LONG READ Keith Wood: 'Our metrics in Ireland are magic, with the exception of World Cups'

In the early 1990s, when the All Ireland League was a rugby roadshow taking the country by storm, Garryowen made sure they were centre stage, hogging the limelight. Beaten by Cork Con in the de facto final in the competition’s first season, they went on to win two of the next three titles, playing a brand of rugby that was as easy to watch as it was hard to resist.

In keeping with the whirlwind nature of this new departure, blowing tumbleweed out of a road where there had never been a traffic jam for a national league, Garryowen’s first question was: Why not us?

They rocked up home and away, week after week, knowing the answer to this question before they set foot on the field. From day one they had an irreverence about them that was game-changing. Pitted against Wanderers in Lansdowne Road in that opener – a Wanderers side stuffed with representative players and star quality – the Light Blues wrecked the gaff. Figuratively speaking.

As an inexperienced Leinster-centric reporter I went along that day with a plan to fill the space with nice words about Wanderers and their opening argument, and left thinking this AIL business might not unfold as predicted.

By its second season Garryowen were locked and loaded, savouring every moment of bumper days at home combined with colourful life on the road. The busiest, most obstreperous, man in their storm troop was hooker Keith Wood. He had a mad look about him, pretty much all the time. That it was backed up by good skills and a high football IQ made him a very dangerous customer, the kind you’d think twice about confronting when he came to your store with a complaint. The moment he left would be greeted with a sigh of relief.

Now, 34 years on from the day the AIL was asking its drivers to start their engines for the first time, the same man is in a position of influence with the same club. It’s a different kind of circuit from the one that allowed him to accelerate up to the pro game, but the focus is the same.

“We want to set a bar which is a Garryowen way as much as anything else, because we’re lifers,” Wood says of the people with their shoulders to the wheel in Dooradoyle. “I was living in England for a long time but now is the moment in time for me to be able to help and support the club. And it’s something I want to do.”

Our metrics in Ireland are magic, with the exception of World Cups. Which means we are a success, just not at that. And that’s the one metric that claws at the soul a little.

The competition kicks off this week with only a loose connection to the ideals of the original venture. Back then it was about filling a yawning gap in the domestic game with something to raise the standards of representative players. It didn’t really fit that bill but the drama was unmissable. Nowadays its relevance to those high-end players is fitful.

“I was describing this to a South African friend recently,” Wood says. “Our metrics in Ireland are magic, with the exception of World Cups. Which means we are a success, just not at that. And that’s the one metric that claws at the soul a little. It’s the one we have to get over. I think we’ll continue to be successful but maybe for us to take that next step may require revisiting the All Ireland League as something more than just the tier below professional rugby.” 

Looking at the make-up of Ireland’s club competition used to be a parlour game in Ireland until the professional era dawned and the media lost interest. It didn’t help that when former IRFU performance director David Nucifora had the conch, the clubs didn’t want to listen. 

“I think it probably needed more ‘Boutros Boutros’ (from Nucifora) to try and make it happen. The game is suffering for finance at every level and going from Cork to Belfast on a bus is hard. I’m not trying to turn the clock back but we’re generating so many good players in Ireland that it’s good to have them in another shop window. In the last couple of years I’ve watched a lot of AIL rugby, and a lot of schools rugby because of my kids. There’s a lot of real talent out there and only so many spots for them to go into.

“I think a higher profile, more competitive, top two divisions AIL would be phenomenal: fewer senior teams playing in two divisions with promotion and relegation, back to what it was pretty much at the start, and to try and concentrate the number of top quality players in those fewer clubs to bring the standard up. And I think it should be aligned with the professional game rather than having the two kicking off at the same time, which should never be the case. That’s a logistical pain in the neck for the IRFU, but still it’s a wish you’d like to have.” 

In lineout training if I hit the palm of his hand instead of his fingers, or his fingers instead of the palm of his hand, he’d hoof it down the field and tell me to ‘fetch the pill’

Maybe it’s fitting that we’re back where we started, that the various incarnations were necessary to appreciate that what kicked off in autumn 1990 – a first division of nine clubs and a second division of 10 – is the model best suited to run alongside the pro game, which was not on the drawing board at the time. Nobody had broached that topic in 1990. In the media we were too busy tinkering with our new toy, charting the progress of tearaways like Keith Wood.

