Roger Wilson bursts through a gap for Northampton. The two-time Ulster Player of the Year has returned to his home province, having spent four busy years with the Saints. It will be interesting to see if his performances in the white No8 jersey can push him forward for international contention, or if there’s too much track worn off the tires.
Roger Wilson: since making his debut for Ulster as a 21-year old in September 2002, the Belfast-born No8 has played an enormous amount of professional rugby. In five seasons with Ulster he played 116 games [101 starts] and since moving to Northampton at the end of the 2007-08 season he hasn’t let up, playing 117 games [108 starts] for the Saints. In total, he has played 46 Heineken Cup games, all but one of them from kick-off.
How many tests for Ireland has he played? One. Against Japan. Seven years ago.
Wilson in his sole test appearance – Ireland vs Japan, First Test, June 2005.
How is there such a huge discrepancy between the enormous amount of high-quality rugby he has played at club level [209 starts in nine seasons!] and the minimal pay-off he’s received in terms of international recognition? The Ulsterman was his province’s Player of the Year in 2004-05 and in 2006-07, and since moving to Northampton he has averaged 27 starts per season, picked up a Challenge Cup winner’s medal and played in a Heineken Cup final.
Skipping The Queue
There’s only about nine weeks between Wilson [born September 1981] and Denis Leamy [born November 1981], and they played in the same Ireland representative team in the 2002 U21 Six Nations, with Wilson at No8 and Leamy at blindside.
Leamy debuted for Munster the next season but found it hard to break into a backrow that included Anthony Foley, Alan Quinlan, Jim Williams and Eddie Halvey [David Wallace missed the entire season due to injury, or it would have been even harder]. Wilson didn’t start for Ulster until the season after that … but once he got the chance, he didn’t give up his spot. He started twenty games in the 2003-04 season for Ulster, in comparison to Leamy’s five for Munster.
Victor Costello – Callsign “Burger” – Turns In His Wings: One Of You Two Jokers Is Going To Top Gun, The Other Is Flying Rubber Dogshit Out of Hong Kong
Victor Costello started on the blindside with Anthony Foley at No8 in the 15-12 win over France during the 2003 Six Nations. However, by RWC03 it was back to an either/or situation.
Turning 33 years old at the beginning of that 2003-04 season, Victor Costello was drawing towards the end of his international career. The enormous Leinster backrow and former Olympian had been selected in the No8 jersey for Ireland’s key RWC03 matches against Argentina [in the pool stages] and France [in the quarter-final] ahead of Munsterman Anthony Foley, but Foley took the starting role back for the 2004 Six Nations, when Ireland won a first Triple Crown for nineteen years. Big Vic was on the outs, and there was going to be a place in Eddie O’Sullivan’s backrow up for grabs.
At the start of the 2004-05 season, both Wilson and Leamy were well-primed to challenge for international contention. Leamy bagged an eye-catching seven tries in his 22 Munster appearances [17+5] that season, while Wilson had another twenty-start season [20+2] and picked up his first Ulster Player of The Year Award.
On the summer tour to Japan that ended that season, O’Sullivan held auditions for No8: curiously, Leamy didn’t get the call. O’Sullivan started Wilson in the first test [W, 44-12] and Leinster’s Eric Miller [who had had an outstanding tour at No8 for the Lions way back in 1997] in the second [W, 47-18].
These were auspicious tests for both players: it was Wilson’s first and thus far his only cap, and it was the last cap of Eric Miller’s career. The mercurial Miller had debuted as a 21 year old in the 1997 Five Nations and starred for the victorious Lions in South Africa later that year, but his injury-dogged test career ultimately ended at just 29 years old.
Denis Leamy’s form in the 2006 and 2007 Six Nations fully justified O’Sullivan’s selection – he was at his physical peak and played the best test rugby of his career in those two tournaments.
