Rugby Thuggery

[el tk]

1 - Niggling fouls are illegal and punished. We still don't have the advantage of grabbing someone - concentration is on the ball. It's called skill.

2 - There are some places where football is not played - as you said. Dear God, why do I even bother.

3 Achieve? An appreciation/understanding of other cultures is a start. A raised awareness of the dreadful lived by many countries' citizens have. The sowing of seeds that will make people more agreeable to aid to countries. That's only the tip of the iceberg. Even the establishing of internet connections brtween fans of different countres - witness the banter here after the last two Irish internationals. Tourism also can benefit. Shame on you for even asking that question.

4. Still happens I believe. Fans also go out to Clontarf to get autographs and photographs with the players. Maybe you got them on a bad day.

In football you frequently see players getting away with cheap shots, shirt tugging etc.

-Point 2 ingnored because it was so rampantly uneccessary I thought my head might explode-

3. Appreciate and understand other cultures? you don't have to be a football fan to do that. " A raised awareness of the dreadful lived by many citizen's countries have" You don't have to bother with the bad grammar, I already don't like you. Anyway what are you? some kind of socialist?

[el tk]

I'm not talking about "fronting up" and "aggressive game". I'm talking about punch ups, stamping on players' heads, biting fingers. After all, didn't you refer to discipline in the game??? There is no excuse, NONE, for violence - your above paragraph is, again, a cliche.
Thank heaven football is about skill - less chance players will end up in wheelchairs.
TBH I DO worry about the effects of heading the ball - remember Jeff Astle's "industrial injury".

Firstly stamping on players' heads? Highly illegal, the most recent player to do it got banned for 6 or 12 weeks. Biting fingers? If you stick them in someone's mouth- play with fire and all that.

Punch-ups- ok theoretically wrong but rugby is a contact sport, you say you played, was your team never involved in a fight? Often in rugby fights are as a result of overly-agressive or foul play on the part of the other team, they don't start for no reason.

Oh yeah and nice to see you ignore my last two posts, pick your battles and all that...

[hamish]

Point out to me a real rugby-related fact made on the first two pages of this thread (preferably not by you)...

You heard rugby commentators who were wrong, that simple

1 - Just read the quotes I gave from ex-players, coaches from media that takes a proper perspective - I mentioned loads of them. I notice that when you can't defend a point you ignore the reply or change the argument.

Not by me? Most of my posts are based on reports by rugby people? Don't be silly, now.

So, the following are "simply wrong" - Eddie Buttler, Robert Kitson, Stewart Barnes, Dewi Morris, Sean Fitzpatrick, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Brent Pope, George Hook, Clive Woodward, Graham Henry, Tony Ward, Neil Francis, Nigel Melville, Richard Williams etc etc etc etc. What a shower of useless coaches/players/writers they are/were.
Get lost Eddie O'Sullivan! There's a new kid in town and he knows everything.
You see, when I get involved in an debate I do my homework. Nearly all my points are based on, or taken from, people/writers involved in/with the game. I'm, basically, hammering your cliched perceptions with ammunition from your own sport.

[el tk]

1 - Just read the quotes I gave from ex-players, coaches from media that takes a proper perspective - I mentioned loads of them. I notice that when you can't defend a point you ignore the reply or change the argument.

Not by me? Most of my posts are based on reports by rugby people? Don't be silly, now.

So, the following are "simply wrong" - Eddie Buttler, Robert Kitson, Stewart Barnes, Dewi Morris, Sean Fitzpatrick, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Brent Pope, George Hook, Clive Woodward, Graham Henry, Tony Ward, Neil Francis, Nigel Melville, Richard Williams etc etc etc etc. What a shower of useless coaches/players/writers they are/were.
Get lost Eddie O'Sullivan! There's a new kid in town and he knows everything.
You see, when I get involved in an debate I do my homework. Nearly all my points are based on, or taken from, people/writers involved in/with the game. I'm, basically, hammering your cliched perceptions with ammunition from your own sport.

Yes that's right, I ignore posts while you can do no wrong. Are you ever going to respond to the two above? or do you need more 'research'?

