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  So we ran ‘S’ and Campo came back in as he was supposed to, but he didn’t get very far before getting caught. He was normally like most backs: he would get caught in amongst the forwards and then would get himself out of there. But if you watch a replay, Campo actually stayed in there. He was pulling towards the Irish goal line—‘Come on, push!’ with Simon Poidevin latched onto him.

  It seemed to be an important barometer. I thought, ‘Shit, if he was listening, everybody was.’ We got the put-in to the scrum on the left-hand side of the field and Timmy came up to me and said, ‘Drop goal?’ I immediately said ‘No.’ A drop goal would have given us a draw, and what I didn’t know at the time was that a draw would have got us through on a try count. I thought the match would go into extra time. I said, ‘We’re going to do this’, and Timmy didn’t even question me. I had a very clear plan in my head. We just had to execute it. Timmy just said ‘Okay’ and trotted back. He believed in me. They all believed in me.

  BOB DWYER: Michael’s leadership skills rocketed to the forefront. For me it’s his true single moment of absolute greatness. He took control of the situation and led the other fourteen guys: ‘You do this; you do that. Finished.’ And he did it. From the leadership angle, and we’ll never be overplaying it, it was the defining moment in his career. It was made even more amazing by the fact that, because he’s modest and self-effacing, he’s not really a natural leader. He gets cross, but it’s how that anger comes across that defines leadership. I don’t know how to say this nicely, but sometimes he just has the shits and that doesn’t always come across positively. But on this occasion he led the team out of defeat. I can’t speak more highly of it. I thought about it afterwards and said to myself, ‘If he had gone on to the field as captain, would the result have been the same?’ Or was it the demands of the situation at that moment that excluded negative thoughts from his mind at that time? When he was put in a crisis, his leadership came out.

  All week we’d been looking at the Irish midfield to see exactly how they defended, what the patterns were. We came up with a move to take advantage of that and it had worked all the way through the game. ‘Working’ hadn’t always turned into tries, of course, but we’d always made ground and made breaks. There was always some kind of progress. In my mind, it didn’t matter what stage of the game it was. It would have been easy to panic and reach for something ambitious that we hadn’t rehearsed. But this was the move we’d practised and this was what we were going to do.

  The scrum was good. Solid. We got the ball and off we went.

  The move worked well until Brendan Mullin tackled Jason from behind. The move involved Timmy missing Jason to pass to Marty Roebuck, and then Jason would loop around Marty into the open. That was the theory.

  But Brendan Mullin must have worked the move out. He saw it coming. He defended in the way we expected at the outset, but then he somehow managed to follow Jason and run him down from behind, almost before he got the ball. Instead of making ground Jason just managed to unload to Campo, who by that time had a little bit of space. Nine times out of ten in situations like that, he scores. But somehow the Irish managed to pull him down. My role was to just be there, supporting, and I was there, just like I had been throughout that game and in most other games. Then, when Campo threw one of his better passes—in other words he rolled it along the ground—I picked it up and dived over in the tackle. We’d made it.

  I heard the whistle go and all our guys were yelling and screaming. And then there was deathly silence. I thought, ‘Something’s wrong. What’s happened?’ Then I realised what had happened. We had destroyed the hopes of a nation.

  Then I had to walk back and take the kick at goal. It didn’t matter; we were going to win the game. I was physically and mentally exhausted. Jim Fleming came over and said, ‘Can you hurry up?’ I said, ‘Mate, I can hardly lift my legs, let alone kick.’

  My enduring memory of the dressing room afterwards is how incredibly ecstatic Nick and Bob Dwyer were. I’d never seen them so emotional. Up in the stands, they must have been thinking, ‘We’re out. We’re going home,’ and the worst part of it was that there was absolutely nothing they could do about it.

  BOB DWYER: When Michael came off he was absolutely bubbling. He was like a six-year-old kid on Christmas morning. He was so excited that he was shaking and the words were pouring out of his mouth. It was fantastic and I’d never seen him like that coming off the footie field.