There’s A New Sheriff In Town
Obviously neither player took over from Foley at No8. Despite the fact that Leamy had only played No8 for Munster once since the 2005-06 season kicked off [Foley was still the man in possession, and with Wallace, Quinlan and Stephen Keogh about, competition was still fierce on the flanks], Eddie O’Sullivan obviously saw something that he liked. Leamy started the two disappointing test losses against New Zealand and Australia in November 2005 at No8, held his place for the first match of the following Six Nations and kept the jersey for the next two years. O’Sullivan installed Wilson as his back-up, and the Ulsterman was an Ireland ‘A’/Wolfhounds regular from 2006-08.
However, Jamie Heaslip’s emergence at Leinster over that period as a potentially world class No8 altered the depth chart irrevocably. After a great 2007 Six Nations, Leamy had an absolute nightmare in RWC07, and with no other specialist No8 in the squad, he kept on getting picked and underperforming. Ouch. O’Sullivan moved him aside after one game of the 2008 Six Nations and installed Heaslip as his first choice No8 … and while Leinster picked up steam under Michael Cheika, Ulster stalled and faffed about and ended up losing three of their best players in Wilson, Neil Best and Tommy Bowe.
Maybe the emergence of Heaslip in Wilson’s injury-enforced absence was a further factor in his move away from Ulster and Ireland; maybe it convinced him that international recognition was as far away as it ever had been. Wilson moved to Northampton, Declan Kidney took over from Eddie O’Sullivan, and that was all she wrote for Roger Wilson and any involvement with Irish representative rugby.
Roger Returns
Now Roger Wilson is on his way back to the land of his forebears [grandfather Harry McKibbin and uncles Harry Jnr and Alastair all represented Ireland, and Harry Snr was an über-distinguished Lion]. You get the feeling that he only left Ulster because of the shambolic way it was being run at the time, that his attitude was the same as that of Leo Cullen and Shane Jennings when they left Leinster for Leicester in 2005: it’s a short career, and you can’t afford to waste them with a club that’s mired in mediocrity.
Ulster opened the 2007-08 with an appalling losing run: head coach Mark McCall resigned in early November and Wilson broke his hand late that month, not returning until the very end of March. By that time the damage was long-done. Ulster had lost five of their six Heineken Cup pool games and would end the season second from bottom of the Magner’s League. The place was in a mess.
Wilson in his last season at Ravenhill, the debacle that was Ulster’s 2007-08 effort. Things are looking a whole lot different these days.
It’s not as though they didn’t have the players – they had Justin Harrison, Carlo del Fava, Matt McCullough and Ryan Caldwell in the second row; Neil Best, Stephen Ferris, Neil McMillan, the outstanding Irish U20s openside and captain David Pollock [who was forced to prematurely retire three seasons later with a serious hip complaint], Kieran Dawson and Wilson himself in the backrow; international halfbacks in Isaac Boss, Kieran Campbell, Paddy Wallace and David Humphreys; pacy threequarters like Andrew Trimble and Tommy Bowe and quality footballers in Bryn Cunningham and Paul Steinmetz. Things just never got going, then pressure kept building and the season fell apart, with three coaches [first McCall, then caretaker Steve Williams, then Matty Williams] over a two-month period from November to January.
The situation couldn’t be more different on his return. Ulster made the final of the 2011-12 edition of the Heineken Cup, and while their league form didn’t see them earn a semi-final place, they scored the most tries of any team in the Pro12. David Humphreys and CEO Shane Logan run an ambitious program that has managed to keep its connections to the traditional Ulster rugby heartlands in good health whilst expanding at an impressive rate.
No8 … No8 … No8 …
Wilson’s return brings an enormously experienced player in his prime back to Ireland in a specialist position where there’s not a great deal of depth. Heaslip has long been Declan Kidney’s go-to man [Kidney has capped him more than any other player since he became Irish head coach], but the other options he has used as back-ups have skipped town or been forced out. Dennis Leamy was Munster’s No8 until the end of the 2008-09 season – and indeed he started in the green No8 jersey against Scotland in the 2009 Six Nations – but a rotten run of serious injuries and the surprising rise of late-comer James ‘Germany’ Coughlan saw him pushed into the No6 jersey and unfortunately into an early retirement.
