Rugby now more popular than football AND GAA?!

[geysir]

McKenna's a journalist of the year award recipient, something which he mentions about every 5 minutes.

[Bungle]

I don't come from a rugby background but this thread is ridiculous.

Rugby has a lot of self-righteous ********s who love to put down football, but so does the GAA. I've met a lot of them. They **** me off royally.

However, it is a good game to watch. While the Irish rugby team finds a way of ****ing up at every world cup, they have world class players. Our club sides are very professional. They offer hope to the football clubs that with good management, we can bring through great talent. The academies of Shamrock Rovers and Bohs give me great hope for the future that we can do the same in football rather than hoping the brilliant talent can come through at a club like Liverpool or City every ten or fifteen years.

The Irish soccer team has churned out mostly abysmal performances over the last ten years. Not so much results in that period, but we have been horrible to watch. The irish football team is the biggest show in town and hopefully in a few years time when Troy is firing us to a world cup quarter final, the country will come to a standsfill. However, right now you can't blame the public for sufferimg from ptsd from watching McClean et al. I feel the same. The Irish rugby team have played some great stuff in that period. They didn't reach their lofty goals at world cups but at least they had them in the first place rather than aspiring to a plucky draw away to the likes of Denmark or Switzerland.

To mock the rugby team is small time and is every bit as horrendous to stomach as the smug rugby crew or the eqaully obnoxious GAA element.

The real war is childhood obesity and getting kids out playing sport whatever the code. Lets not turn on ourselves.

[Kingdom]

I don't come from a rugby background but this thread is ridiculous.

Rugby has a lot of self-righteous ********s who love to put down football, but so does the GAA. I've met a lot of them. They **** me off royally.

However, it is a good game to watch. While the Irish rugby team finds a way of ****ing up at every world cup, they have world class players. Our club sides are very professional. They offer hope to the football clubs that with good management, we can bring through great talent. The academies of Shamrock Rovers and Bohs give me great hope for the future that we can do the same in football rather than hoping the brilliant talent can come through at a club like Liverpool or City every ten or fifteen years.

The Irish soccer team has churned out mostly abysmal performances over the last ten years. Not so much results in that period, but we have been horrible to watch. The irish football team is the biggest show in town and hopefully in a few years time when Troy is firing us to a world cup quarter final, the country will come to a standsfill. However, right now you can't blame the public for sufferimg from ptsd from watching McClean et al. I feel the same. The Irish rugby team have played some great stuff in that period. They didn't reach their lofty goals at world cups but at least they had them in the first place rather than aspiring to a plucky draw away to the likes of Denmark or Switzerland.

To mock the rugby team is small time and is every bit as horrendous to stomach as the smug rugby crew or the eqaully obnoxious GAA element.

The real war is childhood obesity and getting kids out playing sport whatever the code. Lets not turn on ourselves.

You put Ireland automatically into the World Cup and European Championship at every staging, and we'll have different ambitions also.

[geysir]

I don't come from a rugby background but this thread is ridiculous.

Rugby has a lot of self-righteous ********s who love to put down football, but so does the GAA. I've met a lot of them. They **** me off royally.

However, it is a good game to watch. While the Irish rugby team finds a way of ****ing up at every world cup, they have world class players. Our club sides are very professional. They offer hope to the football clubs that with good management, we can bring through great talent. The academies of Shamrock Rovers and Bohs give me great hope for the future that we can do the same in football rather than hoping the brilliant talent can come through at a club like Liverpool or City every ten or fifteen years.

The Irish soccer team has churned out mostly abysmal performances over the last ten years. Not so much results in that period, but we have been horrible to watch. The irish football team is the biggest show in town and hopefully in a few years time when Troy is firing us to a world cup quarter final, the country will come to a standsfill. However, right now you can't blame the public for sufferimg from ptsd from watching McClean et al. I feel the same. The Irish rugby team have played some great stuff in that period. They didn't reach their lofty goals at world cups but at least they had them in the first place rather than aspiring to a plucky draw away to the likes of Denmark or Switzerland.

To mock the rugby team is small time and is every bit as horrendous to stomach as the smug rugby crew or the eqaully obnoxious GAA element.

