Irish-born A.J. McGinty makes a move for the USA Eagles at Red Bull Arena last Saturday. Inpho/Ryan Byrne.
By Ray O’Hanlon
At the end of it the party picked up where it began, in the parking lot outside Red Bull Arena.
Actually, to describe it as a parking lot would be a bit of a stretch.
It was a vacant lot in a corner of New Jersey that was well, vacant, until somebody decided to build a temple to soccer and fill it with a Major League Soccer team.
On Saturday afternoon last, the round ball game ceded the sward to the oval ball game as Ireland lined out against the United States Eagles, the national rugby side which represents their country - unbeknownst to most of their countrymen and countrywomen.
But well known for sure to the thousands of Eagles fans who turned up and blended with their Irish counterparts in a sun splashed crucible where, it has to be said, there are no bad seats but some, the ones in the shade, are better when the mercury is flirting with ninety.
The capacity of Red Bull Arena is 25,000 give or take and there were over 22,000 cheering and singing rugby fans on hand for a game that Ireland were always going to win, and did, though perhaps with a little help from their hosts who presented more than one opportunity to the Ireland XV by way of unforced errors.
This was not a full strength Irish side, some of the first team regulars being away in New Zealand with the touring British and Irish Lions.
But there was a sufficiently experienced squad on hand to carry the day 55-19 - that tally including nine tries to the Eagles’ three.
Winger Keith Earls was a standout for the Irish while another Irishman, A.J. McGinty was also a player to watch.
McGinty, however, was playing for the Eagles, at out-half.
The peripatetic Dubliner is something of a poster boy for the modern professional game.
He learned his rugby at Blackrock College in Dublin, has starred for Connacht, and is currently on the roster of the English premiership side, Sale Sharks.
He qualifies for the U.S. side by way of residency rules.
McGinty was prominent for the Eagles who, with a little tightening up, could have notched up at least one more try.
On a better day for the hosts the score might have been Ireland in the forties, USA in the twenties.
The actual margin suggested something of a rout and that might be a tad unfair to the Americans whose fans kept singing and chanting regardless.
And the singing and chanting didn’t end with the final whistle.
It flowed out of Red Bull Arena and back into the parking lot where tailgate parties offered up everything from Reggae to Ceili and, in one corner, a band of Irish and American rugby brothers belting out “The Fields of Athenry.”
It was far from Athenry, and, barring the Red Bull pitch, far from anything that remotely resembled a field.
But nobody cared.
On a warm early summer’s evening, battle had been fairly joined and fairly won, and all joined in the celebration of a game that is now a little less unbeknownst.