James ‘Germany’ Caughlan: an out-and-out No8, the Dolphin man has made a late-career surge to make himself a vital member of Munster’s starting pack. His performances in the red No8 jersey saw him win Munster’s Player of the Season Award for 2010-11, and he hardly slackened off that pace this year.
Coughlan’s an interesting case. Firstly, you’d want to be a real misery-guts not to admire him and the way he kept at it for Dolphin when a surfeit of high quality back rowers at Munster kept him out of the professional squad. Secondly, he’s had a couple of cracking seasons for Munster [he was the 2010-11 Player of the Season] and is an out-and-out No8. Put him on the blindside and he looks pretty ordinary, but with the No8 on his back he’s a quality performer. He’s not alone in that regard: Imanol Harinordoquy doesn’t look all that good on the side of the scrum, but give him the ocho and he’s world class.
Unfortunately Coughlan is the victim of a couple of significant prejudices: he’s too old or too small; he doesn’t have the pedigree; he lacks the athleticism for international rugby; he can only play one position. However, when you see Coughlan playing No8 for Munster in the Heineken Cup, you can tell that he’s a good player, and specifically a good No8. He’s a better No8 than Peter O’Mahony at the moment – even though O’Mahony played a good degree of his underage rugby at No8 – which is why he plays No8 for Munster and O’Mahony plays on the blindside.
And it’s important to have a genuine No8 who has mastered the skills of the position at international level: it’s not ‘middle-flanker’. People called for Sean O’Brien to play No8 for Ireland last season quite a bit: after all, he started for Ireland U21 as an No8 a couple of days after his 19th birthday in February 2006, played four of the five games of that summer’s U21 World Championships there, and played there a good few times for Leinster in the 2010-11 season … but it’s been a long time since he’s been wearing the ocho regularly. The skills atrophy.
Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? They All Became Flankers
Chris Henry had been the man in-situ for Ulster at No8 and had made several appearance for Ireland ‘A’/Wolfhounds in that jersey, but for some reason his provincial management weren’t entirely happy with what he brought to the position, and set their sights on obtaining the services of Cardiff’s former All Black Xavier Rush between the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons. That deal broke down at the last minute, but the Ulster management team plowed on with their ‘anybody but Henry’ scheme and eventually contracted former Blue Bull and Springbok Pedrie Wannenberg. Henry found himself playing on the openside of the scrum, and over the last two seasons he has made a good fist of it and really grown into that role.
An iconic image of an iconic Connacht player. Muldoon is a better fit at blindside than at No8; unfortunately for his test chances, the former is a position where there’s no shortage of options in Ireland. At 29 years old, he’s probably a little younger than most people imagine, and is very much in the prime of his career; he debuted for the province in the 2003-04 season as a 21 year old and has been a staple of the Connacht backrow since then. Put him in a strong test pack at No6, and he’ll perform to test standard.
John Muldoon had been another player selected for Ireland ‘A’/Wolfhounds at No8 but, like Chris Henry, he found himself squeezed on to the flank by the arrival of an outsized non-Irish-qualified No8 at his province, in this case ex-New Zealand U20 George Naoupu. The 2012 Connacht Player of the Year has been producing the goods for his province for a long time: he was Connacht Senior Player of the Year back in 2008-09, when he split time between blindside and No8. In The Mole’s opinion, Muldoon is probably a better fit at blindside than he is at No8. He’s as tough as nails – who can forget him getting back up and back in the defensive line with a broken arm against the All Blacks in June 2010? – and a bullying, hurtful tackler around the fringes. However, he’s a bit lacking in terms of the explosive acceleration and slick handling skills that mark out genuinely first-rank players in that position, and on his day, the enormous Naoupu – 196cm [6’5″] and 118kg [18st 8lbs] – is a cracking No8.
