I was at Croke Park today. As a witness you’d think I’d therefore have some clue what was going on, but, omg, wtf was that?

The first half was okay. We made some chances and really should have been further ahead. But the second half was just plain poor. The lineout was atrocious. How is it that Munster can be playing so well yet many of the very same players are so just not doing anything in the green shirt? I can only blame Eddie O’Sullivan. I’m rolling with the bandwagon here, I know, but honestly, I can’t come up with any other explanation.

Gordan D’Arcy’s injury was unfortunate as he wasn’t bad, but he has’t been anywhere near his best in a long while. In the “A” game Bowe played well, I wonder will O’Sullivan call him into the squad for the next match?

Today is James Joyce’s birthday, so I could have used one of his quotes as a title, but I decided instead to go with a line from George Hook, grump extraordinaire.

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As you can see I’ve changed the header because the 2007 RWC kicks off today. I’ve also finally gotten around to adding a link to The Fear of God that’ll stay over there on the right for the duration of the competition.

I was talking to one of the students about Ireland’s chances, and over the course of our conversation we got on to the subject of Croke Park and the IRFU and FAI using the GAA ground. And do you know what he said? That he would never go near Croke Park, that the GAA “shower” would never get any money off him, weren’t they all bigots. That he had no time at all for the GAA. Can you tell where he was from?

But of course, a southside Dubliner^[1]

What an attitude to have. Of course his may be slightly mitigated in that he is a “mature” student and so can remember the days when GAA players weren’t allowed to play other sports. But that is in the past, and holding a grudge against the past is merely what the GAA were doing in the first place. After all it was set up, not primarily as a sporting organisation, but as a cultural one. To restore Irish culture through sport, and other activities. That is why you couldn’t play “foreign games”, because the foreigners had stopped the playing of Irish games.

So, the GAA has gotten rid of its outdated idiot rules lets hold it against them. Can you say “whataboutery”.

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She says:

1. Voices ::
2. Have to ::
3. Machine ::
4. Seventh grade ::
5. Beach ::
6. Roommate ::
7. Cyclone ::
8. Theater ::
9. Pregnant ::
10. Phoebe ::

The big match for all Sligonians was yesterday. De mudder and de sister came up Friday, and stayed in my place. The fadder and 2 of de brudders came up on Sat and we headed to Croke Park. And it was dreadful.

I don’t think many of us expected Sligo to win, but still, the match was not a good example of gaelic football. Instead it was messy, neither team took real control, it was dull, and I’m sure any neutrals would have been bored. Sligo started out a little brighter, but there were too many wides and they didn’t play their best. Still, hopefully they’ll have learned from this and will improve next year. The match might even work in Cork’s favour too, cause no one will be too impressed after that display, so maybe they’ll be underestimated

The third match of the day^[1] was between Tyrone and Meath and it was a great game. Especially in comparison to the one that had gone before it. Meath won, and probably deserved it too.

Read the rest of this entry »

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So it turns out that today is Thursday. Who’d have guessed that shocker following yesterday being Wednesday? Course yesterday was the start of my working week so part of me is busy thinking today is Tuesday. Gonna get a pleasant surprise when I wake up thinking “thursday, nother two days of work” only for it to turn out to be Sat. Course, this may then get extra confuddling when I arise feeling like a Sat^[1] and then remember, that no, today is Monday. You should be at work.

The perils of taking days off work.

Right, back to the blunt end of this post^[2] today is Thursday, which means Thursday Thirteens.:

