Ireland's 5 Wildest Rugby World Cup Moments
With the 2023 Rugby World Cup just over a week away, we've gone and picked out what we think are the five maddest moments in Ireland's World Cup history.
Rose Of Tralee - 1987
It was the first World Cup, and, naturally, Ireland's preparation left a lot to be desired, resulting in one of their more embarrassing and bizarre moments
The plan for Ireland's anthem at the tournament was to continue with their usual away-from-home routine, which was to not play anything at all.
But being that it was the first of rugby's showpiece international competition, silence was not an option.
Ireland prop Phil Orr had the song on cassette, and thus is was chosen as Ireland's anthem, much to the embarrassment of team, and was used for all four of their games.
"On the day [in their opening encounter against Wales] when it crackled into life over the tannoy in Athletic Park," wrote Willie Anderson in his autobiography.
"I remember thinking: `Oh fuck, that's for us.' It was an acutely embarrassing moment. What do you do?"
Des Fitzgerald, father of Luke, recalled a similar memory:
"I mean we were going into do battle, to die for Ireland with The Rose of Tralee ringing in our ears. What could you expect after that? the lads would have been better off picking Finnegan's Wake.
Hamilton's Try Against Australia - 1991
Ireland's most celebrated World Cup try, both in the years that have followed, but in the immediate reaction from supporters.
For its time, it may not have seemed overly wild, or even out of the norm, but looking back and seeing the limbs in the Landsdowne Road stands, with supporters flooding onto the pitch, picking up try scorer Gordon Hamilton and slapping him on any part of the body they could find, it is amazing to look back on from a 2023 vantage point.
A few minutes of tense bliss followed, as it looked like Ireland were heading to a World Cup quarter final, until Michael Lynagh scored with just three minutes remaining, and upheld the prophecy of Ireland never making it past the quarters.
Gary Halpin's Gesture - 1995
It was Ireland's opening game of the 1995 World Cup, as they took on the All Blacks in Ellis Park, in front of a crowd of 38,000.
It was a typically great New Zealand side, and it marked the World Cup debut for the 20-year-old Jonah Lomu.
Despite being clear underdogs, Ireland would take an early lead as prop Gary Halpin finished off a no nonsense tap-and-go move.
As he arose from the pile of bodies, he looked right up to the New Zealand supporters in the stands and hit them with the double middle finger.
Halpin has since said that it was a 'stupid' and 'embarrassing' thing to do, but that it was born out of being treated like 'second class citizens' on previous tours to New Zealand.
Lomu would then set things right with two tries and a classy assist, as the All Blacks ran out 43-19 winners.
Battle of Bayonne - 2007
We won't go into too much detail here, as we have recently written extensively about the infamous day in Bayonne.
The simple facts to remember are that it was a warm-up game that should never have happened, against a club team from a country that Ireland would be facing in their pool.
The result was the dirtiest game many of the players had ever taken part in, and a serious injury to captain Brian O'Driscoll after a second-half sucker punch.
The 2007 Rumour Mill - 2007
Compounding Ireland's disastrous time in France during the 2007 World Cup was an outrageous string of rumours cooked up by the media and fans.
In the superb No Borders book by Tom English, the players detailed some of the most outlandish stories:
- One of the players had had an affair with another's wife
- Geordan Murphy had walked out on the team and gone to Derry or Mexico
- There were fights between David Wallace and John Hayes, and Ronan O'Gara and Peter Stringer
- Denis Leamy had diabetes and Eddie O'Sullivan wouldn't let him take his insulin
- ROG was in deep trouble with gambling debts.