New Zealand are renowned throughout the rugby world for playing attractive running rugby wherever possible. A lot of talk by coaches is bullsh!t, merely playing up the other teams abilities because criticism just gives them extra motivation.

And for the record EOS is and idiot, Brent Pope is only useful for sitting on fences and being a token foreigner who praises Ireland. I could bring out a pile of quotes from soccer writers but I know it's not going to win me this debate

[hamish]

1. I was merely pointing out, by use of anecdotal evidence, that you could be wrong

In paragraph 2, bad grammar annoys me, I was willing to let it go once but I felt I should correct you this time for your own benefit. I tend not to respect people who can't spell.

2. I wouldn't trust the Observer as far as I could throw the printing press on which it is fabricated.This problem isn't limited to rugby.

3. The captain (also the guy who saved Charvis' life), yes his behaviour was questionable but you still haven't provided an example of a footballer doing anything like what Marshall did and what others do.

4. Elitism to distance a sport from a tragedy? Did Brian Murphy die on a rugby pitch? How would you feel if your sport was seen to be full of murderers? I would prefer not to get involved with this as Brian Murphy used to go to my school and his family live extremely nearby and are geniunely nice people.

5. Sorry my order doesn't follow yours, So you're basically saying that because they were rugby players they were racists? Because rugby is elitist and that makes some sick freaks want to hunt black kids? Yeah, back in apartheid times the whites thought they were the sh!t, and they were filthy racists, SA is a f*****g basket case. I know a good few soccer players have had rape allegations against them, do I cast all soccer players as misogynistic? Or just accept that these players are in the minority? Face it- it's a horribly tenous connection- did these guys have jobs? or parents? or friends? why not blame their acts on this common denominator? As I have said before, rugby fans and journalist regularly criticise the game, I sure if you read tomorrow's London Sunday Times they will havea lot to say about it.

So you say football is a bigger sport but then criticise the fact that not as much news of rugby incidents achieves significant penetration in the media?

1 - Which is best? Anecdotal evidence or fact as seen by those present.

2 - Bad grammar eh? Well, slap my wrist! I presume you're taking the
p!$$. Well, I say, "Good for you".
Of course, it is advisable that in making such statment, one might consider the feedback, should there be grammatical mistakes in your posts, which, I'm afraid, there are. I presume, then, that you have no respect for yourself given that comment you made above.

In any case, have I not given you a fine number of noun modifiers, punctuation a-plenty and a selection of the nicest multisyllabic words to accompany them. I do, very rarely, use "your" for "you're" but I am sure wou will have noticed, I have used "you're" in the correct fashion on most occasions. By the way, "as" and "well" - creating space between words is also a grammatical must. Don't be too hard on yourself, now.
I'll give you a chance to edit your grammar mistakes out if you promise to edit out that silly comment about "no respect. Even in attempted jest it sounded..........whooooooops.......elitest.
Damn glad you may not have played much football - I'd hate to see your "og" numbers.

3 - So you do not trust the Observer? Facts please. No anecdotes. Maybe because it's rugby writers don't cheerlead makes you uncomfortable. I noted your opinion regarding Michael Moore and now the Observer. Pattern developing here.

4. Did you not see the attempts by players to save that Cameroon player a couple of years ago. In any case, what are you saying here? Are you implying that footballers would not assist if a player was in a life threatening condition.?

5.I accept your closeness and sensitivity to the situation. Repeat, I merely cited the efforts to absolve rugby from any connection to the entire, repeat, entire, incident. Why was this necessary?? Why did they even think of doing it? Ask yourself those questions and think why they felt it necessary to do so.