The real war is childhood obesity and getting kids out playing sport whatever the code. Lets not turn on ourselves.
Are you serious, you're equating what's written in this thread with horrenduos stomach churning obnoxious content? You've lost the runs of yourself.

[Stuttgart88]

I don't think anyone here has mocked the rugby team though. I mock certain aspects of rugby but I don't mock the team as I agree that that'd be petty.

[livehead1]

I’ve recently come back from the RWC in Japan and have also been to a few recent soccer away games including the Swiss game.

The soccer fans could learn a hell of a lot from the rugby fans.

[DeLorean]

Tell us more.

[livehead1]

3 weeks in Japan I didn't see one lad spewing up in the street, I didn't hear any of the IRA songs, I didn't see rubbish strewn on the streets outside pubs where we'd been drinking, I didn't see arguments or scraps between our fans in the stands.

Also saw a bit more entertainment on the pitch!

It's not all by any stretch, but it was something I noticed.

[wexfordned]

I don't think anyone here has mocked the rugby team though. I mock certain aspects of rugby but I don't mock the team as I agree that that'd be petty.

Quite a few people on this thread happy to see Ireland beaten, (which they've admitted) which is nearly as bad. I can't understand how anyone could take delight in an Irish team losing in any sport.

What makes Ireland's WC performance so disappointing is they went into it with expectations to go a long way in the tournament. None of the we're just happy be here or win or lose we're on the booze nonsense.

Finally anyone who uses that bitter hate fuelled so called journalist Ewan McKenna to back up their beliefs has already lost the argument

[IsMiseSean]

Quite a few people on this thread happy to see Ireland beaten, (which they've admitted) which is nearly as bad. I can't understand how anyone could take delight in an Irish team losing in any sport.


People can support (or not) who ever they want. I don't support the rugby team.
I have supported them in the past, but there is something unlikable about this team and their behaviour in the last few years.

Don't get me wrong football has it's fair share of c**ts too. Thankfully we haven't had many passing through our national team.

Out of curiosity, do you understand why some Irish people loved seeing Conor McGregor getting the head bate of him last year?

[wexfordned]

People can support (or not) who ever they want. I don't support the rugby team.
I have supported them in the past, but there is something unlikable about this team and their behaviour in the last few years.

Don't get me wrong football has it's fair share of c**ts too. Thankfully we haven't had many passing through our national team.

Out of curiosity, do you understand why some Irish people loved seeing Conor McGregor getting the head bate of him last year?

Conor McGregor goes out of his way to be obnoxious. It's part of his act to sell PPV events and make money. He thrives on not being liked

Sean O'Brien is only one I can remember, who has done anything controversial of the rugby lads and that was after a winning a trophy. He didn't even travel to the WC.

[IsMiseSean]

Sean O'Brien is only one I can remember, who has done anything controversial of the rugby lads and that was after a winning a trophy. He didn't even travel to the WC.

I don't know if winning a trophy can be used as a reason for ****ing on a random person in a bar.

I wasn't a big fan of the behaviour of the captain last year in Belfast - without getting into a debate over the rights and wrongs of it, I'm sure some people on this forum have no issues with what he did and their entitled to that opinion.

[tetsujin1979]

Conor McGregor goes out of his way to be obnoxious. It's part of his act to sell PPV events and make money. He thrives on not being liked

Sean O'Brien is only one I can remember, who has done anything controversial of the rugby lads and that was after a winning a trophy. He didn't even travel to the WC.
He's done a few things after not winning trophies as well, they just didn't make the papers

[SkStu]

Quite a few people on this thread happy to see Ireland beaten, (which they've admitted) which is nearly as bad. I can't understand how anyone could take delight in an Irish team losing in any sport.

100% this. The same people who will hop on any bandwagon going (hockey, rowing, cricket) without knowing a thing about the sport or the individuals on these teams and then turn around and slate the rugby/football team (delete as appropriate) as a bunch of whatevers. Boils my p!ss. I get that you can like some sports - and their cultures - more than others, I just dont get how you can cheer against or be ambivalent towards the Irish flag during a sporting event.