  I was obviously elated, but I was also pragmatic. I just thought, ‘That’s what needed to be done’—and the team responded magnificently. There was never a question asked—they just did the job. That’s the sign of a great team. Whenever I stand up and talk in a business setting, and I don’t do it too often, I sometimes refer to Dublin as a blueprint of how to approach an extremely testing situation—in life, as well as rugby. You prepare as best you can and then, when it matters, under pressure, that preparation pays off when your team delivers. It’s a wonderful example of achieving a pre-determined goal.

  I’m incredibly proud of those four minutes, not just because we won the game and eventually won the tournament. What excites me more about it is that I was able to come up with a plan and clearly transmit that information to the team—‘If we win, we win. If we don’t, we don’t. But this is the move we’ve practised. Let’s execute it.’ And we did.

  As a player, that was the pinnacle passage of play of my entire career right there. I’m in charge and then, in the midst of all that pressure and mayhem, with an entire nation against us, I’m able to come up with a clear plan, articulate it then produce it—it just doesn’t get any better.

  The fact that I scored the winning try was irrelevant; it just happened to be me. It could have been anybody; I’d still feel the same pride about what I did that day. The game for me was all about the decisions, the planning and the final execution. This’ll sound strange, maybe, but as a single moment, it eclipsed beating England in the final. Even now, the whole of Ireland remembers it. I still get messages on Twitter about it, people saying, ‘Damn you, Michael Lynagh! I’ll never forget that try’, accompanied by an image of me going over in the corner. It’s always good-natured stuff; that’s how the Irish are. It’s just that most Irish people who saw the game remember exactly where they were when I scored the try. And Gordon Hamilton and I are forever linked. It became for many Irish the Gordon Hamilton/Michael Lynagh game.

  YOU’D THINK THAT PICKING myself up for a game against New Zealand in the semis would have been difficult after that. Honestly, it wasn’t at all. If anything, the resolve we’d drawn from pulling the Ireland win out in the dying seconds only reinforced my feeling that we needed to go on and make it really mean something by winning the World Cup. I’m not saying that not winning the World Cup would have rendered Dublin meaningless, not at all. But I knew that chances to win the World Cup don’t come along very often so you’ve got to grab them when they do.

  BOB DWYER: It’s hard to say whether the Ireland game was what won us the World Cup, but what I can say with absolute certainty is that, if we hadn’t beaten Ireland, we definitely wouldn’t have done it! A lot of good judges said, ‘The Wallabies are now favourites. Any team that can get themselves out of a situation in the manner in which they did has got all the answers.’ The Irish press definitely followed that line.

  So we were motivated for it. It wasn’t a difficult situation to assess either. Both teams knew that whoever won it would be favourites to win the World Cup. The All Blacks, as they normally are, were pretty confident. They were almost dismissive in a ‘Well, we’re the best team, get out of our way’ type of way. It was a great attitude to have. It’s an aura and they bank on that. Whether that ever translated into complacency, I don’t know. It could also be that the ’91 All Black team was simply at the end of a great cycle for them. That happens to all winning teams.

  Before we played them, though, we all needed time to recharge the batteries a bit and Ireland’s an ideal spot to do i
t. Some guys went on tours around Dublin; Nick and I and a few of the others went for some golf at Portmarnock, on the coast. It really is a beautiful part of the world and the Irish people were now on our side. Instead of siding with the All Blacks, they almost seemed to take a ‘Well, we almost beat you so we’re now on your side’ stance when it came to the semi-final. That made a massive difference. Also, unlike the All Blacks, who made themselves pretty unapproachable to the public during that week, we were the opposite. We’d be out walking in Dublin, talking to the fans and signing autographs. It all helped sway the locals in our favour.

  As it happened, the first half against New Zealand in the semi was maybe the best half of rugby I was ever part of for Australia. As someone who was in that ’86 Bledisloe Cup team, that’s really saying something. We just blew them away. Campo, in particular, was absolutely terrific. Then, in the second half, when they threw the kitchen sink at us, as we fully expected them to, it was just a matter of holding on. All hands on deck.

