REMEMBER, REMEMBER, SIX Nations rugby in September.

It doesn’t feel like 19 years since the competition was plunged into disarray, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease dictating that three fixtures — all involving Ireland — were pushed into the autumn.

Warren Gatland’s Ireland — actually, yeah, it does feel like 19 years — went on in October to put paid to a Grand Slam for England, who had last played competitively in April.

It’s a tournament which is still perceived in retrospect to be a missed opportunity for Ireland, the only blot on whose copybook was a trimming at the hands of Scotland in Murrayfield.

Eddie O’Sullivan, who was assistant/backs coach on Gatland’s Ireland ticket at the time, joined Murray Kinsella and Gavan Casey on a special-edition episode of our The42 members rugby podcast, Rugby Weekly Extra, to reflect on a mad year in Northern Hemisphere rugby which might yet be paralleled on both sides of the globe in 2020, with the sporting calendar currently experiencing chops and changes due to the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

O’Sullivan shed light on where it all went wrong for Ireland in Murrayfield — including a potential spying incident at the last Irish training session — and conversely, where it all went right against the Slam-chasing England, whose red-hot Ian Balshaw was targeted to huge success by David Humphreys despite his scintillating form with the ball in hand.

There were mentions of ‘sessions’, Alan Quinlan purportedly being dropped for “making a meal” of a Gatland-issued directive for players to help out more with everyday tasks such as bag-carrying, and other selection decisions including Peter Stringer’s shock ousting for the trip to Murrayfield.

O'Gara collects his thoughts on the Irish line (file pic). INPHO INPHO

Gatland’s eventual successor also told the story of how he had to try to convince the Kiwi to drop Ronan O’Gara for the trip to Cardiff following the 24-year-old Munster man’s battering by Scotland three weeks prior.

Here’s a written snippet, with details on how you can tune in to the full podcast below:

“If you remember, as well, David Humphreys took over from Ronan after the Scotland game and played really well,” O’Sullivan recalled. “And there’s a story about that selection as well.

“Brian O’Brien was the manager and I was the other selector with Warren Gatland. After the disaster in Murrayfield, Warren was still keen to go with ROG. And ROG was really shook up after that game, like — he was still very young. And we’d taken a really bad beating, you know? He was very brittle, I thought, and myself and Brian felt that we should pick Humps going into [Wales in Cardiff].

We had a big selection meeting but Warren kind of dug in — he was the coach and he said he wanted ROG. We still felt it was a bad idea, and even after the meeting, we went back to his [Gatland's] room that night and we said, ‘Look, it’s a really big game in Cardiff. If ROG just has a bad start or something…’ You wouldn’t want to be coming from behind in Cardiff, you know? He [Gatland] relented, then, and he picked Humps. Now, he tells the story afterwards that I kind of threw him under the bus with ROG, there, but that’s not the case.

Eddie O'Sullivan, Brian O'Brien and Warren Gatland. INPHO INPHO

O’Sullivan added: “ROG came to me and asked me why he was dropped and I told him I thought he was under a lot of pressure, he’d had a bad day out in Murrayfield, and it’d be good for him to take a step back and let Humps [start]. Humps was still the more senior player, like — this is back in 2001, so you’ve got to reference the timeframe.

“Now, he [O'Gara] wasn’t happy about it, so I said, ‘Look, that’s the thinking on it for Wales.’ And I told him that he still had to talk to Warren about it — the head coach.

Warren tells the story that I just told ROG that it had nothing to do with me, that he should go and talk to Warren, which isn’t actually the case. Warren felt I threw him under the bus with ROG which is not the case at all. That story was relayed not too long ago by Warren himself, so that’s how it came back to me when he mentioned it only 16 or 18 months ago in an interview in Dublin. I have a very different recollection of that story.

“ROG had a horrible day out in Murrayfield — the guy was just absolutely pounded left, right, and centre,” O’Sullivan recalled. “Everything was going through him and we were going backwards at 90 miles an hour. He was getting man-and-ball[-tackled] all day, like.

He was absolutely rattled after that game. So, sending him into Cardiff and hoping he started well — myself and Brian just felt that was of huge risk. For him as well! Because at that age, another bad day out, what damage does that do to him? Sometimes a young player, if he has two or three bad experiences, it sets him back. He comes through, maybe, eventually, but it takes him longer, so that was the thinking back then.

“Now, you can say it was flawed thinking, but that was the logic we were applying — myself and Brian O’Brien at the time.”

Scotland manhandled Ireland in 2001. INPHO INPHO

O’Sullivan went on to allude to another “set-to” between he and his fellow Cork man after he swapped O’Gara for Humphreys with half an hour remaining in a November Test against Australia in 2005. He explained, however, that their having it out on occasion “built a really positive energy between us”, expressing his belief that disagreements within a team environment can forge “a relationship that stands the test of time”.

He also saluted O’Gara’s psychological development following September 2001′s low point at Murrayfield.

“ROG is, in terms of mental toughness, I’d say he’s probably one of the toughest guys I’ve ever coached. He had incredible mental resolve.

“I always remember clutch kicks from ROG — and I’d know in my gut he was going to make it, like.

When Shaggy scored in the corner in 2006 in Twickenham, we needed that conversion so that England would need a try. And I remember Niall O’Donovan [then-forwards coach] said to me, ‘We could do with this kick.’ And I said, ‘I betcha he’ll make it.’ Because I knew he would, like — it was out on the right touchline. The guy was just like… Ice in his veins.

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