Ireland look to boost Triple Crown hopes with a museum-worthy win

Of all the bucket list destinations out there a trip to the world rugby museum at Twickenham might not be every Irish citizen’s first pick. Which is a shame. Yes, there are a few sepia-dipped images of olde English heroes with huge moustaches but any supporters over for Saturday’s big game will also discover some significant emerald-tinted artefacts.

There is the jersey, for example, worn by the Irish forward Harold Sugars in his country’s first international against South Africa in 1906, when Sugars scored two tries but Ireland still lost. There is also a salute to the evergreen (in every sense) Mike Gibson while Noel Murphy’s jersey from the 1959 Lions tour of New Zealand, complete with the jagged holes inflicted by assorted All Black studs, needs no additional subtitles.

The exhibit that really resonated the other day, though, was Moss Keane’s appropriately moss-coloured old shirt. Because it was Keane who featured in the game at Twickenham in 1982 that even now, 40 winters later, is remembered fondly by Irish rugby fans of all creeds and backgrounds as the crucial springboard to their team’s first Triple Crown for 33 years. The economic depression in Ireland was dispiritingly deep and, with unemployment rampant, spirits in Ireland were at a low ebb. Hence the excitement, with the great Ollie Campbell in his pomp, when Ireland went to Twickenham and won 16-15, with Gerry “Ginger” McLoughlin famously scoring the decisive try.

That night Keane went out for a few beers in Camden Town, still all dressed up in his dinner suit, and did not have to pay for a drink all night. At one point he bumped into an exiled builder, one of the legions forced to leave their homeland for work across the Irish Sea. “Moss, it’s an awful