Sexton In, ROG On Bench
24/11/09 22:34 Filed in: Sport
The biggest call made
by Declan Kidney today, in announcing his match
squad for Saturday, was the inclusion of Jonathan
Sexton at outhalf, with Ronan O’Gara on the bench.
Some Leinster fans I know are citing this as
evidence of Leinster’s further eclipse of Munster.
Some Munster fans are suggesting that Kidney has
bowed to pressure from the media.
This is all bollocks. Jonathan Sexton has shown excellent form since the start of the season, and therefore he deserves a start in a top-class international test. It’s not like he’s a callow 19 year old, wet behind the ears - he’s 24 and has been a professional for some time now. He deserves his chance and I hope he has a magnificent game for Ireland.
When Declan Kidney was head coach at Munster, no-one owned the red shirt on their back. He promoted Tomás O’Leary at the expense of Peter Stringer, and even dropped the great Munster lidgind Axel Foley. It’s the same in the Ireland camp - no-one owns their shirt.
Will it affect O’Gara’s confidence when he comes back to Munster? I doubt it somehow. If anything, it might help him improve.
This is all bollocks. Jonathan Sexton has shown excellent form since the start of the season, and therefore he deserves a start in a top-class international test. It’s not like he’s a callow 19 year old, wet behind the ears - he’s 24 and has been a professional for some time now. He deserves his chance and I hope he has a magnificent game for Ireland.
When Declan Kidney was head coach at Munster, no-one owned the red shirt on their back. He promoted Tomás O’Leary at the expense of Peter Stringer, and even dropped the great Munster lidgind Axel Foley. It’s the same in the Ireland camp - no-one owns their shirt.
Will it affect O’Gara’s confidence when he comes back to Munster? I doubt it somehow. If anything, it might help him improve.
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Five Years On
23/11/09 22:25 Filed in: Blogging
Well, five years and
one day, to be exact.
Monday, 22 November 2004, there I was sitting in the corner of our little apartment in Dublin 8, tapping away on the keyboard of my little iBook G4. My first blog post, bellyaching about traffic or something. I started out with a blogspot site, and then two years later moved the whole lot down here to Laois.
There have been plenty of ups and downs along the way. Back then, blogging was a relatively new phenomenon and the blogging scene was quite small in Ireland. The first comments! Holy shit, someone was reading what I had to say! I remember being quoted a couple of times in The Sunday Tribune. The first time it happened, I nearly fell off the chair with shock. I was a bit shy at first and paranoid about keeping my identity under wraps. “What if”, I thought, “some of the millions of Sunday Tribune readers who see my site know me and blow my cover?” But once I pulled myself together, I remembered that it was the Sunday Tribune, which at that time had a readership somewhere around that of my blog. Probably still has.
There have been some fairly consistent themes about which I have written over the years. Rugby, of course. Driving on Ireland’s roads. Rants about the government and other politicians. Some tech stuff every now and then. The odd photo. Music. Being a Dad.
When I started up first, I was an avid reader and fairly regular commenter at Slugger O’Toole, as well as a few other Northern Ireland blogs within Slugger’s orbit. As a result, I did quite a few posts about NI and Irish identity in general. Even though I still read Slugger regularly (though I hardly ever comment there any more), I find I have no inclination to write about these topics any more. Maybe it was an itch that I needed to scratch at the time.
Blogging has changed a lot in the last five years and of course is now just one aspect of a vast array of social media. I’d imagine that there are many more bloggers in Ireland now than there were in 2004, but I doubt if there has been much growth in the number of regular bloggers over the last two years. The internet is littered with the remains of abandoned blogs, left behind in favour of Twitter and Facebook. I have never bothered with either of them.
So five years on, and I am still moseying along, getting anything between 50 to 100 hits per day at best. I have considered pulling the shutters down and closing the shop up for good a number of times. I have been through stages 1-3 of Kent Newsome’s Five Stages of Blogging, and hovered around the edges of stage four. But I know that if I did, I would miss it. It’s a hobby which I indulge in when I feel like it, and don’t bother with it when I don’t feel like it.
