Game of Throw-ins Read online

  But I keep rolling the ball forward under my studs and we keep pushing them back and back and back. It’s going to happen. It has to happen. We’ve got the momentum. My head is down and I can see the line five yords in front of me.

  Con makes one last effort to hold us back. He’s a strong focker, in fairness to him.

  He’s going, ‘May there be guinea-fowl crying at the birth of your child!’ because I’m rubbing my chin against his cheek again and at the same time I’m going, ‘I’d say they’re lashing each other out of it, Con. They’ve been hord at it since they woke up this morning and they’ll be hord at it till they fall asleep tonight.’

  We move two more steps forward, then I reach down for the ball. Their tighthead makes a move to stop me, but he can’t, because I’m too focking quick for him. I pull the ball tight to my chest and I fall face-first over the line.

  The referee blows his whistle.

  Gilly and Dilly – our two locks – grab a hold of my shirt and they just lift me to my feet, then I end up getting just, like, mobbed by my teammates. They’re all, like, hugging me and telling me I’m a legend and calling me Rossi.

  Senny adds the points and there’s no way back for Highfield. We end up winning 13–0.

  To see our reaction at the final whistle, you’d swear we’d just gained promotion to Division 2A. We’re talking high-fives, we’re talking hugs, we’re talking chest-bumps. We even slide on our bellies through the mud, while the Highfield players end up having to drag Con off the pitch. He’s, like, totally lost it. He’s roaring curses at me, going, ‘May you have little for your skillet! May your obituary be written in weasel’s piss!! May the Lamb of God stir His hoof through the roof of Heaven and kick you in the arse down to Hell!’

  Bucky grabs me by the shoulders and goes, ‘A pushover try? We’ve never scored one before!’

  I’m there, ‘Hey, I sensed a weakness and I went for it.’

  ‘What were you saying to that dude? I couldn’t hear.’

  ‘Nothing. It was just a bit of old-fashioned what-we-used-to-call mind games.’

  The old man is shouting, ‘Highfield undone by a peerless display of old-school front-row play! As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be until the Coming of the Son of Man! Exclamation mark, new paragraph!’

  I give him a big smile and I mouth the words, ‘Shut the fock up, you big dick,’ at him.

  He smiles back.

  ‘Greatness has the quality of permanence!’ he goes. ‘Age shall not wither it, nor the years condemn it! Quote-unquote!’

  I slip into the dressing room. There’s no singing next door. No one’s banging on about the Lee. Instead, it’s suddenly us making all the noise?

  We’re giving it:

  Everywhere we go! (Everywhere we go!)

  People always ask us! (People always ask us!)

  Who we are! (Who we are!)

  And where do we come from? (And where do we come from?)

  And we tell them! (And we tell them!)

  We’re from Seapoint! (The mighty, mighty Seapoint!)

  And if they can’t find us! (And if they can’t find us!)

  It’s cos we’re in The Brack! (We play in Ballybrack!)

  It’s pretty heady stuff, it has to be said. But the best is yet to come. Byrom steps into the dressing room and Bucky shushes everyone to let him speak. But when the dude opens his mouth, he discovers that he can’t.

  He just goes, ‘Oy want to soy …’ and then he breaks down and everyone just cheers.

  Eventually, he gets his shit together and he goes, ‘Oy knoy ut’s oynloy one wun. But if we ploy loyk thut iveroy woyk between naah and the ind of the soyson, there usn’t a toym in the world who’ll boyt us.’

  5

  The Booby Trap

  The old dear decides to ring just as I’m getting out of the cor. ‘Not a good time,’ I go. ‘I’m back playing rugby. And Monday night is Strength and Conditioning night.’

  She just goes, ‘Well, keep Friday week free, Ross, because Ari and I are having a party to celebrate our engagement! It’s going to be here in the house.’

  I’m there, ‘Did you not just hear what I said? I played against Highfield last weekend and I was the main difference between the two teams. You can ask the old man.’

  She just goes, ‘Oh, well, how nice.’

  That’s an exact quote. She’s so wrapped up in herself, it’s unbelievable. I just hang up on her, grab my gear from the boot, then into the clubhouse I go.

