Jack Leahy – Sports Editor
In a survey carried out by UT Sports, Trinity students showed their national pride in predicting that Ireland will win this year’s RBS 6 Nations Championship.
38.2% of the 110 students surveyed predicted that Declan Kidney’s men would top the table, despite a poor run of form in the recent Autumn Internationals series fixtures against South Africa, Argentina, New Zealand, and South Africa.
In defiance of the anti-French sentiment which exploded onto the Irish sporting scene in Paris in November 2009, 32.7% make Marc Lieveremont’s Bleus the most likely challengers, with the Welsh a distant third favourite of Trinity students on 18%. England, Scotland, and Italy round off Trinity’s predicted table, with the latter two only polling a single vote each.
When asked about Ireland’s chances of winning back the Grand Slam, Trinity students reclaimed their place on the metaphorical fence, with 59.3% rating our chances as ‘decent’, with an unconvincing 11.1% choosing ‘strong’ and a melancholic 29.6% opting for ‘non-existent’. Come on boys and girls, where is Trinity’s well-known nationalistic enthusiasm? Summing up Trinity’s lack of confidence in Ireland’s Grand Slam hopes, one student commented ‘We have the kind of team who can go on to win the Championship, but we’re in the kind of form that suggests that we could be vulnerabe to France and England, even of they do have to come to Dublin’.
Staying true to their Leinster heritage, an overwhelming 78.8% of students surveyed declared their preference for Johnny Sexton to wear number 10 ahead of his provincial rival Ronan O’Gara. Declan Kidney seems far less decisive on the matter, struggling to choose between the ageing, experienced and once invincible O’ Gara and Sexton’s playmaking prowess which offers less in terms of place-kicking.
In the poll’s final question, 60% of the 100 students who answered would back a fit-again Tomás O’ Leary to regain his number 9 shirt for the series, with the remaining 40% bidding Peter Stringer to cotinue a remarkable return from the international scrap-heap. Stringer has played second-fiddle to Ó Leary when both are fit, but the Autumn Internationals showed that ‘Strings’ will never be far from the hearts and minds of Irish rugby.