[wexfordned]

100% this. The same people who will hop on any bandwagon going (hockey, rowing, cricket) without knowing a thing about the sport or the individuals on these teams and then turn around and slate the rugby/football team (delete as appropriate) as a bunch of whatevers. Boils my p!ss. I get that you can like some sports - and their cultures - more than others, I just dont get how you can cheer against or be ambivalent towards the Irish flag during a sporting event.

I couldn't put it better myself.

All the Irish football fans on their high horse taking pleasure at the Irish rugby team's failure don't seem to realise it was such a big deal because they had genuine belief they could go a long way in the tournament.

Our provincial teams compete with the best in europe on a consistent basis and Irish rugby are able to produce home grown talent in this country for the national team, something the FAI rely on british clubs to do.

Anyone with a genunie interest in improving Irish football should be looking at what Irish rugby is doing (especially at underage levels) to introduce it to Irish football, rather than sneering at them under some stupid outdated idea that all their supporters are D4 lads or all from posh old boys from private schools

[Stuttgart88]

Whatever the merits of this overall debate, it's daft to "congratulate" the IRFU for producing home grown talent.

Football is played professionally in nearly 50 countries in Europe
The competitive & economic landscape is massively different between the two games.
Rugby has the luxury of automatic entry to the annual European Championships equivalent, and virtually guaranteed entry to the RWC, and virtually guaranteed passage to the QFs
Rugby has the luxury of a X-border closed club league with foreign TV money from the UK and South Africa; the LOI doesn’t
Rugby has the luxury of virtually guaranteed access to the Champions League equivalent – so even more money
IRFU can tell its players not to go abroad or they won’t play for Ireland (which is lucrative). FAI can’t.
So Rugby has a guaranteed pathway into the very top of the professional game; the FAI can’t guarantee anything like this. The FAI deserves criticism for neglecting the LOI, for sure, but this is a material point and a better funded LOI will only go so far in reducing our reliance on the UK system, unfortunately
The Irish Times is saying the IRFU needs to poach GAA players because its reliance on the schools sasytem isn't producing enough talent!

I admit my interest in rugby's success has diminished in recent years, mainly to to its patronising tone towards football. I think Japan has really hurt though and maybe the penny will drop that both codes are up against it on a global level and a bit more balance will return.

[DeLorean]

Not to mention the demise in stature and media exposure of the actual Irish rugby clubs. God be with the days when you'd put the feet up to Cork Con v Garryowen live on Sports Stadium. I don't think they even read out their results on the sports news these days. Small price to pay for the opportunity to belt out The Fields in the south of France I suppose.

But I'm with Stu & co. in terms of the bottom line. It doesn't boil my p!ss but I do think it's pretty sad taking pleasure in an Irish team's failure on a big stage.

[osarusan]

Not so much at international level, but I genuinely want Limerick teams to do as badly as possible in every other sport, to make Limerick FC a more attractive alternative. Me originally being from Clare has a lot to do with that I suppose.

[sbgawa]

The IRFU have a significant leg up also in terms of raising Corporate money.
The old School tie's from Blackrock, Gonzaga, Terenure, Belvo, Micheals etc practically run this country and are happy to have their companies pump sponsorship into the IRFU.
It doubles down then for the big companies like bank of Ireland who sponsor ALL the provinces because they know the corporates will be happy to accept an invite to a game of rugger.

I do hand it to the IRFU in terms of the decisions they made when they went professional , boosting the Provinces and paying players (money and blackmail of losing Irish place) as if they had simply pumped money into the clubs it would'nt have worked.
Maybe an AIL football made up of Dublin , Norn Ireland, Munster, Leinster and Connaught would be the way to go :)

[pineapple stu]

Whatever the merits of this overall debate, it's daft to "congratulate" the IRFU for producing home grown talent.
Don't forget the IRFU can effectively sign players too - like Jean Kleyn, who qualified for Ireland purely because he'd been playing for Munster for the last three years.

(For the record, I've no interest in rugby because I think it's an ugly, tedious sport, and I just can't bring myself to sit through ten minutes of it, let alone a full game. Others don't agree with that obviously, which is fine.)