  Most of the goys are already in the gym. The music is blasting out. It’s ‘Club Can’t Handle Me’ – fittingly enough.

  When the goys see me, they all stop warming up and they just stort clapping. It’s an incredible moment for me – a sign that I’ve finally been accepted into the team, having shown them what I can actually do.

  Bucky even goes, ‘Look, I’m sorry again, Rossi – for being a dick to you.’

  ‘If the roles were reversed,’ I go, ‘I probably would have been the same way. I mightn’t have screwed you over in terms of the lineout calls, but I might have taken a shit in one of your shoes.’

  This seems to shock him.

  ‘Seriously?’ he goes. ‘You’d have done a dump in one of my shoes?’

  It’s obviously not a thing anymore.

  I’m like, ‘Hey, it’s yet another example of how rugby has changed.’

  Whether it’s changed for the better or not, I don’t comment either way. I just leave it hanging in the air between us.

  He introduces me to the goys – except properly this time? – and also to the four or five I didn’t really meet the last day. Inside centre is Rob Fortune, outside centre is Johnny Bliss, right wing is Mark Dwyer, left wing is Frank Hugo and full-back is Ollie Lysaght.

  As we do our stretches, I’m listening to the banter between them and it reminds me so much of me and the goys back in the day. Johnny Bliss – or Blissy – is obviously the ladies’ man on the team. I suppose you could call him Seapoint’s me? He’s telling Ollie – as in, Ollie Lysaght – that he joined the UCD Students’ Union Campaign to Free Ibrahim Halawa, even though he hasn’t a clue who Ibrahim Halawa even is, and he morched on the Egyptian Embassy on Clyde Road, just so he could get close to Eabha MacAmhlaoibh, who’s apparently into the whole, like, Amnesty thing?

  He’s so like me, I end up having a little chuckle to myself. I morched on so many embassies with Sorcha, I’d be shocked if I’m not on an official Gorda list of shit-stirrers somewhere.

  Eabha MacAmhlaoibh is apparently hot. Except these goys don’t say ‘hot’, they say ‘wet’ – as in, ‘Eabha MacAmhlaoibh is wet, but her friend, Leesha Byrne – second-year Planning, Geography & Environment – is even wetter!’

  In my day, that would have meant they were a couple of focking knobs.

  And they don’t shout, ‘Affluence!’ like our generation did? They have their own equivalent, which I discover when Rob Fortune asks little Davy Dardis – in other words, Dordo – where his new girlfriend is actually from and Dordo makes the mistake of going, ‘Technically, Foxrock.’

  Rob is on it like an Easter Bonnet. He goes, ‘Technically, Foxrock? You mean Chavinteely?’

  And Dilly – one of our second rows – shouts, ‘Wealth gag!’

  When someone shouts, ‘Wealth gag!’ everyone has to stop whatever it is they’re doing – no excuses – and shout, ‘Wealth gag!’ before high-fiving every teammate who happens to be in the immediate vicinity.

  I go, ‘We used to shout, “Affluence!” – as in just, “Affluence!”’ and Bucky just nods and smiles patiently at me, like I do when Sorcha’s granny storts reminiscing about tuberculosis and the Latin Mass.

  It’s sad, of course, to see the old ways dying out, but every generation has its own thing. It’s called the circle of life. I decide to just go with it.

  So I go, ‘Wealth gag!’ along with all the others, then everyone in that dressing room gets a high-five from me.

  Suddenly, it’s time to
work. Derek Duddy, our Strength and Conditioning coach – the famous Dudser who I’ve heard a bit about – walks in. He’s supposedly a serious ball-buster. There’s no pleasantries. He’s like, ‘What the fock are you all sitting around gossiping for? It’s like a focking hockey dressing room in here!’

  We get down to business. The training ends up being unbelievably hord. Dudser is a seriously intense goy – ex-Ormy, apparently – and he drives us relentlessly. There’s a lot of work with, like, weights and kettlebells and blah, blah, blah, but it’s a lot more scientific than it was when I last played. We did a lot of work to build up our abs, pecs and biceps, whereas Dudser’s more into the idea of training movements rather than, like, muscles?

  We end up being divided into two groups – we’re talking backs, we’re talking forwards. The backs do their thing and we do ours, which involves using the weights to practise the basic movements you use in scrummaging, rucking and mauling – squat, bend, push, pull, twist and single leg.

