Schadenfreude and the Irish Rugby Team

The Irish rugby establishment suffered two traumatic events on Saturday. The first was the defeat of the national team – the No 1 team in the world, twenty-two-point favourites on the day – by hosts Japan at the Rugby World Cup. The second was that news that no small proportion of the nation were delighted to see Japan win.

It was the second event that was the more traumatic. It was like when a relationship breaks up. You thought she loved you; turns out, you make her sick. That’s not easy to get the head around.

There is a certain amount of begrudgery, of course, a defining Irish characteristic if ever there was one. There’s always been a demographic who despise rugby and all who play it.

These are the people who insist on referring to Autumn Internationals as “friendlies,” and dismiss Six Nations games as not counting because they’re not the World Cup. They’re never going to happy, and their contribution is best ignored.

It’s the public that took real pride in the achievements of the rugby team who are now turning away from it that should concern the IRFU. The IRFU have always been a little … peculiar in the matter of rugby evangelisation. It’s something that they may come to regret.

There is an opinion among rugby-haters that rugby is despised because only a certain class play it. That isn’t true. Irish people have always had an affection for rugby, often in places where the game is as alien as cricket or baseball.

Ollie Campbell tells a story in Tom English’s magisterial oral history of Irish rugby, No Borders, of Campbell’s car breaking down somewhere in Connemara, and of his getting a lift to a garage from a nun.

The nun had no interest in rugby, but the Ward-vs-Campbell was at its zenith at the time. Ward-vs-Campbell was part of the national conversation, one of those things on which everyone has an opinion.

This particular nun considered it shocking that the IRFU wouldn’t give that nice Mr Ward a go. She had no idea who Campbell was but Campbell did the only thing he could, and agreed wholeheartedly with her.

The eighties are far distant now, and the rugby of that era seems as dated as old black-and-white newsreel footage of FA Cup games featuring Blackpool or Preston North End from before the war. There was no need to tell the nation that Campbell and Co represented the “Team of Us” – it was written in every line of their faces.

Rugby was, famously, a game for all sizes. Irish people could look at the team and see the nation in all its complexity and diversity, before diversity became a thing.

There were tall men and short men, fat men and thin men, scrawny men about whom you worried would have violence done to them, and other men on whom you could count to do violence unto the other crowd. But only when they were looking for it, mind. Peaceable ould souls otherwise.

Rugby was enjoyed by Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, at a time when those distinctions were matters of life and death. English’s book deals quite sensitively with those divisions, which were dealt with without any ersatz anthems having to be invented to paper over cracks.

And somewhere along the line that connection was broken. A lot of people no longer make that connection between the team and the nation.

Professionalism is a part of it. Rugby was a very easy to game to understand – you won if you hit them harder than they hit you. That’s not the case any more. Rugby is now decided in the breakdown, which can only be properly understood by watching tape with coaches and having a very good eye for body positioning and the physics of the lever.

I remember Donncha O’Callaghan talking about how much of his game – tackling and clearing out rucks – was just a job, like any other job, and I remember thinking: how sad. It’s meant to be a game. It’s not meant to be just another job.

Rugby at the moment is in a strange place in its evolution. Ireland, by luck rather than judgement, found itself perfectly suited to the professional setup when the IRFU realised that the provinces, rather the clubs, were the future.

Other countries have been less lucky, none more so than France, where the demands of the French clubs have reduced the fighting cocks of the national team to feather dusters.

And what’s most bizarre of all, in Ireland especially, is that there is no discussion of these changes. For the Irish rugby community, the people who would recognise Ollie Campbell at the bottom of a meadow, it’s business as usual, except that Ireland is top dog now, instead of cannon fodder.

Other than that, it’s all as it ever was, with clients to entertain at the England game and tickets to dump on one’s underlings when Italy or Samoa are in town.

Every year the GAA displays its anguished breast at the professional creep into both hurling and football, and problems with the game of football and with the Championship setup.

In rugby – nothing. The sound of silence permeates the halls, except for the intermittent thunk of a passport being stamped and some hired gun being handed a backstory about how much he loves Guinness’s porter, Kerrygold butter and Father Ted.

Reader, do you remember that Irish-by-birth-Munster-by-the-grace-of-God stuff we used to hear in the early 2000s? We don’t hear it so much now, with Munster not having the same schools feeder system as Leinster or Ulster and having to go shopping for players, just like an English soccer team. And that’s fine, in its way, but it is remarkable that nobody ever writes about it.

Nobody ever writes an op-ed saying that for him or her the Munster experience has been cheapened because Limerick isn’t to the fore as it was. There are some op-eds about members of the Irish team that are not Irish, but as everybody is doing it – and none more blatantly or disgracefully than New Zealand, the greatest rugby nation in the world – the writers can perhaps excused that. But ordinary people, who cheer the jersey first and the game second, really aren’t happy about it.

The amateur ethos enveloping the professional game has created a disconnect between the Irish team and the people who are not heartland rugby people. Heartland rugby people, the people who should be evangelising the game in written and broadcast media, don’t address what happened to Munster-by-the-grace-of-God or the ethics of foreign players wearing the emerald green.

Rugby pundits are far more interested in disappearing into an increasingly isolated world of jackals winning first-phase ball and dynamic offloading. The people are wondering why if Paddy Jackson or Seán O’Brien ever went on a night out with their Irish team-mates and what exactly those nights out were like. It would be odd if they didn’t, wouldn’t it?

When Ireland lost to Japan, did anyone wonder if maybe somebody shouldn’t give Paddy or Seán a bell, in this hour of direst emergency? How would the rugby world react? Would fans book tickets home? Would writers they no longer recognise the team? Or would they suck it up and parrot the parrot line?

Increasingly, that’s going to be more and more up to themselves. The nation is looking at rugby and thinking: it’s not me that’s changed. It’s you. I just don’t know who you are any more.

The Rugby World Cup Will Be a Crashing Bore

The Rugby World Cup is the Mona Lisa of rugby union. We all pretend to love it but deep down, we all know it’s not really worth the queue.

Former Wales, New Zealand and British Lions coach Graham Henry wrote a watery preview in the Observer on Sunday in which he posited that a team with ambitions to win the Rugby World Cup must have a world-class fly-half. Graham Henry’s own World Cup was won with a fourth-choice choice fly-half, a man so out of the reckoning that at the start of the tournament Stephen Donald was half-a-world away, fishing.

Dan Carter has been acclaimed as the best fly-half in world rugby for over a decade. And his godlike boots were filled by Mr Nobody? Maybe you could win a soccer world cup with some midfield dynamo from Sligo Rovers filling in for Leo Messi, but it’s very hard to imagine it.

The 2011 Final was a poor game, and a fitting conclusion for a poor tournament throughout. France should have beaten New Zealand in the final. The French themselves should have lost to 14-man Wales in the semi-final, and the Welsh should have carved up by Ireland, who had won their group for the first time in World Cup history.

That World Cup will live in infamy as the tournament that saw the debut of the choke tackle. Historically, tackling in rugby was about hitting someone hard and knocking him down. Les Kiss, defensive coach for Ireland, realised that a law change to help adjust to the professional era meant that, instead of having to knock players over, it is now much more to your advantage to hold them up instead.

The law of Unintended Consequences took over. Running into space is now a schoolboy error in modern rugby. When you have the ball you find the biggest clump of opposition players you can find and head right for them, knowing that your own team are right behind you to support you in the inevitable wrestling match that follows. And then you do that for eighty minutes and pretend you’re playing the same game as Serge Blanco and Barry John and Tony O’Reilly.

Rugby, to its credit, has been good at policing its laws. It’s considerably more aware than some other codes that laws have to be constantly policed, to ensure the game is still true to its original ethos and not twisted out of shape by devious and squirrelly coaches. Unfortunately, both the realisation that the choke tackle is killing the game and that there may be a drugs issue – imagine a sport where a sixteen stone man can pick up another sixteen stone man and hurl him about like he was an empty dustbin having a steroid issue! The idea! – have arisen too close to the World Cup for it to be saved.

This means that, not only will we get the pointless empty-rubber games of the group stages, where the ten nations that compete at the elite level use forty games to lose two of their number, but we’ll also get a whole lot of sterile rugby to achieve even that rudimentary level of crop-thinning.

