Rugby powers debate the dominance of the Springboks and the struggle of Irish and other teams to reclaim glory.
As the last of the grey-haired, going-to-seed men walked into the wood-panelled meeting room, security men closed the heavy teak doors and locked them, muting the sound of Dublin’s traffic outside.
As a butler moved to pull down the blinds on the windows, an Australian voice rang out: “Hang on, mate! It’s bloody bad enough that you can only tell the difference between summer and winter here because the rain’s warmer in summer… but now you want to cut out all the light.
I’m from Brisbane and we go bonkers without sunlight!”
A beefy, dusky complexioned man joined in: “I’m from Christchurch and this makes me feel right at home! You Aussies just whinge the whole time because the Bledisloe Cup keeps going back to Noo Zilland…”
The chairman rapped his gavel on the broad, polished table: “Gentlemen please! We have more important things to discuss than the weather, to be sure…”
On cue, Mr O’Mahoney adjusted his shamrock tie and stood up: “We would not be here if we did not all accept that the current situation in world rugby cannot be allowed to continue.
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“Sure, ’tis us who have suffered most grievously because, so long as the Pope is a Catholic the natural order of things should be that Ireland wins at least one World Cup.”
Rutherford-Jones fiddled with his finely-tooled leather file folder, emblazoned with the red rose and thought better about saying something… in this changed world even the bloody Irish had human rights, he realised.
Still, he nodded too, because even England had been hurting – perhaps not as much as the micks in green, but then even English pride was superior to its Irish equivalent.
Across the table, Jean-Pierre nodded morosely, as did Diego.
Taffy Jones interjected: “ If I may speak on behalf of Wales and Scotland – if you don’t mind Jimmy – as well as Italy if that’s okay, Tomasso, may I say that even though people think of us sometimes as spectators or also-rans, we have a long and fine tradition of the game in our countries.
And if the Webb Ellis Cup continues to stay in South Africa, then our youngsters are going to drift away to football, heaven help us!”
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A morose silence descended.
“It didn’t work, did it?” said the former All Black. “I knew you could never trust a golfer to follow through on a promise and to think we gave him a gold-plated Caribbean cruising yacht!”
The Irish rugby supremo stood up.
“Why the bloody hell didn’t Trump make the offer more attractive to the refugees? – scholarships and Lear Jets don’t cost that much …”
He added: “There should have been tens of thousands of refugees by now… there would have been no-one left to put together a Boozer’s League Second Team, never mind a Springbok one. That would have given us all a fighting chance.”
From France, Jean-Pierre nodded: “We’ve tried to keep them more than a few seasons but, even with our women, they always want to go home…”
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Not a great fan of the French, Bruce from Brisbane chipped in: “Let’s face it mate, you lot don’t speak very good English – the Afrikaners are much better.
“And well, let’s just say both your women and your wine are overrated…”
Taffy jumped in to stop the fist flying: “Get Elon on the Starlink!
“He can offer them each a Tesla to defect to us. That’ll work.”
There was a sigh and Tomasso said: “No, it won’t. They’re used to living without electricity and they say a steak is always better on a braai…”