6. I read the Sunday Times but prefer the Observer as, in my opinion, and it's only my opinion, it has better analysis than the Times. Tom English is dreadful and not on the same level as Butler.
Let me try and put it simply. If a country has an elitest government, educational system, social system etc and adopts a sport which becomes part of, and contributes to, that entire system, then, should you be surprised if those brought up in that elitest system might view other races as inferior and regard theiir lives as of less or no value.
I'm getting sick making the point that we are referring to some, not all, players in either code which is why I gave examples. Who said anything about "all". YOU DID.
If you create a monstrous state and associate with that state, whether in sport or business, can you be surprised that depraved behaviour will follow. Whether you like it ot not, rugby was a major part of the SA regime, took its cues from that regime and many acted accordingly. You cannot dissemble their jobs etc from the entire picture but these guys who murdered were members of a rugby club, not a farmers club, or Golf club, and acted in unison after drinking at the rugby club.
I'm sure the families of the kid murdered will agree concerning the tenuos nature. Yeah, right.
Fact -many SA rugby players WERE racist and boasted about it. There is a video of a Lions tour to SA where you can hear those clowns speak. As my "kaffir" example above mentioned, some still are. Why was the SARFU criticised recently for not making serious attempts to promote the game in the non white population?
Much of my data is obtained from the Guardian/Observer and I also follow these stories up with internet checks of local media to verify any stories of a controversial nature. They were absolutely correct as I found.
Don'y lambast the Observer unless you give me facts about its failings.

Football IS a bigger sport - period. Are you even implyng rugby is even close to soccer's popularity. If you do, then you live in la-la land.
My point was that football's dark side is regularly aired (no problem with that) while a sport which gets more than its fair share of coverage gets nearly always positive coverage. Question, if a bunch of footballers had hunted a guy and murdered him, don't you feel that it would have got attention. 120,000 football fans tried to get entry into a 60,000 seater stadium in SA a year or so ago. Sadly, many died in the crush. RTE had it. The papers had it. The UK media had it.
SA football/tragedy - mentioned. SA rugby/tragedy - not mentioned.

[hamish]

Yes that's right, I ignore posts while you can do no wrong. Are you ever going to respond to the two above? or do you need more 'research'?

New Zealand are renowned throughout the rugby world for playing attractive running rugby wherever possible. A lot of talk by coaches is bullsh!t, merely playing up the other teams abilities because criticism just gives them extra motivation.

And for the record EOS is and idiot, Brent Pope is only useful for sitting on fences and being a token foreigner who praises Ireland. I could bring out a pile of quotes from soccer writers but I know it's not going to win me this debate

I've answered every bloody point you've made. Stop the self pity. Yeah, "research" - you prefer anecdotes. At least I try to back up any point I make with references to verifiable media and personal experiences in both sports.
What's your excuse??

I take it that you know more about rugby than coaches then. Why waste time here on Footie when you should be out getting ready for the new season - it's only a few weeks away and New Zealand are here in November(?)so you have a lot of work to do.

Don't bother with quotes from "soccer writers" - most football writers in Ireland are absolutely useless and many have no background in the game - this I know as I was involved in the PR side of football and met many of these clowns up close and much of what they write is based on bias towards the game and anecdotal "evidence". I have met them, checked them out, know where the're from, what sports they played - I know who the real football writers are so, please, no quotes from frauds. Again, my homework done here.
Anyway, we have dealt with this on several other threads and, if you're track record on this thread is anything to go by, I would rather doubt any examples you might give, especially in the area of context and the anecdotal explation which is something of a crutch.

Jesus, SEAN FITZPATRICK - ex NZ - said that NZ revamped their coaching after losing out World Cups they should have won. He stated that they had made the mistake of adopting too many of the Northern Hemisphere training methods and suffered accordingly.
How is the game existing when there are so many "idiots" involved?

[hamish]

[QUOTE=el tk]Ok here we go rugby issues:

Player eligibility
Developement of rugby in second and third tier rugby nations (i.e. those ranked from about 10 to 35)
Player poaching by southern hemisphere teams (New Zealand)
Proper competitions at all levels all over the world
Argentina, and their acceptance into the Tri-Nations or 6N
Eventually getting all countries onto a level and fair playing field
Player burnout.

2. Problem is, income from rugby is much more limited and the IRB would not be able to compete with FIFA in this area - vasts sums of money would be required for coaching schemes in schools, media profiling etc. I state this, not from an aspect of trumphalism, but, merely as a fact. Rugby makes the mistake of growing itself among the officer elite (eg. Bucharest) or as a tangent to Tennis clubs (India) in far too many countries when a policy of promotion in all classes would be more successful. This mentality is doomed to failure.