Not only that, but the organisers have managed to make the most tremendous balls of the seedings, that sees only two nations emerge from England, Australia and Wales, while Scotland and Argentina have been handed Wonka-esque golden tickets to the playoffs. They’ll go the same way as Augustus Gloop once they get there, of course, but still. It’s hard not to feel sorry for whichever of the the Pool A seeds that draws the short straw and has to watch that destruction at home.

The World Cup will be won by the team that makes the least mistakes. England are the sensible bet, as they’re on a softer side of the draw if they win their group. Funnily enough, Ireland could go on a run if they can beat France and win their pool. That would have been a big “if” once, but France are in the doldrums like they haven’t been since before the Second World War.

A quarter-final against Argentina awaits the winner of Pool D, and the winner of that faces, theoretically, a semi-final against England. Neither England nor Twickenham would have any fears for the Irish (the way New Zealand might, for instance) and you can expect the hype to hit record levels should that matchup come off.

The hype will be forced, though. Rugby is played in Intel-esque clean rooms anymore, with all spontaneity or improvisation or joy strictly forbidden. Recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty, recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty. We’ll cheer if Ireland win, but we’ll have to pretend we like it.

Foot rushes, props lumbering towards the line with the Enemy hanging off them, Simon Geoghegan or Brian O’Driscoll flashing through the gap – all these are things of the past. Recycle, recycle, recycle, kick the penalty. Repeat ad nauseam. Fare well, glory. Hail to thee, assembly line. Let’s form an orderly queue, everybody. Greatness awaits.

FOCAL SCOIR: This is the 1,000th published post on this blog over 12 years. I don't post as often as I used to, real life having caught up with me, but still. It's a kind of an achievement, nonetheless.

Cheering Bad Rugby

Ireland are 2/1 on to win the Six Nations Championship, and 5/4 to win their third-ever Grand Slam. Joe Schmidt’s team are fourth favourites to win the Rugby World Cup itself, even though Ireland’s next win in the knock-out stages of that competition will be their first.

Heady days for Ireland, not least for those who spent so many years watching the Golden Generation fall just short, year after year, of winning a Championship. Let’s not even mention the decades before.

Why, then, do the days coming up to what should be a mouth-watering encounter with Wales, recent rivals on so many levels, seem so empty? Why do two lines from Leonard Cohen’s beautiful lament, So Long, Marianne, keep ringing through my head?

“Your letters all say that you’re beside me now
Then why do I feel alone?”

Why doesn’t a dominant Irish team feel like a dominant Irish team? Why is it so hard to squeeze any fun or delight or joy out of this long-awaited dominance? What’s gone wrong?

We all know the answer, of course. Steve Hansen, coach of the All-Blacks themselves, mentioned it only last week. What’s gone wrong isn’t the team. It’s the game itself.

Rugby has always been aware of the need to balance the game between the broadswords of the forwards and the rapiers of the backs. The banning of the direct kick into touch at the end of the ‘sixties gave birth to one of rugby’s golden ages in the ‘seventies. Now, in the professional era, the International Board has to be even more vigilant in its guardianship of the soul of the game.

If this were any other year, the International Board would be swiftly attending to the current devolution of the game where, instead of running to daylight, you are now a crazy man if you don’t find the biggest monster on the other team and run right at his rock-hard tummy.

The International Board aren’t looking at the rules however. The International Board are looking at the calendar, and the calendar tells them that the Rugby World Cup is only six months away. There is no time to do anything more than tweak a rule here or there, and tweaking isn’t what rugby needs right now. It’s full open-heart surgery.

You saw it in one vignette during the first game of this year’s Six Nations, Wales v England. At one point in the game, Dylan Hartley, England’s spirited hooker, squirreled out of a maul with the ball under his oxter and hit the gas for the end line. But Hartley was doomed. He was quickly caught and possession was turned over.

Former Irish captain Phil Matthews was doing commentary for the BBC at that game. Matthews explained that you just can’t do what Hartley did in rugby anymore. You cannot make a break unless you are sure you have support. If you do, you will be choke-tackled, held up and see precious possession turned over.

But what is rugby for if not to run with the ball in hand? Surely that one thing is the sine qua non of the game. And what sort of game is it where grown men, big and strong, cannot go into enemy territory without a chaperone? What happened to the dash and daring of Brian O’Driscoll in Paris fifteen years ago, or rumbling, lumbering glory of Ginger McLoughlin in Twickenham eighteen years before that?

One of Ireland’s greatest-ever international tries against Wales was Noel Mannion’s long spirit from a blocked-down kick at the Arms Park in 1987. Such a run would be gooney-bird rugby now. There’s no longer any room for heroes.

Tony Ward recently suggested in his column in the Indo that the numbers on the field need to be reduced. No. If we wanted rugby league we’d watch rugby league. It’s not like it can’t be found. We want to watch rugby, the game that, at its best, combines the iron fist and the velvet glove like no other.

How, then, to get it back, in this supremely defensive, supremely professional era? Amateurism can never come back. Once your soul is sold it’s gone forever. On the technical side, the lawmakers could look at banning lifting in the lineout, and making it a contest again. Why not? What's so great about lifting?

There is perhaps something they could do about the rucks, but the laws concerning the breakdown in rugby are now so complex that even Professor Ivana Bacik, Reid Professor of Criminal Law at Trinity College, Dublin, would be stumped by them.

So here’s another possibility. Why not enforce some drug laws? The sight of a fifteen-stone man picking up another fifteen-stone man and throwing him about the place like a farmer throwing a wellington at the village sports is now commonplace in rugby. That is by no means commonplace in nature.

Everybody says that players are all getting bigger. But they don’t have to. If the International Board wanted to spot who was doing the dog with supplements and yokes and calf-nuts and God only knows what, the International Board could. All it takes is the will.

In the meantime, let’s hope Ireland can win the Slam, starting with giving Wales a trimming on Saturday. Joe Schmidt is a fine coach, but the media’s portrayal of him as rugby’s General Rommel is nonsense.

Ireland are playing the ten-man game better than it’s ever been played before, but it’s still the ten-man game, where the out-half kicks for territory and the backs are just there to make their tackles if the other bunch have the temerity to run the thing back.

The rugby is appalling, but at least it’s appalling rugby that Ireland are winning. We’ve seen the other day often enough to take some bit of a pleasure in this, scant though it may be.

The Year in Sports: Review and Preview

A year when Kerry won the football and Kilkenny the hurling does not sound like a year of revolution in Irish sport. And neither was it, really. Kerry have been béal-bochting all year about how this was their best All-Ireland yet because no-one gave them a chance, but the nation might be well-advised to take that with a pinch of salt. The 1975 team weren’t expected to win that All-Ireland either, and they turned out to be pretty handy in the end.

But the question of how long can this keep going on is getting more and more urgent in football. Ulster is the only competitive provincial Championship now. Connacht may be next year, or it may not. Leinster will be a parade, and Munster the usual two-handed set. This isn’t good for anybody, but how it’s to be remedied is the Gordian Knot of the GAA.

Two solutions get the most media airings. The first is a dual-Championship, for haves and have-nots. The second is a Champions-League style thing, because the Group games in the Champions League are always such heart-stopping affairs.

Neither of these solutions is acceptable, because both work against the very spirit of the GAA. The spirit of the GAA is representation of where you’re from, and competing against your neighbours. The GAA is not a professional sport, and neither are the inter-county competitions the be-all and end-all of the Association. If anything, they are brocade and it will be a bleak day for the Association if that is ever forgotten.

In an interview on the invariably excellent Second Captains podcast, former Roscommon goalkeeper and aspirant All-Ireland-winning Roscommon manager, Shane Curran, reckoned that for Roscommon to win an All-Ireland, one million Euro will have to spent every year for fifteen years to raise standards to that of the elite counties.

Reader, if the Association spent more time wondering how winning All-Irelands costs one million a year for fifteen years than worrying about Rachel Wyse and Sky’s threat to the Purity of the Gael, it might come a lot closer to finding out why the Provincial Championships aren’t competitive any more.

It is an interesting thing that hurling remains free of accusations of creeping professionalism, uncompetitive provincial Championships and cynical play. After fifty years without a drawn All-Ireland hurling final, we’ve now had two-in-a-row and each final since the Tipperary revival of 2009 has been hailed as the greatest-ever.