Thirteen Sports related memories One of my earliest sporting memories, you know, apart from playing three and in in the park, or kerbs by the kerb, is radio related. Who’d have guessed in this modern age of televisual delights, HD-mebobs, youTube footage, bittorrented goodness and all the rest of the technological greatness that is modern sports-watching. But then again, I am almost ancient now, approaching my third decade. Mein gott! the wrinkles…[3] So back in the day, they had this device known as a radio. Whereby you could listen to people describing things that happened in front of them. I’m guessing I was quite young, because I know we were on holiday in Enniscrone, camping and that was why I wasn’t watching on the telly[4] I’m thinking 8. But that may be a purely random number pulled from the ether[5] Right, eight years old, in the car, listening avidly to… showjumping. Yes, the Dublin Horse Show’s Nations Cup competition. I don’t remember who won, but I think we may have[6] Whatever. Winners or losers, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I remember it, and lo, it was good. Another barely recalled sporting moment, which isn’t really a moment at all, more like a collection of memories, is of All-Ireland final day. Now back in the dim mists of time when I hadn’t the vaguest of interests in sport these two days[7] meant only one thing. No telly to watch. Because in those days there was no such thing a families having two tellies. Not a chance boys, nor did children enter into the equation when the parents wanted to watch something. So All-Ireland Sundays involved waiting for the sport to end. If it was a wet summer[8] then that would involve sitting around, popping heads in doors, and gradually watching bits of the game. Or if it was good weather, then that meant you could play outside til the game was over, and you could always tell, because sunny days meant glare on the screen, and All-Ireland days were the only ones important enough to allow the curtains to be pulled during the day to facilitate telly watching. So roller-skating[9] around the house, or whatever else, you could tell the moment the game was over by spotting that the curtains to the sitting room were now open. And now a real actual sporting memory: Watching Simon Geoghegan play rugby. I can’t give you a specific match or year, but sometime between 1991 and 1996 would be my best guess. This was when I started to get into rugby. As I’ve mentioned before, de mudder was always a rugby supporter, but I could never see the point of a game where you had to through the ball backwards[10] and one of the main ways of advancing was to kick the ball into touch. Seemed boring and pointless to me. But what with there only being one telly in the house you sorta had to watch those Five Nations matches, and Geoghegan always stood out. And of course once you start watching and understanding the game then it is fairly easy to appreciate the sport. The Dublin-Meath GAA encounters of the early 90’s. They seem to have spent the entire summer playing each other[11] Donegal winning the All-Ireland in 1992, beating Dublin. I’m not really sure why this sticks in the mind. I know I was supporting Dublin at the time, but it was still nice to see Donegal win. Living in Sligo you don’t really get too many sporting greats around, so seeing a neighbouring county do well is always nice. Euro ‘88, I was in 4th class. I think. And such was the soccer-mania that qualifying for the European championships brought about, we had more than a few art classes where we did nothing but colour in flags or draw the footballers. Course, there was one fella who was so enthusiastic that when Euro ‘88 was over he promptly set about preparing for Euro ‘89 before being laughed out of the classroom as everyone explained about there being four years in between championships. And I couldn’t mention the Euros without mentioning the World Championship, and Italia ‘90. The glory days of Irish football. I was on my yearly holiday in Tip when we played Italy. Fully confident that we would lose against Italy, but that didn’t dampen the excitement. And of course then I was proved correct when Scilacci[12] scored that goal. But we didn’t really care. The team had gone there and done us proud. Okay, so they didn’t technically win a single match, but that didn’t bother us. Watching Barry McGuigan, I have no idea who he was boxing, or when this was, but I do remember staying up late watching on the Granny’s small telly. I can’t even remember if this was a fight he won. Not much of a memory, but I was maybe 6 or 7, so you’ll have to make do with hazy memory. Michelle Smith winning in the Olympics. Great while it lasted, but now totally, and deservedly overshadowed by the sample-tampering/whiskey in urine incident. Cian O’Connor winning the gold medal in showjumping. Okay, another drug incident. But until the drug story came to light it was a great achievement. Michael Carruth and Wayne McCullough in the 1992 Olympics. I’m not even a boxing fan, but look, three boxers have already been mentioned here. Brian O’Driscoll scoring three tries against France. In Paris. Asked for a comment on the field after the final whistle, Keith Wood, the Irish captain, was too happy for words. “Woooooooooo,” he screamed into an interviewer’s microphone. Look at him, all young and unfamous, awww. Ireland V England in the Six Nations 2007. Croke Park, historical day and all that. The emotion of the anthems. The final score. Best rugby memory[13] in a long while. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Selena Kitt The Flatland Chronicles Pistols, Passion & Potions the screaming pages (leave your link in comments, I’ll add you here!)