To those who visit here regularly, leave comments or have me in your RSS reader - thank you for taking the time to stop by. It’s much appreciated.
Monday, 22 November 2004, there I was sitting in the corner of our little apartment in Dublin 8, tapping away on the keyboard of my little iBook G4. My first blog post, bellyaching about traffic or something. I started out with a blogspot site, and then two years later moved the whole lot down here to Laois.
There have been plenty of ups and downs along the way. Back then, blogging was a relatively new phenomenon and the blogging scene was quite small in Ireland. The first comments! Holy shit, someone was reading what I had to say! I remember being quoted a couple of times in The Sunday Tribune. The first time it happened, I nearly fell off the chair with shock. I was a bit shy at first and paranoid about keeping my identity under wraps. “What if”, I thought, “some of the millions of Sunday Tribune readers who see my site know me and blow my cover?” But once I pulled myself together, I remembered that it was the Sunday Tribune, which at that time had a readership somewhere around that of my blog. Probably still has.
There have been some fairly consistent themes about which I have written over the years. Rugby, of course. Driving on Ireland’s roads. Rants about the government and other politicians. Some tech stuff every now and then. The odd photo. Music. Being a Dad.
When I started up first, I was an avid reader and fairly regular commenter at Slugger O’Toole, as well as a few other Northern Ireland blogs within Slugger’s orbit. As a result, I did quite a few posts about NI and Irish identity in general. Even though I still read Slugger regularly (though I hardly ever comment there any more), I find I have no inclination to write about these topics any more. Maybe it was an itch that I needed to scratch at the time.
Blogging has changed a lot in the last five years and of course is now just one aspect of a vast array of social media. I’d imagine that there are many more bloggers in Ireland now than there were in 2004, but I doubt if there has been much growth in the number of regular bloggers over the last two years. The internet is littered with the remains of abandoned blogs, left behind in favour of Twitter and Facebook. I have never bothered with either of them.
So five years on, and I am still moseying along, getting anything between 50 to 100 hits per day at best. I have considered pulling the shutters down and closing the shop up for good a number of times. I have been through stages 1-3 of Kent Newsome’s Five Stages of Blogging, and hovered around the edges of stage four. But I know that if I did, I would miss it. It’s a hobby which I indulge in when I feel like it, and don’t bother with it when I don’t feel like it.
To those who visit here regularly, leave comments or have me in your RSS reader - thank you for taking the time to stop by. It’s much appreciated.
A Sense of Perspective
We all know that the
French can be a right shower of bastards when they
want to be. Just ask the New Zealanders. Back in
1985, they sank a Greenpeace ship, the Rainbow
Warrior, in Auckland Harbour, drowning a
photographer in the process. Ten years later, they
started testing nuclear weapons in the South
Pacific, blowing the shit out of a number of atolls
in the region.
Judging by the hysteria in the media today, you would swear that the French navy had steered a nuclear submarine into Irish territorial waters and started sinking Irish fishing trawlers. Dermot Ahern has called for the game to be replayed. A senator from Wexford was on The Last Word suggesting that we take legal action against the French. Brian Cowen is going to raise the matter with Nicolas Sarkozy.
As Harry Enfield's Scousers used to say - "Eh! Eh! Calm down! Calm down!"
I love me sport as much as the next man, but that's what it is - sport. Unless you make your living from it, and you stand to lose out as a result of us not qualifying for the World Cup, then in the overall scheme of things, it's not that important. Certainly it's disappointing that our team's Herculean efforts were scuppered in such an unsporting manner. Having played so well over the course of the qualifying campaign (and having to play both of the finalists of the last World Cup), it is heartbreaking for the players, the management and all backroom staff to have been cheated out of their place in the World Cup.