[Fixer82]

Don't forget the IRFU can effectively sign players too - like Jean Kleyn, who qualified for Ireland purely because he'd been playing for Munster for the last three years.

(For the record, I've no interest in rugby because I think it's an ugly, tedious sport, and I just can't bring myself to sit through ten minutes of it, let alone a full game. Others don't agree with that obviously, which is fine.)

True. International rugby has become a joke with this stuff but it has been extended to 5 years now I believe.

[tetsujin1979]

Correct, but that doesn't kick in until the new year, so expect to see a few signings made between then and now.

[jbyrne]

3 weeks in Japan I didn't see one lad spewing up in the street, I didn't hear any of the IRA songs, I didn't see rubbish strewn on the streets outside pubs where we'd been drinking, I didn't see arguments or scraps between our fans in the stands.

Also saw a bit more entertainment on the pitch!

It's not all by any stretch, but it was something I noticed.

grand slam match cardiff 2009, afternoon ko, two irish fans beside me puked all over about 5 seats during the first half.
bordeaux rwc 2007, witnessed two separate sets of Irish fans throwing digs in the irish bar during an argument over Irelands Call.

3 weeks in Japan / korea 2002 i didn't see one single incident from the thousands of Irish fans i encountered that i was ashamed of.

btw the 2002 entertainment on the pitch was great also!

[NeverFeltBetter]

There will always be incidents of people overindulging in drink or getting into fights in tournaments, regardless of the sport. There's a perception that rugby isn't as bad for that as other sports, but I'm not sure how much basis that really has beyond anecdotal observation. If I was to declare which sports fans are the worst regards drinking/violence/awful to be around on match days, it would be the GAA by a country-mile, but that's strictly my own experience.

[wexfordned]

Whatever the merits of this overall debate, it's daft to "congratulate" the IRFU for producing home grown talent.

Football is played professionally in nearly 50 countries in Europe
The competitive & economic landscape is massively different between the two games.
Rugby has the luxury of automatic entry to the annual European Championships equivalent, and virtually guaranteed entry to the RWC, and virtually guaranteed passage to the QFs
Rugby has the luxury of a X-border closed club league with foreign TV money from the UK and South Africa; the LOI doesn’t
Rugby has the luxury of virtually guaranteed access to the Champions League equivalent – so even more money
IRFU can tell its players not to go abroad or they won’t play for Ireland (which is lucrative). FAI can’t.
So Rugby has a guaranteed pathway into the very top of the professional game; the FAI can’t guarantee anything like this. The FAI deserves criticism for neglecting the LOI, for sure, but this is a material point and a better funded LOI will only go so far in reducing our reliance on the UK system, unfortunately
The Irish Times is saying the IRFU needs to poach GAA players because its reliance on the schools sasytem isn't producing enough talent!

I admit my interest in rugby's success has diminished in recent years, mainly to to its patronising tone towards football. I think Japan has really hurt though and maybe the penny will drop that both codes are up against it on a global level and a bit more balance will return.

Irish rugby is able to consistently produce young talent as there is a clear pathway for players from underage teams/leagues around the country all the way up to the international team. Irish football as far as I can see from being involved on the administrative side is nothing like that. The only links I can see is between Bohs and St Kevins which is working well for them both. None of the leagues/provinces seem interested in working together either at schoolboy or adult level and seem to work against the LOI rather than with them. The only thing that matters is their own patch.

Based on soundings by the schoolboys association over possible FAI management/board changes that wont be changing anytime soon.

[Stuttgart88]

Irish rugby is able to consistently produce young talent as there is a clear pathway for players from underage teams/leagues around the country all the way up to the international team. Irish football as far as I can see from being involved on the administrative side is nothing like that. The only links I can see is between Bohs and St Kevins which is working well for them both. None of the leagues/provinces seem interested in working together either at schoolboy or adult level and seem to work against the LOI rather than with them. The only thing that matters is their own patch.

Based on soundings by the schoolboys association over possible FAI management/board changes that wont be changing anytime soon.I refer you to my previous post!