Would it be monstrous to wonder about this? Is there a case to be made that the hurling Emperor isn’t quite dressed for the weather? The back-door may be a pox on football, further punishing and humiliating the weaker counties for whom it was theoretically introduced, but at least people can understand it. The complex steps of the hurling Championship are like a puzzle escaped from a cryptologists’ laboratory.

For all its faults, there is general consensus that come the August Bank Holiday, the best eight teams in the country are still in competition for Sam. Can the same be said for Liam, or could the best team fall in Munster and then die the death of a thousand cuts in the purgatorial struggles of the hurling back door?

Such complexities are far beyond a Mayoman’s understanding, of course, but is it time hurling people started to wonder aloud?

The other sport about which the nation seems to be labouring under a particular delusion is rugby. The sports page previews this week will speculate about Ireland’s chances as an outside bet to win the Rugby World Cup, which will be held in England’s green and pleasant land next autumn.

Reader, Ireland have never won a World Cup playoff game in the seven times the competition has been held, including two years, 1999 and 2007, when Ireland couldn’t even get out of their group. The Irish rugby public should think about crawling before thinking about walking.

Will the World Cup be worth watching? An unthinkable question once, but getting more and more relevant now. The best sports columnist in Ireland, Keith Duggan of the Irish Times, wondered recently if rugby hasn’t become a brilliantly-coached bore in recent years, and a perusal of the stats solidify that case.

The former Welsh out-half, Barry John, once said that he could tell how a game would go simply by looking at how the out-half handled the ball in warm-ups. In the amateur game, the out-half dictated the game from his regal throne standing-off the scrum. Now, the only thing that separates out-halves is competence. There are thin degrees of difference between them at international level, but they’re like the thousandths of a second that separate cars in Formula One. Too miniscule to take seriously.

Rugby Union is now a game of continual tackling in defense and not turning over possession in offense. Tackling has become the be-all and end-all of the game that sneaky attackers are now making sure they get tackled, in order to turn the laws to their advantage, as Will Greenwood noted in the Telegraph.

Union may dominate League in England since Union turned professional twenty years ago – the RFU’s turnover is four times that of the RFL – but League’s influence over Union has proved so strong that the codes are closer than they have been in over one hundred years. Good news for the stand-up, pay-up moneymen coining it at every turn, but for what the French used to call la gloire? A victim to progress, I’m afraid.

Bígí ar Bhur Suaimhneas – Níl Tada Buaite Fós ag na Gaeil

Sa ndeireadh, bhí an cheart ag an gConnallach. Iarraidh air an deá-fhógra don bhliain seo chugainn torraí cluiche an Fómhair. Bhí na torraí ceanán céanna againne i 2006, a dúirt sé, agus níor thugadar aon chabhair linn i 2007.

Tá cuimhneamh teipe sa gCorn Domhanda i 2007 go láidir i meoin Uí Chonnaill, mar atá i meoin gach duine rugbaí na tíre. Ní raibh mórán ag tnúth go n-insíodh an Drisceollach an scéal go léir ina dhírbheathaisnéis agus d'fhán sé ina thost, mar is gnáth. Leanann scéal na bliana rugbaí sin go léir ina rún os comhair an phobail.

Agus anois, tá Corn Domhanda eile ag teacht agus pobal na hÉireann ag smaoineamh anois go n-éireodh linn an Corrán féin a ghabháil, agus sinne gan bua dá laghad i ndiaidh na gcluichí ghasra fós.

Ach seo foireann eile, a deirtear. Is é Joe Schmidt an saineolaí rugbaí is fearr sa ndomhan mór. Níl an glas ann nárbh fhéidir leis a oscailt. B'fhéidir. An uair deireanach a chuireas súil ar an scéal, ba iad na h-imreoirí amháin a bhí ar an bpáirc agus na traenálaithe go léir suas istigh 'sna ardáin, ach tá an cluiche chomh athraithe chomh tapa le déanaí tá seans ann go bhfuil dúl amú orm.

Ag smaoineamh ar na buanna in aghaidh na hAstráile agus na hAfraice Theas, cén fáth gur éirigh leis na Gaeil? An bhfuil siad chomh maith sin i ndáiríre?

Is deacair é a thuiscint ón meáin Éireannach, a chuireann na geansaithe uaithne orthu níos tapa maidir leis an rugbaí ná nuair a bhí Jack Charlton ann sa sacar. Bíonn an meáin Breataine réidh i gcónaí cnámh a chaitheamh chun na Gaeil fiáine, agus tá mo laethanta scoile chomh fada thiar liom anois níl fios agam cad a scríobhtar fúinn sa bhFrainc. Tá a bhfadhbanna féin acu ar ndóigh, na créatúir.

Agus an rugbaí éirithe chomh casta mar atá, breathnaím ar cluichí anois agus espnscrum.co.uk oscailte agam ar mo thablet, ag breathnú ar staitisticí an chluiche. D'éirigh linne an méid seo clibirte a bhuaigh, d'éirigh leosan an méid sin síneadh amach. Ní fhéidir na staitisticí go léir a chreideamh – bhí sé ghreamú aimsithe ag Ian Madigan acu, mar shampla, ach is ait é an greamú nuair a leanann an imreoir greamaithe ar aghaidh mar a bhí sé, ach go bhfuil Madigan anois aige mar phaisinéir chomh maith – ach cabhraíonn na staitisticí an cluiche gairmiúla a thuiscint.

Níor chabhair na staitisticí liom aréir, mar bhí an lámh in uachtar ag na hAstraláisigh ón chuid is mó imeartha. Níos mó seilbhe, níos mó talaimh, níos mó gach rud ag an Astráil ach cúlaithe ar an mbord, an t-aon staitistic amháin atá ina rí ar gach uile ceann acu. Bhí an t-ádh ag na Gaeil nuair a d'aimsigh Zebo agus Bowe a n-úid, agus ba é sin scéal an chluiche. Bhí an bearna ró-mhór do na hAstraláisigh.

Ní hea sin drochmheas ar cliathánaithe na hÉireann. Thógadar a seasanna, agus sin é an fáth go bhfuil siad ann, chun na seasanna sin a thógáil, in ionad an liathróid a ligeadh chun tosaigh nó praiseach éigin eile a dhéanamh as na seansanna.

Ach ar chonaiceamar fianaise i rith an Fómhair gurbh fhéidir leis na Gaeil an Corrán Domhanda féin a bhuaigh? Caithfear níos mó na an dhá úd sin a bheith ann. Tá an paca láidir go leor agus cróga a ndóthain, ach bhíodar faoi bhrú sa gclibirt agus agus ní hé an Astráil an fhoireann is fearr san obair sin sa domhain.

Tá Robbie Henshaw ag dul go maith i mbróga móra Uí Dhrisceoill chomh fada seo, ach tá D'Arcy sean go leor agus ní fheictear mórán luais idir an bheirt acu. Bhí an luas caillte ag BOD féin sa ndeireadh ach bheadh BOD ina imreoir agus é ar leathchos – fios ag gach éinne faoi sin.

Tá daoine ag súil go bhfillfidh Seán O'Brien agus Cian Healy agus níorbh aon íobairt é ceachtar acu a chur istigh sa bhfoireann, ach ag an am céanna tá imní orm maidir leis an bhfoireann seo.

Agus an bliain ina h-uimhir chorr, beidh Sasana agus an Fhrainc againn sa mbaile, ach tá an Albain tar éis feabhsú faoi Vern Cotter agus ní bhog an turas é ríomh dul chomh fada le Caerdydd agus an lámh in uachtar a fháil.

I mblianta roimhe seo, beidh buntáiste mór ag aon fhoireann agus leath-chúlaí amach na Leoin acu, ach tá dualgas agus stíl imeartha an leath-chúlaí athraithe. Níl an chumhacht céanna a bhí acu mar a bhíodh san seanshaol, agus leithid Barry John nó Phil Bennett nó Hugo Porta nó Jackie Kyle ina sheasamh taobh amuigh na clibirte.

Anois, tá níos mó dualgas ar an leath-chúlaí clibirte an imirt a chur i bhfeidhm. Is ar seisean atá an rogha idir cic, pas nó aimsiú a dhéanamh. Tráth, ba é mar dara geansaí a 10 é an 12; anois, a mhalairt a scéal atá ann. Tá seans ann go dtiocfaidh an lá agus, in ionad an chéad líne aimsithe é an leath-chúlaí amach, beidh sé ina chéad líne cosaint. Is fada an titim ar péacóg breá bródúil an rugbaí é.