A Little From Column A, A Little From Column B
So, over the past two seasons Pedrie Wannenburg has forced Chris Henry into the No7 jersey for Ulster; George Naoupu has made the No8 jersey his own in Connacht, with Muldoon moving sideways into the No6 jersey; and James Coughlan has performed a similar trick in Munster, with Denis Leamy moving into the red No6 jersey. That was the situation on the ground in Ireland in the 2011-12 season: NIQ No8s in Ulster [Wannenburg] and Connacht [Naoupu], and Irish qualified No8s in Leinster [Heaslip], Munster [Coughlan] and Northampton [Wilson].
Heaslip’s fitness and durability and the fact that he rarely misses games due to injury saw him reach the 50 cap mark [with 47 of them being starts] against the All Blacks in the Christchurch test. However, his absence from the third test highlighted that since Denis Leamy’s steep decline began in the 09-10 season, Ireland don’t have a viable cover option for him. It has recently been a case of moving a blindside into the No8 jersey as though the two positions only differ in the number on the back of the shirt. Nonsense.
Obviously Ireland were short on bodies by the time Heaslip was invalided out of the NZ tour, and playing against an All Blacks team bent on revenge isn’t exactly the best time to make your first start in a vital position like No8 … but well, Declan Kidney flew Paddy Wallace down to New Zealand from Portugal to start in the No12 jersey, when he could have played Fergus McFadden there. James Coughlan had been called into the Irish Six Nations squad when Leo Cullen dropped out, and was again called up [along with Paddy Butler] for the training squad in late May; I’ve no doubt he would have paid for his own flight out to NZ if he was going to win his first cap! Wilson mightn’t have been quite as match-ready, but who knows?
Wilson’s stint at Northampton has been high quality stuff, for the most part. Bar his first season at the club [2008-09], Northampton have made the knock-out stages of the Premiership every year that the Ulsterman has been there, and they progressed to the HEC knock-outs in 2009-10 and 2010-11. In the latter season they made it all the way to the HEC final and led well at half-time, only to lose to a Jonny Sexton-inspired Leinster comeback. Northampton and Munster have met each other five times over the last three seasons of the HEC; Wilson and Coughlan have banged heads in the most recent three games of the rivalry, with Coughlan coming out on top in the last go-round. Incidentally, Wilson’s a year younger than Coughlan, which is really neither here nor there because of the amount of mileage he’s put on the clock.
Widen The Circle
And here we come back to Dexy’s “46 test players” statistic again. Rather than expose more players to international rugby and play players in their regular positions, some of Kidney’s recent selections have actively shrunk the test group and played players deliberately out of position.
The last four games Keith Earls has played for Ireland have seen him start in no fewer than four different-numbered jerseys: No13 vs England in the Six Nations; No15 vs the Barbarians in Gloucester; No12 vs New Zealand in Auckland and No11 vs New Zealand in Hamilton. It’s a similar situation with Peter O’Mahony: his three test starts have come in three different positions. He started at openside vs Scotland in the Six Nations, at blindside vs New Zealand in Auckland and at No8 vs New Zealand in Hamilton.
You can’t expect young players to thrive when you keep moving them from position to position. There are nuances to each role that mightn’t be immediately evident, but are none the less quite important, especially so at test level. The much-lauded New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick hectored his players with the refrain “Do your job” until they were blue in the face from hearing it … but it worked. They knew what their respective jobs were in the team, and they knew that if they took care of their specific piece of business – and their teammates took care of their specific roles – then they’d have a good chance of getting a positive result.
The Mole believes that DK is putting a little too much of an emphasis on the difference between test-match rugby and Heineken Cup rugby, and not quite enough on distinctions between positions: that line of thinking says that Earls is a proven test class player, so he’ll be better in any one of four positions than a guy who actually plays that position on a regular basis for his club, but doesn’t have as many international caps. Rugby’s a position-specific game though [that’s one of the reasons why players still wear position numbers rather than squad numbers], and knowing the nuances of your position is a big deal.
