With three Six Nations titles, two Grand Slams and a starring role in a British and Irish Lions tour, Wales legend Jamie Roberts built an impressive portfolio of memories before he hung up his boots in 2022. <\/p>\n
It just so happened that one of his fondest and one of his most harrowing rugby experiences came against Ireland. <\/p>\n
Although it is now 16 years on, his recollections of the 2009 Six Nations remain vivid. Then only 22 and a year into his international career, Roberts came off the bench in Wales’ 17-15 loss to Ireland that sealed a first Irish Grand Slam in 61 years.<\/p>\n
“I think the majority of my memories against Ireland have been bad,” Roberts told the Ireland Rugby Social.<\/p>\n
“The Slam game in Cardiff, ROG [Ronan O’Gara] hit a drop-goal in minute 77. It was a big moment in my career seeing another team parading the trophy around your stadium. <\/p>\n
“It came early in my career. I was only 22 and I remember that and it hurt so much that it actually motivated me quite a bit. I was like, ‘I never, ever want to feel that again’ of an opposing team parading the trophy around your stadium.”<\/p>\n
Roberts, who retired in 2022, added: “It was a gut-wrenching feeling. Four years later we had that famous win against England to win the trophy and England were going for the Slam. <\/p>\n
“There was half the squad that were involved in ’09 and we were like ‘we can’t feel that feeling again’.”<\/p>\n
After the pain of 2009, Roberts enjoyed better days against Ireland, like the 2011 World Cup quarter-final win in Wellington and a dramatic 23-21 victory in Dublin the following year that sent Warren Gatland’s side on their way to the Grand Slam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With three Six Nations titles, two Grand Slams and a starring role in a British and Irish Lions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-456137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}