  There was a moment in the second half when their big second-rower Gary Whetton made a break down the right-hand side. As usual, I was coming across in cover. It was me and him. If I missed the tackle, he scored. Gary was a big guy and very quick for his size and had about thirty metres of build-up on me. I just remember grabbing him around one leg, holding on and dragging him into touch. I thought to myself, ‘There you go—that wasn’t a bad tackle.’

  ALL I REMEMBER ABOUT the build-up to the final at Twickenham was that I was terribly nervous. As usual, I wasn’t remotely concerned about the playing aspect—the decision-making, the collisions or the tactics. It was the goal-kicking that was making me feel physically sick.

  I went down to Twickenham the day before the final to do some kicking practice. Alone. As I walked back to my mark each time, I looked at the posts at each corner of the ground at pitch level. One would be pointing this way, and the one on the other side would be pointing that way. You’d feel the wind in front of you, but when you looked at these posts, they were going in different directions.

  In those days Twickenham wasn’t completely enclosed. There were gaps at the corners. So when you kicked, it felt like the wind was going one way, but actually it was doing the exact opposite. I worked out that the wind would enter the stadium at a corner and then bounce off the stands and come back at you. It took ages to figure it out, and the way I finally did it was by looking right up on top of the stand at where the flags were flying. They were all going the same way. That was the true direction of the wind and you had to trust that completely, regardless of what it felt like.

  GRANT FOX: One of the hardest disciplines in goal-kicking is to trust what you actually know, even if it’s exactly the opposite of what you feel. I’ve stood in front of countless kicks at Eden Park where it feels like the wind is coming from the left. The logical response to that would be to aim a little left to compensate. But I knew that the wind was actually from the right and really I had to be aiming right. There’s such a conflict there. But you have to trust what you actually know.

  Even though I felt I’d learned a few things about Twickenham, I was terribly nervous that night. It had become a habit for me to lie in bed the night before big games, mentally rehearsing my kicks. I used it as a means of falling asleep. I’d gone from the fifteen-metre line on one side, to the fifteen-metre line on the other side when I was practising. Then I’d done the same at the other end. To the point that, by the time I was rehearsing it in my mind, I knew exactly what the signage was, the colour of the dot in the middle of the sign, the colour of the flags and where they were blowing. It was very detailed in my mind. I’d compare it to counting sheep as a way to fall asleep. It relaxed me and stopped me worrying about wider issues like: ‘How’s it going to go tomorrow?’

  The team was based at a hotel out in Weybridge called Oatlands Park. I liked getting up and going for a walk in the morning before most big games. Sometimes I’d try to have a bit of a kick. I found an area of ground near the hotel so I went there alone the morning of the final for a bit with a ball. There were no posts or anything, just this open piece of ground. Every time I kicked the ball, I’d have to go and chase after it. I felt a little silly. Then I noticed this nearby hill that sloped down to a creek. It wasn’t far away. I thought, ‘That’s the idea. I’ll go down to the bottom, kick it up and it’ll just roll back down the hill to me.’ So that’s what I did.

  On the bus on the way to the ground I went through the whole series of mental rehearsals again. It was my way of dealing with the nerves. The result was that when I actually got there in the match situation, I’d kicked that goal already. I’d physically done it the day before and I’d done it ten times mentally. I’d been there. There could be no surprises.

  So when I was awarded a kick in the match—one that was way out on the touchline—I didn’t panic. I just thought, ‘This is fine. I’ve kicked it already.’ I had, and I slotted it in at a very important stage of the game. I kicked the majority of my goals that day because of what I’d learned about the wind the day before. If I hadn’t practised, I probably would have missed them all. On that occasion I executed when it mattered and we went on to win the World Cup.

