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'We lost the Grand Slam because of the delay' - Former Ireland captain on Six Nations disruption
England enter coronavirus-enforced limbo in a strong position to lift the Six Nations title, but history shows that peril awaits when the Championship is subject to a lengthy interruption.
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Keith Wood was Ireland captain in 2001 when his team’s final three games had to be postponed due to the outbreak of foot and mouth, a livestock disease.
In echoes of that year, the current Six Nations has been temporarily abandoned due to the spread of Covid-19 with rescheduled fixtures likely to be played in late October.
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England will eventually travel to Italy determined to avoid the fate of their predecessors from 19 years ago who arrived in Dublin on the brink of a Grand Slam only to be ambushed 20-14.
On that day they were caught cold by an Ireland team battle hardened by games against Scotland and Wales and armed with a point to prove.
“I’d heard some of the English guys say they’d definitely would have beaten us in the spring, but we were in great form then as well and I actually believe that we lost the Grand Slam because of the delay,” Wood told the PA news agency.
“We felt we had a good team and felt that if we’d played them in the spring, we’d have won then too.
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“Our first game back in September was against Scotland and we were totally undercooked. It was awful for us. Our gameplan was wrong and they absolutely beat the s**t out of us.
“But against England we played bloody well. It had been seven years since we’d beaten England and I was sat on the bench on that day in 1994, so it was a big day.”
Wood rampaged over the whitewash from an immaculate line-out drill to score Ireland’s only try and – earlier in the game – there had been another breakthrough at the set-piece.
“After 20 minutes Malcolm O’Kelly came up to me and goes ‘Woody, I’ve worked out their line-out calls’,” said Wood, who picks Peter Stringer’s try-saving tackle on Dan Luger as the game’s pivotal moment.
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“I knew the calls were familiar and Malcolm said they were the same calls we used on the Lions! So we mopped up a lot of their line-out ball.”
While Wood would prefer to see this year’s postponed games replayed at some point, the Lions great cautions administrators against cramming them into an already-packed schedule if there is no obvious weekend.
“My issue with rugby is the constant number of games. The game is hard enough and there is too much on a small group of players,” he said.
“There are too many matches and out of this we will find out there may only be two or three weekends in a season when matches can be played, showing how taut the whole schedule is.
“The guys have to look at this period of huge disruption and take a week off, relax a little, eat some rubbish food, drink some beers.
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“Chill out and take it as bit of a break because there are no breaks in the game any more.”
Wood, who won 58 caps for Ireland and five for the Lions, believes the Covid-19 pandemic has shone a light on the value of games such as rugby.
“I’ve often said that the great thing about sport is that it doesn’t mean anything, but never have I been more wrong because there is a big absence in people’s lives at the moment,” Wood said.
“Sport’s always been a great way for people to relax and that is more important now because there’s a crisis going on.
“People are going sick and it’s terrible – and there’s nothing to take you mind away from it. And that’s what sport does, so maybe sport is important.”
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