Book description
Hear the story of the rise of one of Irish rugby's great outsiders
and, ultimately, his crushing fall.
As the longest-serving national coach in Irish rugby history, Eddie
O'Sullivan produced a team that rose to third in the world rankings
and laid down the standards for the team to fulfil its Grand Slam
potential. Added to the three Triple Crowns he won in his six-year
reign and the Corkman ought to enjoy legendary status in his homeland.
Yet, few figures in Irish sport divide opinion quite like
O'Sullivan. Ireland's abject performance at the '07 World Cup in
France prompted extraordinary levels of criticism and precipitated
O'Sullivan's fall.
Here O'Sullivan talks candidly of the spectacular unravelling of
confidence within probably the best Irish team in history; of the
bizarre rumour mill that followed the Irish team through that World
Cup; and takes us behind the scenes of a story that tossed an entire
nation into mourning.
From his relationships with his successor as Irish coach, Declan
Kidney, and indeed his predecessor, Warren Gatland, to his early
struggle for recognition in the Irish game when the absence of a
traditional rugby background militated against him, O'Sullivan pulls
no punches in this revelatory story about far more than rugby.
Eddie O'Sullivan is a former PE teacher who took an unorthodox
route up the coaching ladder. O'Sullivan's first success was to
deliver a national under-15 basketball crown to a small convent in Co.
Galway. Now 50, he lives in Moylough, Co. Galway with his wife,
Noreen, and children, Katie and Barry.
Vincent Hogan is the Chief Sports Feature Writer of the
Irish Independent. A former 'Sportswriter of the Year', his
autobiography of Paul McGrath, Back from the Brink, won all
three Irish Sports Book of the Year awards in 2006 and was voted
'Autobiography of the Year' at the British Sports Book awards.