In Argentina, football still survives because of its size so many players can, sadly, move to Europe, There will always be an unending stream of newcomers to replace and big crowds at games. I feel that the IRB should financially help the clubs there along with their participation in the competitions you mentioned.

Player burnout is a serious issue - The Guardian and Observer FREQUENTLY have covered this aspect. How many times has The Irish Sunday Times done this??

Player poaching is going on in all sports - see my Belgium example, above. Fiji, Samoa, Tonga might be best advised to make permanent their Island Nations team but I'm sure NZ would block it.

Level playing fields can be achieved - to a degree - if one has a large playing base. As one leading IRB official stated recently -our playing numbers are spread too thinly. This is another way of saying that very few play it outside the major countries. Investment is needed and a coaching and promotional strategy to make even a start.

[hamish]

Read them...and.............?

Are you feeling hurt el tk??

So what, if some people laugh at eggball and some eggball fans laugh at soccer.

Ignorance is on both sides - at least we tried to battle it out on more specific points.

Maybe that's a start.

Let's not forget the humour element - you won't survive on Footie if you get your knickers in a twist about opinions.

It may be that some rugby criticisms might be true and I've certainly hammered football. In fact, a large element of Footie concerns is concerned with the game's problems - and admitting them.

Maybe it might be a time to give all this a rest for a while - I'm getting bored - as I imagine, you are.

[el tk]

1 - Which is best? Anecdotal evidence or fact as seen by those present.

2 - Bad grammar eh? Well, slap my wrist! I presume you're taking the
p!$$. Well, I say, "Good for you".
Of course, it is advisable that in making such statment, one might consider the feedback, should there be grammatical mistakes in your posts, which, I'm afraid, there are. I presume, then, that you have no respect for yourself given that comment you made above.

In any case, have I not given you a fine number of noun modifiers, punctuation a-plenty and a selection of the nicest multisyllabic words to accompany them. I do, very rarely, use "your" for "you're" but I am sure wou will have noticed, I have used "you're" in the correct fashion on most occasions. By the way, "as" and "well" - creating space between words is also a grammatical must. Don't be too hard on yourself, now.
I'll give you a chance to edit your grammar mistakes out if you promise to edit out that silly comment about "no respect. Even in attempted jest it sounded..........whooooooops.......elitest.
Damn glad you may not have played much football - I'd hate to see your "og" numbers.

3 - So you do not trust the Observer? Facts please. No anecdotes. Maybe because it's rugby writers don't cheerlead makes you uncomfortable. I noted your opinion regarding Michael Moore and now the Observer. Pattern developing here.

4. Did you not see the attempts by players to save that Cameroon player a couple of years ago. In any case, what are you saying here? Are you implying that footballers would not assist if a player was in a life threatening condition.?

5.I accept your closeness and sensitivity to the situation. Repeat, I merely cited the efforts to absolve rugby from any connection to the entire, repeat, entire, incident. Why was this necessary?? Why did they even think of doing it? Ask yourself those questions and think why they felt it necessary to do so.

6. I read the Sunday Times but prefer the Observer as, in my opinion, and it's only my opinion, it has better analysis than the Times. Tom English is dreadful and not on the same level as Butler.
Let me try and put it simply. If a country has an elitest government, educational system, social system etc and adopts a sport which becomes part of, and contributes to, that entire system, then, should you be surprised if those brought up in that elitest system might view other races as inferior and regard theiir lives as of less or no value.
I'm getting sick making the point that we are referring to some, not all, players in either code which is why I gave examples. Who said anything about "all". YOU DID.
If you create a monstrous state and associate with that state, whether in sport or business, can you be surprised that depraved behaviour will follow. Whether you like it ot not, rugby was a major part of the SA regime, took its cues from that regime and many acted accordingly. You cannot dissemble their jobs etc from the entire picture but these guys who murdered were members of a rugby club, not a farmers club, or Golf club, and acted in unison after drinking at the rugby club.
I'm sure the families of the kid murdered will agree concerning the tenuos nature. Yeah, right.
Fact -many SA rugby players WERE racist and boasted about it. There is a video of a Lions tour to SA where you can hear those clowns speak. As my "kaffir" example above mentioned, some still are. Why was the SARFU criticised recently for not making serious attempts to promote the game in the non white population?
Much of my data is obtained from the Guardian/Observer and I also follow these stories up with internet checks of local media to verify any stories of a controversial nature. They were absolutely correct as I found.
Don'y lambast the Observer unless you give me facts about its failings.