  Interestingly, I’ve never actually watched that entire 1991 final. I’ve seen highlights, but never the whole game. My father was over staying with us in April of 2015 and I thought that it might be really nice for all of us—three generations of Lynaghs—to sit and watch a recording that I’d made earlier from an ESPN rerun. What surprised me was that, early in the game, we were awarded a penalty. It wasn’t far out and it was reasonably straight. As the kids were watching with me they said, ‘Oh Dad, you’d better get this one . . .’ I didn’t even come close to getting it. I didn’t just miss it; I missed it by miles. The commentator said something like, ‘Even Lynagh must be feeling the pressure.’ I have no recollection of the kick at all. All I remember are the harder ones I kicked at important moments in the game.

  EIGHT

  GIULIANO’S DAUGHTER

  I’D HAD SEVERAL APPROACHES from Italian clubs over the years and I’d always politely declined—just said, ‘No thanks.’

  The timing had never felt right, usually for the same two reasons. First, I wanted to play for Queensland and Australia and had no desire to jeopardise that in any way by being detached from that scene. Secondly, in managing the Queensland office of the New Zealand-based property investment group Robert Jones Investments, I had a job that I was happy with and didn’t want to jeopardise that either. I thought, ‘Life’s good—no need to change things too much.’

  The thing that changed my mind back in 1991—when I was approached by the guys from Benetton Treviso—was that I’d realised that, while I’d enjoyed every aspect of my life, I couldn’t ignore the fact that I’d been doing the same things, running around the same paddocks, playing for the same teams, for ten years. There was nothing negative about arriving at that conclusion; it was just one of those moments when you know that you’re standing at a fork in the road—one that says, in bold letters: ‘Maybe there’s more to life?’

  With hindsight, knowing that going to Italy completely changed my world, I’m glad I was smart enough to recognise what I was being presented with at the time. Even as a young man I always tried to take a breath and allow these realisations to sink in. Then, when I’d done that and weighed up the various options available to me, I made a decision and lived with it.

  With that in mind, I decided that 1991 was a logical point in my career to take six months out to do something completely different. It seemed right to break the cycle. In those days, with professional rugby still a few years down the line, the inducement to play overseas was not financial, but simply the challenge of playing rugby and living in another country.

  Fortunately, that inducement was worth something to me. I like travelling and experiencing new cultures, and touring with Australia had taught me a lot about that. But in a tour party you’re in a controlled environment. A
nd it’s a good one: you’re representing your country with a great bunch of rugby players who are also your friends—each of you with a whole raft of common values to uphold. The green and gold meant something when we travelled in a group. But playing club rugby abroad meant something different. This time it was about me, and my opportunities to explore the world. Hopefully, Australia would still be there whenever I went back and would welcome me. Saying that, the decision to go to Italy was still not an easy one to make.

  But it all aligned in April of 1991. While I was playing in the Hong Kong Sevens, Fabrizio Gaetaniello, the director of rugby at Treviso, and Amerino Zatta, a senior figure in Benetton, flew out to meet me and it was then that I decided to make the move—to commit to this new challenge. I suppose I’d already decided that after the World Cup in October could be the right time to go and spend six months in Italy. Obviously I didn’t know then that we’d go on and win the World Cup, but my decision honestly wouldn’t have changed either way. If anything, winning only reinforced my sense that one part of my life was drawing to a close and another exciting phase was about to begin.

  A conversation with my boss, Robert Jones, confirmed that I was making the right decision, because when I went in to his office to discuss the plan he said: ‘If you don’t go, I’m going!’ Then he added: ‘And by the way, when you come back I’d like you to work with me in Sydney.’ So I actually got promoted at the same time as telling him I was leaving for a while. Not every day is as good as that one!

  Instead of being a complete step into the unknown, it initially seemed as if there was a comforting degree of familiarity about moving to Italy. I’d been to Treviso while on tour with Queensland in 1986 and thought I knew exactly what I was getting into. By any standards it was a picture-postcard town and the facilities from a rugby perspective were outstanding: a state-of-the-art gym, restaurant and golf driving range, for starters. So just two weeks after we’d won a World Cup at Twickenham for Australia, there I was, playing in my first game for Treviso at L’Aquila, an eight-hour bus journey away and the venue at which I’d made my Wallaby debut in 1983 against the Italy A side.