  The penalty for slackers is the dreaded Three Minute Death Run – you have to sprint to Ballybrack Shopping Centre and back in 180 seconds. If you’re even a fraction of a second over, you have to do it again.

  Anyway, by the end of the session, I’m seriously focked, but at the same time – whether it’s a word or not – exhilarated?

  I grab a quick Jack Bauer. Bucky tells me that I put in one hell of a session and we talk about City of Derry, who we’re apparently playing at home on Saturday.

  ‘They’ve probably got the best pack in Division 2B,’ he goes. ‘They destroyed us earlier in the season. We’re talking, like, pure brute force. By the way, Rossi, what are you doing Wednesday night?’

  Sitting at home with my wife and kids is the answer. I don’t say that, though, because it’ll only make me sound old.

  Instead, I’m like, ‘Wednesday night? I don’t know. That remains to be seen.’

  ‘It’s just because Wednesday night is Cinema Night,’ he goes. ‘We all go as a team.’

  ‘Yeah, no, cool.’

  ‘We’re going to see Taken 3. Liam Neeson?’

  ‘Jesus, he’s done a third one, has he?’

  ‘They’re saying it’s the best of the trilogy.’

  ‘Well, I loved the other two, so I’m definitely in.’

  He says he’d better hit the road because he’s about to pull an all-nighter. He’s a got a Jurisprudence essay to write about the Prosecution of Twitter Trolls as an Example of how Societal Morals Shape Law. See, that’s another way in which young people have changed. I wouldn’t have bothered my hole writing – I would have told the lecturer to go fock himself.

  Like I said, rugby is a totally different game.

  It’s, like, Tuesday afternoon and I call in to see the old man – just, like, randomly. Like I said, he can be alright when he’s not trying too hord to be my bezzy mate.

  He opens the door and before I get a chance to even open my mouth, he goes, ‘Here he comes!’ at the top of his focking voice. ‘The man who revolutionized the way the outhalf position is played and is now rolling back the years as the spearhead of the Seapoint pack!’

  You could hear his focking voice at both ends of Ailesbury Road. Somehow, I manage to bite my tongue.

  I go, ‘Yeah, whatever – look, I just called in to say, you know, thanks for coming down to Cork to support me. It was good having you there.’

  He’s there, ‘It was just like old times, eh?’

  ‘Just keep a focking lid on it, will you? And keep your focking voice down as well.’

  ‘The only question for me now is do I call you Kicker or do I call you Hooker?’

  ‘Definitely don’t call me Hooker.’

  ‘Well, that’s the position in which you’re playing, Ross – the role in which you will soon no doubt be receiving mentions in dispatches!’

  ‘I’m serious – don’t call me Hooker.’

  ‘Righty-ho! We shall stick with Kicker, then!’

  There’s something different about him, even though I can’t quite put my finger on it.

  He goes, ‘I say, Ross, what are you doing now?’

  I’m there, ‘I’m standing on your doorstep wondering why the fock you haven’t asked me in.’

  ‘I was going to say I’ve got the famous Kennet inside. I was about to let him go for the day. What say, on his way home, I get him to drop the two of us into town? We could go to The Shelbourne. Order a bottle of something outrageously expensive to toast your comeback.’

  ‘I’ve got training tonight. But if you’re paying, I suppose I could have one or two.’

  So five minutes later, we’re in the back of the Merc. We’re on, like, Lower Leeson Street and I’m looking sideways at him. It’s, like, bothering me now?

  I’m there, ‘Okay, what is it? What’s different about you?’

  He laughs.

  He goes, ‘You’ve noticed, have you?’

  I’m like, ‘Yeah, but I don’t know what the fock it is – as in, I can’t put my actual finger on it? But you’re definitely different – somehow.’

  He goes, ‘Say nothing, Kennet! See how long it takes for Ross’s famous brain to work it out!’

  ‘Have you lost weight?’

  ‘No, no – it’s not that.’

  ‘Then you’ve put on weight. Yeah, no, that’s it – you’re definitely fatter.’

  ‘I’m the same weight now as I was twelve months ago.’

  I just stop guessing.

