by
PJ (Paddy) Heneghan
In my secondary school years in Dublin’s Northside, 1939 to 1944, I played mainly Gaelic football and hurling. Gaelic football is rather like soccer, save that handling the ball is allowed, while the game of hurling is like hockey, but it allows handling and hand-passing the ball, and is played with a stick called a hurley.
My interest in rugby started when a schoolmate of mine, Michael Ryan, invited me in 1944, immediately after I had left secondary school, to join the Clontarf Rugby Club. I played with Clontarf for about two years, starting in 1945. Paddy Lawlor was a member of the club and also one of my classmates at secondary school, St Joseph’s, Fairview (Joey’s to Dubliners). In school he was a gentle giant. On the school’s Gaelic football team I had played left full back alongside Paddy, who was our full back. He was a fierce handful on both the Gaelic football and hurling fields, but on the rugby field a ferocious second row forward. He played rugby many times for Ireland and a number of times abroad for the British and Irish team, known as The Lions.
Starting in 1946 I went regularly as a spectator to high-level Rugby games, particularly to interprovincial and international matches, mostly at Lansdowne Road (now Aviva Stadium). International matches were resuming in Lansdowne Road after the end of the 1939-1944 war in Europe, and the first of such matches I saw took place in Dublin in 1946 between Leinster and the ANZACS (a team that comprised de-mobbed service men of the Australian and New Zealand armed forces). Ulster, to the best of my recollection, had been defeated 10-9 by the ANZACS in Belfast, but Leinster hoped to go one better. The ANZACS match against Leinster was a cracking affair. As the teams in the last seconds were heading for a drawn game, the Leinster out half Austin Carry (Old Wesley) went for a drop goal from midfield. We watched open-mouthed as the spinning ball went high and goalwards, only to strike the very top of the right hand post and fall wide. A truly prodigious kick deserving of a win, but it left Leinster with a mere draw.
The next match I saw was a renewal of the international series when Ireland played France at Lansdowne Road. France was still rebuilding following the war, and was not expected to give Ireland too stern a test. In fact an Irish cartoon artist in a Friday evening paper portrayed individually the French team he expected to see. He showed the French second row forwards rigged out like a pair of ballet dancers, with embroidered jerseys, finished off with frilly knickers. When the two players in question ran out on the field the following day, there was a gasp. Moga and Soro (what apt horror movie names they had!) weighed in at a combined weight of 33 stone. A Dublin ‘gurrier’, a type not often seen among the rugby elite, bellowed out from the back of the stand: “Jaysus, look at what Hitler did to them!”. The French won the match, though not handsomely. Ireland scored a penalty kick (three points) and the French managed a drop goal (four points). Latterly the law has been changed whereby a drop goal now counts only as three points.
In pre-war international rugby Ireland had not been considered a potent force. All that changed in the period 1947 to 1950 with the advent in 1947 of Jack Kyle at out half. I attended the 1947 match against England, ‘the auld enemy’ (often referred to as ‘the base, bloody and brutal Saxon’). An Irish journalist in a post-match commentary confessed that when he saw the young Jack Kyle running onto the field with the Irish team he shuddered at what might be in store for the youngster. He described Jack as looking like a tousled-haired school boy! He need not have worried about Jack. Ireland won the match 22-0, in no small measure due to the jinking, sidestepping and sheer genius of the tousled schoolboy!
In 1948 and 1949 I attended Ireland’s matches when they won back-to-back Triple Crowns (victories over England, Scotland and Wales in each season). In 1950 I travelled to London for the match against England in the expectation of seeing Ireland’s Three-in-a-Row materialize. The match was a grinding affair, with England leading 3 - 0 as the second half drew to a close. Then to our delight after a set scrum well into the second half, Ireland’s scrum half crossed the line for a try (5 points). But the score did not stand, The referee called the teams back to retake the scrum. Arguments still rage to this day about that decision to repeat the scrum. There was no further score in that match and thus ended the dream of Three Triple Crowns on the trot for Ireland.
