A version of this article was printed in the Irish Examiner (03/04/2013).

Grand Slam glory now a distant memory as coach falls foul of stats

Tuesday’s statement by the IRFU thanked Declan Kidney’s “unquestionable commitment, passion, professionalism and success he has delivered to Irish Rugby to date”. That statement might seem odd, perhaps, given that Kidney took charge of 53 test matches for Ireland while winning 27; that’s just a 51% win rate, as the mathematicians will doubtless have worked out.

But as the coals of the 2013 Six Nations are raked over it’s probably worth having a wander back through misty memory to recall just how successful Kidney had been in his coaching career up until relatively recently.

After coaching Ireland to an U-19 World Championship in France in 1998, the former Irish Schools coach went to his native Munster, leading them to Heineken Cup finals in 2000 and 2002 only to lose to Northampton and Leicester respectively.

Kidney left provincial rugby in 2002 to become Ireland assistant coach to Eddie O’Sullivan. After two years in the role he decided to move back to club rugby, agreeing to become head coach of the Newport Gwent Dragons but, just three weeks later, Kidney instead joined Leinster for family reasons.

His time at Leinster was not long spent, staying less than a year with the blues. Kidney’s Leinster reached the quarter final of the Heineken Cup before he announced a return to Munster.

Kidney’s return to his native province was an immediate triumph, beating Biarritz to win the 2006 Heineken Cup in Munster’s third final. 2008 brought a second Heineken Cup win, this time over the European rugby royalty of Toulouse. After Ireland’s disastrous 2007 World Cup and a poor 2008 Six Nations campaign, Declan Kidney was the odds-on favourite to succeed Eddie O’Sullivan as national team manager and it duly came to pass.

Kidney’s first match as senior Ireland head coach came against Canada at Thomond Park on November 8th 2008. A 55-0 eight try romp with Ronan O’Gara kicking six from six on the day, it was a gentle introduction to the test arena in a familiar setting.

The following spring of 2009 brought the achievement that Declan Kidney should be forever both praised and remembered: an Irish Six Nations Grand Slam.

The sporting pinnacle of the Irish professional rugby era, Kidney put in place an environment where a young Rob Kearney could dare ask in a team meeting that previous December why many of Ireland’s players didn’t show the same passion as they did for Munster. With that long-standing elephant in the corner finally allowed to be both acknowledged and slayed, Ireland’s “golden generation” of rugby talent finally clicked for an entire campaign and an adoring Irish rugby public celebrated like never before.

If that was the high point for Irish professional rugby, it was certainly the pinnacle for Kidney’s Ireland. A famous win against Australia in the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand was followed by a muted quarter final exit to Wales, Kidney having controversially chosen the veteran Ronan O’Gara to start the match ahead of his pre-tournament starter Jonathan Sexton.

Since then things went downhill quite steadily with Kidney’s Ireland winning just four of fifteen matches (27%) since the 2011 World Cup.

While the lack of a conveyor belt of Irish-qualified tight head props cannot be laid at Declan Kidney’s door (Michael Bent aside) his continued reluctance to take opportunities to blood younger players in other positions might have eventually caught up with him, culminating in a 2013 Six Nations championship that went from the stunning to the shambolic in quite remarkable fashion.

Happy trails, Declan Kidney. We might not be happy with what you’ve done lately, but we’ll always have the memories of 2009.