[Stuttgart88]

There will always be incidents of people overindulging in drink or getting into fights in tournaments, regardless of the sport. There's a perception that rugby isn't as bad for that as other sports, but I'm not sure how much basis that really has beyond anecdotal observation. If I was to declare which sports fans are the worst regards drinking/violence/awful to be around on match days, it would be the GAA by a country-mile, but that's strictly my own experience.A few pages back I posted quotes from Welsh Transport Police who say that rugby nights in Cardiff are worse for trouble than football.

[SkStu]

I admit my interest in rugby's success has diminished in recent years, mainly to to its patronising tone towards football.

Can you explain this a little more to me? How has "rugby" been patronising towards football? Bodies like World Rugby, IRFU etc been denigrating football? Or a couple of inconsequential goons in the media or "personalities"? Of which football has its own. Which surely just boils down to some of them being arrogant XXXXs as opposed to some rugby conspiracy against football.

[wexfordned]

I refer you to my previous post!
So the fact the FAI has no pathway for youngsters or players from leagues around the country to even LOI football level, never mind International level doesn't seem a coincidence to you why this country is so inept at producing footballers?

Shows why John Delaney was allowed run FAI as his personal plaything for years whilst running the LOI into the ground. Board members from district leagues get looked after, fans get free beer for the train meanwhile LOI teams get screwed/ignored. In Irish football it's all about look after your own patch and not the bigger picture and the best thing for football in the country.

[Stuttgart88]

So the fact the FAI has no pathway for youngsters or players from leagues around the country to even LOI football level, never mind International level doesn't seem a coincidence to you why this country is so inept at producing footballers?
I never said that at all.

And the recent changes shifting the balance of power from schoolboy to LOI clubs is a change in the right direction, albeit one still with flaws, imho.

[Stuttgart88]

Can you explain this a little more to me? How has "rugby" been patronising towards football? Bodies like World Rugby, IRFU etc been denigrating football? Or a couple of inconsequential goons in the media or "personalities"? Of which football has its own. Which surely just boils down to some of them being arrogant XXXXs as opposed to some rugby conspiracy against football.Goons in the media, statements from World Rugby when they can never say anything positive about their game without separating it from football, friends who are rugby supporters only...

I think I told you offline once how I was almost literally ambushed by two pals in a West London pub one night. Vincent Browne wrote an IT column saying that amid all the adulation rugby gets it’s worth noting that there’s a boorish, hard-drinking frat boy culture associated with it and a fair degree of misogyny too. I had the temerity to post a comment underneath the article saying that despite his sensational tone and exaggerations, there’s an element of truth to it. So it wasn’t even a whole endorsement. I added that there’s good & bad in all sports and it’s pointless to compare the worst of one with the best of another. People were spitting blood in the comments section that day! My comment was quite moderate I thought.

After a few beers and amicable chat, my rugby mates turned on me, brought up the online comments I had made, which were months ago now, saying they’d never read such biased rubbish and that I was totally anti-rugby. I pointed out that the previous hour had been spent talking about their trip to the HK 7s, which contained a fair few misogynistic hard-drinking frat boys anecdotes. I also pointed out to one of them that after I texted him about Celtic beating Barcelona he replied “**** your roundball sh1te” and that it was he who was biased. He also told my wife one time that if he had kids he wouldn’t let them play football. His own wife asked how I could show my face in Dublin after my Irish Times comments. I kid you not.

The other mate said he’d be cheering Croatia against us in the Euros because he had a holiday home there! We had a blazing row – well, I got shouted down, I tried to reply in a measured manner. I got both barrels about rugby’s gay refs, no racism blah blah blah, I replied that rugby doesn’t rescue kids from gun & knife crime around the world so it’s a more complicated debate than meets the eye, but no, I was shouted down like some blasphemer by two crazed fundamentalists.

The day after I apologised for my role in the row (even though I felt blameless) and gave a £50 online donation to a rugby spinal injury charity but my mate didn’t reply and didn’t speak to me for 6 months. I can trace my loss of connection with the rugby team to that night. Ever since – in fact, no, before – my rugby sanctimony radar has been turned up to highly sensitive.