The Sporting Year

This year, for what must be the first time in the history of the Gaelic Athletic Association, Dublin struck a blow for the little guy.

At the start of the summer the Championship looked like it would be played between The Big Three of Cork, Kerry and Tyrone, with the other counties supplying cannon fodder when required. As Kevin Egan has often pointed out, long shot winners do not generally win All-Irelands. Your correspondent has no figures to hand, but it’s a reasonable guess that Dublin were the longest price All-Ireland winners since Armagh in 2002.

Kerry left the game behind them of course, but Dublin still had to complete their part of the bargain and pick it up. Kerry have left games behind them before, but teams have not had the wherewithal – or the Kevin McMenamins – to take advantage. Sligo come to mind in 2006, as do Limerick in 2004. Good for Dublin, who are deserving champions.

Kerry do not wash linen in public, but it would be wonderful to know how they’re analysing this loss at home. How do they view Jack O’Connor in the Kingdom?

O’Connor has won three All-Irelands but those were won against teams – Cork and Mayo – whom Kerry expect to beat as a matter of course. In a county with so many wins, those will be taken for granted.

Against teams whom Kerry do take seriously, O’Connor’s record is played three, lost three – two against Tyrone, one against Dublin. There’s huge pressure on O’Connor and his aging team to make up for this next year.

From a parochial standpoint, Mayo had a superb season. James Horan was extremely lucky not to get sucker-punched against London but other than that he didn’t put a foot wrong during either League or Championship. Mayo are looking forward to another crack at it in 2012 – county board shenanigans permitting, of course.

In hurling, Kilkenny and Tipperary served another epic All-Ireland Final with Kilkenny proving there’s life in the old cat yet. The only pity was that the hurling Championship did go according to script, and there were no counties able to keep up with the standard set by Kilkenny and Tipperary.

Galway blew up – again, Cork’s civil war continues and the revolutionaries of the ‘nineties now struggle to keep their heads above water. Anthony Daly had another superb year with Dublin but it still seems somehow easier to see Galway beating Kilkenny twice than Dublin. And it’s more or less impossible to see Galway beating Kilkenny just the once.

The Rugby World Cup is struggling as a tournament. The balance is incorrect. There are ten top-flight rugby nations in the world – the Six Nations, the Tri Nations and Argentina. The other ten are making up the numbers – and are quickly put in their place if they dare to point that out, as Samoa’s unfortunate Eliota Sapolu discovered.

This means is that there are three weeks of group games at any Rugby World Cup that whittle ten teams down to eight. That’s not very effective. It also makes for extremely stilted rugby in the knockout stages, when the terror of losing dominates. The balance between the relatively carefree group games and the all-or-nothing knockout games is wrong.

The final itself is proof positive. New Zealand is the greatest rugby nation in the world and nobody with any feeling for the game could begrudge them, but 8-7 is a scoreline from the 1950s, not the 21st Century professional era. The only thing anyone will remember from this tournament is relief for the New Zealanders, and not much else.

Ireland’s win over Australia is bittersweet, looking back. Ireland had never won a quarter-final before the tournament, and they still haven’t. Irish rugby is at an extraordinary crossroads right now. If rugby can transition from the golden generation of BOD, ROG and POC, then it suddenly becomes reasonable to assume that rugby can overtake the GAA in popularity.

On that point – the chaps on Newstalk’s Off the Ball were floating an idea back in November that, if New Zealand could host a World Cup then so could Ireland, using GAA stadia for the games. They never quite explained why the GAA would want to sign its own death warrant by facilitating the tournament though.

Maybe they’re saving it for next year. An Spailpín will be listening closely, as ever – shirts don’t iron themselves, you know, and listening to Off the Ball remains the best way of dealing with the misery. Here’s to 2012.

Post Saeculum Aureum: Where to Now for Irish Rugby?

Ireland’s World Cup was a failure. Anything you read elsewhere, about great memories and wins over Australia and the rest, is all blather.

Look at the picture of Brian O’Driscoll at the post-match press conference. He knows better than anyone just what the loss to Wales means. And it’s better for the nation to digest an unpalatable truth and move on than to remain in permanent denial.

This is the end of the golden generation. They shone their brightest in the twilight of their days, fighting on and on against time’s fell and inevitable hand. The golden generation were already over the hill when they won the Grand Slam two years ago. For them to still appear at the World Cup and to threaten so much is astonishing.

Even the term golden generation is misleading. It’s been O’Driscoll and the supporting cast. He had able subalterns in O’Connell and O’Gara but Ireland without O’Driscoll over the years of his reign were like low-fat milk or decaf coffee. More or less pointless. No emerald comet ever shone so brightly and for so long as O'Driscoll. He gave everything he had, and nobody can give more than that.

The depressing thing about the O’Driscoll era in Irish rugby is that the team didn’t win more. One Championship, a blessed Grand Slam, is not enough return. Celebrating Triple Crowns while Wales, England and France all won multiple Grand Slams was pathetic and betrayed a hopeless lack of ambition.

The wins over understrength and overconfident Australia and exhausted Italy in this World Cup were illusory. They simply papered over cracks. And when aging Ireland met young and hungry Wales there was no contest. Ireland were blown away by a much better team.

Seven countries have had podium finishes in the World Cups so far – New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, England, France, Argentina and Wales. Even Scotland managed to win a quarter-final, once. Ireland never have, and struggle to get out of the group half the time.

This time Ireland topped the group, and still couldn’t progress. The Irish rugby community tends to stiffen with pride at the thought of the successes of Munster and Leinster in the Heineken Cup, and expects that to transfer internationally. Maybe having only two first-rate club sides in our domestic rugby is actually a sign of lean times ahead.

And leaner they’ll get, not least when it makes more financial sense for the provinces to bring in specialist tight head props, openside flankers and stand-off halves from overseas than to suffer the mistakes of up and coming Irish players who must learn their trade.

In theory those young Irish players can learn their trade in Connacht, the “development” province. As such, you’d think all Connacht players should be Irish and under-25, with some leeway for local men to build a support base. Here’s the Connacht rugby squad – how do you think that one’s working out?

Rugby has had ten years in Ireland like it has never enjoyed before. The question facing the IRFU now is do they push on and grow the sport in the country, or settle back to the comfort of the alickadoo community?

The horrified and short-sighted response to former Minister Eamon Ryan’s proposal that Heineken Cup rugby should be free to air suggests that the IRFU are unaware of the need to keep promoting the game. Travelling hordes supporting Munster was always very well when it was novel and money was flush, but that’s not going to happen for a few years. There are dark times ahead, and the IRFU ought to prepare properly for them.

One way to start would be by giving the smug self-satisfaction a rest and publicly bemoaning that the golden generation didn’t win as much as they should have, and if Ireland's greatest ever player wasn't let down by his home union.

What would be very revelatory and cathartic would be if the IRFU came out and said that Ireland could have had Warren Gatland as head coach for the entirety of Brian O’Driscoll’s career, and we shot ourselves in the foot big time there. An Spailpín Fánach shan’t be holding his breath.

Crossing the Grain Line: To Beer or Not to Beer Before Ireland v Wales

Faster than light neutrinos booting along the spine of Italy are in the ha’penny place compared to the stress the immutable laws of nature will face in Ireland next weekend.

For the first time since William Webb Ellis picked up the ball and ran with it, the great and manly pastimes of supporting the game of rugby and lorrying buckets of fermented barley, grain and hops are not only disunited; they are at daggers drawn.

Drinking has always been associated with rugby. Among players, the debauchery reached its apotheosis when Colin Smart, loose head prop for Tunbridge Wells and England, downed a bottle of aftershave at the France v England post-match dinner after their Five Nations game in 1982. Smart’s scrum-half, Steve Smith, later remarked that after Smart had his stomach pumped he didn’t look good but he did smell lovely.

It’s a professional era now, of course, and the modern player is fuelled solely by Lucozade Sport and boiled chicken. But for the supporters, the pints are lorried just as they always were. Rugby has always been a social sort of a game.

And that’s at the root of the weekend dilemma. The quarter-final between Ireland and Wales rises before the very dawn itself in the green land or Erin, and as such the question every supporter must ask is: pint like a savage and stay up all the night, or take one for the team and abjure Friday night gargle?

