Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.
Alan English tells Emmet Moloney about his new book on how Ireland achieved rugby greatness...

Ireland had just won their historic Grand Slam in Cardiff and the IRFU decided they needed someone to write about it. Access to all the players, coaches and backroom staff was guaranteed. A dream job for any journalist, it went to Alan English and his book, Grand Slam, is now in shops. If it wasn’t such hard work you’d envy Alan English. In his day job he edits The Limerick Leader newspaper, but this summer he found time to get the inside track on Ireland’s Grand Slam.

Q - Was it really just like sitting down and having a pint with players and chatting about rugby?
A - I don’t think I had any pints, although a few of the interviews took place in pubs alright. I asked for and received mobile numbers for every member of the squad, plus all the coaches and backroom staff. I just worked my way through them and set up interviews all over the place – a lot of miles!

Q - What was the most surprising thing that emerged?
A - The sense of vulnerability among many of the players coming up to team selection. Rory Best talked about the sense of dread he feels coming up to five o’clock. He knows, from bitter experience, that if you’re not getting picked you will get a phone call from Declan Kidney around that time. So he talked about looking at his mobile phone, willing it to stay silent, and then his heart sinking when it rang and he saw the words “Declan Kidney calling” on the screen.

Q - We all watched those epic games with our hearts in our mouths. Why were Ireland so brilliant last spring?
A - I think the main difference between the Grand Slam season and previous years, when the team came up short under Eddie O’Sullivan, was that the forwards were given the licence to keep hammering away at the opposition pack. Previously, they would have been under orders to get the ball out to the backs, but people like Paul O’Connell absolutely thrive on confrontation and that doggedness ultimately led to three massive tries during the campaign – from Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy against France, and O’Driscoll again in the England match.

Q - What is it about Declan Kidney?
A - I really enjoy talking to him. For this book we had two long interviews and it was the same for the Munster book I wrote a while back. What it comes down to is this: every single thing he does is about making his players feel good about their rugby and the challenge ahead of them. He picks up on things that others miss; maybe a player who, mentally, isn’t quite right the night before a match for any number of reasons. He’s exceptionally astute. He was accused by Warren Gatland of offering “clichés and nothing” in his press conferences. He doesn’t see it as his job to give the media the kind of sound bites they crave, because every sentence that comes out of his mouth is formulated with one overriding thing in mind – the good of his team.

Q - Speaking of, what role did his comments play in helping Ireland beat Wales?
A - There’s no question but that the comments upset Declan Kidney deeply. I must have asked him 50 or 60 questions and the only one he baulked at was his feelings about what Gatland said. He just fell silent. He was hurt by it. But did they make a difference to the outcome of the match? I would say not.

Q - It’s well known that Declan is a serious man, as are many of the players. So who lightens the mood? Who are the jokers in the pack?
A - Donncha O’Callaghan is a seriously witty man; he came up with some great one-liners for the book, not all of which I could use! I liked his description of Ronan O’Gara. He’s very protective of Rog and jumped in on his behalf right at the start of the Wales match because he was angry that the Welsh players were clearly targeting O’Gara. He said: “Playing with Rog is like playing with your sister – you have to mind him.”

Paddy “Rala” O’Reilly, the team’s baggage man, is a fantastic character and he is the only person in the set-up who I devoted an individual chapter to. He’s there to help the players and they love listening to his yarns. His hotel room is the one the players go to on the night before every match – some of them go to get some jellies and sweets off him – and they say that when Rala is happy, the team is happy.

Q - Who talked the most during the interviews?
A - I interviewed Tommy Bowe for hours in a quiet pub in Northern Ireland. Denis Leamy calls him “Motormouth” and the transcript of the interview was 22,000 words long.

Q - And who talked the least?
A - John Hayes is well known for giving the media a wide berth and he asked me if five or 10 minutes would be long enough for his interview. For my last book, about Munster’s journey to their first Heineken Cup win, I had interviewed him in the family farmhouse in Cappamore, Co Limerick. His mother, Marie, is chairperson of the Cappamore Show and president of Limerick ICA. A really lovely woman, but I think John takes after his dad when it comes to talking! John has built his own house now, just up the road from where he grew up, and he was kind enough to invite me out for a chat in his kitchen while his little girl was running around the place. He was even kinder to pretend that he didn’t mind too much being grilled!

Q - How long did it take to write the book?
A - I had three months, so I had to be very organised about how I went about it. The first book I wrote, Stand Up and Fight, which is about Munster and the All Blacks in 1978, took me nearly three years, but that was a different type of book. With Grand Slam, I had so much material I could have written a book twice as long, but ultimately having so much to work with means you can be selective about what you use. I had at least 30 accounts of what people were feeling when Stephen Jones was lining up the penalty that would have denied Ireland the Grand Slam!

The vast majority of the book is in the words of the players and the people around them. The job I had was to tell the story through their eyes and link it all together. A big part of the book is the fantastic photography by Billy Stickland and his team at the Inpho agency. The idea was that his pictures and the words would work in tandem, so when you read about how Brian O’Driscoll scored that try against England – after nearly being knocked unconscious twice in the minutes leading up to it – you turn the page and there’s a photograph of him diving across the try line.

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