PearlyBooks

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Here, for the first time, the longest-serving national coach in Irish rugby history, Eddie O'Sullivan, talks of the spectacular unraveling of confidence within probably the best Irish team in history and the vitriol it decanted. He talks candidly of the bizarre rumor mill that followed the Irish team through the World Cup tournament and takes us behind the scenes of a story that tossed an entire nation into mourning. O'Sullivan writes with surprising candor about his relationships with his successor as Irish coach, Declan Kidney, and his predecessor, Warren Gatland. He describes his early struggle for recognition in the Irish game when the absence of a traditional rugby background militated against him. Flying in the face of many stubborn preconceptions, O'Sullivan's writing pulls no punches on the people he rates in rugby and the people he doesn't. Here is the story of the rise of one of Irish rugby's great outsiders and, ultimately, his crushing fall.