Printable View
Irish fans in drunk shocker....
I've been at the Aviva & Croke Park and seen folk arrive 30 minutes late, play on their phones for the whole game & not know who Shane Long was when brought off the bench! Do we paint all football fans with the part time fan brush because of this?!
What if they happen to be on their phones on Foot.ie or texting updates to friends further afield?
It was cut the rope on his iPhone! He was 2 seats away from me!
Do you work for the ESB, Murf?Quote:
Originally Posted by Murfinator
Good article here on our political class's attitude towards sport
Games being on at 6 and 7 in the morning isn't really conducive to the pubs being rammed full of people on the lash watching the games though in fairness.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinxy
See that doesn't add up with crowds. The Rugby team can sell out the Aviva no bother. When has the Irish soccer team done it? Never. Close once against Russia, but attendances for Rugby have always been much higher. Surely people do care to some degree.Quote:
Originally Posted by brine3
There a number of different factors for this.
1. The ridiculous cost of tickets for the football, if you consider that the vast majority of those who go to internationals are those that have been hit hardest by the recession.
2. Rugby is the darling of the media and gets an easy ride.
3. Most internationals are played midweek, rugby at weekends. A lot harder to get time off midweek to go to games.
4. The football we play under trap is dour.
I'm sure there are more but enough for now.
Good article here
Fans revel in their double standards
I wasn't the one who said there was a buzz around the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maroon 7
Soccer is on the front page ok but with the headling "Dunphy slams Ireland selection". I give up. Most Irish supporters would prefer Long to Cox but because Dunphy says it, it's front page news. Je d'espair.Quote:
Originally Posted by OwlsFan
Yep, rugby can sell out Lansdowne no bother...Quote:
Originally Posted by TiocfaidhArmani
http://www.sportsfile.com/winshare/w...650/470473.jpg
...and would never have to resort to slashing ticket prices to sell out.
Chris Lowry: No wonder fans are abandoning soccer for honest rugby
SIMON Cox, the handball hero whose efforts propelled us to victory over Armenia, has helped clear up a mystery that has puzzled me for weeks.
The mystery is as follows: how can the Irish rugby team sell out the O2 Arena for a game that starts early on a Saturday morning? Who in their right mind gets up on weekend mornings for any reason, let alone to go to a screening of a match that’s already being shown for free on terrestrial TV?
Fanatics, that’s who, and what Cox has done is demonstrate why those fanatics now flock to rugby rather than football.
Cox, of course, is a footballer, not a rugby player, though his handling skills suggest he’d be at least as good at the oval ball game. His contribution to the shift in the balance of power between the two sports has been to typify what’s gone wrong with one of them, and in doing so highlight what’s (at least relatively) worthwhile about the other.
Just to be clear, I’m not complaining about the fact that Cox used his arm to control the ball in what turned out to be the pivotal moment of the Armenia game. The referee should have spotted it, he didn’t, life goes on.
Nor am I complaining about the fact that Cox knew - as he admitted in his post-match interview afterwards - that not only had he handled it but also that the goalkeeper hadn’t. It would be nice to think he might have brought these matters to the referee’s attention - after all the keeper was sent off and the game as a contest was ruined - but, sadly, that sort of spontaneous honesty hasn’t been part of professional sport for decades. If ever.
No, what’s disturbing about Cox’s actions is that, despite what he knew, he appealed to the referee to give a foul against Armenia. Let’s not be under any illusions about this. Cox knows the rules of the game, he knows that if the goalkeeper is adjudged to have handled the ball outside the area (and denied a clear goalscoring chance) he will be given a red card. So Cox was trying - successfully as it happens - to get a fellow pro sent off.
Even if Cox thought the goalkeeper was guilty his actions would be dubious: it’s not his job to decide who stays on the pitch. But given that he knew the keeper was innocent (and that he himself was guilty) his actions weren’t merely dubious, they were loathsome.
Think about it for a moment. Much has been made of the contrast between our hysterical reaction to Thierry Henry’s handball and the Armenians’ rather more stoical response to a similar injustice. But if you reflect for even a few seconds it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that what Cox did was actually worse than the Hand of Frog incident.
Henry handled the ball, just as Cox did. But the Frenchman didn’t then fling his arms up in protest to the referee, trying to shift his own guilt onto someone else. If he had then we wouldn’t merely have been vandalising his Wikipedia profile and painting over the names of vacuum cleaners called "Henry", we would have … well, I dread to think what might have been the result of our atavistic rage.
On this occasion, there was no rage - only shameless hypocrisy. When Darragh Maloney asked his co-commentator Ronnie Whelan whether Cox had handled the ball (while a replay was being shown that made clear that he had), Ronnie said, "I don’t care". End of discussion.
But the most shocking thing of all is how relaxed Cox was when he admitted his guilt in the post-match interview. It didn’t seem to occur to him that he had done anything wrong.
He had done something wrong, of course. It was an open and shut case of cheating. The play should have stopped the minute the ball touched Cox’s arm, the keeper should have stayed on the pitch and the game should have remained 11 vs 11. Cox knew all this. His protest to the ref was both dishonest and dishonourable.
It tells you all you need to know about football that the player shows not even a flicker of regret about what he did. Cox, who is merely a symptom of a game that has lost all claim to our respect, presumably isn’t concerned about the ethical nitty-gritty. But if the Irish football team ever try to sell tickets to a match that kicks off on a weekend morning - and if they then find that their former fans say, "thanks but no thanks" - they will know the reason why.
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/...d-1139257.html
That's awful ****e on so many points.just back from work otherwise id actually email the fool
I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of emailing. He's just looking for a response. Gutter journalism.
Add that to the plop that Cut and Paste had on the back of the Evening Errorld.
What a ****. Did anyone read Liam Toland saying after we went 7 down against Wales Cian Healy should have gone down feigning a head injury so the Irish could regroup and effectively call a time out (because a stoppage involving a front row necessitates a clock stop)? Or Marcus Horan feigning injury in the Magners League decider? Or a Munster centre taking out BO'D in the same game? Or 'quins feigning a blood injury against Leinster - using fake blood capsules? Or Brian Moore on BBC saying Ireland should deliberately collpase a French scrum in case a ref gave a penno erroneously? Or Matt Dawson running off line into PO'C after a pen just to get him yellow carded and to gain 10m?
Rugby is a great game, but let all the holier than thou egg chasers go fcuk themselves if they think their sport is inherently honest whereas football isn't.
Jesus, that crap makes me hopping livid.
Cox did not set out to cheat. Handball happens. Refs call it or they don't, just as refs call forward passes or late tackles, or they don't. Should the Aussies who high tackled the Springboks last w/e be asahmed? No. An incompetent ref missed it. Thierry Henry handled the ball deliberately and calculatedly. In fact Cox as good as admitted he handled it. It was quite a refreshing interview.
IRL Rugby WC Q/F. Public reception? A few turned out at the airport. Ireland's rugby players deserve more than that muck journalism too.
dont forget dawson and neill back from many years ago well before any of the diving or handballs or whatnot...
Stutts looks like you are still grumpy ;)
No it wasn't. As the cnut said, the ball touched his arm. Just like the Springbok's neck got tangled in the Aussie's arm. At least twice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jinxy
Here, don't attribute his nonsense to me!