who sealed it by kicking a winning penalty in the dying seconds of the match. Just moments before that penalty was awarded it looked as if Eliot’s line –
In my beginning is my end
– would have a purely negative resonance for Wales, rather than the positive one it does today. A dead leg meant Sam Warburton didn’t come back in the second half, leaving Ryan Jones to step into the breach as captain. Bradley Davies’s sixty-fourth-minute sin-binning for dropping his opposite number in an off-the-ball tussle not only evoked the spectre of Sam’s World Cup red card, but once again reduced the team to fourteen men. With only four minutes of the match remaining, George North resurrected Welsh hopes by bowling over two Irish defenders to score in the corner. But then Leigh, having taken over kicking duties from Rhys Priestland, missed the conversion, leaving the scoreline of Ireland 21 – Wales 20 also looking like the final result.
But then, as if the gods of rugby were possessed of a perverted love of symmetry, another tip tackle, this time by Ireland’s Stephen Ferris on Ian ‘Ianto’ Evans, opened up a last window of opportunity for Wales, acknowledged by Ianto’s grateful ruffle of Ferris’s skullcap as he got back to his feet. The penalty was thirty-five metresout and just to the right of the Irish posts. Ryan asked the referee, Wayne Barnes, how much time was left on the clock. His answer was picked up by the TV mikes and broadcast around the world. ‘Five zero,’ Barnes said. ‘Fifty seconds.’
As Leigh angled the ball onto the kicking tee he found himself in the same position as in the final minutes against France at the World Cup in New Zealand: just five steps and one kick from victory or defeat, success or failure, wedding or funeral. Had Wales’s World Cup experience made them weaker or stronger? Could Leigh, with one kick, help Wales come true on the promise they’d shown?
When Leigh had missed that kick in Eden Park, his grandfather, the man who’d first taken him to practise in Gorseinon when he was nine, had been watching from half a world away. For this kick in Dublin he was watching again, but this time from within the stands of the same ground, feeling the Aviva’s part-arena, part-conservatory atmosphere draw in tight as his grandson stood up from the kicking tee, stabbed the turf with the toe of each boot and began stepping backwards from the ball.
The voice of the crowd fell. A few isolated boos and jeers resounded against the stadium’s glass waves, but most of the 55,000 spectators just watched, silent and tense. The last eighty minutes had taken their toll on everyone. Once in position Leigh took a deep breath, hishands swinging at his sides, and looked up at the posts. The noise of the crowd was building again. Whistles, shouts, jeers. The Irish players were lined up under the crossbar, steam rising from their shoulders. His Welsh teammates were standing down the field behind him, their chests rising and falling with heavy breaths. Closer to him, a few metres off his right shoulder, stood Jenks, quietly reciting the same liturgy of technique that he repeats for every kick Leigh takes.
‘Keep upright.’
‘Not too fast.’
‘Make good contact.’
‘Follow through.’
Listening to Jenks’s voice, Leigh looked down at the ball and located his point of contact. Ever since the kick he’d missed in the semi-final of the World Cup he’d thought about this moment. And every time he had, he’d made the same promise to himself. A promise that if he was ever given the opportunity to kick a winning goal for Wales again, he’d nail it. That he wouldn’t ever let what happened at the World Cup happen again. That there was no way he would let the ball fall short. That he wouldn’t just kick it, but would kick it as hard as he could.
Taking another deep breath Leigh stared down at the ball, Jenks’s voice becoming ever more distant as he tipped his weight forward and began his
In my beginning is my end
– would have a purely negative resonance for Wales, rather than the positive one it does today. A dead leg meant Sam Warburton didn’t come back in the second half, leaving Ryan Jones to step into the breach as captain. Bradley Davies’s sixty-fourth-minute sin-binning for dropping his opposite number in an off-the-ball tussle not only evoked the spectre of Sam’s World Cup red card, but once again reduced the team to fourteen men. With only four minutes of the match remaining, George North resurrected Welsh hopes by bowling over two Irish defenders to score in the corner. But then Leigh, having taken over kicking duties from Rhys Priestland, missed the conversion, leaving the scoreline of Ireland 21 – Wales 20 also looking like the final result.
But then, as if the gods of rugby were possessed of a perverted love of symmetry, another tip tackle, this time by Ireland’s Stephen Ferris on Ian ‘Ianto’ Evans, opened up a last window of opportunity for Wales, acknowledged by Ianto’s grateful ruffle of Ferris’s skullcap as he got back to his feet. The penalty was thirty-five metresout and just to the right of the Irish posts. Ryan asked the referee, Wayne Barnes, how much time was left on the clock. His answer was picked up by the TV mikes and broadcast around the world. ‘Five zero,’ Barnes said. ‘Fifty seconds.’
As Leigh angled the ball onto the kicking tee he found himself in the same position as in the final minutes against France at the World Cup in New Zealand: just five steps and one kick from victory or defeat, success or failure, wedding or funeral. Had Wales’s World Cup experience made them weaker or stronger? Could Leigh, with one kick, help Wales come true on the promise they’d shown?
When Leigh had missed that kick in Eden Park, his grandfather, the man who’d first taken him to practise in Gorseinon when he was nine, had been watching from half a world away. For this kick in Dublin he was watching again, but this time from within the stands of the same ground, feeling the Aviva’s part-arena, part-conservatory atmosphere draw in tight as his grandson stood up from the kicking tee, stabbed the turf with the toe of each boot and began stepping backwards from the ball.
The voice of the crowd fell. A few isolated boos and jeers resounded against the stadium’s glass waves, but most of the 55,000 spectators just watched, silent and tense. The last eighty minutes had taken their toll on everyone. Once in position Leigh took a deep breath, hishands swinging at his sides, and looked up at the posts. The noise of the crowd was building again. Whistles, shouts, jeers. The Irish players were lined up under the crossbar, steam rising from their shoulders. His Welsh teammates were standing down the field behind him, their chests rising and falling with heavy breaths. Closer to him, a few metres off his right shoulder, stood Jenks, quietly reciting the same liturgy of technique that he repeats for every kick Leigh takes.
‘Keep upright.’
‘Not too fast.’
‘Make good contact.’
‘Follow through.’
Listening to Jenks’s voice, Leigh looked down at the ball and located his point of contact. Ever since the kick he’d missed in the semi-final of the World Cup he’d thought about this moment. And every time he had, he’d made the same promise to himself. A promise that if he was ever given the opportunity to kick a winning goal for Wales again, he’d nail it. That he wouldn’t ever let what happened at the World Cup happen again. That there was no way he would let the ball fall short. That he wouldn’t just kick it, but would kick it as hard as he could.
Taking another deep breath Leigh stared down at the ball, Jenks’s voice becoming ever more distant as he tipped his weight forward and began his
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