irish independent article 13-8-08 ireland v australia
see article below by a david kelly in independant yesterday
seems to just want to rub it is how wonderful rugby and its players / supporters are :mad:
is it just me or has anybody got the feeling media / press have done nothing but put down game because it was being played outside dublin
:mad:
Pale imation of thomond we know
Thursday August 13 2009
NO bite, no b*****k. Bluff and bluster. Ireland may still fancy a jaunt to South Africa next year but their inaugural visit to Limerick was hardly inspiring stuff. Not to the locals more used to Hayes' heft, Rog's rockets and the raucous accompaniment from the Red Army.
It was the smell which told you something was different. A police horse unloading itself of its main meal was the first sign that Thomond Park was playing host to an altogether different occasion.
Aside from the fact they may have been better deployed directing traffic, it was unusual to hear the clodding clops of sturdy steeds steering their passage through the milling crowds outside the stadium as kick-off approached.
Soccer in Thomond Park? Well, if Rod Stewart, no mean devotee of the beautiful game himself, can strut his stuff here why not two international soccer teams? Eoin Hand finally got the chance to witness a soccer game here -- nearly 30 years after he was denied the chance to manage Limerick United at Thomond in a friendly against Spurs, a game that had to be moved to Lansdowne Road.
When you moved inside, the milling crowds were rather less milling. Society's decree, which soccer fans universally must obey, saw to it that there was no alcohol allowed for sale on the premises.
incessant
Normally at rugby occasions here, especially since the revamped stadium's re-opening 11 months ago, the match-day hype is fuelled by the incessant pre-game conjecture and controversy surrounding the many bars.
Sadly, soccer folk aren't trusted to concurrently drink and talk about football -- hence the presence of the horsey set outside the confines -- and there was a noticeably pallid nature to this friendly encounter.
Of course, that's the other thing about occasions such as these when contrasted with rugby affairs. You can't do 'friendlies' in rugby. You can't pull out of a tackle. You can't misplace a pass for fear of the unfortunate timing injuring your team-mate. And a rugby crowd can't do friendlies either.
Even the very contrived nature of how the respective games launch their proceedings illustrated the vast disparity in atmosphere created by a Thomond Park rugby crowd and last night's strangely awkward Thomond Park soccer crowd.
Rugby's kick-off immediately allows for a thunderously violent assault on the opposition's senses, and a consequently tumultuous upheaval amongst the crowd when they see their players either receiving and driving forward, or embracing the opposition's embryonic maul and forcing it to back-pedal at a furious rate of knots.
In soccer, a pair of players serenely tap the ball to each other and then, as we saw last night, proceed to concede possession to each other in double-quick time. Aside from early incisions from the wide duo of Aiden McGeady and Damien Duff -- whose maddening inconsistency would hardly be tolerated by the normally impatient Munster faithful in their rugby heroes -- there was little for the crowd to enthuse about on a balmy, dry evening.
When Robbie Keane waves his hand in phantom defiance of a decision that has gone against him, he looks faintly feminine when compared to rugby players used to obeying the referee's whistle even though they may have lost two front teeth and a tuft of hair.
Last November's earth-shuddering clash between a Munster and and All Blacks second string was one of the sporting occasions of the year, the bone-crushing intensity of it spiralling emotions to rapturous heights only seen during the famous storied sequence of Heineken Cup matches played here. Sale, Gloucester, Wasps, Clermont.
In the Irish soccer team's defence, Munster's early efforts in the revamped stadium -- and those of their supporters -- were suitably unnerved in the early throes of last season, particularly on lacklustre occasions against Montauban in their opening Heineken Cup fixture, when only a late Ronan O'Gara penalty saved the then defending champions' blushes.
When Munster were caned here by Ulster during the Christmas holidays, their coach Tony McGahan wondered whether the stadium was a bit too comforting now for opponents; thankfully their Heineken Cup obliteration, mentally and physically, of the Ospreys later firmly disabused us of this notion.
With South Africa due here in September -- the all-conquering Springboks will hold more interest when they visit Croke Park a month later -- soccer will be a regular occurrence in these parts which, apart from adding to the roster of Irish stadia the FAI have been forced to rent down the days, also serves to belatedly reacquaint the rest of the country with international football.
This was the only the third international to be held outside of the capital and, intriguingly, not the first to take place at the home of rugby either.
Being the FAI, they once laid claim to the turf at the Mardyke in court but, through the proverbial type of mis-management which was often their hallmark -- some charge it remains stubbornly so -- that venue was lost to the oval ball game just as Flower Lodge followed the same ignominious passage.
Seventy years ago, the magisterial Hungarian side, fresh from their 1938 World Cup final appearance against Italy, shacked up in the Mardyke and special match-day trains ferried supporters from Dublin, Waterford and Limerick.
Ireland snatched a creditable 2-2 draw thanks to a late Jackie Carey goal; the Hungarians, perhaps in tune with the rugby spirit of things, had only nine men on the field at the final whistle.
It took another 46 years for the FAI to decamp to the provinces. Forming part of the Cork 800 celebrations, Spain, who had denied Hand's side a berth at the 1984 European Championships, were invited to Flower Lodge -- now of course, the Lodge is Pairc Ui Rinn and firmly within the control of the GAA, who gleefully seized on yet another FAI mishap when it comes to their painful, historic association with stadium construction and retention.
The game, denied the services of Manchester United and Liverpool players, who formed the backbone of the Irish team, ended in a timid scoreless draw. Friendly matches were seemingly unenthusiastically staged even a generation ago.
The legendary Limerick stalwart Al Finucane was wheeled out to give the occasion a suitably local sense of colour. "Now that we have this magnificent stadium, we hope to have many more international matches here," said Finucane when presented to the crowd before the match by an over-enthusiastic local radio DJ.
Asked to enthuse about the state of Limerick soccer, Finucane politely demurred, much to the embarrassment of the blazers: "No, it's not in a good state unfortunately."
Next came Packie Bonner, the FAI's technical director, who revealed somewhat surprisingly that the players -- including McGeady, who had moaned about getting lost on his way to the south-east earlier in the week -- would retain the memories of their stay in this part of the country for their lifetime. One sensed he protested too much.
Bonner, clearly too late to affect the hitherto sluggish sales pitch, then suggested that the evening's crowd would produce an atmosphere to top anything witnessed in Croke Park -- not a bad shout, in truth -- or, much more incredibly, Lansdowne Road. After all that, a lie-down may have been in order.
realities
Earlier in the day, the FAI, like Liam Carroll unable to attach economic realities to their potential revenue streams (anyone for an Aviva Stadium Vantage seat, now?), had allowed 3,000 schoolboy tickets to be delivered into a marketplace scarcely hungry for an Australia team featuring not Matt Giteau, the world's best rugby out-half, but Matt, er, Spiranovic.
At least it had the effect of pushing the attendance into the early 20,000s, in essence a realistic attendance for a gig such as this, especially given the ridiculously over-priced tickets; much was made in the Shannon clubhouse of the vast discrepancy between the cost of watching Munster or Ireland, compared to an as yet unproven Irish team, whose stock has been of the laughing variety until the expensively acquired and composed Il Trap.
Il Trap's conservative approach did little to enthrall the locals though, save the odd intervention from the front four, and there was little of the magical awe inspired by a Keith Earls break or a Paul O'Connell surge.
Need to know any more? Ireland were booed off at half-time. That never happens Munster. This was Thomond Park. But not as we know it.
- david kelly
