QuoteHad both for the World Cup alright, not sure about normal away games.Originally Posted by OwlsFan
Is that true about the symbols? Someone told me that at the away games the Ulster and IRFU flags fly together without the Tricolour which would seem odd but that is only hearsay.
Forget about the performance or entertainment. It's only the result that matters.
Had both for the World Cup alright, not sure about normal away games.
The tricolour and Ulster provincial flag were used at the Rugby World Cup, which I understand is policy when two poles are available.
When one pole is available, a single IRFU flag is used.
Excellent read that.
You've got no fans.
If you like soccer get behind the soccer team.
If you like rugby get behind the rugby team.
If you like them both get behind them both.
69 page thread of nonsense.
Rugby media give the team an easy ride alright in comparison to the soccer team - but there has been criticism of the team, the management and the structures - none of it has been personal or hyperbolic - the soccer media should try and replicate that type of criticism not ridicule it.
I swear to God people won't be happy until all sports coverage is red-top,personal, flag bearing nationalistic garbage that permeates English sports coverage.
It already does to be fair.
The media's treatment of the rugby team in the world cup was strikingly similar to how the English media treat their soccer team at world cups.
I think people aren't happy because rugby is pedelled to be something that it is not, whereas we are all well are of soccer's failings in this country, but nobody doubts its wider popularity.
You've got no fans.
I think those making the argument are more accurately saying, "treat all sports fairly", rather than, "pillory rugby too with over-the-top criticism, just like the football players have to endure".
What the eggchasers need is six flags in one.
Or something.
Well done Danny that's a good read.
Within the 4 provinces, Irish rugby also represents a state and a statelet. The statelet has still got the highly disputed, mono ethnic, unionist, GSTQ as it's official anthem.
IMO, Irelands Call is good enough for now for an AI team, it's totally fit for purpose. It's complicated for an association if you think that it should give special individual notice to a singular ethnic portion.
GSTQ still endures in the 6 co, it's a mono ethnic anthem in an almost 50/50 ethnic Unionist/Nationalist statelet. IMO it should be dumped , not used at all and replaced by sounds of silence or when/if something new is agreed upon. Is Ulster Rugby just a unionist ethnic thing, or does Ulster Rugby represent all ethnicities?
Does Irish rugby have especially recognise the british ethnic portion?
By some extension, we have many Travellers in the boxing, perhaps we should throw in "Go Move Shift" into the mix when they represent Ireland?
I think the IRFU have managed the situation well.
Last edited by geysir; 22/10/2015 at 9:25 PM.
I can't believe you've asked this question and come to any conclusion other than it would be the best idea ever.
Cheers, geysir. Glad you found it worthwhile.
Aye, I mean, I'm not saying it necessarily has to be 'God Save the Queen' specifically that's given recognition; just making the point, rather, that you would have expected there to have been some territory-specific anthem, be it 'GSTQ' or whatever, to be played in the interests of consistency before that game at Ravenhill (rather than it being designated an "away" fixture, so the IRFU could evade the issue), seeing as that's what the IRFU do in Dublin when 'Amhrán na bhFiann' is played. Either they should explicitly and equally recognise both parts of their make-up or they should just play a shared anthem and display unifying symbolism. Recognising symbols that contradict your cultural and political outlook can be difficult, but it's the least we'd expect for ourselves and recognition of our traditions.
I think Ulster Rugby is shedding its unionist image of latter days more and more. Obviously, it is still the traditional sport of middle-class Protestant grammar schools, but more nationalist/Catholic schools in the north are playing rugby too now. As far as I know, the Ulster provincial flag is a more common sight in Ravenhill now than the Ulster Banner, which was previously a popular sight.
More of an English focus to this piece, but an interesting look by Oliver Brown at the hollowness of rugby's haughty claim to commanding a moral high-ground: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rug...-football.html
3 Plymouth Albion (Championship equivalent, professional) rugby players charged with sexual assault last year. Barely any media fuss. London School of Economics rugby club publish highly misogynistic promo material in rag week and get suspended. Durham Uni rugby team suspended for singing songs about rape. Richmond rugby team members run naked on London Underground. And so on. Not to mention how World Rugby institutionally locks out lesser nations.
Great sport, but the idea that it's morally superior especially in this new professional era is daft. That's not to say there aren't areas where I think it can claim some moral superiority, but in its totality, no way. How many kids around the world are saved from drugs and gun crime by rugby, for example?
3 Plymouth Albion (Championship equivalent, professional) rugby players charged with sexual assault last year. Barely any media fuss. London School of Economics rugby club publish highly misogynistic promo material in rag week and get suspended. Durham Uni rugby team suspended for singing songs about rape. Richmond rugby team members run naked on London Underground. And so on. Not to mention how World Rugby institutionally locks out lesser nations.
Great sport, but the idea that it's morally superior especially in this new professional era is daft. That's not to say there aren't areas where I think it can claim some moral superiority, but in its totality, no way. How many kids around the world are saved from drugs and gun crime by rugby, for example?
I wonder how Richard Dunne feels walking back through Dublin airport and seeing photo portraits of Irish people from all walks of life and every sport, except football?
He's probably thinking... "I don't have my picture on the wall at Dublin airport, but I do have more money than all of these suckers combined".
Eamon Sweeney today
http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-34222700.html
"Perhaps that has as much do with the supporters as with the team. I remember writing after the first Germany match that the public was in the mood to fall in love with the national soccer team again. You could sense that the mood had changed. After over a decade of toxic post-Saipan cynicism people were fed up of it. They wanted to get back to the days of giving the team a break and cheering them on wholeheartedly.
Irish football was unlucky to be the whipping boy during two particularly unpleasant periods in our national life. First it was a victim of the bumptious boastful blowhard atmosphere of the Tiger era, getting subjected to ludicrous abuse for our failure to reach for the sky and win the 2002 World Cup. Then it collided with the post-crash, "We're the worst at everything, we're a laughing stock," mood. Rugby and Gaelic games were used as big sticks to beat the game everyone suddenly loved to hate."
That's pretty much how I felt. During the Tiger years we had the temerity not to be brilliant, unlike the rest of our economy. Post-Celtic Tiger there was David Kelly-eque national self-loathing of the team. Now I think the team feels like it has won the public over again.
Of course there was also the post-Saipan civil war, knackers earning lots of money, players not caring (allegedly) and Trap's turgid football added to the mix too. That seems to be behind us, thankfully.
I like Sweeney but I'm starting to feel reluctant to praise his pieces, in fear that something else will be produced where he's completely contradicted himself! Seems to happen a bit with him.
I thought his recent rugby love-in was more a piece of magnanimity rather than contradiction.
Just because Ireland played that game in another jurisdiction, in NI, doesn't mean the IRFU are in anyway obliged to have that territory specific anthem played.
Ulster Rugby have their home ground in that jurisdiction, but Ulster Rugby represents the 9 counties of Ulster.
If Ulster Rugby was a 6 county specific thing, then there is some argument for playing the mono ethnic GSTQ anthem, like the pigheaded IFA do.
Ulster Rugby is a 9 county, Ulster provincial flag, dual ethnic affair and as we know, GSTQ is not a 9 county anthem. Just because AnbF is played in the south before games doesn't mean there should be a quid pro quo when a game is being played in the jurisdiction of NI . It was straightforward arrogance for the whining UR fans to assume Ulster Rugby was a 6 county unionist entity and GSTQ was the Ulster Rugby anthem. Just because that was the perception of those those morons, was not sufficient grounds for appeasing that bigotry.
One answer is to have just Ireland's Call at all games and play a few bars of AnbF when el president inspects and greets in Dublin.
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