Football IS a bigger sport - period. Are you even implyng rugby is even close to soccer's popularity. If you do, then you live in la-la land.
My point was that football's dark side is regularly aired (no problem with that) while a sport which gets more than its fair share of coverage gets nearly always positive coverage. Question, if a bunch of footballers had hunted a guy and murdered him, don't you feel that it would have got attention. 120,000 football fans tried to get entry into a 60,000 seater stadium in SA a year or so ago. Sadly, many died in the crush. RTE had it. The papers had it. The UK media had it.
SA football/tragedy - mentioned. SA rugby/tragedy - not mentioned.

As I said I was merely pointing out a potential flaw in your tale of the D4-boggers.

I am shocked if any of my grammar is incorrect, granted yesterday while replying here I was playing FM2005 and checking my e-mail.

I'm not implying everything, I am saying directly that you had thus far failed to provide me with a specific example of such an action.

I have read the Observer on only a few occasions anf I ahve found IMO that the standard of journalism is not up to that of other papers, that is my opinion. Point out this pattern to me please, i'd love to see it.

I would say the attempts to remover rugby from the equation in this situation were in response to links drawn by tabloid newspapers in the main (they were implied by others) between the brutal murder and rugby, kind of your like your points but much more extreme.

Try reading Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times, I haven't seen it yet today and don't always agree with him but he knows his stuff.

As I have said, SA is a basket case, an entire society built on racism and these things wil inevitably occur, rugby is not the single factor you make it out to be. there are racists evrywhere, in America slavery has been abolished for what (American history is not my strong point) 150-odd years and yet black people are still second-class citizens. Ok so tehse guys were racists, but it is a fairly f*****g tenous connection that they were racists because they played rugby. You may be awware that the last time Ireland played SA we beat them on an extremely suspicious play and i can tell you afterwards all but 2 of their players acted like complete ********s.

I don't think or ever said or implied that rugby is bigger (if I did it was completely unintentional, that's not the issue here).

This SA stadium tragedy- This is to do wiith McLurg's law of journalism which you're probably aware of but just in case, bascially, in news relevance terms-

1 person dying in London is worth 2 Welsh miners is worth 100 Eastern Europeans is worht 1000 SA black diamond miners (sorry it's kind of out-dated, my English teacher last year is a dinosaur,and I know labelling the SA miners as black is racist in itself). It has nothing to do with the sports involved.

Out of interest when was the last time therew as a riot at a rugby match? When was the last time you saw a rugby hooligan?

[el tk]

I've answered every bloody point you've made. Stop the self pity. Yeah, "research" - you prefer anecdotes. At least I try to back up any point I make with references to verifiable media and personal experiences in both sports.
What's your excuse??

I take it that you know more about rugby than coaches then. Why waste time here on Footie when you should be out getting ready for the new season - it's only a few weeks away and New Zealand are here in November(?)so you have a lot of work to do.

Don't bother with quotes from "soccer writers" - most football writers in Ireland are absolutely useless and many have no background in the game - this I know as I was involved in the PR side of football and met many of these clowns up close and much of what they write is based on bias towards the game and anecdotal "evidence". I have met them, checked them out, know where the're from, what sports they played - I know who the real football writers are so, please, no quotes from frauds. Again, my homework done here.
Anyway, we have dealt with this on several other threads and, if you're track record on this thread is anything to go by, I would rather doubt any examples you might give, especially in the area of context and the anecdotal explation which is something of a crutch.

Jesus, SEAN FITZPATRICK - ex NZ - said that NZ revamped their coaching after losing out World Cups they should have won. He stated that they had made the mistake of adopting too many of the Northern Hemisphere training methods and suffered accordingly.
How is the game existing when there are so many "idiots" involved?

*Coughs and points out post 67 and 68 and then is embarassed for SirHamish*
I am also using media sources and personal experience, are mine not goo enough for you?

