Reporting on the Ireland rugby team is a glimpse into a world of luxury

Rugby tends to move in salubrious surrounds, none more so than touring teams. This was evident in the array of spectacular fee-paying schools used by the Lions as training bases last summer.

So it is that Ireland have been training at King’s College, an Anglican boarding and day school attended by more than 1,000 pupils in the south Auckland suburb of Ōtāhuhu. It spans over 100 acres.

As well as multiple rugby pitches, the school has a sports complex, an all-weather Olympic-grade hockey pitch, an integrated athletics track and a cricket oval. The Black Caps cricketer Tim Southee is one of the school’s alumni. So are Jonah Lomu and Connacht outhalf Josh Ioane, who both won scholarships here, which is probably just as well as the annual tuition fees at King’s College are the equivalent of about €16,500, rising to €26,700 for boarders.

“You’d have to be a millionaire to live around here,” said the taxi driver, although he was actually talking about the view of the harbour near the Wallabies’ team hotel in Double Bay in Sydney.

You could barely see the water for all the boats glimmering in the harbour and, as if on cue, the taxi stopped at lights alongside a new Aston Martin with customised number plates. At the wheel was a lady who did not look too dissimilar to Angelina Jolie. In the passenger seat sat a perfectly-groomed white poodle.

The Irish team were based in the same hotel in Sydney used by the Lions in both 2013 and 2025, down the road from Circular Quay and a stroll to the Sydney Opera House.

The media weren’t in too shabby an area either – the CBD (Central Business District), which is very central and a short stroll from Darling Harbour.

While more spacious suites are preferable for working than the four walls of a hotel, a café with good coffee, good wifi, power points and, if possible, good food, is the ideal. Jimmy has been serving great coffee and all of the above, save for the power points, at Nook JR for 15 years. And when the laptop battery ran out, there was a ground-floor business centre across the road.

There was also the CBD Hotel bar, with big screens on each floor and a dedicated sports bar on the third. One flight up, it also had a power point in the corner as well as wifi, which can be an issue in Australia. It’s the little things that matter. It also had good lager, good bar food, pleasant staff and stayed open beyond 6am for the conclusion of the Socceroos’ World Cup exit on penalties. That was asking too much.

Corner-hotel bars proliferate in Sydney and the Kent Street Hotel, run by 4 Pines Brewing Company and within walking distance from the CBD, was a regular home-from-home for Argentina’s World Cup games.

Tickets had to be purchased in advance and three of us were the only ones not attired in Argentina replica jerseys (about 90 per cent Messi, 10 per cent Maradona) to watch La Albiceleste play their round-of-16 tie against Egypt.

The kick-off was 2am Sydney time. All eyes were transfixed on the large screens, not mobile phones, and they occasionally broke into chants but were gradually reduced to a shocked silence. With a dozen minutes remaining, and nearing 4am, it wasn’t looking good. Messi had missed a penalty and Argentina were 2-0 down.

But then came those three goals in stunningly quick succession by Cristian Romero, Messi and Enzo Fernández. Each goal prompted more raucous celebrations until the loudest of all to acclaim the full-time whistle.

Definitely worth it, but Keith Gleeson was a good man for acceding to an interview nearby at 10am the next morning.

Newcastle was a nice diversion between Sydney and Auckland. For once, unlike the Irish squad, some of us were in the city’s only five-star hotel, the Crystalbrook Kingsley. It’s a funky, circular hotel which looks like a spaceship at night and made finding one’s way home easy.

It and the team hotel were also adjacent to the world’s biggest coal harbour. There are worse places to work than a bar with a panoramic view of the latter. A placard outside advertised keenly-priced beers as “winter warmers”. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and it was 23 degrees.

Out of convenience – and with a slice of luck – some of us have been back in the same Auckland cafe as when we were here in 2022, namely The Shelf, where Bobby serves good coffee (there’s also power points and good wifi).

It’s so good that Jamison Gibson-Park brought about seven or eight Irish players there on Wednesday on their day off.

A short walk away are a row of pubs on Vulcan Lane, including the Queen’s Ferry, the oldest pub in Auckland dating back to 1865. Again very welcoming, with power points and wifi, and instead of coffee good New Zealand lager, namely Long Boarder, which is brewed in Waipu, a coastal town in the Northland region.

The walls were decorated with enlarged replicas of paintings by Charles Goldie – which also reside in Auckland’s Museum – of ancient Maori-tribe leaders. They also serve what seems like good Guinness, which is brewed in Auckland, and there is a board adjacent to the bar counter with pictures of an exclusive club. Membership is achieved by dint of drinking 100 pints of the black stuff in a year.

The Queen’s Ferry also has a penchant for blues and soul. Playing on arrival was Mean Blues by Floyd Lee & His Mean Blues Band. Three or four songs in came Keith Richards’ spine-tingling guitar opening to Gimme Shelter, probably the greatest guitar intro to one of the greatest tracks of all-time. Another contender for that intro award, Santana’s Black Magic Woman, played soon after. Lots of Steely Dan too. Bliss.

Valerie, whose brother Ryan lives in New Ross, is from Indonesia and co-owns the bar with her husband Michael. Business is good, so good that Wednesday was their first day off in two months. As they enjoyed some down time the bar was left in the capable hands of CJ and Sofia, who is from Lyon and is here to improve her English.

Valerie regularly works and serves everybody while her three-month-old daughter Charlotte sleeps serenely in a baby wrap strapped to her front. Not something you see every day.

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