But it doesn't warrant the acres of newsprint and the hours of airtime that have been expended analysing the nitty-gritty of what happened. And as for the politicians jumping on the bandwagon - two thoughts come to mind. One: there is nothing like The National Grudge for uniting the people. For years, the National Grudge was all about those perfidious Brits. But now that We Have Grown Up As A Nation, we can look beyond the white cliffs of Dover to see others who might do us down. We like our National Grudge. We like to take it out of its box every now and then, especially when times are hard, stroke it, feed and water it. What happened last night is perfect food for the NG. We were wronged. FIFA didn't want us going to South Africa anyway. They can all go and shite, so they can, we're off to the pub to sulk and pick at our scabs.
Secondly - this is s perfect diversion to keep the people's minds off the recession, the public sector strikes, the queues in the hospitals, the unemployment, the budget, NAMA, and everything else that makes up the utter clusterfuck1 our government has led us into. Formal intervention on this issue by any politician is populist bullshit. I have no problem with them voicing their opinion on the matter from a personal point of view, but this nonsense of Cowen raising the issue with Sarkozy is just loo-laa.
The people who are responsible for complaining about this matter on an official level are the FAI. Let them raise the issue with FIFA, and the politicians can get back to doing what they're supposed to do.
1 I first heard this word used by Sgt Jay Landsman in The Wire, and vowed that one day I would use it in a post.
Judging by the hysteria in the media today, you would swear that the French navy had steered a nuclear submarine into Irish territorial waters and started sinking Irish fishing trawlers. Dermot Ahern has called for the game to be replayed. A senator from Wexford was on The Last Word suggesting that we take legal action against the French. Brian Cowen is going to raise the matter with Nicolas Sarkozy.
As Harry Enfield's Scousers used to say - "Eh! Eh! Calm down! Calm down!"
I love me sport as much as the next man, but that's what it is - sport. Unless you make your living from it, and you stand to lose out as a result of us not qualifying for the World Cup, then in the overall scheme of things, it's not that important. Certainly it's disappointing that our team's Herculean efforts were scuppered in such an unsporting manner. Having played so well over the course of the qualifying campaign (and having to play both of the finalists of the last World Cup), it is heartbreaking for the players, the management and all backroom staff to have been cheated out of their place in the World Cup.
But it doesn't warrant the acres of newsprint and the hours of airtime that have been expended analysing the nitty-gritty of what happened. And as for the politicians jumping on the bandwagon - two thoughts come to mind. One: there is nothing like The National Grudge for uniting the people. For years, the National Grudge was all about those perfidious Brits. But now that We Have Grown Up As A Nation, we can look beyond the white cliffs of Dover to see others who might do us down. We like our National Grudge. We like to take it out of its box every now and then, especially when times are hard, stroke it, feed and water it. What happened last night is perfect food for the NG. We were wronged. FIFA didn't want us going to South Africa anyway. They can all go and shite, so they can, we're off to the pub to sulk and pick at our scabs.
Secondly - this is s perfect diversion to keep the people's minds off the recession, the public sector strikes, the queues in the hospitals, the unemployment, the budget, NAMA, and everything else that makes up the utter clusterfuck1 our government has led us into. Formal intervention on this issue by any politician is populist bullshit. I have no problem with them voicing their opinion on the matter from a personal point of view, but this nonsense of Cowen raising the issue with Sarkozy is just loo-laa.
The people who are responsible for complaining about this matter on an official level are the FAI. Let them raise the issue with FIFA, and the politicians can get back to doing what they're supposed to do.
1 I first heard this word used by Sgt Jay Landsman in The Wire, and vowed that one day I would use it in a post.
Thief-erry Handry
18/11/09 22:27 Filed in: Sport
Ireland And Australia Share The Spoils
15/11/09 22:10 Filed in: Sport
Having not played
together since March, Ireland put in a spirited
display in their opening Autumn International
against Australia today. They never held the lead,
and managed to draw level twice, most crucially at
the end of the match, to earn a 20-20 draw.