The young and restless will choose the heroes’ part, of course. Eager young men will mount the high stools like John Wayne mounting his horse while getting set to take on the Comanches – grim faced and determined in the awful realisation that men gotta do what men gotta do. By four the nightclubs and late bars will have inquired if they have no homes to go, and disgorged them onto the pavement where they do or do not.

Then they are at their greatest danger. Ladies will be making the glad eye and tempting our heroes with earthly delight. Some young men may be already insensible, and already sleeping the sleep of the just in gutters or bus shelters. And more will be laying siege to the chippers, hoping that a layer of greasy soakage between the pints already swallowed and the warm cans waiting back in the flat can make all the difference.

For greyer heads, the temptation is to wish the children well, and hope that they do not kick the wing mirrors off our cars on their way home. We choose to sit in and have an early night, in order to rise with lark, refreshed.

But reader, danger just as deadly as a night-club Natalie or a car-park coma awaits, even in the safety of the home. While trapped in one’s lair, nervously worrying about the ancient hwyl that has fueled Welsh rugby to deeds of glory through the generations, a fan may be tempted to turn on his or her television. It may be necessary to distract the mind from worrying about slow second phase ball, choke tackles or that awful dream we’ve been having where the Pink Panther recites from Yeats in the accent of Matt Williams.

Through no fault of his own, the innocent may, by a tragically unlucky chain of events and through no fault or his own, be exposed to the Late Late Show. This can only lead to one thing: a level of fury that reduces the television receiver to smithereens as you smash it to bits with the trusty poker.

But as you stand there among the broken glass and plastic, the righteous anger will subside and the grim realisation will drawn: oh bloody hell, how will I watch the game now? Reader, there will be only one choice. Go into the hall, put on your hat and coat, and go out, out into the night. Rugby and revelry have stood shoulder to shoulder, answering Ireland’s call, for too long for you to turn your back on either now.

Lifting in the Lineout - The Rugby World Cup Format is Wrong

One of the reasons that rugby has adapted so well to professionalism is its willingness to change its laws as the game evolves. And not only that, rugby is willing to try a law for a season and then change it back if it doesn’t work. The administrators are always willing to do what’s best for the game.

Which makes it all the more of a pity that they haven’t tweaked the format of the World Cup. A phony war will be conducted all through the group stages, leaving the stakes impossibly high come the knockout stages where the safety net is suddenly swept away.

There are three divisions in world rugby. In the first division, there are the super powers – New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England and France. In the second division, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Italy and Argentina. In the third division, there’s everyone else.

Only a first division team can win the World Cup. A second division team can’t win it, but on their day they can stop someone else from winning it. The third division teams, God help them, are cannon fodder, and nothing else.

This means that forty group games will be played at the World Cup in order to reduce the top ten rugby playing nations to eight. That’s not the most efficient way of going about it.

In amateur days, it would be lovely for the USA to play New Zealand – they were all amateurs anyway and, even though the USA would still lose, there wasn’t the same air of businesslike formality about the All-Blacks running in try after try. There was still a place for magic and romance, no matter how thin a sliver.

But that’s all gone now as the professionals go about the expert dismemberment of the amateurs, and then have to trust all to eighty minutes of on-the-day inspiration from the quarters on. The pool games are too little while the playoffs are too much.

What’s the solution? There isn’t one, really. Perhaps the first ten teams in the world should play the World Cup as a league, each with one game against the other, and then some sort of semi-final and final to keep it interesting? It seems the fairest way.

The problem would be that the sheer physicality of modern rugby makes that impossible. Some players might manage the twelve game slate, but at a horrific cost to their health in later life.

And so we’re left with this strange shadow-boxing tournament for the first forty games of the World Cup and then the manic intensity of the final seven (let’s not count the third place play-off – nobody else does). But I suppose it’s the only World Cup we have and it’s better than nothing.

Of the five contenders, your Spailpín wouldn’t begrudge any of them, really. Australia isn’t even vaguely a rugby country but when it comes to the World Cup the Wallabies are unquestioned specialists.

New Zealand and South Africa are the greatest rugby cultures in the world (as would Wales be, if only it had the resources available to the other two) and An Spailpín has a lot of time for Martin Johnson’s heroic refusal to apologise for being English. Love him or hate him, the man’s got style.

And France. Always France. One of the greatest rugby nations, and the only one of the great traditional powers that was never part of the British Empire. That’s part of what makes them so different and so exciting.

But while it would be lovely to see France finally win a World Cup, the New Zealanders’ longing for the title, especially now on home soil, has become so acute that we are now in the peculiar situation of the favorites being the people’s champions too – to see New Zealand frustrated in every tournament is becoming cruel to everybody. (With the possible exception of the Australians, of course. Aussies are like that).

Ireland? Ireland should progress from their group, and then stand a fighting chance against South Africa (if things go according to seed), the Tri-Nations country against which the Irish have the best record. Not getting out of the group would be disappointing, but hardly novel. Losing the quarter-final would be par for the course.

But as the twilight quickly descends on the Golden Generation of O’Gara, O’Connell and O’Driscoll, it would be wonderful if they could win the quarter-final and claim one more page of history before night falls. Because when night does fall, it could last a long, long time.

Ka mate, ka mate...

Is the Irish Rugby Establishment Biting the Hands that Feed It?

The news that the cheapest ticket to see Ireland play the World Champion Springboks in the new stadium at Lansdowne Road retails at a tasty one hundred bucks has been greeted with horror, amazement and dismay. Rugby tickets were never either cheap or easy to get but my goodness, once a commodity goes into three figures people are inclined to stop and think before opening up the sporran.

Irish rugby has never been as popular as it now. The provincial system, which has been present since forever, suddenly became the ideal unit size for the new international club competitions that the professional game brought. The damage wrought to proud old clubs like Lansdowne, Shannon or Dungannon was all forgotten about when the provinces returned home laden with titles and booty.

Couple the rise of the provinces with the presence of a golden generation that saw Ireland win their second ever Grand Slam and sensible people were suddenly wondering if rugby really would challenge the GAA as the most popular sport in Ireland.

How odd, then, that the IRFU should put that in danger, as they are currently doing. Or, is it the case as some cynics suggest that popularity was never something that the Irish rugby establishment ever really desired? As long as player numbers remained stable, were they quite happy to retain their historic aura or elitism? To keep the game among one’s own kind of people?

The ticket prices aren’t the strangest part of it. One of the hardest things to understand about the IRFU in the past six months has been how happy they were to see their potential attendance at games drop from eighty to fifty thousand. How can any sports organisation be happy to see the potential audience at live showpiece games not only reduce, but reduce by more than a quarter? It doesn’t make sense.

The other thing that doesn’t make sense is the Irish rugby establishment’s unquestioning acceptance of the notion that the game in Ireland would be wiped out without Sky television coverage and their hysterical reaction to Minister Ryan’s proposals to do with free to air TV. Keith Duggan of the Irish Times was the only mainstream journalist to question this primacy of Sky television, and to go on to wonder if there wasn’t something just a little bit not right about a national sports organisation that cares so little for a specifically national broadcasting angle on its live games.

In the past ten years, many Irish people looked to rugby, specifically to the Munster and Ireland teams, to represent all that’s best about the nation. The IRFU accepted this love. And have repaid it with hundred Euro tickets, sublime indifference to thirty thousand fans locked out for home internationals and a willingness to have the TV games dissected from London, rather than Ireland (be that Limerick, Galway, Belfast or Dublin).

That’s an extraordinary way for the Irish rugby establishment to react to the hands that have been feeding them for a decade. Not least as the success of Irish rugby has been due to a golden generation winning things – a golden generation that is getting very old, very quickly.

Vital players are hanging on for one last hurrah at the 2011 World Cup after the disaster of 2007, but they are past their sell-by date already, one year before a ball is kicked. They will not be easily replaced. This is apart from Brian O’Driscoll of course, whose like will never be seen again. Seeing someone like O’Driscoll is like seeing Halley’s Comet. It’s a once in a lifetime thing.

But outside of a genius in our time, the Irish playing pool is exposing itself as dangerously shallow in vital positions like tight head prop and fly-half. There is so little domestic rugby played in Ireland that players in those very specialist positions don’t have the time to learn their trade and build experience before being thrown in at a level higher than their ability out of desperation. Fly-halves and props who are anonymous in their own countries can look so competent for provinces here because they come from a much richer rugby culture. Even the Australians.