  The old man goes, ‘I’m sure the proverbial penny will what’s-it before too long!’

  Kennet catches my eye in the rearview mirror. He goes, ‘Meant to say f … f … feer fooks to you, Rosser. The rubby, Ine talking about. You p … p … p … p … playut veddy well, so you did.’

  I’m there, ‘You wouldn’t know the first focking thing about the game. But thanks for saying it anyway.’

  There’s a port of me that will never forgive Kennet for the way he treated Ronan.

  He pulls up outside The Shelly. Me and the old man get out of the cor.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not fatter?’ I go. ‘Your orse definitely looks fatter.’

  The old man goes, ‘Fourteen stone on the button! Same as I was a year ago! Keep guessing, Ross!’

  I don’t get a chance to, roysh, because the weirdest thing suddenly happens. The doorman sees the old man and his face lights up. He goes, ‘Oh, hello! It’s great to see you! Really great to see you!’

  The thing is, I always thought the staff in The Shelbourne thought my old man was a dick.

  ‘Thank you,’ the old man goes. ‘It’s very nice to see you, too.’

  We go through the revolving door, then into the No. 27 bor. The place is rammers. There must be, like, a conference on or some shit? One of the staff – a woman – comes up to us and goes, ‘Oh, hello! It’s lovely to see you! If you give me just one moment, I’ll find a table for you!’

  I turn to the old man and I go, ‘Why are they being so nice to you?’ and that’s when I all of a sudden cop it – as in, what’s actually different with him. ‘Oh my God,’ I hear myself go, ‘you’ve got hair!’

  He laughs. He’s there, ‘That’s right – I knew you’d get it in the end!’

  It’s obviously a wig. It has to be a wig because the focker is as bald as a cricket ball. ‘It’s focking incredible,’ I go, grabbing him by the shoulders and turning him around. ‘It doesn’t even look like a wig. I mean, that’s why it took so long for the penny to drop. It looks like actual hair. I’m trying to think of something negative to say, but I’m actually struggling here, in fairness to you.’

  He’s there, ‘That’s terribly kind of you, Ross.’

  ‘So where did you get it?’

  He goes, ‘Would you believe me if I told you I found it?’

  ‘Found it?’

  ‘Found it! Yesterday! In Helen’s attic! We were having a bit of a clear-out.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ I go, at the same time laughing. ‘You found a
wig in the attic and, what, you just put it on your focking head?’

  ‘Well, Helen thought it rather suited me. So I thought I’d wear it for the day – just to see who noticed.’

  ‘Whose wig even is it?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Helen thinks it may have been there since before she moved in. And that was almost thirty years ago.’

  ‘You look different with hair. Younger. No, not younger – more, I don’t know, important or something.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that, Ross. It really is the strangest thing. Since I put it on yesterday, people have been, well, different towards me.’

  ‘Different in what way?’

  ‘Well, you saw the reception we got when we walked in. It was all smiles and “Lovely to see you!” and “I’ll get you a table!” This morning, Kennet pulled into the Topaz on the Donnybrook Road to fill up the car. I got out to stretch my legs and pick up a copy of The Times. The next thing I knew, a chap had appeared on the forecourt – one of the staff. He said, “It’s great to see you!” and he started filling up the tank for us.’

  ‘Random.’

  ‘Oh, that’s the word for it alright! Random! It’s the strangest bloody thing. Since I put this thing on my head, the world suddenly seems like, well, a more accommodating place.’

  He storts to touch it then – as in, sort of, like, patting it down with his hands. The woman who promised to find us a table signals to us from the other side of the bor. She’s got one for us. So we tip over to her. And that’s when some dude I’ve never seen before steps up to the old man and thrusts out his hand.

  ‘Put it there!’ the dude goes. He’s, like, my age, except dressed in a suit.

  The old man takes a step backwards. He automatically assumes that a stranger in a suit sticking out his hand and smiling is about to serve him a writ.

  That’s what a guilty conscience will do for you.

  ‘People say a lot of things about you,’ the dude goes, ‘but I just wanted to say, thank you for bringing Johnny Sexton home.’

  ‘Oh!’ the old man goes. ‘Yes! Oh, that’s quite alright! It was my pleasure, in fact!’