David Ferguson: A fond farewell to Croker

Published on Saturday 20 March 2010 20:11

THE coaches and players strived to keep their focus on the game, but there could be no escaping the terrific sense of occasion surrounding the final game of rugby – for the time being, at least – at Croke Park. From next season, Ireland will play their Six Nations games back at the rebuilt and renamed Lansdowne Road.

It is the end of an affair that lasted four years and transcended rugby's traditional boundaries. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) had thrown out many approaches to welcome rugby and football into the stadium built in 1913 and named after Archbishop Thomas Croke, one of its first patrons. In 2001, the GAA representatives again voted, narrowly, against it. There was no place in Croker for "foreign sports" was the clear message.

With Lansdowne Road crumbling and "Bertie's Bowl", the stadium dream of former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, failing to get off the paper, the prospect loomed of the Irish being made to play their rugby and football matches away from Ireland. The GAA brought its members around the table in 2005, having turned Croke Park into an 82,300-capacity stadium, to again debate Rule 42, that forbids non-GAA sports from using the venue. And the decision they took that day, under the leadership of their president Sean Kelly and director-general Liam Mulvihill, was to prove a momentous one for Irish rugby, the coffers of GAA sport, the wider Irish community and the appeal of the Six Nations.

The vote was carried and rugby and football were allowed in. Rugby made its debut in the stadium on 11 February 2007 when Ireland hosted France in the second round of that year's Six Nations matches. It did not end happily for the Irish as Vincent Clerc, the French buzzbomb of a winger, scored a dramatic late try to snatch a 20-17 victory for the first rugby visitors to Croke.

But then came the big test of this new union, the visit of England on 24 February. The tension began for the England camp when it was afforded Special Branch protection from the moment the squad left London.

Threats were received and the Ireland rugby authorities were warned they were asking for trouble by bringing "Garrison games" to Croker. Eddie O'Sullivan was the Irish coach at the time and he worked hard to keep the simple appreciation of rugby and sporting values at the forefront of the lead-up, dismissing political talk at every turn.

"When it comes to the event itself the one thing we can say about Irish sports supporters," he said, "be it rugby, soccer or athletics, is that they're probably the best supporters in the world over the last 20 years. They're renowned for their capacity to embrace an event and be very positive about it. So, despite all the people expressing their misapprehensions and fears, which is quite logical and understandable, when it comes to the time they'll embrace the occasion."

Lest we forget, one end of this stadium remains incongruously uncovered because the "Hill 16" terrace is a memorial to the Easter Rising of 1916, and where the main Hogan stand recalls the Tipperary captain shot and killed by the Royal Irish Constabulary, supported by British soldiers, during "Bloody Sunday" and the Irish War of Independence in 1920.

But despite the foreboding history, O'Sullivan was proved right, so right that when the defining moment came, the playing of God Save The Queen, Croke Park fell silent, impeccably silent; you could have heard a pin drop. The respect shown by the estimated 70,000-plus Irish people within the bastion of Irish sporting culture was absolute.

It was a huge moment in Irish history and they emerged with great pride and new support far behind their borders. When the history of Irish sport is re-written that game will be up there with rugby's Grand Slam victories of 1948 and 2009, for the sheer historical and political significance it held.

Ireland won the game and rugby began to take off at Croker. Ireland had already been improving. They had left Lansdowne with the Triple Crown and held it in the first season at their new home, and after a turgid World Cup campaign in 2007 they returned to the north side of Dublin to build towards last year's Grand Slam.

The relationship between the sports grew stronger, the GAA raked in ?38million from rugby and football – around ?225,000 per week for the 162 weeks Croke Park was open for non-GAA business – which was spent on their sports but also on wider community projects across Ireland.

Some in the GAA would like the Irish rugby and football teams to stay. Many are questioning the sense in Irish rugby, having now filled a stadium with over 80,000 spectators, and turned on countless more people across the country to the sport, in moving to a 50,000-capacity ground back at Lansdowne Road, and few like its sponsored name, the Aviva Stadium. Irish rugby chiefs insist they must to ensure more money earned is kept in their sport, and have signed contracts to that end.

History will change again, but this is a period Irish rugby will never forget. The Grand Slam will forever be associated with Croker. Ireland leave Croker having used their time there to match the success of that great period in Irish rugby. And even those still unhappy at the coming-together of Irish sport know it has done much for the Ireland's image.