Fly-half is vital because the fly-half controls the game, and prop, especially tight-head prop, is vital because the scrum remains integral to the very soul of the game. And, with the way the game has evolved, where France routinely change their entire front row after an hour to make the most of the final quarter, you now need four props and two hookers, instead of the three happy fatties of yore.

What happens if these positions aren’t filled? The reality is that the Irish playing pool is so shallow that if people don’t start challenging for positions in the front row and at fly-half soon, the next ten years won’t be a question of matching the achievements of the golden generation, not even those tin-pot Triple Crowns and second place finishes of the past decade. Without quality at pivotal positions, you’re trying not to be humiliated by Scotland and Italy.

Nervous times for an IRFU that seems to know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Time to Accept the Obvious - England are the Best Team at the Rugby World Cup

Once the penny finally drops, it’s obvious. We’ve spent the past month searching for the best team of the World Cup and they’ve been under our noses all the time.

New Zealand, crying bitter tears at home, are still the best team in the world, just as they always are. The All-Blacks haven’t adjusted to the existence of the World Cup yet, but year by year, now as then, the Silver Fern remains the gold standard. Argentina were brave and heroic, and have a potential genius at stand-off half in Juan-Martin Hernandez, but they were ultimately limited. South Africa are much the stronger team on paper, compared to England, and possess a game-winner in Brian Habana to whose brilliance England cannot hold a tallow candle, but the fact is that since South Africa boxed England’s ears for them in Paris on September 14th, every game for England has been an elimination game for them, and still they march relentlessly on. After a while, it’s not really a co-incidence anymore.

Alex Wyllie is showing poor grace in condemning the English style of play, not least as it’s exactly the style of play that forged the All-Blacks legend. Besides, it’s not as if England are breaking any laws of the game. Consult the rules, and ascertain how many extra points you get for aesthetic impression. None, I think you’ll find. The great characteristics of this England team are their resounding honesty and impeccable bravery. These men do not pretend they are hurt and dive in penalty boxes – rugby is not Steven Gerrard’s game. Instead, they scrum down and maul and ruck with impossible resolution and heroic heart. When the gunsmoke clears and the cannons no longer roar, watch for the white shirts marching grimly on, led by Corry, Shaw and Moody. Martin Corry, who has written such wry columns on the violence of breakdown play in modern professional rugby in the Guardian, is the epitome of the doughty yeoman who conquered at Corunna, Quebec and Cawnpore. He is not for turning.

England, above any team at the tournament, are forged by the events of the tournament; specifically, by the humiliation meted out to them in the Stade de France one month ago, when they were the only team at the tournament to be held scoreless. Once you hit rock bottom you can curl up and die, or you can realise that things can only get better. That’s the exactly the choice England made, to claw their way back up the ladder, rung by painful rung, that team of crocks, cripples and has-beens who don’t know what it is to get beaten.

The Tan burned Cork and hanged Kevin Barry, but he remains, in Kipling’s words, a first-class fighting man. What the Light Brigade looked down on at Balaclava is what England have faced in every game since that mauling under the hooves the Boks, and now they face it again. The monstrous strength of Os du Randt. The best second rows in the world, Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha, the man named for a truck. The shattering and explosive play Schalk Berger, the all-round excellence of Fourie du Preez at scrum-half. And a back three against whom England cannot compare in Habana, Pieterson and Montgomery. Impossible for England to win, so they do only what they can, and what they’ve been doing for this entire World Cup – when Alain Rolland blows his whistle tomorrow night England will lower lance and sabre and charge the guns, just like they do. Theirs not to reason why.

Neil Francis’ condemnation of England’s play in this World Cup on Setanta last weekend was shameful. That he can’t see the pride infusing that team, their refusal to be cowed, is an indictment of the man and he should be deeply ashamed. Pierre Bosquet famously quipped that the Light Brigade’s charge at Balaclava was “magnificent, but not war”; England may not be rugby as Neil Francis’ understands it, but for him to deny the magnificence of the stand they’ve made at this World Cup does Francis no credit at all.

England are only ever one Brian Habana interception away from doom tomorrow – if South Africa score tries, England will be hard pressed to catch them. But if England can impose themselves on South Africa and are still in the game with twenty minutes to go England will win it. An Spailpín has no doubt about that. The ice that runs through Jonny Wilkinson’s veins will grow even colder as he relentlessly directs his men on, rewarding his pack with field position, territory and ultimately points on the board, the sweetest reward of all. Jonny Wilkinson, who looked to have paid for his World Cup medal in 2003 with the rest of his career, has come back from the professional rugby grave to stand on the brink of personally directing England to the first ever back to back World Cups – if you don’t find that awesome and thrilling you should stick to the horror of Tubridy Tonight on Saturday, because you really don’t know what you’re watching. Ask Keith Wood. He sees it too.

If tomorrow evening is a bridge too far for England, it’s hard to deny South Africa the title either. They are a fine and talented team, and Jake White has had to withstand a lot of interference just to keep the show on the road. But for your Spailpín Fánach, England are the story of this World Cup, as they’ve clawed their way back from humiliation on nothing but sheer guts and pride alone. I’m sorry, Tom Barry. Accept my apologies, Dan Breen. Patrick Sarsfield, what can I tell you? I know Cromwell had you poisoned Eoghan Roe, and Oliver Plunkett’s severed head sits in a jar in St Peter’s, Drogheda, as a grim reminder of eight hundred long and dark years, but England are the best team at this World Cup and will win the final, just five days short of St Crispian’s Day. God and Blessed Oliver forgive me.





Technorati Tags: sport, Rugby World Cup, England, South Africa

All-Blacks Bite the Dust - Who Weeps Not for Baldr?

The cheap sniggering that’s accompanied the spectacular crashing to Earth of the best team at the Rugby World Cup™ has been unedifying, and the one bum note in what’s otherwise been a spectacular weekend for the game of rugby football. We are a nation that allows its head coach to make an eejit of himself bigging up Triple Crowns when the real action is elsewhere, and have been celebrating a game we lost (v Australia in 1991) for sixteen years and counting. Can you imagine the reaction here if Ireland had been on the business end of referee Wayne Barnes’ zanier decisions?

But that’s rugby. The New Zealanders like to big up their team, but your close-attention-paying correspondent doesn’t hear much whinging out of them. Chris Jack was interviewed on Newstalk last night, before the Scotch game. He sounded like a man at his own funeral, but never once did he whinge or whine. To do so would have been the work of a “sook,” and the All-Blacks were never that. They have been able to dish it out, but now they’re taking it, and taking it like men. It’s hard not to feel that the tournament is poorer without them.

Not least as Saturday night’s quarter-final would have made such a thrilling final, if the tournament had gone according to plan. Just what exactly happened is harder to figure, as three narratives are already developing. The first is that the Blacks got done. The second is that they choked. The third is that the French were able to strike back at the Blacks by playing the champagne rugby for which their nation is far-famed and of which is rightly proud.

The incredible potency of the ball-in-hand approach is George Hook’s analysis, a man lately much given to discussing potency, according to the worrying ads An Spailpín Fánach has seen in the gentlemen’s rest rooms of the bars of Ireland. On this occasion, however, George must be on stronger tack than the little blue pills. Surely, as Brendan Gallagher points out in the Telegraph this morning, the reason that the French were still in it was because Bernard Laporte, who’s been derided as a fool since his appointment as head coach of France, played a tactical game at the start and kept the All-Blacks frustrated for the first hour. To go toe to toe with them was to invite doom. Instead, the French waited for their opportunity, and struck hard when they got the chance. Richie McCaw mentioned the same thing in his post match press conference, and he ought to know.

Judgement on the referee is up to the individual. These things happen in rugby and the game is such that referees’ interpretations will always have an influence stronger than the ideal. In the 1980s, games were won and lost according to how the old lineout was refereed. Now, it’s all about reffing the breakdown. The bottom line is that the ball just isn’t round, and it’s going to bounce funny from time to time. C’est la guerre, la vie et la rugby. The choking is something your philosophically inclined correspondent hopes to look at more fully before the tournament is over - or else just after it. Watch this space.

New Zealand's demise was not the only shock of the quarter-finals. For the first time ever your correspondent, who has shed tears for Parnell and always thinks well of the Fenian dead, was cheering England for all he was worth on Saturday as they screwed Australia to the sticking-post. Australia was always more a league than a union nation, and their inability to scrummage correctly is proof again of that. Fare thee well to them.

