Susan Hated Literature

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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Well, obviously enough, with the weekend just gone my first topic of this post has to be… the role of the Catholic Church in the political life of Ireland.

Or maybe not.

I’d much prefer to ramble on about the rugby. I didn’t catch any of the England-Scotland match, though I hear Wilko was fabtastic, but his try wasn’t one. I am a fan of Wilkinson, and in one way I do hope his road to recovery is straightforward, but then again, we play England fairly soon and I really want to win.

I didn’t see much of the France-Italy game either. Was at the aunt’s having lunch. But I’m very disappointed in Italy. This was to be their year to win a game, but they played horrendous rugby^[1] and it’ll be the Wooden Spoon if they continue on like that.

And so on to our match, and could you get much more intense than that?
And yes Ireland were lucky not to have O’Callaghan penalised, but there were more than a few occasions when I saw Wales not releasing the ball when tackled. Turns and roundabouts. Three tries to nil means we finished better on the day. And on a day when O’Gara had a horrible first 40 minutes that says a lot.

Injuries now are the big worry for Sunday against France. Darcy is supposed to be fine, O’Driscoll may make it. Although that might just be talk to keep the French guessing. The big worry is Stringer, who has a hairline fracture in his hand.

We’ll see what happens.

In today’s weather update it looks like winter has finally arrived now that it is spring. Bloody freezing out this morning so it it. And the last half an hour or so on the drive home on Saturday was through freezing fog so dense that you couldn’t see nuttin’.

Still the trip home meant I was finally able to stick all the music on the mp3 player. Only around 2,500 songs or so, but while I was adding them I also spent a few hours^[2] deleting all the duplicates from the PC. I’m not really sure why we needed ten copies of some songs on the hard drive, though I’m sure there was a very good reason for it.

And you’ll all be pleased to know that the newest cat is still alive. And as stupid as any cat. Put out by the mutt leaping about the sitting room chasing a ball she decided to leave the room, but as she jumped down from the chair she slipped on the wooden floor and smashed into the ironing board, but instead of realising that she was the cause of her collision she promptly turned and blamed the innocent hound. Spitting at him until he nosed her out of the way.

The gasúr had his birthday while I was away. He is a whole year old now^[3] and taking a few steps, though he prefers to crawl.

How was everyone’s weekend?

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Why do I even bother watching sport anymore? Every team I support is shit. Worse than shit. I’ve mostly given up on even looking for Villa’s results. The Irish football team couldn’t even beat an average under-11’s. And the rugby team?

Honestly, I thought that game against the All-Blacks was bad, but today, against Australia. Un-fucking-believable how bad they are. I know there are a few key figures missing^[1] but still.

Both teams played shite. How many errors and fuck-ups were there. But Ireland were the worst of two crap teams. As this rate we’ll barely scrap past Romania.

Course, just as I type this, and am about to lament the fact that Australia scored three times Ireland’s score, we get a try. That’s all to the good I suppose. But a very slight consolation

My big gripe is that we can do better. D’Arcy, O’Connoll, O’Callaghan and Murphy are better than that. We just don’t tackle. We stand back and let them run past us. Or we take the wrong option and run into nothing.

Still, at least New Zealand beat England as well as everyone else they’ve come up against.

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And I think Ireland bottled it. They never played as well as they could, imo, and stuck far too much to the kick for position and set-piece game. Now I know it has worked well for us, but for a team to win they have to be able to adjust in order to face different teams. To be able to raise their game. And Ireland didn’t.

Hook made the comment on RTE that Sullivan has done the same thing to the Irish rugby team that Jack Charlton did to the Irish soccer team - impose a style of play that lacks any style at all. And in a way he may have a point, but unlike Charlton who stopped Brady and Whelan from playing, Sullivan does let the likes of O’Driscoll and D’Arcy cut loose every now and then. Maybe it is a question of combining the two methods together.

All in all though, there was only one really good game of the competition, and that was the Wales v France game. So well done to those Welsh wankers (I called the french fuckers last time, so it just wouldn’t be fair to leave the Welsh fellas without some insult now would it?) for winning everything that could’ve been won: Grand Slam, Triple Crown, Six Nations etc.

And there is some good news, the Sligo U18 team are all-Ireland champions. First time a Sligo team has ever gotten as far as a semi-final was this year, so congrats to them.

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Both O’Driscoll and D’Arcy are out of tomorrow’s game against Scotland.

“The Leinster centres both picked up hamstring injuries in
Ireland’s 28-17 win in Italy last weekend and captain
O’Driscoll was ruled out on Thursday night while D’Arcy
failed a fitness test on Friday morning”

Still, Maggs and Horgan’ll be grand. We’ll still beat Scotland… I hope.

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No moaning from those not interested:
From the Irish Times, I hear that it is looking more and more promising for O’Driscoll and D’Arcy in next Sat.s match

Despite his current ill-health, the powers of the Pontiff
clearly remain undimmed. How else can one explain the 
Irish squad's unscheduled two-hour delay in Rome and the 
ensuing news that both Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy
have been pencilled in for Ireland's RBS Six Nations game
against Scotland?

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So the rugby, meant to post this yesterday, but what with one thing and another I didn’t.

Didn’t actually catch any of the France vs Scotland match, but hear there is controversy surrounding a try and a yellow-carding. Scotland almost won, and what an upset that would’ve been. Almost as big as the win Wales had over England. I saw most of the second half of this, and was sure that in the end England would make a come-back. I was delighted when they didn’t. Wales have had such a tough time lately, I was so happy to see them winning.

But, obviously, the main match of the weekend for me was the Ireland vs Italy match
Wasn’t a very good one from an Irish pov, but at least we won. And there were some sweet runs by O’Driscoll. Poor O’Gara had a very rough time of it though, how many misjudged kicks were there? Then again, a lot of that can be blamed on the change of ball. Honestly! You’d think that the governing organisation could get a matter like that sorted and have one standard for all balls. This g-spin (or whatever) ball took them a bit of getting used to.

Despite some of the mistakes made, and the actions of the Italy team, I never actually thought we would lose yesterday, and in the end we pulled away with a few tries. Still, a lot of dodgy moments, but in the end the win is what was most important.

Now the main issue is the injury worry. Both D’Arcy and O’Driscoll have possible hamstring injuries. It looks like they’ll both miss the game against Scotland, which could be very dangerous, although I did read that it is possible O’Driscoll will be back. Here’s hoping neither of them are out for much longer than that. D’Arcy especially, considering how much he has missed already through injury. And O’Driscoll would be a huge loss.

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