Wilson’s past it at 30-years old? Check out 35-year old Radike Samo leave Adam Thomson and Richie McCaw in his wake on the way to his wünder-try against the All Blacks in last summer’s Tri-Nations. The guy was playing great stuff for the Reds, there was a hole in the Wallabies at No8, Dingo Deans picked him, he performed. Simple as that.
Wilson’s return to Ulster might put him back in the picture for international selection, if only as stop-gap cover for an injured Jamie Heaslip. That’s alright; that’s sort of the sometimes-forgotten point of test rugby – it’s a representative level, with a team composed of the best players in their respective positions from a given country. It doesn’t have to be about centrally contracted players, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be about the long-term solution. Competition for places brings out good performances, and frankly, The Mole thinks there hasn’t been enough of it. Ireland have had two coaches who’ve been big on loyalty and conservative selection for more than a decade; it’d be interesting to see one who was more interested in picking players on form from a level playing field, not past exploits or assumed superiority.
Radike Samo came back into the reckoning for Australia as a 35-year old No8 in August 2011, after a gap in his international career of some 81 months. 81 months! Wycliffe Palu’s injury issues and Dick Brown’s struggles at test level opened up a spot at No8, and the big fella took his chance. Were Wilson to snaffle a cap in November 2012, he’d edge out Samo’s record with an 89 month gap between caps [Jun 2005-Nov 2012]. It’s unlikely, but it shouldn’t be out of the question if he’s playing the best rugby of any active Irish No8.
Heaslip is the man in possession, but he’ll miss the first few games of the season due to his international duties over the summer and his injured hand. Wilson and Coughlan will have a chance to put themselves about in his absence, and hopefully the competition will provoke big performances from all three.
Digging Like a Demented Mole 
James Germany Caughlan?
Germany??????
“Germany Calling” – the Lord Haw Haw broadcasts.
Ahhh, mystery solved!
Something to do with the pronunciation of Coughlan – sounds like Callin’. Thus, this is James Germany Callin’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_Calling
Mole, thoughtful piece as always and a nice addition to this little series. One minor point though, that I’ve been loath to raise before but you have mentioned this enough times that I think it is maybe worth pointing out.
“How is there such a huge discrepancy between the enormous amount of high-quality rugby he has played at club level … and the minimal pay-off he’s received in terms of international recognition?”
The premise seems to be that there should be some proportionality between provincial appearances and international appearances. However, there is a non-linearity with regards to player selection – if you have two players competing for the same position and one is consistently 1% better than the next, then the 1% better chap takes all the glory, not 1% more. Of course,this hardly detracts from your central point.
Absolutely fair point Xyz.
However, I’m a fan of competition – it keeps things fresh in the squad, and new selections always provoke interest and discussion.
I’m also becoming more and more convinced by the merits of position-specific players – both in terms of giving more players a shot at test rugby [i.e. if you lose your first choice No12, you give the next best No12 in the country a shot, rather than a utility back off the bench], and giving young players a better chance at really excelling rather than spreading their talents too widely over too many positions [Earls, Fitzgerald and McFadden, for example].
In this instance, Wilson has obviously been playing at a high level for a long time, so it seems odd to me that he hasn’t received more international recognition. The last [and only] chance he had at test level was more than seven years ago!
Wilson is yet another player who needs to be able to play a few positions in the backrow if he wants to earn a few more caps unless he ousts Jamie Heaslip as a starter (who is also a position specific player and not a great bench option). Earls’ versatility maybe seen as a curse, but it does make him a very valuable player to any international coach. It also got Donnacha Ryan to the world cup ahead of McLaughlin because he could cover blindside better than McLaughlin could cover lock.
I also think lack of pace will hold some players back – it held Foley back internationally and he had everything else in his locker.