South Africa are the team that are coming out of this tournament the best, as momentum builds and builds behind Die Bokke. New Zealand’s experience shows how vulnerable you become without hard matches, but too many hard matches will leave you physically smashed to ribbons – not many Frenchmen will be able to sit up today after putting in tackle after tackle on Saturday; in fact, Imanol Harinordoquy probably lacks sufficient strength to shave off that disgraceful moustache of his. Die Bokke got a thorough going-over from Fiji, and the Argentineans will have a good close look at them as well, but South Africa will not have that just-spent-the-night-in-a-cement-mixer feeling that the winners of France v England must endure. An Spailpín hopes it's France - cheering for England is something An Spailpín can't do every week, and besides, my little flutter on France is still alive. Où est la vie, l'espoir, mes petits!

Finally, An Spailpín is sorry to write off the Argentineans, who have thrilled so many in this World Cup, not least with the firefly genius of their stand-off half, peerless Juan-Martín Hernández. But the law of diminishing returns was looming over the Argentina as they huffed and puffed against a severely limited Scotland, and that law will be fully enforced by South Africa on Sunday night I’m afraid, when it looks very much like a case of buenos noches, Buenos Aires, and thanks for the memories.





Technorati Tags: sport, rugby, Rugby World Cup, New Zealand

Reddan, Steady - D'oh!

This bleary-eyed blogger is surprised that neither the traditional media, nor our new friends over at the marvellous Fear of God blog, has noted that in selecting his team to play France on Friday, Ireland head coach Eddie O’Sullivan has reverted to one of the most sacrosanct traditions of the old amateur era. This is the tradition of picking a man for the game against France in Paris for his very first cap, and then somehow expecting him to escape alive. For a time it was as much a part of the Parc des Princes experience as the cockerels, the band behind the goal and the adidas ball with the black spots that meant damnation for the Irish placekicker, who could no more kick the thing than a bag of potatoes.

Remember Ken O’Connell, the openside flanker of Sunday’s Well and Ireland? His career started and finished on the edge of the Bois de Boulonge, God love him. An Spailpín would have long forgotten the poor devil except that the Sunday Times, almost certainly when Tom English was still their rugby correspondent, interviewed O’Connell years later and asked him what it was like to make his debut in the Parc des Princes. Hell on Earth was his answer. Equally, Moss Keane reminisces in his recent autobiography about being raked in the face during a ruck in his international debut in Paris in 1974, when his aggressor drew so much blood that the dazed Moss realised that if only they had a bucket to collect the blood Ireland could have made black pudding.

Welcome to the big time, Eoin Reddan.

Eddie O’Sullivan’s relentless CV padding of recent years means that Eoin Reddan, with half-an-hour’s international rugby under his belt, is now expected to turn around the tanking Irish, and to do so while the likes of Serge Betsen or Chabal is trying to turn him into a melodeon. When Ireland played the might of the Pacific Islands in Ireland’s last game at Lansdowne Road, Reddan wasn’t even on the bench. Issac Boss started at scrum-half, and Peter Alexander Stringer was on the bench. Stringer had seventy caps and won the Heineken Cup for Munster the preceding May. What could he show from the bench that hadn’t been seen already?

And the cost of that is that Eoin Reddan is now being asked to do the impossible, to turn Ireland out of the nosedive they’re in currently. An Spailpín Fánach hopes it works out for him, but my goodness gracious, it’s certainly a lot to ask.

The bizarre thing is, of course, that scrum-half isn’t the position most in need of change. There is no point in dropping the Piper Hickie either; as Donal Lenihan pointed out on Newstalk’s Off the Ball last night, dropping Hickie is like dropping a corner forward in football if you’re getting a hiding. Generally, you’ll find the problems are nearer the action.

What An Spailpín Fánach would do – presuming that he can’t turn back the clock two years and see those autumn internationals as they are – is start Alan Quinlan. Whether it’s in the second row or the back row I don’t care; I would give himself and Leamy 00 licenses and tell them to just take their chances with the cards. Besides, if they do a good enough job, the ref will be too scared to bin either of them. This would have the beneficial effect of putting the French on the back foot, and let’s not forget that Freddy Michalak (did you see the state of him on Sunday night? Good God) isn’t going to fancy being on the back foot much – least of all with Leamy or Quinlan trying to rip it off.

But out from that, there’s no hope. The campaign is already a disaster, and the only thing the team can do now, realistically, is try to stave off humiliation. As a fellow Mayoman and Ballinaman I wish Gavin Duffy all the best, and it’s my dearest wish that he can be the toast of Paris come Friday night, but anybody who has any appreciation of the impossible thrill of seeing a man running with ball in hand has to have his or her heart broken by the shameful current treatment of Geordan Murphy. These are grim days for Irish rugby.







Technorati Tags: rugby, Rugby World Cup, Ireland, France, Eoin Reddan, Geordan Murphy, Eddie O'Sullivan

Namibia's Call

Anyone with a heart or a knowledge of Irish rugby history was surely cheering for Namibia about ten minutes into the second half of their World Cup Group D opening match against Ireland last night. For the vast majority of the history of Irish rugby, Ireland were Namibia – whipping boys. Cannon fodder. Chum for the sharks. Willie John McBride, gloriously leading the Irish once more in that thrilling O2 ad, didn’t know what it was like to win in international rugby until he toured South Africa with the Lions in 1967, and he’d been playing since 1965.

Not only that, but Ireland have been just as much on the end of bizarre refereeing decisions as the Namibians were last night, when the pushover try was dubious, and Jerry Flannery’s try was clearly not a try at all. Remember Roger Quittenton’s somewhat heterodox refereeing of Ireland v Scotland in Murrayfield in 1987? Or JPR Williams’ infamous “professional foul” on Mike Gibson in Lansdowne Road in 1977, when Ireland were in with a shot at a triple crown when winning it still meant something? The mighty JPR was booed in Dublin for the rest of his time with Wales after that blot on an otherwise lustrous career.

So chapeaux!, then, to the Namibian performance in Bordeaux last night. They came with nothing, and they gave it everything. One of the shabbier aspects of the Rugby World Cup since its inception is how so much of the group stages have been about the strong crushing the weak. Namibia went into that game last night as lambs to the slaughter; instead of offering their necks, they claimed the cleaver and went for the butcher. Good for them – honour and glory have been legislated more or less out of the modern game of rugby, but Namibia showed that maybe the ancient virtues still have some role in William Webb Ellis’ game.

As for Ireland, well now. For all the rending of garments that will be going on in the media until Ireland face Georgia (native heath of Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili, aka Uncle Joe Stalin, incidentally) on Saturday, your faithful narrator can see exactly how the rest of this World Cup will pan out. Ireland will beat Georgia, even if Ronan O’Gara or Le Drique don’t play. Ireland will then go on to lose narrowly to France, still sore after the Argentine ambush, to set up a winner take it all game against Argentina, who have the Group win in their crosshairs and a blissfully sweet quarter-final against Scotland awaiting if they can get past Paddy.

The DVD and commemorative coffee-table books will record what happens next at the Parc des Princes, a venue where Ireland have never won in all their visits there. We’ll see footage of Paul O’Connell beating his chest, and Le Drique making a passionate speech about sure we’re good but WE COULD BE GREAT!, and Denis Leamy will throttle a small donkey, just for the thrill of it. Then it’ll be nip and tuck all the way, no quarter asked for or given, with Argentina leading by two points as the clock reaches eighty minutes. Then little Peter Stringer, in a diving pass from a crumbling scrum at the 22, whips it out to O’Gara who has slipped back into the pocket. O’Gara attempts the drop kick – he misshits, but it’s still wobbling, tumbling, bobbling for the posts – and it’s over! Ireland win! It’s Ireland’s greatest ever day at the Parc des Princes!

Of course, Argentina still go through, due to superior points scoring difference, but it’s been a great day for Ireland. A philosophical Eddie O’Sullivan, coyly flirting with Miriam O’Callaghan / Ryan Tubridy on TV while selling his World Cup Diary just in time for Christmas, philosophically remarks on what a legendary night that was, and how it all made up for the Namibian disappointment. The nation smiles along with the little feller, comfortable once more with our place in the world.

How does An Spailpín Fánach know? Because that’s exactly the sort of fools’ gold that’s been at the foot of the Irish rainbow for the past four years, that’s how.