The list is long, and that’s why this thread has over 80 pages. My recollection is that the early pages contained lots of pro-rugby / anti-football media bias examples. But you only have to walk around parts of SE Dublin to pick up on the knackerball / wendyball stuff.

[DeLorean]

They sound like gobsh!tes Stutts in fairness. Maybe drop them and go back to supporting your country, if it isn't too late. :)

[livehead1]

A lot has changed in a decade then! :)

[Stuttgart88]

But there's still so much that winds me up. I'm a white collar professional in London. As Owls Fan said about his Leeds(?) scene, the sheer underlying assumption I'm a rugby fan first & foremost (if not only) by my fellow Irish at professional networking events just makes me weep. Not to mention being invited to drinks receptions on the night of Irish footy games which has happened a lot :(

[wexfordned]

I've seen numerous drunken fools at Ireland away games and got into rows over how can you care more about drinking/session than the result and performance. Used to drive me mad. One of the reasons I stopped going to away games. Doesn't inspire a hatred of soccer though.

Its a different supporter goes to Ireland away games in rugby in 6 nations. Older crowd and less of the drunken mess that goes with the football. You're always expecting a decent performance and an excellent chance of winning the game. WC in Japan is different though. Majority of people there would have had to save for a couple of years to attend it so if they want to go mad, then why shouldn't they?

Some peolple seem to think the Irish rugby team get an easy off the Irish media. This week should make them think again. Some of the articles written in the last 10 days or so are what you'd expect from the english media when they go out of an international tournament. Shocking stuff and completely over the top.

[The Fly]

I think I told you offline once how I was almost literally ambushed by two pals in a West London pub one night. Vincent Browne wrote an IT column saying that amid all the adulation rugby gets it’s worth noting that there’s a boorish, hard-drinking frat boy culture associated with it and a fair degree of misogyny too. I had the temerity to post a comment underneath the article saying that despite his sensational tone and exaggerations, there’s an element of truth to it. So it wasn’t even a whole endorsement. I added that there’s good & bad in all sports and it’s pointless to compare the worst of one with the best of another. People were spitting blood in the comments section that day! My comment was quite moderate I thought.

After a few beers and amicable chat, my rugby mates turned on me, brought up the online comments I had made, which were months ago now, saying they’d never read such biased rubbish and that I was totally anti-rugby. I pointed out that the previous hour had been spent talking about their trip to the HK 7s, which contained a fair few misogynistic hard-drinking frat boys anecdotes. I also pointed out to one of them that after I texted him about Celtic beating Barcelona he replied “**** your roundball sh1te” and that it was he who was biased. He also told my wife one time that if he had kids he wouldn’t let them play football. His own wife asked how I could show my face in Dublin after my Irish Times comments. I kid you not.

The other mate said he’d be cheering Croatia against us in the Euros because he had a holiday home there! We had a blazing row – well, I got shouted down, I tried to reply in a measured manner. I got both barrels about rugby’s gay refs, no racism blah blah blah, I replied that rugby doesn’t rescue kids from gun & knife crime around the world so it’s a more complicated debate than meets the eye, but no, I was shouted down like some blasphemer by two crazed fundamentalists.

The day after I apologised for my role in the row (even though I felt blameless) and gave a £50 online donation to a rugby spinal injury charity but my mate didn’t reply and didn’t speak to me for 6 months. I can trace my loss of connection with the rugby team to that night. Ever since – in fact, no, before – my rugby sanctimony radar has been turned up to highly sensitive.

The list is long, and that’s why this thread has over 80 pages. My recollection is that the early pages contained lots of pro-rugby / anti-football media bias examples. But you only have to walk around parts of SE Dublin to pick up on the knackerball / wendyball stuff.

Sorry but....:rofl:

[Charlie Darwin]

Correct, but that doesn't kick in until the new year, so expect to see a few signings made between then and now.
It's 2021 I think, but I may be wrong on that.

[Charlie Darwin]

grand slam match cardiff 2009, afternoon ko, two irish fans beside me puked all over about 5 seats during the first half.
bordeaux rwc 2007, witnessed two separate sets of Irish fans throwing digs in the irish bar during an argument over Irelands Call.

