When POC picked up his knee injury against Ulster last weekend, while I felt every sympathy for him, I couldn’t help but feel that if he were to miss the Ireland tour to NZ, and his absence helped to shake the myth of the ‘Golden Generation’, and the absurd fetishisation of a handful of big name Irish players, now well into their 30s, then maybe some good could come of it.
It’s understandable how this came about – after the entire decade of the 90s in the doldrums, you can’t blame the Irish hackery for seizing onto the class of the early naughties (BOD, ROG, POC, Hickie et al) as some kind of saviours. Ever since then this Golden Generation tag has stuck.
I have a number of problems with this. Firstly, I think that if you want to talk about a golden generation, you can only do so in hindsight, on the basis of actual achievements. For example you can reasonably argue that the Man Utd team that won the treble in 1999, and went on to win much more, was a ‘golden generation’. By contrast, Ireland’s supposed ‘golden generation’ won nothing until 2009, and nothing since.
Secondly it seems to me to be born of a misguided belief in some messianic leader-figures, to transcend the surrounding mediocrity. As such, it’s a negative, unconfident hangover from the collective inferiority complex of the past – and we are still guilty of this; we routinely exaggerate the strength of other sides, particularly the southern hemisphere sides. Our starting point is an assumption that they will be fitter, stronger and more skilful than us. And to compete we must keep turning to the totems of the ‘golden generation’ (™) to give us a chance. And when the last of them retires we will just sink back into mediocrity
I think it’s an utter nonsense. I’m not saying that the players that came through in the early naughties weren’t good – I’m saying they weren’t a once-off, never-to-be-seen-again crop. We started tasting relative success – relative because while we won a much higher proportion of matches than we had in the previous decade, we still didn’t win any titles for the guts of another decade – because the onset of professionalism began to chip away at the chasm in fitness and strength between Irish players and those of other big sides, our provinces were as if handmade for the transition to professionalism (while Scotland and Wales had to ‘make’ club sides), and finally the good raw material that Irish schools and age grade teams turned out was properly taken on and their potential captured at senior level.
The ‘golden generation’ piece trotted out by the press is in any event a bit of a moving feast – journalists have been talking about how we have our best chance of winning something with our ‘golden generation’ at pretty much every major tournament for the last ten years. However by the time we actually did win something in 2009, a rake of players who at various stages would have counted as ‘golden generation’ players had already left the scene for one reason or another – Hickie, Horgan, Dempsey, Foley, Easterby.
We are now at a stage where the few remaining original GGers are unquestionably past their peak – still fine players on their day, but more injury-prone and frankly less capable of game-changing heroics. And yet still Irish journalists’ hearts are all a-flutter at the thought of going down under without POC. Liam Toland has ever-so-gingerly approached the idea of not bringing ROG, while over at the Indo one is practically sprayed with Farrelly’s saliva as he scoffs at this ‘preposterous’ thought.
Regarding POC, I think he has been decent this season, but not as dominant as he has been in the past. Ireland has a number of fine second rows, including Tuohy, McCarthy and Ryan, who are fitter, quicker and more skilful than POC. Bring them instead. Give POC the summer off.
As for ROG, he has been middling to poor this year – and for a guy whose real strong-point was doing the business in big matches, he hasn’t brought it this year when it counted. He was very poor against Ulster in the quarter, and when I watched the Leinster-Munster dress rehearsal the previous week, he was again very poor – it occurred to me that that evening I had seen the two best out-halfs in Ireland: and ROG wasn’t one of them. Madigan came on with a quarter of the game left, with the result still in the balance, and scored a lovely drop-goal in closing the game out. He is a kind of out-half we haven’t really seen in Ireland recently, a superb passer, great pace and step, hits the line fast and flat, and a pretty accomplished kicker as well. ROG is yesterday’s man – bring Madigan and Sexton to NZ, and from now on let’s focus on which of the other young Irish 10s might come into the mix – rather than how to accomadate a guy who is past his best, and risks being remembered as someone who hung around too long.
The ‘golden generation’ has never existed – the players commonly captured under this entirely arbitrary moniker were good and influential, but never as good or as influential as commonly held in the Irish press. They are unequivocally not irreplaceable. And the sooner this sinks in, the quicker we will be able to have sane and rational discussions about selection for the national side.
Corrections, comments or questions?