It was clear from early on that the Ireland players were having to get used to playing together again. There were mistakes aplenty early on, one of which allowed the Aussies in for a try in the third minute. The scrum was a shambles, and in one instance the Irish pack was marched back off their own put in. They were second best at the breakdown for much of the match.
They managed to get going during the second half, and a period of sustained pressure on the Australian line saw Tommy Bowe get over for Ireland's first try. ROG added the conversion to bring the sides level. However, shortly afterwards, a superb team effort by the visitors saw them cross the line again, and Ireland were seven behind again.
But that was not to last. Again, Ireland piled the pressure on the Aussie line, and once again Bowe got over. However the try couldn't be seen by the TMO, and the try was not given. From the ensuing five metre scrum, captain Brian O'Driscoll waltzed his Matilda through the Aussie defence to score under the posts. Once again O'Gara added the extras and that was it.
Plenty of positives to be taken from this game. For a start, Ireland didn't give up. They kept going to the end and got the reward. Secondly, there were some very good performances from individual players. Cian Healy had a good game, and showed that he is useful in the loose. Keith Earls was another to shine, coming on after Luke Fitzgerald went off injured.
Fiji next week, and then the big one the week after - World Champions, Lions Tour Winners and Tri-Nations Champions South Africa.
It was clear from early on that the Ireland players were having to get used to playing together again. There were mistakes aplenty early on, one of which allowed the Aussies in for a try in the third minute. The scrum was a shambles, and in one instance the Irish pack was marched back off their own put in. They were second best at the breakdown for much of the match.
They managed to get going during the second half, and a period of sustained pressure on the Australian line saw Tommy Bowe get over for Ireland's first try. ROG added the conversion to bring the sides level. However, shortly afterwards, a superb team effort by the visitors saw them cross the line again, and Ireland were seven behind again.
But that was not to last. Again, Ireland piled the pressure on the Aussie line, and once again Bowe got over. However the try couldn't be seen by the TMO, and the try was not given. From the ensuing five metre scrum, captain Brian O'Driscoll waltzed his Matilda through the Aussie defence to score under the posts. Once again O'Gara added the extras and that was it.
Plenty of positives to be taken from this game. For a start, Ireland didn't give up. They kept going to the end and got the reward. Secondly, there were some very good performances from individual players. Cian Healy had a good game, and showed that he is useful in the loose. Keith Earls was another to shine, coming on after Luke Fitzgerald went off injured.
Fiji next week, and then the big one the week after - World Champions, Lions Tour Winners and Tri-Nations Champions South Africa.
The Things They Say
Putting Aoife to bed
the other night, she told me with wide-eyed wonder
that she had seen rhubarb in SuperValu earlier that
day. I was at a loss as to why this would be
remarkable (other than the fact that rhubarb is out
of season right now, but I wouldn't expect her to
know that.)
She went on "Yes, I saw two rhubarbs, and Santa as well!"
Rhubarb, Rudolf - hey, we've all made that mistake.
Elsewhere, this article by Adam Brophy in Tuesday's Irish Times Heath Supplement was worth a read. Choice quote:
"I am a father of girls. Therefore I am in the “most easily manipulated” category on the planet. I can be turned through the act of defiance, subtle use of tears and, at speed, with a disarming smile and an undemanded kiss. Both of my tormentors realised this by the age of two."
She went on "Yes, I saw two rhubarbs, and Santa as well!"
Rhubarb, Rudolf - hey, we've all made that mistake.
Elsewhere, this article by Adam Brophy in Tuesday's Irish Times Heath Supplement was worth a read. Choice quote:
"I am a father of girls. Therefore I am in the “most easily manipulated” category on the planet. I can be turned through the act of defiance, subtle use of tears and, at speed, with a disarming smile and an undemanded kiss. Both of my tormentors realised this by the age of two."
Ireland v. Australia Preview
13/11/09 21:40 Filed in: Sport
Ireland's first
international of the season takes place on Sunday,
when we welcome Australia to Croke Park. The
groundsmen at GAA HQ will have had a busy Saturday
night, having to change the pitch over from a
soccer layout to a rugby one.