3 weeks in Japan / korea 2002 i didn't see one single incident from the thousands of Irish fans i encountered that i was ashamed of.

btw the 2002 entertainment on the pitch was great also!
Fairly clear trend here that Japan is a civilising influence on the Irish.

[Charlie Darwin]

But there's still so much that winds me up. I'm a white collar professional in London. As Owls Fan said about his Leeds(?) scene, the sheer underlying assumption I'm a rugby fan first & foremost (if not only) by my fellow Irish at professional networking events just makes me weep. Not to mention being invited to drinks receptions on the night of Irish footy games which has happened a lot :(
Quit your job and come join us :)

[tetsujin1979]

Football is the most popular participation sport in New Zealand: https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/living-in-nz/recreation/sports

[bennocelt]

Quite a few people on this thread happy to see Ireland beaten, (which they've admitted) which is nearly as bad. I can't understand how anyone could take delight in an Irish team losing in any sport.

What makes Ireland's WC performance so disappointing is they went into it with expectations to go a long way in the tournament. None of the we're just happy be here or win or lose we're on the booze nonsense.

Finally anyone who uses that bitter hate fuelled so called journalist Ewan McKenna to back up their beliefs has already lost the argument

what? cheer for some posh fellas with funny accents, give me a break, delighted they fecked up

[paul_oshea]

Football is the most popular participation sport in New Zealand: https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/living-in-nz/recreation/sports

That says a whole lot about the whole participation line when brought up about football in Ireland too.

[paul_oshea]

But there's still so much that winds me up. I'm a white collar professional in London. As Owls Fan said about his Leeds(?) scene, the sheer underlying assumption I'm a rugby fan first & foremost (if not only) by my fellow Irish at professional networking events just makes me weep. Not to mention being invited to drinks receptions on the night of Irish footy games which has happened a lot :(

I have worked for a good few consultancies and banks at this stage. And I'm actually beginning to think that this is what turned me off Rugby as much as anything else. I used to attend any games I could get tickets for when I lived in Dublin, but since I came over to London my interest has seriously waned for it. I would put that side of it down to all the Irish I worked with*, who mainly came from private schools in Ireland, mainly Dublin and Cork but also Limerick. That and the GAA stuff I did, who would have seen Rugby as their "other" sport, even though they have no real connection to any club and also thought Rugby was the main sport behind GAA which it clearly isnt and never was in Ireland.

I remember around the time of Croke Park opening up, it was as if it were only opening up for Rugby, the lads over here who most had never even been in croke park nevermind a GAA game explaining to English lads what it was all about...they hadn't a fcuken clue and then trying to dumb it down for English colleagues. Used to really grate me.

[Stuttgart88]

I met an old school mate at a financial conference in London around Easter time. I told I had just been home and had taken my son to Shamrock Rovers at Tallaght. He looked at me with a totally confused look on his face. "Aren't they, you know, kind of like Celtic?" I genuinely think he didn't even know about the LOI. He's from Terenure/Rathfranham.

[Stuttgart88]

Football is the most popular participation sport in New Zealand: https://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/living-in-nz/recreation/sports
I met two NZ tourists, husband and wife in their 70s, in our hotel in Bordeaux during the Euros. I was explaining the format to the husband and he generally didn’t know very much about football. His wife knew a bit more and said her daughter’s kids and most of the kids of their age are now playing more football than rugby because of the fear of head injuries.

It also winds me up when people bang on about how huge rugby is in Wales. Even Newport & Wrexham get broadly comparable crowds to the Pro14 teams, and the big two get massively more, week in, week out. There was a radio documentary "In Wales The Ball Is Round" exploring the perception of rugby being the Welsh national game on BBC4 during the Euros. The narrator was saying never once in his days in school was the Monday morning chat about rugby, it was always about MOTD. There are rugby dominated areas, but these are small towns in the sticks for the most part. North Wales is totally football (southern Liverpool basically).

I think I've made both of these points before on this thread :)

[paul_oshea]

Goons in the media, statements from World Rugby when they can never say anything positive about their game without separating it from football, friends who are rugby supporters only...

