Spectacular drop goals, one handed pick-up tries, interfering parents and a knockout punch on the detestable Chris Ashton, it was an eventuful 2011 on the rugby field.
5. Cian Healy sticks it to Quade Cooper
The Rugby World Cup wasn’t such a happy hunting ground for enigmatic Wallaby out-half Quade Cooper and with the mood Ireland were in when they squared up to the Aussies in Auckland, he was never going to be spared.
Lining him up from way off, Healy hit him hard and he hit him clean and Sam Warburton should take note of the way Healy grounded Cooper safely after he had uprooted him towards the skies in the first place.
Cooper wasn’t seen much in the game after that and it was little wonder. After all, he had just got churched, proper churched.
4. Stop, or Imanol Harinordoquy’s Dad will shoot
Well, he won’t shoot, but he’ll certainly throw a few shapes in order to protect his 31 year old, previously known as one of the toughest operators in world rugby, but now just a sissy.
It wasn’t his fault in fairness. His Papa didn’t like what Bayonne’s Jean-Jo Marmouyet was doing to his young fella, ran on to the pitch in an attempt to sort him out and would have taken a beating from Benjamin Boyet were it not for the intervention of Harinordoquy’s team mate, Benoit August.
Overbearing fathers, eh? What are you gonna do?
3. Chris Ashton gets Tuilagi-ed
It’s not the first time we’ve had this video on the site and in all honesty, it probably won’t be the last. When playing against Leicester earlier in the year, Chris Ashton learned a timely lesson: Don’t piss off a Tuilagi, even if he is an England team-mate.
Chris and Manu went to the pictures to kiss and make up, but then Ashton had to go and get his brother all annoyed a few weeks back when he went and pulled Alesana’s dreadlocks in yet another ill-tempered clash between the Tigers and the Saints. The conclusion we’ve reached is that Ashton is not such a likeable bloke and we can’t imagine we were the only ones that would have liked to have delivered the right hook captured in the clip above.
2. The best one-handed pick up try we’ve ever seen
It might be rugby league, but a clash of codes is absolutely no reason to ignore this piece of genius. We can only assume that David Mead from the Gold Coast Titans had glue on his hands because that’s the only way he could have managed to pick up this bouncing ball, which is oval after all.
And it was right by the corner flag as well to make it even more dramatic. Take a bow, Mr Mead.
1. 41 phases, one spectacular drop goal
There may come a time in the future when Ronan O’Gara will actually fail in one of these last-gasp, pressure cooker situations and we’ll all react with outrage because we’re just so used to having it the other way around.
Ireland rugby followers needed a pick-me up after the World Cup anti-climax and boy, did O’Gara provide it against Northampton at Thomond Park. The sheer drama, the sheer emotion of the occasion, it’s what the Heineken Cup is all about. There’s no better competition than it in rugby and possibly, in sport and there have been few who have contributed as much to the tournament as the Munster and Ireland out-half.
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