Colin Sheridan: Rugby is an OK game propped up by commerce - nothing more nothing less
Zealand Is Goal New James Aki Tackeld Cane In Bundee By And Sam In Area Lowe The Of
When it comes to the Irish rugby team playing rugby, I feel honesty is the best policy. I don't mind them winning, but it’s much more fun when they lose. It was not always this way. There was a time when their losses impacted my mood, however fleetingly.
I used to ruminate over squad selections. I lamented our style of play. I knew IRFU blazers by name. I read Mick Doyle. Rugby country was not a thing back then, or if it was, it was subterranean. Being a citizen was an admission of guilt rather than a point of pride.
Maybe the struggle made it more authentic. Now it just seems like an AI generated experience, dreamed up by somebody on a graduate programme in Deloitte, manufactured on a 3D printer. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I know I’m not alone.
I don’t think it’s the players fault. They seem, more or less, like admirable human beings. They come across well in interviews and conduct themselves admirably on the field. They are incredibly impressive athletes, and by any metric, tough bastards.
The few I’ve met off the field are almost disappointedly likeable. The money they make is not otherworldly enough to alienate them like professional footballers. They even drink pints in between matches, something that normalises them in an elite sporting context.
Most intercounty footballers have to emigrate to have a night out in-season. Most rugby players drink wine with dinner, like normal people.
The much talked about sledging, too, only makes them more relatable. It’s real, even if it isn’t pleasant. I grew up at a time when Sean Fitzpatrick had his ear bitten by Johan le Roux, so Peter O’Mahony saying some mean things about Same Cane in the heat of battle is hardly worthy of a tribunal. Animus between competitors is healthy. Knowing about it enhances the spectating experience.
It must be the pundits, then? But it’s not. Take Virgin’s coverage of last Friday night's game versus the All Blacks.
Joe Molloy is a rightly celebrated presenter. He could quarterback election coverage, and not appear condescending or out of his depth. If you really hated Rugby, Rob Kearney would be an easy target for that hate, but there’s nothing dislikeable about him.
Both he and Shane Horgan give astute analysis. They have personalities and rarely get carried away, always qualifying the World Number One nonsense. Mattie Williams is not everybody's cup of joe, but I love to see him coming. He’s got swagger. So too Ronan O’Gara in these pages and on the radio. Roy Keane-like honesty. An earned arrogance.
While I’ve lamented before about the lack of a Dunphy-esque dissenting voice in the media, ex-players are not to blame for this. Most of them are critical, even if the criticism comes from that most human of places - that is, they don't want Ireland to be that much better than when they played themselves. Again, relatable.
So, what the hell is it, then? It’s not the players and it’s not the coaches, and it not the pundits. It’s not even the sport. Sure, rugby can be dead boring, but did you watch the Derry senior football semi-finals? They were an argument for euthanasia.
England versus Australia at Twickenham on Saturday was the best game of anything on all weekend. Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Len Ikitau were a joy to watch. It’s not always like that, but when it is, it’s wonderful stuff.
After such an arduous process of elimination, the temptation here is to just blame the fans. And, while I think there’s something to it, it seems a tad harsh to focus on the Irish Rugby Fraternity Inc. but give a pass to coked up English football fans who stick firecrackers up their arses while ransacking foreign cities.
It’s not a playoff between the two, I understand, and even if it was we wouldn’t even win it, because even the coked-up hooligans have kicked a ball at some stage in their lives, while most rugby fans wouldn’t know a skip-one-two if it rang the doorbell and introduced themselves as an election candidate.
And therein lies the rub. Rugby is not a played game. Run around the parks of Ireland on any given Sunday and you just won't see it.
I respect and salute those who play and coach, even support teams in the AIL, but they are in such a minority they deserve a tax exemption. Compared to practically every other team sport played by kids around this country, it is a game that is propped up - not by community - but by commerce. It’s one big marketing strategy and has been for over a decade.
It’s as if Don Draper had a dream one day and went into Sterling Cooper and pitched “Rugby - For the Man who never Did.”
I don't blame James Lowe for over-celebrating kicking a ball out over the sideline on Friday night. I literally fist pump when I remember to lock the door. I blame the marketing strategist who labeled it as the work of a genius.
And yes, I blame the insecure sycophant who propagates the myth that the game of rugby union is much more than it really is.
It is fine. No more. No less. Spare me the nonsense that says otherwise.
Death, taxes and James McClean poppy drama. On Saturday evening, Sky Sports posted a story about retired Republic of Ireland winger McClean respectfully standing apart from his Wexham teammates during a minute's silence in honour of Remembrance Day.
Had this been the first time McClean had chosen to politely articulate his dissent against the poppy nonsense, you could perhaps forgive the broadcaster, but McClean’s position has been so broadly covered for so long, that by Sky (and others0 covering it the way they did was indicative of a still-prevalent institutional bias against anybody who dares resist.
The poppy's may have gotten smaller on the lapels of the pundits across Sky, the BBC and TNT, but they are omnipresent, nonetheless. Likewise on jerseys. McClean long ago stated he would happily wear a poppy if its sole purpose was to honour those killed in the First and Second World Wars.
That he - being from Derry of all places - correctly identifies its presence as divisive and problematic should be something he’s celebrated for by his fellow footballers, club employees and press who cover the game.
Yesterday, he again explained himself on social media - “The poppy represents for me an entire different meaning to what it does for others, am I offended by someone wearing a poppy? No absolutely not, what does offend me though, is having the poppy try be forced upon me.”
There may come a time when McClean is thanked for his principled stance. In the meantime, we can expect he will have to continue explaining himself.
In the final race of one of cycling's most celebrated careers, Mark Cavendish did what he’s done almost as well as anyone who ever rode a bike professionally and won.
In a trademark sprint finish, the Isle of Man native claimed the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium hours after receiving a guard of honour form fellow riders for it being his last ever race. 40 next summer, the Manx man this year broke Eddy Merckx’s record for number of stage wins at the Tour de France which now stands at an astonishing 35.
The peloton will miss Cavendish, an outspoken and combative rider who always put his money where his mouth is. Expect to see him on television soon.
Speaking from Munich before the New York Giants and Carolina Panthers this weekend, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell teased the likelihood of a regular season NFL game coming to Dublin.
“Ireland, possibly,” he volunteered to the NFL network, outlining plans for next year's international series of games. If it happens, expect Dublin to become Pittsburgh, just with pricier hotels and a no fly zone overhead.
We should get used to it, too, as American football fans and league executives will inevitably love it and want it to recur. Munich, Madrid, London, even Mexico City, none of them will quite devout themselves to the experience like Dublin will.
So, get knitting your báinín sweaters, the cousins are coming, and money they will spend.