Ulster Rugby vs Connacht & Munster

He remembers that Mark McCall and Matt Williams, when in charge, often asked him to say a few words. “They’ve got to be right, not just the musings of an ex-player whose own time has gone. Sometimes I felt that the group needed to be reminded what a privilege it was to wear that shirt, to play for Ulster and for those fans,” he recalls. His highlight reel starts, as it should, with that European Cup win in 1999, when Harry Williams fashioned a small core of first-time professionals and gifted part-timers into a side which left incredible memories and set the gold standard. “With Mark we won the Celtic League with David Humphreys dropping a late, late goal at the Ospreys, and with Alan Solomons we won the Celtic Cup on a wet, windy Murrayfield night,” says Irwin, but he clearly regrets there hasn’t been more silverware and thinks that there have been seasons when the squad had the potential and ability to lift trophies. He has a particular fondness for what Brian McLaughlin’s unfancied young team achieved in reaching the European Cup Final at Twickenham in 2012, but one game in a season where he felt the biggest prize was within reach, the team well-balanced and ready. “In 2014 we had Saracens at home in the quarter-final, then Jared Payne was sent off by Jerome Garces after an aerial clash with Andy Goode. Today Jared would have stayed on. The frustration was that with 14 men, in the dying minutes we were two points adrift and camped in Sarries’ ‘22’. “Then the referee called another penalty, and – like the crowd, the side, the coaches – I felt robbed. Not for myself, but for the squad that year, the best we’d assembled in years.” Irwin hopes tangible reward is not far away, and though he’s agreed to take on an occasional impartial medical side-line role hell want an Ulster win. Some of those who played with him and were in the sides he looked after as a doctor tell many a tale of the ‘edge’ ‘The Doc’ always sought for his club. Ireland centre Phil Danaher recalls an Irish Trial in Dublin where ‘the lights went out’ after collecting Irwin and, alas, not the ball!

but that doesn’t tell the story of fascinating, compelling Test matches where no quarter was asked nor given. Right up the good doctor’s street! David played in three of the Tests, and the Ireland jersey was donned right up to 1990 when he, his old comrades-in-arms Willie Anderson and Jimmy McCoy decided to retire. He doesn’t deny that it was difficult to walk away, but he’d had 11 fine years at the top of his sport and, in truth, those ‘niggles’ which once could have been ignored were beginning to interrupt his training and threaten his own high playing standards. A demanding general practice might have signalled something of a break from Ulster, but “I was asked in an ad hoc sort of way” if he could fill in as team doctor, so seamlessly his time in the dressing room and on the pitch continued! An excellent medic he believes that a player’s welfare always came first, even if a result was at stake. Yes, mend what can be mended, strap what needs strapped, but never risk further damage. David Irwin makes no ‘bones’ (sic) about the clear and obvious fact that he is an Ulster fan, that being part of the team and feeling able to bring some of his experience, some of his passion, into the side has been important for him.

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