They were young men on a mission, their aim narrow and focused. Stand up for the national anthem but also what you believe in: the value of teamwork, of trusting one another … and of sneaking out for a couple of pints before a big game.

You might think the biggest win the boys of ‘85 achieved was against England on a cold, sunny day in March. But you’d be wrong. Forty years on, those boys of summer are now in the autumn of their lives. Fiery back then, they are chilled now.

And gradually, as the years have passed, they have begun to realise what their greatest victory was in that unforgettable spring. In short it was this: an ability to show people across Ireland, but particularly in the North, that Catholics and Protestants, players from both sides of the border, could come together.

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That’s their legacy. It wasn’t just beating Scotland, Wales and England across a six week period. It was showing there was a light in our country’s darkest hour.

“We were like a dove rising above The Troubles,” says Willie Anderson, one of the star forwards on that team. “All the turmoil on the streets, the divisions in society, our team stood above that.”

He isn’t exaggerating. Anderson is from Sixmilecross, Tyrone, the son of an Orangeman, but he proudly stood in Lansdowne Road as the Garda band played Amhrán na bhFiann.

A week after winning his first cap for Ireland, a letter arrived in the post from an irate loyalist saying he was legitimising the IRA by playing for Ireland. Anderson didn’t agree with the sentiment and ignored the intimidatory tactic.

He says: “Sport is about unity, not division. That’s what makes it so great. I’m a rugby man but also a Tyrone man and what the county team has achieved winning four All-Ireland championships just makes me so proud.

“As a cub, I was so envious that all these boys were allowed to kick a ball on a Sunday when we weren’t even allowed to whistle.

“I think it’s an incredible sport. You give me a Gaelic footballer and I’d easily be able to make a rugby player out of him because the majority of them are as hard as nails.

“It has fierce passion; watching Gaelic football reminds me of what we had playing for Ulster. We were proud.

“As a cub all I wanted was to play for Ulster and Ireland.

“To fulfil that (international) goal meant standing for the Irish national anthem in Lansdowne Road. So that song was part of my dream. And for a lot of people of my religion cannot understand that.

“The thing to know is we had respect for players from Leinster, Munster, Connacht, for their values, for what they stood for as people.

“There was never a mention of politics whenever we were in (Ireland) camp together. What we did have was a mutual trust, a respect, a warmth, a friendship that has lasted.”

And they also had pints of stout … in copious amounts.

When the opening game of the 1985 championship was postponed because of snow, the players had two choices: go home or go to the pub.

So, really it was just one choice. “We spent the day in O’Donoghues in Baggot Street and that was where we really bonded,” says Anderson.

He loved a singsong. Go Lassie Go was his partypiece. The Munster players in that team, Donal Lenihan and Michael Bradley, sang Christy Moore. All 15 players joined in.

And as this all unfolded, the songs and the pints, a couple of men blended into the background, seemingly detached from the gang, when really they were part of it. Not just that. They were there to protect people’s lives.

That’s what nobody knew about that 1985 team, that Jimmy McCoy, the prop forward, who is a close friend of Anderson’s, was a serving RUC officer. Brian McCall, another forward, was in the British Army. Travelling south to play for Ireland meant putting their safety at risk.

So the Gardai’s Special Branch shadowed them everywhere. In their hotel, on the team bus, on the training field … in the pub. “They weren’t wearing sunglasses or trench coats and hiding behind a newspaper like you see in movies,” recalls Noel Mannion, the Connacht player, who also played for Ireland in that era.

“They did their job subtly.”

The players loved them. And each other. They still do. “Make a friend with an Ulsterman and you have a friend for life,” is Hugo MacNeill’s recollection of that era.

He and Anderson are close. Likewise Anderson and Bradley. Trevor Ringland, Davy Irwin Carr and McNeill remain tight. Everyone likes Lenihan. In fact there isn’t any bad blood whatsoever.

“One day, at the 2023 World Cup, I bumped into Michael (Kiernan) on the way to the game. The two of us saw each other - first time in years - and immediately hugged. That comes from a bond we shared in 1985 and from a trust.

“I was in the scrum. I had my arm around a Munster man and was backed up by a Leinster man, an Ulsterman with a Connacht man in front. We were as one. We were all Irishmen. We were so proud to wear the Ireland shirt.”

That pride was famously questioned in the season’s finale, when the captain, Ciaran Fitzgerald asked the pack: ‘where’s your f**king pride?’ as the clock ticked down.

Lenihan, Anderson and then Kiernan answered the question.

So the Triple Crown was completed, the last prize an Irish international team would win for 19 years. Two years later so much was nearly lost when three Irish players, Davy Irwin, Philip Rainey and Nigel Carr got caught up in a bomb en route to an Ireland training session.

Mercifully they escaped with their lives but Carr’s career was ruined by the explosion, a wake up call to the non-Ulster players in the squad. McCoy, soon afterwards, had to quietly retire from international rugby because of the security implications.

But despite the trauma, the team and the Garda band played on and the Ulster boys kept crossing the border and kept smashing the barriers that divisive politicians had put in place.

That spring of '85 they did special things on a rugby field. More than that, though, from a societal perspective, they showed everyone in Ireland how people from different backgrounds can unite. That’s what winning is.

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