Agree on those counts, Radge Fan – I’d see Roger Wilson as starting No8 or not in the matchday squad at all. Little versatility off the bench … what happens if your openside breaks his leg in the third minute? You’re f*cked, basically.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against versatile players; you make very good points about Donnacha Ryan and Keith Earls. I just think that there’s a tendency to sometimes trust too much in the versatility of specific players rather than look outside the established test group for a player who plays a specific position week-in, week-out.
True story about Roger Wilson about his time in Trinity. He famously threw a full keg of beer through a window in the Pav student bar after a league match. I mean a full keg, over his head and through a window. That is power-weight strength. The man can clean & jerk in the region of 88 pints! He was a bit of a wild man, and just as a side note, while it is very fair to say he probably left Ulster due to the incompetence of the regime and its amateurishness, he was involved in a spot of bother himself. I can’t find a web-link for the article but didn’t he ring a journalist on the piss ‘proclaiming his sexual prowess’. I think his leaving Ulster had much to do with off-field issues (Justin Harrison & himself enjoyed the Belfast nightlife) as the bad situation at Ravers. Perhaps it made sense for both parties to have a little break-up. As you noted in an earlier article Mole, Ulster have done a good bit of business with Wilson. Sad to see Wannenburg go but they have replaced an NIQ with a home-grown star who will bring fresh impetus to a squad facing a very important season.
Oh how bout that Olympic Ceremony!
Apparently Wilson’s keg throwing was the reason for the end of jollies after the colours match.
Any Trin men out there who can confirm the sad end of a glorious tradition?!
NIE* I meant Pedrie wasn’t an NIQ. Spoke to a few pals who play for DUFC. He got the entire club banned from the Pav for the season after his antics with kegs and whatnot. Also supposed to have ‘got in a fight with his reflection and smashed the window on the bus, back from Ards’. As far as I know, jollies still go on after colours games for both parties!
Him and Neil Nest must’ve been great mates by the sounds of things.
Eddie wasn’t even on that 2005 Japan tour. He was busy ripping up his gameplan book with the Lions. I’m sure that experience cemented in his mind the necessity for a physically-imposing, dynamic No.8 in the So’aialo mould. Leamy was the closest thing Ireland had to a monster Pacific Islander, and was duly picked.
Wasn’t Ferris the designated No.8 cover for the World Cup? Another flanker Eddie thought could do a job at 8. That’s the way those squads are picked. Versatility wins.
Is the No.8 position really all that specialised? New Zealand picked McCaw there without too much fuss, even though Messam has a greater history in the position.
Agree strongly on the point towards the end. We need a coach who picks the in form players in each position and not by what their name is or what they did 5 years previously. Some really shocking selections this last year.
It’s funny how your opinion of having position-specific selections was so close to what Deccie thought back in 2009. “Declan Kidney, said he would pick players that were performing well and pick them in the positions they normally play in and he has actually done so” http://www.rte.ie/sport/features/rugby/2009/0205/244623-george_hook_1/ (sorry for quoting an eejit like Hook but I can’t find the original quotes on this).
Even when the selection of Paddy Wallace was driving most of us all mad, he had a clearly thought through, effective selection policy which encouraged competition and rewarded form. 3 years on, as you’ve argued well, he’s clearly abandoned that policy and stuck with his favorites. He’d probably argue that it’s injuries that have forced so many out-of-position changes (Earls, McFadden, Court, O’Mahony et al.) but he’s had three years to prepare test-ready replacements in key positions and hasn’t done it.
“Victor Costello – Callsign “Burger” – Turns In His Wings: One Of You Two Jokers Is Going To Top Gun, The Other Is Flying Rubber Dogshit Out of Hong Kong”
-Possibly the coolest title/heading of all time, I tip my hat to you.
Mole, if I might be so bold as to “request” an essay, but I think Mike Ross deserves the full treatment, and I do recall you implying you’d look at him a few months ago.
Whats happening to parts 3 and 4 of this?
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