This is the first time that the first choice Ireland team will have played together since that heart-stopping, destiny-fulfilling thriller in Cardiff last March. There was a summer tour of course, but the bulk of Ireland's elite players were in South Africa on Lions duty. So it will be good to see the full team back, and hopefully they aren't too ring rusty since their last outing.
As you might expect from any visiting Southern Hemisphere team, the challenge from Australia will be a formidable one. But to be honest, we won't know for sure till Sunday just how good the Wallabies are. They beat a weak England last weekend, and were caught in the crossfire of the SA/NZ shootout that was the Tri-Nations.
One area of potential worry is the scrum, the front row in particular. One one side, we have John Hayes, returning after a six-week layoff due to suspension for stamping. On the other side is the stampee in that incident, Cian Healy, who is making his international debut. Healy is a good player and has established himself within the first-choice Leinster team, so hopefully he will be able to bring those positives with him once he puts on the green jersey. In between is Jerry Flannery, who is just back from injury, and who picked up a minor knock in training today.
Elsewhere, Ronan O'Gara will need to have a good game, as he now has not just one but two pretenders to his throne. Jonathan Sexton will be on the bench on Sunday, hoping to get a chance to show his stuff. In addition, Ian Humphries is showing his form for both Ulster and Ireland 'A' at the moment, and could well stake a claim for the full international No 10 jersey.
There are too many unknowns to make an informed prediction, so I am going to make an uninformed one - Ireland by five.
This is the first time that the first choice Ireland team will have played together since that heart-stopping, destiny-fulfilling thriller in Cardiff last March. There was a summer tour of course, but the bulk of Ireland's elite players were in South Africa on Lions duty. So it will be good to see the full team back, and hopefully they aren't too ring rusty since their last outing.
As you might expect from any visiting Southern Hemisphere team, the challenge from Australia will be a formidable one. But to be honest, we won't know for sure till Sunday just how good the Wallabies are. They beat a weak England last weekend, and were caught in the crossfire of the SA/NZ shootout that was the Tri-Nations.
One area of potential worry is the scrum, the front row in particular. One one side, we have John Hayes, returning after a six-week layoff due to suspension for stamping. On the other side is the stampee in that incident, Cian Healy, who is making his international debut. Healy is a good player and has established himself within the first-choice Leinster team, so hopefully he will be able to bring those positives with him once he puts on the green jersey. In between is Jerry Flannery, who is just back from injury, and who picked up a minor knock in training today.
Elsewhere, Ronan O'Gara will need to have a good game, as he now has not just one but two pretenders to his throne. Jonathan Sexton will be on the bench on Sunday, hoping to get a chance to show his stuff. In addition, Ian Humphries is showing his form for both Ulster and Ireland 'A' at the moment, and could well stake a claim for the full international No 10 jersey.
There are too many unknowns to make an informed prediction, so I am going to make an uninformed one - Ireland by five.
RTÉ - Nepal Govt To Meet On Everest
02/11/09 21:30 Filed in: General
Nonsense | Politics
RTÉ - Nepal govt to meet on
Everest
And next week, Brian Cowen and his Cabinet colleagues will hold a Budget meeting in a specially-constructed meeting room, deep inside a slurry pit on a farm near Tullamore.
Nepal is to hold a cabinet meeting on Mount Everest to highlight the impact of global warming on the Himalayas ahead of next month's climate change talks in Copenhagen.
The entire cabinet will travel to Everest base camp at an altitude of 5,360 metres for the meeting, to be held later this month.
The announcement comes just weeks after the government of the Maldives held an underwater cabinet meeting to focus global attention on rising sea levels ahead of the key UN summit on December 7-18.
And next week, Brian Cowen and his Cabinet colleagues will hold a Budget meeting in a specially-constructed meeting room, deep inside a slurry pit on a farm near Tullamore.