“My first number eight to play with when I was 19 was John Mitchell – a magnificently terrifying man – surpassed afterwards only by Brent Anderson, who treated me with the highest level of disregard. Brent was the biggest influence on my career. I was very fortunate in Garryowen in that my first coach at Under-20 level was Paddy Reid, who had just served 40 years of a ban for going to play rugby league (first) with Huddersfield in 1948 after winning a Grand Slam with Ireland.

“Paddy was a proponent of running the ball from everywhere; always have a cut; do whatever you want. He picked me ahead of the guy who had been Ireland Schools hooker a couple of years previously and just told me to have a go. I’d played rugby in [St] Munchin’s [College] but hadn’t done a huge amount. I’d given it up before taking it up again in my last year there. I’d grown a bit by then and suddenly I was given this opportunity to run with freedom, so that was lovely. A great experience. 

“Then, a couple of years later, I’m playing with Brent and he’s saying: ‘Yeah the running is great but the rest is pretty shit so we’ll have to kick that out of the young fella.’ He put a huge focus on what I needed to improve as a hooker and was incredibly hard on me. In lineout training if I hit the palm of his hand instead of his fingers, or his fingers instead of the palm of his hand, he’d hoof it down the field and tell me to ‘fetch the pill’. I’d have to do it with my tail between my legs, but I learned so much from him. For a guy at the end of his career his attitude was extraordinary.”

Andy Leslie didn’t really coach. We had to coach ourselves but he manoeuvred us into thinking that we had to make our own decisions on the field.

For that Garryowen squad there was an interesting transition from the rigid structure of coach Murray Kidd to the hands-off approach of his successor, Andy Leslie. That the key men – Mitchell, Anderson, Kidd and Leslie – were all Kiwis was indicative of how unsure we were of ourselves in Irish rugby back then.

“Andy didn’t really coach – we had to coach ourselves but he manoeuvred us into thinking that we had to make our own decisions on the field. That’s an extraordinary gift to be given when you’re 22 years of age. We were really fortunate over those years to have that influence but we also had players who could do it on the field: Danser (Philip Danaher), Dan Larkin, Richard Wallace, Dick Costello, Dave Henshaw – Robbie’s uncle – who was brilliant. We had a great blend of different people.” 

This season it’s possible three Woods – Gordon (centre), Tom (out-half) and Alex (full-back) – will feature together in the same match-day AIL squad, with their old man watching from a distance. Gordon made his senior Munster debut in the friendly against Gloucester last weekend while Tom featured for Ireland in the Under-18 international series in August.

“It might happen but rugby is dreadfully hard and that gets overlooked very easily,” Wood says. “Also, how much does luck play a part in it? I don’t know if it’s from watching my kids or the way the game has changed so much but I find a lot comes down to how and when players are actually selected. Of course you have to have a system, and the Irish one is a good one, but players develop at different times and when you bring it back to the All Ireland League conversation, how does luck fit into that?

If the schools system by and large follows the private route then the AIL has players coming from different backgrounds as well, and you want as much of that as you can get.

“I used to always think the guys who get picked are the guys who deserve to get picked – that was me as a comfortably arrogant player who was getting picked. But I’d be very lucky to get picked in the present structure. I was a late bloomer and nowadays it’s harder for those guys to get through.

“We have only four main teams (in Ireland) so you’re either in in one of those or you’re not, which is why I think the AIL is incredibly important. I don’t think Nucifora fully embraced the AIL and its importance to Ireland. If the schools system by and large follows the private route then the AIL has players coming from different backgrounds as well, and you want as much of that as you can get.

“I think the blend is better when the AIL fits into the mix. It doesn’t necessarily lead to higher performance, though it can, and it definitely leads to higher sustainability of the game itself. That’s important.”

A lifetime after it started we may yet see the All Ireland League find its best place in the pecking order.