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Today’s Irish Times has some interesting facts on the rugby match^[1]

An average of over one million viewers tuned into RTÉ on Saturday to witness Ireland beat England 43-13 at Croke Park.
These average numbers (1.052 million) are remarkable: they trump the peak figures for the Ireland v France game on February 4th, the soccer World Cup final in July and the All-Ireland hurling final in September, which were all just shy of the seven-digit figures.
…
Seventy per cent of those watching television on Saturday tuned into the coverage, anchored by Tom McGurk, from 5.40pm to the final whistle at 7.27pm. An average audience of 535,000 watched the entire coverage from 2.30pm to 10pm.
…
he independent electricity system operator Eirgrid noted a decrease in demand similar to that experienced during the Ireland v Romania game at the soccer World Cup in 1990.
Because people were watching the match together in sitting rooms or public houses all over Ireland, lights or appliances in other rooms were not switched on and this meant the demand for electricity during the match was 100 megawatts less than on a normal Saturday at this time of the year.
…
the effect was also demonstrated by a temporary rise in demand at half-time as kettles all over the country were switched on

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My only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey!

What a match. What a result. Role on Scotland and Italy.

Super Saturday or what? The fun started before I went to bed on Friday^[1] when B#5 texted me to say he’d gotten his hands on a ticket for the big match. Bad news was that he couldn’t get me one, his was a schoolboy one that some fella didn’t want. Don’t know why, he asked no question just grabbed it. His train got into Dublin around 3 on Sat., so I was busy texting him the insane opening scores from the Italy Scotland match. 21-0 after 7 minutes, and Scotland’s nightmare start was all down to their own sloppiness. Part of me really wanted Scotland to make a come back, I was giving out to Mr. Paterson for not taking any of the points on offer. Constantly kicking for touch and never getting near scoring a try! But a little part of me wanted Italy to win^[2] Historic, seeing as they’d never won a Six Nations away match before. And if they’d lost after those early tries it would have been heartbreaking. It’ll be really interesting to see them face Wales, I’m thinking that the Wooden Spoon might be headed Wales, despite the fact that they finally managed to score some tries in this year’s competition. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After the Scotland match came the Ireland match.

And the tension was such that I had to put away the beer, couldn’t be drinking as I had to concentrate on the match. But before that came the appearances by the teams, and the crowd gave the English team a great reception. Nothing compared to the reception they gave Ireland, but still nice to see. And after all that had been written and talked about regarding GSTQ, there wasn’t even the slightest hint of trouble^[3] Instead it was sung and listened to with respect, before Amhrán na bhFiann and Ireland’s Call were belted out, with so much emotion^[4] that tears were shed. And then, the match itself.

The opening was a bit dodgy. England took the lead, 3-0 and a slow start from Ireland looked likely. But not this time. Not a bit of it. O’Gara evened the score up with a penalty of his own, and from there on it was all Ireland. England were totally outplayed in one of the most intense first halfs I have ever seen. O’Driscoll was back and although quiet by his usual standards was still hugely influential. Stringer was back and as game as ever. Paulie too was back, I know he hadn’t missed a game, but he hasn’t been playing as well as he can recently. But in this match he was fantastic, back to his best, and Man of the Match, although maybe O’Gara could have claimed the award as he totally dominated the match. But then again, so too could Wallace, he was immense. And with Horgan back to his preferred position, and displaying some GAA high-fielding talents to score that try.

What a day, and what a result, 43-13! Forty-three points we scored. Gwan Ireland!

Image from IrishRugby.ie

Then I had to leave the on-screen celebrations and head out and find de brudder in the seething mass of happy fans coming down Parnell St. And headed home to hope Wales would finish off a perfect day by beating France.

It was not to be however, Wales may have gotten off to a good start, but in the end France’s class showed out and they won, playing well-within themselves. Bloody French spoiling our party

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