway decent.

There is of course one other English coach with a league background who has found himself in the position of having to coach his son – Mike Ford. Ford was, we believe, Ireland’s first ever defence coach (certainly the first decent one if not the first actual one) – it was an appointment that went well for both Ford and Ireland. Farrell is basically Ford minus a decade in his background and understanding of the game.

The final bit of intrigue was the confirmation that Brian O’Driscoll has become a sort of Twitter oracle whose every utterance becomes news in and of itself.  Part of the reporting of the news is that Brian O’Driscoll has endorsed the appointment.  Other recent events on which BOD has commented include Adam Ashley-Cooper and Ian Madigan’s moves to Bordeaux and the potential elevation of Garry Ringrose to the national team.  All have become news stories.  Perhaps an ‘Endorsed by Brian O’Driscoll on Twitter’ badge should be handed out to all those who receive his kudos.  He anticipates that under Farrell’s tutelage, Ireland would show good line-speed and kick-chase.  Dull and all as that sounds, it’s the bread and butter of defending.

As we’ve written many times, when European rugby hits you hard, you must apply the soothing balm of the Pro12.  The first half of this season has been perhaps the worst in living memory for the Irish provinces in the main shindig, so the seasonal interpros had a heightened sense of importance.

These matches have been washouts in previous editions.  With coaches hindered by limited access to their frontline players, they have tended to pick a strong side for their home match and a team of bunnies for their away tie, creating a series of foregone conclusions in the process.  Not this time, as all of Leinster, Munster, Connacht and Ulster needed the points badly.  Leinster are out of Europe and the Pro12 is Connacht’s primary target anyway, and while Munster and Ulster still have aspirations of qualifying for the knockouts, the best either can realistically achieve is to qualify as runner-up, which brings with it an away quarter final.  They know they can ill afford to coast along in the Pro 12.

With the stakes high, it is Leinster who have come out the most amply balmed.  Indeed, it’s been a fabulous Christmas period for Les Bleus, with other results going their way to boot; Scarlets lost to Cardiff, and Glasgow lost twice to Edinburgh.  Munster beating Ulster also helped.  They can go top and open a gap with their game in hand.

If not exactly half-full, the Leinster glass is at least starting to look less than totally empty.  The team appears to have found a bit of shape and edge in attack, and it can’t be entirely by chance that they have conceded the least number of points in the league.  Their defence over the Christmas period was exemplary, giving up just seven points on aggregate to Munster and Connacht, and some of the handling against Connacht was impressive considering the conditions.

A couple of standout performers deserve mention.  Sean O’Brien is probably the best player on the island and when he is fit makes an incalculable difference to any team.  He performed explosively over the Christmas period, giving a ferocious 55 minutes against Munster and a blistering cameo in the last half hour against Connacht.  There is no other player that combines his ability both in the breakdown and carrying at close quarters, and, er, regathering his own chips over the defence off the back of scrums.  Ireland and Leinster are a different team when they have access to his wrecking-ball talents.  If Leo Cullen and Joe Schmidt could magically protect one player from injury it would be he.

Another is Garry Ringrose.  Munster and Ulster fans may be scoffing at the hype emanating from the ‘Dublin meeja’, as ROG once put it, and while anointing the 20 year old to the Ireland 13 jersey is perhaps premature, there is no doubt that Ringrose is going to be an international player, and surely no question that he is blessed with a rare and natural talent.  While it was his sensational try-creating break that will be remembered, he also defended his channel manfully against Munster, and backed up the performance against Connacht with two more line-breaks and a generally sound showing on a day which wasn’t exactly made for skinny-hipped outside centres.  There’s nothing like the anointing of a new local hero to get a bit of giddiness going on the terraces, and the RDS now has its next potentially great outside centre to celebrate.

Two more young guns who we are going to be seeing a lot more of are Josh van der Flier and Ross Molony.  Van der Flier is enjoying a breakout season and combines great presence at the breakdown with a good carrying game, a similar kind of player to Munster’s Tommy O’Donnell (whose return to fitness, incidentally, will be a huge benefit to Munster over the coming weeks).  Molony is a second row with a big couple of months ahead of him.  As Demented Mole pointed out, Leinster are going to be without their starting second rows for much of the Six Nations period and have little in the way of depth.  Mike McCarthy has finally brought his best form to the blue shirt and is likely to be brought back into the national team set up this spring; O’Connell is gone and Henderson is injured, and while it was hoped Donnacha Ryan would return from injury at his 2012 best, that just hasn’t happened.  Molony and the underwhelming Tom Denton are likely to be partnering up for the five or six games in that window.  He made two vital lineout steals against Munster which have got him noticed.

Things are looking up, admittedly from a low base, but with the benefit of hindsight, it’s possible to reflect on a European campaign in which a new and totally inexperienced coaching ticket was only finding its feet, and where the bulk of players in the team were coming off the back of an exhausting and mentally draining World Cup.  With fresh energy, and fresh names in the team, the season can still be turned around, and perhaps that process has already begun.