Birch had taken up the game as a schoolboy at Royal Belfast Academical Institution, going on to captain Queen’s University Belfast and represent Instonians in the club game.
Marriage, family and an “old, untrustworthy car” had seemingly put paid to his senior rugby ambitions but, while turning out for Coleraine in the junior ranks, he was convinced to join the Ballymena side of Willie John McBride and Syd Millar and “give it one last crack”.
Having impressed sufficiently with the county Antrim side to earn a place at a ‘probables versus possibles’ Irish trial before the tour of Argentina, his showing there meant he left these shores as the presumptive starter for the trip.
“Ken Kennedy, who was the established Irish hooker at the time, and beside whom I had played prop during my four years at Queen’s, dropped out of the tour so there was a space available,” he remembered.
“I was very, very lucky to be in the right place at the right time to get a spot in the final trial and the trial went well for me.”
After a long, arduous journey via Paris and Rio, Birch remembers the spectacle of horse racing at the famous hippodrome park in Buenos Aires, the attempts of the squad to decipher a Spanish version of the newly released Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and eating steaks that overhung the plate.
“I went on that trip weighing 13 and a half stone and came back 14 and a half stone,” he joked regarding the latter.
Ireland would play seven games during their three weeks in Argentina, losing both games against the national side by scores of 8-3 and 6-3.
“They were better than us,” Birch said.
“They were physically hard games. This is well before the days of professional rugby.
“You just went out and played as hard as you could. By and large it was rugby in the 1970s, two teams doing as well as they could and they were better than us.
“As far as I was concerned, I’d come from nowhere. Everything about the trip was bonus points for me.”