I think I told you offline once how I was almost literally ambushed by two pals in a West London pub one night. Vincent Browne wrote an IT column saying that amid all the adulation rugby gets it’s worth noting that there’s a boorish, hard-drinking frat boy culture associated with it and a fair degree of misogyny too. I had the temerity to post a comment underneath the article saying that despite his sensational tone and exaggerations, there’s an element of truth to it. So it wasn’t even a whole endorsement. I added that there’s good & bad in all sports and it’s pointless to compare the worst of one with the best of another. People were spitting blood in the comments section that day! My comment was quite moderate I thought.

After a few beers and amicable chat, my rugby mates turned on me, brought up the online comments I had made, which were months ago now, saying they’d never read such biased rubbish and that I was totally anti-rugby. I pointed out that the previous hour had been spent talking about their trip to the HK 7s, which contained a fair few misogynistic hard-drinking frat boys anecdotes. I also pointed out to one of them that after I texted him about Celtic beating Barcelona he replied “**** your roundball sh1te” and that it was he who was biased. He also told my wife one time that if he had kids he wouldn’t let them play football. His own wife asked how I could show my face in Dublin after my Irish Times comments. I kid you not.

The other mate said he’d be cheering Croatia against us in the Euros because he had a holiday home there! We had a blazing row – well, I got shouted down, I tried to reply in a measured manner. I got both barrels about rugby’s gay refs, no racism blah blah blah, I replied that rugby doesn’t rescue kids from gun & knife crime around the world so it’s a more complicated debate than meets the eye, but no, I was shouted down like some blasphemer by two crazed fundamentalists.

The day after I apologised for my role in the row (even though I felt blameless) and gave a £50 online donation to a rugby spinal injury charity but my mate didn’t reply and didn’t speak to me for 6 months. I can trace my loss of connection with the rugby team to that night. Ever since – in fact, no, before – my rugby sanctimony radar has been turned up to highly sensitive.

The list is long, and that’s why this thread has over 80 pages. My recollection is that the early pages contained lots of pro-rugby / anti-football media bias examples. But you only have to walk around parts of SE Dublin to pick up on the knackerball / wendyball stuff.

Did anyone think yer mans wife was a scunthorpe fan when reading this? Nothing worse than a woman who has adopted her husbands thinking and gone further with it.

I hope you didnt reply when he text 6 months later ;) Certainly doesnt seem like someone worth associating with.

I wish I had been there that night.

[paul_oshea]

I met two NZ tourists, husband and wife in their 70s, in our hotel in Bordeaux during the Euros. I was explaining the format to the husband and he generally didn’t know very much about football. His wife knew a bit more and said her daughter’s kids and most of the kids of their age are now playing more football than rugby because of the fear of head injuries.

It also winds me up when people bang on about how huge rugby is in Wales. Even Newport & Wrexham get broadly comparable crowds to the Pro14 teams, and the big two get massively more, week in, week out. There was a radio documentary "In Wales The Ball Is Round" exploring the perception of rugby being the Welsh national game on BBC4 during the Euros. The narrator was saying never once in his days in school was the Monday morning chat about rugby, it was always about MOTD. There are rugby dominated areas, but these are small towns in the sticks for the most part. North Wales is totally football (southern Liverpool basically).

I think I've made both of these points before on this thread :)

I Think its a similar thing to Ireland national team and football. When it comes to "Wales" it is about the rugby. At a national level I think this point sticks though.

[Stuttgart88]

I hope you didnt reply when he text 6 months later ;) Certainly doesnt seem like someone worth associating with.

I think you've met him! We had lunch together in Canary Wharf one time.

[paul_oshea]

Oh that w@nker!

Only joking, I remember the lunch but I can't remember that guy, I clearly removed him from memory to do with the "worth associating with " bit. I only remember the other fella who admitted less interest in football but wasn't dismissive of it so I'm guessing its not him. Was he at that pub near Birkbeck?

[NeverFeltBetter]

Interesting piece here on GAA players efforts to enrich themselves, which caused a bit of a minor conniption with Dean Rock this week: https://www.rte.ie/sport/football/2020/0723/1155168-comment-dean-caught-between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place/

If you're good at something, never do it for free!