Paragraph two is ignored because it's just so unbelievably stupid and has nothing to do with this.

So you can ignore football writers but I can't ignore rugby writers? Northern Hemisphere TRAINING methods, note in rugby there being a difference between training methods and game-plans. Take the last RWC, NZ lost ot Australia in the semi-final because running rugby was the only thing they could do and Australia's agressive defence took them on and won.

[el tk]

Read them...and.............?

Are you feeling hurt el tk??

So what, if some people laugh at eggball and some eggball fans laugh at soccer.

Ignorance is on both sides - at least we tried to battle it out on more specific points.

Maybe that's a start.

Let's not forget the humour element - you won't survive on Footie if you get your knickers in a twist about opinions.

It may be that some rugby criticisms might be true and I've certainly hammered football. In fact, a large element of Footie concerns is concerned with the game's problems - and admitting them.

Maybe it might be a time to give all this a rest for a while - I'm getting bored - as I imagine, you are.

"Read them and...." Riposte

Your words aren't suficiently cutting to hurt me, try a hard-back edition of War and Peace. Give it a rest if you want but I'd like to see you answer posts 67 and 68 particularly regarding violence... over to you 'good' sir...

And don't doubt my sense of humour, I support UCD.

[hamish]

As I said I was merely pointing out a potential flaw in your tale of the D4-boggers.

I am shocked if any of my grammar is incorrect, granted yesterday while replying here I was playing FM2005 and checking my e-mail.

I'm not implying everything, I am saying directly that you had thus far failed to provide me with a specific example of such an action.

I have read the Observer on only a few occasions anf I ahve found IMO that the standard of journalism is not up to that of other papers, that is my opinion. Point out this pattern to me please, i'd love to see it.

I would say the attempts to remover rugby from the equation in this situation were in response to links drawn by tabloid newspapers in the main (they were implied by others) between the brutal murder and rugby, kind of your like your points but much more extreme.

Try reading Stephen Jones in the Sunday Times, I haven't seen it yet today and don't always agree with him but he knows his stuff.

As I have said, SA is a basket case, an entire society built on racism and these things wil inevitably occur, rugby is not the single factor you make it out to be. there are racists evrywhere, in America slavery has been abolished for what (American history is not my strong point) 150-odd years and yet black people are still second-class citizens. Ok so tehse guys were racists, but it is a fairly f*****g tenous connection that they were racists because they played rugby. You may be awware that the last time Ireland played SA we beat them on an extremely suspicious play and i can tell you afterwards all but 2 of their players acted like complete ********s.

I don't think or ever said or implied that rugby is bigger (if I did it was completely unintentional, that's not the issue here).

This SA stadium tragedy- This is to do wiith McLurg's law of journalism which you're probably aware of but just in case, bascially, in news relevance terms-

1 person dying in London is worth 2 Welsh miners is worth 100 Eastern Europeans is worht 1000 SA black diamond miners (sorry it's kind of out-dated, my English teacher last year is a dinosaur,and I know labelling the SA miners as black is racist in itself). It has nothing to do with the sports involved.

Out of interest when was the last time therew as a riot at a rugby match? When was the last time you saw a rugby hooligan?

1 - Don't worry about any grammar problems - we all operate in simiolar fashion - watching TV etc whilst popping into Footie. It was still silly to bring in the respect factor.

2 - Ok so you're not convinced - feeling's mutual. Read my posts - how many examples do you want???

3. I feel the Guardian is the best - you don't - give examples where it is inferior. I should have done likewise also TBF with regard to the ST.

4. Exactly. Wish football was given the same treatment sometimes. I never made any conection - that's in your mind. I was just curious to see would you admit that the attempts were to disassociate eggball from the situation.

5. Yep, Stephen Jones is Ok but I prefer Eddie Butler. No problems there.

6. Nothing tenuous - repeat - if a minority creates a warped society where its customs, society, tradition, sport etc is elitest it cannot be surprising that its adherents believe that they are superior in all these areas to other racial types and societies, in this case, the majority ie. non- Whites. These were members of a rugby club who murdered a black man. They acted as a unit and as members of that unit. You simply cannot disassociate eggball from the overall package. If one thinks elitest, acts elitest, plays elitest then it's no surprise that others will suffer - and/or die.

