IRISH RUGBY IS such a successful entity today that it’s hard for people who’ve grown up in the professional era to imagine a time when the team was anything other than a well-run machine who gave the players every resource to achieve success.
Of course things were different in the amateur era as players couldn’t go on month-long camps to Carton House unless they happened to work at the hotel already.
Besides being the only set of Irish brothers to represent Ireland and the Lions, Richard, Paul and David Wallace are unique in that they all rose to prominence at different times of rugby’s development.
Richard played the majority of his career in the amateur era, Paul peaked during the start of the professional period while David’s longevity ensured he experienced the growing pains of full-time rugby as well as the ultra-sophisticated set-up enjoyed by internationals today.
Irish rugby in the early 90′s, when Richard first broke into the team, was at an all-time low. Between 1991-1993 they lost 11 games in-a-row which is the worst run of any Irish team.
When the elder Wallace describes the preparation though, it isn’t hard to see why the team struggled.
“When I first started playing we had just moved from meeting up the day before the game to meeting up the day before the day before the game,” Wallace said.
“So 48 hours before the game – now guys are in camp for a couple of weeks. It went from where we were when I started to trying to get together for camps and going away for warm weather training at Christmas and stuff like that.”
It isn’t as if that Ireland team was devoid of talent though, on the wings they had a Lion in Wallace and Simon Geoghegan, the blonde flyer who was a fan favourite.
Ireland didn’t prepare the same way as the English and French sides and Wallace also recalls how different players within the squad viewed the game.
“We were quite far behind,” Wallace said.
“It was very much an amateur game in Ireland. In France and England in particular a lot of the guys were being looked after with jobs. They were nearly full-time so we were growing apart in terms of standard.
“It was a very mixed time as the game was pushing towards a professional era even as it was still amateur. You had a lot of different attitudes in terms of what the game meant to people. Some guys would have been more interested in training and going to the gym and other guys wouldn’t have been interested in it at all.”
Not only was Geoghegan one of the best players in the squad at the time, he was also the Roy Keane figure who demanded that the IRFU raise the standard of preparation for the players.
Geoghegan famously aired his grievances in the dressing room after a loss to Scotland in 1993 and again in a newspaper interview soon afterwards. Wallace agreed with his fellow wing at the time.
“It was frustrating from time to time and Simon certainly made his frustrations felt – and rightly so,” Wallace said.
“Simon was a good standard bearer, he always came with his A game. He was very fit and was clearly doing all the things that you should have been doing then.”
Despite playing in one of Irish rugby’s least successful eras, Wallace actually has a decent record against England – two wins and two losses. Considering that English team won three Grand Slams around that time the wins have even more lustre in retrospect.
Ireland beat England in 1993 at Lansdowne Road and Wallace played a big part in the famous victory at Twickenham in 1994 – if they had fantasy rugby back then he would have gotten three points for the assist.
“Somebody sent me a video of it the other day so it was nice to see it,” Wallace said.
“I can’t believe it was so long ago though. It feels like it was somebody else’s life. It was huge [to win in 1993]. I got into a team that wasn’t doing so well, we had 11 losses on the trot which was a record at the time. The match before we had beaten Wales but to get a big scalp like England, who the year before had put a lot of points on us, was fantastic.”
