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Hickie wants to go out with a bang  Ireland’s
all-time joint-top try scorer Dennis Hickie hopes the upcoming ‘Coupe
du Monde’ provides a fitting swansong to a career that has provided
more twists and turns than a Hitchcock thriller.
Now considered one of the elder statesmen on the Irish team Hickie is
still only 31 and his official record for Ireland reads played 58 games,
scored 29 tries.
Known among Leinster supporters as ‘Disco Den’ due to his
quick feet and dancing skills Denis was a talented schoolboy sprinter
before blazing a trail through schools rugby with St. Marys.
From there, international honours followed including a Triple Crown with
the Ireland Schools in 1993 and under-21s in 1996 before scoring a try
on his full Ireland debut against Wales in 1997.
His future in the Irish shirt seemed assured before Ireland’s tour
to South Africa in 1998 brought about a change in fortune for the Dubliner.
In the first test in Bloemfontein, Hickie’s marker Stefan Terblanche
scored four tries and to add insult to injury the Leinster wing fractured
his cheekbone in the 37-13 loss.
He didn’t get to wear the green of Ireland again until the 2000
Six Nations Championship when recalled for the game against Scotland.
The preceding time was spent changing his body and his game and from that
date the Leinsterman’s defence was rarely questioned.
That season Ireland won in Paris against the French for the first time
in 28 years with Brian O’Driscoll announcing himself on the world
stage with a hat-trick of tries.
However, one Hickie cameo always gets shown in the highlights packages.
A scything, try-saving tackle on French hooker Marc Dal Maso in the second-half
is the moment more than any other that Hickie will be remembered for.
Hickie’s decision to retire at this relatively early stage of his
career has caused shock in rugby circles.
There was a feeling that the winger would play a key part in helping to
bring on the next generation of Irish attackers.
While wingers have a notoriously short international shelf-life Hickie
appears to have lost none of his pace, telling a journalist recently that:
“I did a sprinting test recently and they showed that I am just
as fast now as when I was a teenager starting out with Leinster.”
Like many others his true worth will not be clear until he is gone. |