7. Danny Grewcock for a start. My godson worked on security in a Galway hotel where there were constant problems with one Galway rugby club whose members were constantly fighting at discos there and that hotel was one of the club sponsors. Luckily, he's 6ft 3in and a second dan in Karate so he had little problems in throwing them out.
No doubt about it, as i've stated, football has a major problem with violence. There is too much violence on the rugby pitch which, far too often, is blathered away under a mountain of euphemisms - see above post.. Citing is a good idea but why do so many get away with it? Brian O'Driscoll, I'm sure, is asking that question.

[hamish]

In football you frequently see players getting away with cheap shots, shirt tugging etc.

-Point 2 ingnored because it was so rampantly uneccessary I thought my head might explode-

3. Appreciate and understand other cultures? you don't have to be a football fan to do that. " A raised awareness of the dreadful lived by many citizen's countries have" You don't have to bother with the bad grammar, I already don't like you. Anyway what are you? some kind of socialist?

Ditto eggball. Big difference between shirt tugging and punch ups, stamping, biting, eye gouging.

Again, what are you talking about - head might explode? Maybe it's too big? Just kidding.

My point is that there is a great opportunity to sample more cultures because is football is more widespread. You started that theme, I was just responding.
I neither dislike or like you and obviously your feelings are clouding your judgement.
Besides, I really couldn't be @rsed whether you dislike me or not. You started the name calling.

Socialist? No. Have you a problem with socialists in any case?You do realise that you are making a cliche of yourself with your references to Michael Moore, Observer, socialism etc and wasn't that the reason you entered this thread - as a response to cliched criticisms of eggball?

[hamish]

Firstly stamping on players' heads? Highly illegal, the most recent player to do it got banned for 6 or 12 weeks. Biting fingers? If you stick them in someone's mouth- play with fire and all that.

Punch-ups- ok theoretically wrong but rugby is a contact sport, you say you played, was your team never involved in a fight? Often in rugby fights are as a result of overly-agressive or foul play on the part of the other team, they don't start for no reason.

Oh yeah and nice to see you ignore my last two posts, pick your battles and all that...

Too many still get away with it. Does it require a death before before something is done?

Contact sport or not, fighting is fighting is fighting. There is no excuse for it in any sport - where is all this discipline you mentioned??

I didn't ignore any points you made. You're the one who's doing the dodging and using empty analogies.

[hamish]

"Read them and...." Riposte

Your words aren't suficiently cutting to hurt me, try a hard-back edition of War and Peace. Give it a rest if you want but I'd like to see you answer posts 67 and 68 particularly regarding violence... over to you 'good' sir...

And don't doubt my sense of humour, I support UCD.

So, it annoys you that people might have the temerity to criticise eggball? Look, only words on a page, opinions - informed and correct - points of view, debating points etc etc. As I said, we have no problems aboiut critcising football - this is what makes Footie tick. Why so defensive when eggball is criticised? maybe the truth hurts?

I've more than sufficiently answered all your posts - including 67 and 68 - violence is violence and using the excuses "aggression" and ""fronting up" is a cop out. Besides, isn't "fronting up" a euphemism?

Glad to see you're claiming a sense of humour - I support Athlone Town - I guess that makes us both comedians, then. LOL

Let's finish this now - you haven't convinced me and I haven't convinced you but the debate was fiesty, enjoyable and worthwhile. Any cutting or personal remarks I may have made that really offended you - hey, then I regret them as I was really only extracting the michael and, honestly, no hurt was intended. But I really have to say that when you stated that you disrespected people for bad grammar whilst, to paraphrase Peter Gabriel, "you carried all you lacked", was very offensive - not just to me but to all involved in Footieland. It didn't do anything to further arguements and only undermined your points.
I am now adding you to my ignore list.
Sorry about that but I am not going to get to the stage where I start to dislike you - guess I'm just a big softie but I can't stand it when people get bitter.
Bye

[el tk]

Jeez...touchy...and very mature.