KEY POINTS:
Ireland and Wales carry the venomous feud of their coaches on to Croke Park
Here is how it goes. Warren can't stand Eddie; Eddie doesn't much care for Warren; Brian dislikes Gavin; Gavin feels the same way about Brian; and "old Melon Head" foams at the mouth when
coming across things green.
If ever there was a grudge match in professional rugby then Wales' visit to Ireland tomorrow morning (NZ time) is it _ with a capital "GRRRR".
The animosity runs from top to bottom between these two sides. And it hardly dilutes in its venom on the way down. Let's start at the apex of this disaffection. Warren Gatland and Eddie O'Sullivan were once boss and assistant but they were never, ever allies. The latter wanted the former's job and the latter eventually got it. At the expense of the former, naturally.
The scene was the Berkeley Court Hotel, just across the road from Lansdowne Road, and the date was Wednesday 28 November 2001. As Gatland turned left out of the car park, shell-shocked at the P45 lying on the passenger seat, O'Sullivan drove past Gatland at the car park entrance.
Despite winning nine of his last 11 matches Gatland had just been told, in an eight-minute meeting, that his contract as Irish coach would not be renewed. A little later O'Sullivan signed his three-year deal.
To say the atmosphere between the pair since has been "frosty" is only wrong because there hasn't been an atmosphere. While Gatland went chalking up his streak of Ws _ Wasps, Waikato and now Wales _ O'Sullivan stayed put, leading Ireland through the most-successful patch of their history.
"I haven't seen him in six-and-a-half years and I spoke to him for about 30 seconds during the Six Nations launch [in January]," said O'Sullivan. Some bystanders at that brief encounter confirm that this was about 30 seconds too long for Gatland.
Evidence of the Kiwi's bitterness came in two interviews he did this week; the first on Sunday, when he confessed that he had been warned "not to touch Eddie with a bargepole", and the second on Wednesday when he was asked how he now felt about O'Sullivan's service under him.
"On reflection what I didn't have was the undying loyalty you might expect from people within your coaching set-up," said Gatland. "That is what we have got here with Wales. Eddie is his own man."
In fairness to O'Sullivan, any Machiavellian manoeuvres he may or may not have made in the background as Gatland was being sized up for the chop were perhaps understandable. Here was a patriot from Cork who had to watch a young All Black first take his job at Connacht _ when O'Sullivan was arguing for a long-term contract _ and then, a few years later, assume the role he believed was an Irishman's by rights.
It is now widely believed that O'Sullivan did indeed plot a canny path through the Irish press towards the hot seat.
O'Sullivan brushed off such criticism and, although he retains the nickname "The Dagger" in some quarters, he did so largely successfully. Yet to Gatland the stench of disloyalty clearly lingers.
"It was my choice to appoint Eddie," he said. "But the number of people who said `Don't touch him, don't go anywhere near him, don't touch him with a bargepole' was huge. But you have to back your own judgement about people and their ability. I did that and sometimes you get burnt."
Gatland has tasted success with Wasps and Waikato since leaving Ireland, and he would be delighted if his path continued to lead onwards _ and ever upwards and even impeded O'Sullivan on its way.
George Hook, the outspoken Irish pundit who gave Eddie O'Sullivan his first break at Connacht before eventually falling out with his prodigy adds:
"O'Sullivan is the kind of guy where the stiletto enters between your second and third intercostal. Gatland is more of a bludgeon over the head down a dark alley kind of guy."
Point taken, although, as always with rugby, it will be decided on the pitch rather than in the stands. Fortunately for lovers of a good old Blarney, the enmity will surely bristle just as spikily between the whitewash.
"It's not just a thing between the coaches _ although that is pure animosity _ as, with an honourable few exceptions, the two sets of players don't like each other," said one Welsh insider. "Our boys think the Irish are arrogant and, by all accounts, the Irish think we're overrated."
For the players, the animosity goes back to an ill-tempered Six Nations match in 2005 after which Gavin Henson alleged that Brian O'Driscoll had pulled his hair and tried to gouge his eye. Later in the match, Welsh prop Gethin Jenkins _ nicknamed "Melon Head" because of his skull's similarity to a certain fleshy fruit _ celebrated a try by throwing the ball at Ireland's No 10 Ronan O'Gara, whose kick he had charged down for the score, mouthing something along the lines of "f****** have it" in the process..
"That game lives in the memory, certainly of our lads," said the Welsh insider. "There's quite a few other fierce rivalries. This isn't just about Warren and Eddie. Granted, it's about winning a rugby match and the resulting silverware. But it'd be all the sweeter because of who the opponents happen to be."
So much for Celtic cousins. With relatives like this, who needs the English?
- INDEPENDENT
