Tony O'Reilly's rugby lesson saved Heinz
Possibly no international rugby player rose to the heights of financial success that former Ireland and British & Irish Lions star Tony O'Reilly, 88, who died on Saturday, achieved before his career plummeted.
O'Reilly's rugby career was outstanding. He made his mark first as a teenage prodigy on the wing in South Africa with the Lions in 1955 and then added lustre to his career in New Zealand as one of several stars in a fondly remembered 1959 Lions backline.
During those two tours, he set a try-scoring record of 38 tries, a record that will never be beaten now that the long-tour format has been axed since the introduction of professional rugby. He played 29 Tests for Ireland between 1955 and 1970 and 10 times for the Lions.
Humour was always part of O'Reilly's persona, and there was the occasion when he was called out of his rugby retirement to answer Ireland's call to play a Test against England. Caught in the bottom of the ruck, having arrived at the ground in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce, and being given a bit of treatment by the England opposition, a voice was allegedly heard exhorting the English forwards to give O'Reilly a good kicking and to give him an extra one for his chauffeur – a story he told many times.
But for all his success in his post-rugby life, it might never have happened had he not been a practitioner of the finest traditions of the game when demonstrating how to be gracious in defeat.
A life-changing moment occurred when his Belvedere Jesuit private school's 1st XV in Dublin met their long-standing rival Blackrock in the final of their competition.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph,[1] O'Reilly said, "When we had played each 10 years before, aged eight, we had stoned each other at the end of the game."
But, in that final a decade later, his Belvedere side looked to have a win assured. However, a pass intended for O'Reilly was intercepted late in the game, and Blackrock scored to win.
"My melancholy was total," O'Reilly said.
Yet tradition and the spirit of the game had to be maintained, and O'Reilly walked up and shook the player who had denied his side their prize by the hand.
You might have thought that would be the end of it all. But no.
A quarter of a century later, when he was head of the Heinz food company in the United States, the company of which O'Reilly had become chief executive, he was summonsed to appear before the Food and Drugs Administration of the US Government because rot and mould were found in a test of Heinz's famous ketchup.
The other members of the bigger food groups in the US would vote on the matter to avoid paying a product recall costing $ US 35 million and the attendant publicity. His final step, securing the key vote in avoiding a financial calamity, involved presenting his case to the president of the Del Monte company in California.
He made his presentation.
Afterwards, the Del Monte company president said, "I am a Roman Catholic, and my parish priest used to teach at a school called Blackrock.
"He tells me you played against the school, lost a game in dramatic conditions, and displayed considerable grace under pressure. The Del Monte company will vote with Heinz."
Whatever else may have happened in O'Reilly's business life, he had plenty to thank rugby for, for better or worse.
He maintained a close link with New Zealand, not only by purchasing the New Zealand Herald company as part of his newspaper empire.
The New Zealand Rugby Union invited him to speak at their three centennial dinners in Christchurch, Wellington, and Auckland in 1992, and he was a prominent visitor to the country during the staging of the 2011 Rugby World Cup.
[1] Judi Bevan, profile of Tony O'Reilly, Sunday Telegraph, 4 June 1993