Rugby now more popular than football AND GAA?!

**ArdeeBhoy** · 26/12/2013, 1:37 AM

Really?
Call relative cliche(s) alerts on that lot.

**SkStu** · 26/12/2013, 2:31 AM

Originally Posted by ArdeeBhoy

Really?
Call relative cliche(s) alerts on that lot.

to be sure, to be sure.

**DannyInvincible** · 18/04/2014, 10:01 AM

Saw this on Balls.ie this morn: http://balls.ie/football/great-graph...-in-the-world/

Take that, rugby!

**Charlie Darwin** · 18/04/2014, 12:15 PM

I'm pretty sure rugby is more like 8km, but that looks about right - the less contact in the sport, the more running you do. Tennis has no excuse.

**osarusan** · 18/04/2014, 2:04 PM

The should throw a marathon runner onto the end of that graph to make it even more pointless.

**DannyInvincible** · 18/04/2014, 2:17 PM

As it was done by a GAA analyst, I'd imagine it was created to promote the notion that amateur GAA players are perhaps fitter than some of their professional counterparts. Not that I'm necessarily agreeing this is the case, nor am I suggesting that the average distance traveled during a match by a sport's participants is the only measure by which we should judge the skill-level of that sport. The graph is obviously limited in that sense, but I still thought the comparisons interesting.

**The Fly** · 18/04/2014, 6:38 PM

The knocks that players take in rugby more than compensate for the reduced distance travelled in my opinion, but, as Osarusan says, the graph is pretty pointless.

For it to have a little bit of relevance, a match in each sport would have to last the same length of time.

**bennocelt** · 18/04/2014, 6:40 PM

How could they even get that average? Some teams barely move at all.

**CraftyToePoke** · 18/04/2014, 6:43 PM

Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

Tennis has no excuse.

Not even the little tiny teeny patch they ply their trade on, compared to Croker of a fine Sunday in June CD ?

**Charlie Darwin** · 18/04/2014, 6:44 PM

Originally Posted by bennocelt

How could they even get that average? Some teams barely move at all.

Lots and lots of opta stats.

**Charlie Darwin** · 18/04/2014, 6:45 PM

Originally Posted by CraftyToePoke

Not even the little tiny teeny patch they ply their trade on, compared to Croker of a fine Sunday in June CD ?

In my day tennis players came off the baseline.

**tetsujin1979** · 18/04/2014, 10:00 PM

if you really wanted to make it pointless, you should add in golf players and chess grandmasters

**CraftyToePoke** · 18/04/2014, 10:12 PM

And miming.

**paul_oshea** · 09/05/2014, 9:28 AM

According to Trap "The Irish are very proud and passionate people. Although their passion is seen more in rugby than in football."

take it from someone in the know. Cue dodge with there are X number of registered soccer players in ireland v rugby players and therefore Soccer is bigger.

**Stuttgart88** · 09/05/2014, 11:16 AM

That's a pretty disingenuous remark by Trap given the support his team got in Poland and at away games. Even at home games we were filling Croker to play the likes of Georgia and Cyprus until the penny dropped among Irish fans that if passion was what they were looking for, watching a Trap team play football wasn't the place to watch it.

And of course our successful provinces and national rugby teams are getting huge support and attention. They're internationally successful. Trap's legacy is the 65th ranked team in the world. Ok, not all his fault!

**paul_oshea** · 09/05/2014, 12:16 PM

Ah i dont think too much was meant by it. I wouldnt read too much into it either but I think as a football man an foreign obvserver he would have been in a good position to give a relatively impartial view.

**Charlie Darwin** · 09/05/2014, 12:53 PM

I remember reading a map of stereotypes before, where all the countries in Europe are renamed based on what a particular country stereotypes them as. For Ireland, most countries had us down as "potatoes" or "Guinness", but the Italian stereotype of Ireland was "rugby" so maybe it's just the perception of us over there. Certainly Trap didn't spend enough time in Ireland to have any impression of us other than stereotypes.

**Stuttgart88** · 09/05/2014, 4:20 PM

Thescore.ie adds that Trap said that at the rugby he was struck by how well behaved Irish rugby fans were and how much they appreciated the game but that (only citing one game - Wembley) in soccer it was like going to a war, but a gentlemanly war.

http://www.thescore.ie/trapattoni-cl...57116-May2014/

Wtf is he on about? And when did he live "there"?

Was he never struck by the good behaviour of Irish football fans everywhere they followed his team? Is he having a dig at football fans' lack of appreciation of football? Maybe he should have a chat with Declan Kidney, if he feels bitter about not being appreciated enough.

I took my 8 year old to Wembley for ENG v IRL. That's how safe it was.

**DannyInvincible** · 09/05/2014, 7:50 PM

Originally Posted by Charlie Darwin

I remember reading a map of stereotypes before, where all the countries in Europe are renamed based on what a particular country stereotypes them as. For Ireland, most countries had us down as "potatoes" or "Guinness", but the Italian stereotype of Ireland was "rugby" so maybe it's just the perception of us over there.

A few years ago, an Italian rugby fan I knew living in Dublin told me that this was indeed the perception that Italians had of the Irish. I found it very surprising.

**geysir** · 09/05/2014, 8:32 PM

I think I prefer Guinness and spuds than the rugby, imagine being the butt of a rugby stereotype? What a hell ...D4.... rog, bod, poc.
I thought that Martin Scorcese film The Departed would have pushed us up a bit in the eyes of Italians, that we too can be evil, treacherous, backstabbing touts.