PJ (Paddy) Heneghan
In my secondary school years in Dublin’s Northside, 1939 to 1944, I played mainly Gaelic football and hurling. Gaelic football is rather like soccer, save that handling the ball is allowed, while the game of hurling is like hockey, but it allows handling and hand-passing the ball, and is played with a stick called a hurley.
My interest in rugby started when a schoolmate of mine, Michael Ryan, invited me in 1944, immediately after I had left secondary school, to join the Clontarf Rugby Club. I played with Clontarf for about two years, starting in 1945. Paddy Lawlor was a member of the club and also one of my classmates at secondary school, St Joseph’s, Fairview (Joey’s to Dubliners). In school he was a gentle giant. On the school’s Gaelic football team I had played left full back alongside Paddy, who was our full back. He was a fierce handful on both the Gaelic football and hurling fields, but on the rugby field a ferocious second row forward. He played rugby many times for Ireland and a number of times abroad for the British and Irish team, known as The Lions.
Starting in 1946 I went regularly as a spectator to high-level Rugby games, particularly to interprovincial and international matches, mostly at Lansdowne Road (now Aviva Stadium). International matches were resuming in Lansdowne Road after the end of the 1939-1944 war in Europe, and the first of such matches I saw took place in Dublin in 1946 between Leinster and the ANZACS (a team that comprised de-mobbed service men of the Australian and New Zealand armed forces). Ulster, to the best of my recollection, had been defeated 10-9 by the ANZACS in Belfast, but Leinster hoped to go one better. The ANZACS match against Leinster was a cracking affair. As the teams in the last seconds were heading for a drawn game, the Leinster out half Austin Carry (Old Wesley) went for a drop goal from midfield. We watched open-mouthed as the spinning ball went high and goalwards, only to strike the very top of the right hand post and fall wide. A truly prodigious kick deserving of a win, but it left Leinster with a mere draw.
The next match I saw was a renewal of the international series when Ireland played France at Lansdowne Road. France was still rebuilding following the war, and was not expected to give Ireland too stern a test. In fact an Irish cartoon artist in a Friday evening paper portrayed individually the French team he expected to see. He showed the French second row forwards rigged out like a pair of ballet dancers, with embroidered jerseys, finished off with frilly knickers. When the two players in question ran out on the field the following day, there was a gasp. Moga and Soro (what apt horror movie names they had!) weighed in at a combined weight of 33 stone. A Dublin ‘gurrier’, a type not often seen among the rugby elite, bellowed out from the back of the stand: “Jaysus, look at what Hitler did to them!”. The French won the match, though not handsomely. Ireland scored a penalty kick (three points) and the French managed a drop goal (four points). Latterly the law has been changed whereby a drop goal now counts only as three points.
In pre-war international rugby Ireland had not been considered a potent force. All that changed in the period 1947 to 1950 with the advent in 1947 of Jack Kyle at out half. I attended the 1947 match against England, ‘the auld enemy’ (often referred to as ‘the base, bloody and brutal Saxon’). An Irish journalist in a post-match commentary confessed that when he saw the young Jack Kyle running onto the field with the Irish team he shuddered at what might be in store for the youngster. He described Jack as looking like a tousled-haired school boy! He need not have worried about Jack. Ireland won the match 22-0, in no small measure due to the jinking, sidestepping and sheer genius of the tousled schoolboy!
In 1948 and 1949 I attended Ireland’s matches when they won back-to-back Triple Crowns (victories over England, Scotland and Wales in each season). In 1950 I travelled to London for the match against England in the expectation of seeing Ireland’s Three-in-a-Row materialize. The match was a grinding affair, with England leading 3 - 0 as the second half drew to a close. Then to our delight after a set scrum well into the second half, Ireland’s scrum half crossed the line for a try (5 points). But the score did not stand, The referee called the teams back to retake the scrum. Arguments still rage to this day about that decision to repeat the scrum. There was no further score in that match and thus ended the dream of Three Triple Crowns on the trot for Ireland.