Brent Pope was talking to Michael Corcoran on Morning Ireland this morning, and Popey was talking about how the iffy performances against Italy and Scotland were not just “training matches” after all. We can go further back than that.

Remember when Ireland were forty points down at half-time against the French in Paris last year and ran in a few tries in the second half against a French team whose minds were strictly on their post match pints of Châteauneuf-du-Pape? Remember how a twelve point hammering was presented as some sort of triumph?

Looking back at Ireland’s season this year, the only match result with any vague legitimacy or credibility was the win in Cardiff. The autumn internationals were a joke – South Africa’s performance yesterday against Samoa puts their display in Dublin in distressing perspective. Paddy Wallace was acclaimed as an international out-half when he can’t even play there for Ulster because he had a good game against the “Pacific Islands,” an “international team” that isn’t even at the World Cup, which means they’re not even as good as Portugal.

Ireland choked against France in Dublin and choked against Italy, where those two late tries cost them their first Championship in over twenty years. An abject display in Murrayfield was glossed over by the coach making a sensational accusation of attempted murder against a Scottish player whom he didn’t have the bottle to name.

As for the win over England, that generated so much blather and hot air and nonsense – that was Ireland’s fourth straight win against England. Beating England at rugby has been an annual event for the past four years. Celebrating that like it was some sort of achievement is like Kilkenny whooping about beating Wexford in hurling. It’s ridiculous.

Funnily enough, if the historians of Irish rugby have any interest in writing the true history of this golden generation, rather than repeating the pieties of a gullible public and a media-obsessed coach, they may find that the high water mark of this golden generation occurred a little before three o’clock in the old Lansdowne Road on March 31st, 2003, when England arrived to take on the Irish for a winner-takes-it-all Grand Slam decider, which remains as close as the Golden Generation has come to winning something worthwhile. But Martin Johnson, that giant of a man and of a rugby player, stood his ground before the game had even started, and he signalled to his men that day that England were not to be pushed around. Ireland got the signal too, and were blown out of it, 42-6. If you were picking a team to play rugby against the very demons of the hottest pit of Hell, Johnno is the man you’d have as captain, as he proved that day in Dublin, and again in leading England to the World Cup later that year. That England’s decline has occurred after the big man hung up his boots is no co-incidence.

As for Ireland, they’ve been content with moral victories since that high water mark, living in the comfort zone, like a team who have had a vision of the Eternal footman holding their coats, and snickering. Just like the Namibians were happy with their moral victory last night, so happy at being beaten by only fifteen points that they weren’t even annoyed at being screwed by the referee, and even had the dash to go for a tries when the sensible, professional thing would have been to kick for points. Somehow, the Irish moral victories of the past four years seem a little hollow compared to that.

Ciarán Fitzgerald remarked in the Setanta studio last night that there was no leadership from the senior players. Thing is, they’re all senior players. Rory Best, Andrew Trimble and Denis Leamy were the least capped players in the team last night, and they have fifty caps between them. That doesn’t make them innocents abroad.

Far more apposite is the image of the muck and blood-spattered Fitzy himself, eyes popping out of his head in passion and fury, asking the Irish lineout if they had any pride in the final minutes of Ireland against England in Dublin in 1985. Time to ask the same question of the golden generation, and their coach.





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France the Bet for the Rugby World Cup

For the beleaguered Irish rugby coach, the dark skies over Ravenhill on Friday night were for once not solely attributable to the malign summer weather. Eddie O’Sullivan, spun into a corner at last, can only have beheld a sky dark with the sight of chickens coming home to roost.

This Irish rugby team has been living on no small amount of gas and hot air being generated jointly by fans with typewriters, cynical advertisers trying to turn a buck and the ambitions of the aspirant classes of the Celtic Tiger cubs. But now the squad is exposed as being desperately thin, and only one unlucky injury to O’Driscoll, O’Gara or John Hayes away from humiliation and exposure as fools’ gold. A sad fate potentially in store for the most talented squad ever to wear emerald green in the great and glorious game of Rugby Union Football, and one which they will have all the rest of their lives to regret, as Brian Moore pointed out after they let in those two soft tries against Italy in Rome on St Patrick’s day to choke another Championship away.

So if Ireland don’t win the World Cup – and they won’t – who will? New Zealand are the hot favourites of course, and if they do win, not only should we not be surprised, we should not begrudge them. No country loves the game as the New Zealanders do, no country is as steeped in the game’s traditions. Begrudging articles in the press over the past months wondering who will save us from these troublesome All-Blacks reflect no credit on their writers.

That said, for a team that’s consistently choked in every World Cup since David Kirk lifted the first Webb Ellis trophy twenty years ago the All-Blacks are really quite shocking value at 6/4 on or so. They may win it, but An Spailpín Fánach will not grow fat(ter) and full(er) on odds like that. Time to look further down the card.

South Africa are historically second only to New Zealand in terms of rugby prestige. Despite many internal turmoils Die Bokke are coming to the boil quite nicely now, and certainly won’t be anyone’s tomatoes in the tournament. They’re in the soft half of the draw too – likely pool winners, with a quarter-final against Scotland or Italy. If they take fire, there’s nothing to stop them going all the way, but the continual sniping at the squad and management as political agendae are served back home in the Rainbow Nation make the Springboks hard to fully trust with the children’s allowance for September.

Australia has a tremendous record at the World Cup, winners twice and getting to the final last time out when they arrived at the tournament with no chance. However, your faithful correspondent will never bet on Australia on principle, on the basis that they are the carpet-baggers of World Rugby. Once can’t help but feel they’d all be much happier playing Rugby League in a pool of mud somewhere around Widnes and environs. Let them away.

Wales is the only other country with New Zealand and South Africa to hold rugby as the national game. During the amateur era the Welsh could keep up to an extent, but the harsh reality of professionalism exposes their lack of population. Wales' 2005 Grand Slam was a thrilling return to everything that makes rugby great, proof that it need not be all about simple brute strength, but all the good of that has been subsequently squandered by infighting and, perhaps, Sir Clive’s disgraceful selection policies during the 2005 Lions tour. In James Hook the Welsh have, potentially, a right and true inheritor of the blood-red ten shirt of Davies, Bennett, John and Morgan, but Wales have no chance of winning the World Cup. More’s the pity.

Brian Ashton, coach of the defending Champions, has been returning very quickly to basics in his selections, realising that champagne rugby is all well and good, but it was old fashioned bully beef that brought dear old Blighty through at Cawnpore and Corunna. That said, the ten-man game has no answer to falling behind in the scores, and the bull-headed persistence in trying to make a Union silk purse from a League sow's ear can only end in tragedy. England will not retain the Cup.

And that just leaves us with the hosts. France have an excellent record in the World Cup, getting to two finals, even if both final appearances were on the back of inspirational against the odds semi-final wins (1987 against Australia, and 1999 against New Zealand). But history shows us that the host nation always gets to the final, and that alone makes them worth a bet. As the likely winners of Group D, theirs is the softer route to the Final. Their talent base is rich and deep – remember Benoit Baby? Benoit Baby gave a man of the match performance at centre against Ireland in Lansdowne Road in 2005 as a replacement, as I recall, and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. That’s riches, as Keith Duggan pointed out in the Irish Times at the time.

An Spailpín is a little concerned at Bernard Laporte’s preference for Michalak at stand-off half, and would certainly not be entrusting this particular Fredo with softening Moe Green’s cough beyond in Vegas. The steady Skrela is my preference, although I get the feeling that Lionel Beauxis could become a star at this tournament. There’s something about the gimp of him, you know.

But perhaps the most fascinating characteristic of the French that inspires An Spailpín Fánach to dig the garden for some gambling doubloons at the price of 17/2 or so is what the French themselves call “l’esprit du clocher” – the spirit of the clock-tower. Your village in France is defined by any point at which you can still see the spire on the village church, and the village must be defended at all times. It’s not so much that France will want to win on home soil, as the soccer team did in 1998, as the notion of seeing someone else triomphe-ing under their Arc on October 20th will be more hateful to them than words can express, and all will be smashed before them to ensure that doesn’t happen. A semi-final line-up of Australia v New Zealand and South Africa v France then, with les bleues to triumph over les noirs in the final. Aux armes, citoyens, and invest in France. From an Irish perspective, there will be no other solace from this World Cup.







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