Rugby World Cup 2011: Eagles face coach Eddie O’Sullivan’s homeland in emotionally-charged Pool C opener

IN LATE afternoon, September 11, 2001, three fire-fighters from Engine 255 and Ladder 157, were digging in the rubble of a fallen Tower, searching for bodies in the Apocalyptic minutes after the planes crashed and the first of the buildings collapsed, when they were told to evacuate, that the second structure was about to go and they had to get out of there.

Dan McWilliams was one of the fire-fighters. During the evacuation, McWilliams found an American flag, rolled it up and slapped his mate George Johnson on the back and said, “Give me a hand, will ya?” William Eisengrein, the third man, soon joined them. They found a pole, made a ramp and against a backdrop of a city in ruins, they raised Old Glory for all to see.

At that very moment, Thomas E. Franklin’s camera went ‘click’. Franklin, a photographer with the Bergen Record of Passaic, New Jersey, had been watching the firemen through his long-lens, curious to know what they were up to but experienced enough to sense that something beautiful was about to happen in this most horrific environment. When the flag went up, Franklin captured one of the defining images of September 11, a now famous picture of three ash-covered American heroes honouring their dead in the only way they could, by raising the flag in salute.

The photograph went around the world and soon the stories of the men became known. McWilliams and Johnson, in particular, had a special bond. Both were rugby players with the Rockaway club in Queens, otherwise known as the Fisheads. McWilliams was a flanker, Johnson a front-row. Rugby was their release, the pursuit of the New York Metropolitan League title one of their great passions.

Rugby’s connection with 9/11 is represented in different ways, by those who survived and those who didn’t. Mark Bingham was another American hero. He began playing the game in California before life took him to San Francisco where he played for Fog RFC and then on to New York where he co-founded Gotham Knights RFC. Bingham has been immortalised in film as one of the principals credited with storming the cock-pit of the hijacked United Airlines Flight 93 and bringing it down in a Pennsylvanian field instead of into the side of a building in Washington DC, where it was headed until Bingham led an uprising in the air. Alongside Bingham that day, was Jeremy Glick, captain of Rochester RFC. In the months after 9/11, there was widespread wearing of rugby jerseys on American aeroplanes in tribute to Bingham and Glick. For a time, there was also a popular car bumper sticker: “Terrorists Beware! Ruggers On Board.”

Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and many thousands of miles from home, American rugby players will wear black armbands in memory of what happened in their country a decade ago. The USA play Ireland in New Plymouth on Sunday, a game that is bound to be heavy on emotion for those involved. You’d have to search pretty hard to find a member of the American squad who didn’t suffer some kind of loss in New York that day.

“How many were affected?” asks Eddie O’Sullivan, the Irishman coaching the Americans. “Nearly all of them, in different ways,” he says. “I don’t like to ask, to be honest with you. If they want to tell me, then I’d love to listen, but it’s not my place to pry. I’m sure most of them will know somebody who was affected by what happened that day.”

O’Sullivan tells a story that his skills coach, the former American back-row forward, Dan Payne, told him some time ago. “On September 11, Dan was emailing a buddy of his who worked in the Towers. There’d been a football game on television the night before and the emails were flying backwards and forwards every two minutes or so – and then they just stopped. That was the last he ever heard from him.” O’Sullivan doesn’t doubt for a second that, were he to ask, there’d be many other distressing tales in his squad.

He’s been thinking of how to handle the day, how to speak to his players and ensure that the emotion doesn’t get the better of them. “They want to play well, they’re desperate to. But I’ve got to make sure that feelings they’re feeling don’t become a negative. Emotion is good, but it’s a fine line. If you don’t have enough emotion then you’re not going to perform but if you’ve got too much you’re going to drop the first three passes you get and you’re going to give away penalties at the first three rucks you hit. Too much emotion and your head could be in a spin.

“We need 22 guys on an even-keel, which is going to be a challenge because it’s 9/11 again and they want to do their country proud on this day of all days. It was a catastrophic event in the nation’s history, a terrible scar on the national psyche and the countdown to the anniversary has been intense in America, as you can imagine. It’s been on every television station and in every newspaper and in every magazine and that’s completely understandable. America isn’t a big rugby country, obviously, but they’re beginning to realise that they have only one national team playing on 9/11 and it’s us, so the interest is there and it’s a pressure the lads could feel if they let it get to them. They just need to focus and, in fairness to them, they’ve been absolutely excellent.”

Nothing could prepare a coach for this kind of thing, the emotional sweep of what tomorrow is sure to bring, but at least O’Sullivan has got something to draw on, some past experience that might help him as he looks for the right words. When his Ireland team played England at Croke Park for the first time in 2007 it was the most emotional, and tense, week in the history of Irish rugby. The backdrop was seismic. A foreign game in the heartland of the GAA. And not just any game. A game against England and the playing of a national anthem that would have had dead Republicans spinning in their graves.

“I’m not sure if it’s any kind of comparison, but that day at Croke Park was bigger than the game, that’s for sure. The emotion swimming around the place was stark and the pressure on the boys to deliver was immense. Losing wasn’t an option for them that day. The burden of history was just enormous. People who never watched a rugby match in their life were watching that day and, who knows, maybe that’s the way it’s going to be on Sunday in America.”

Different times, though. Different team. O’Sullivan’s Ireland beat England 43-13 that afternoon at Croke Park, but he’s on the other side of the fence these days. He calls it a “no lose” situation against his old team – “unless we get beaten out the gate by 70 or 80 points”. If victory is the only thing that mattered four years against England then honour is the only thing that matters now. America will lose, that’s for sure. But it’s how they lose that counts.

“Ireland’s confidence is bound to be a bit shaky after losing four in a row, but they shouldn’t have any trouble seeing us off. They’re not in ideal shape, but they’re a good side and they’re coming up against our boys, half of whom are amateurs, albeit incredibly committed amateurs. It’s funny, you know. The smaller rugby nations are extraordinary, really. The things they have to put up with. We were in Japan for a game recently and while we were there we felt earthquake tremors twice. We were having a meeting at one point and I said, ‘Am I imagining it or is this room shaking?’ And it was. Apparently they have about 1500 tremors every year in Japan and they’re frightening, I can tell you. But the Japanese don’t break stride. You look at the way they reacted to the earthquake and the tsunami in March and it’s fantastic. Their team is here in New Zealand and great credit is due to those people.”

And to his own, too. The Americans make sacrifices that the major rugby nations would not understand. Over half their squad is based at home and they travel vast differences, across several time zones, to play for their clubs and they don’t get a penny for their trouble. Some are out of pocket at the end of the season. “A few of the trips they have to make are hard to get your head around,” says O’Sullivan. “It would be like getting on a flight in Edinburgh and going to Moscow for a league match and then going home again, for no payment. If people in the big nations had half the problems some of the smaller nations have they’d give it up, too much hassle. These lads love it.”

They’re not as good as Ireland, he says, but they’ll do their country proud.