It was Lawrenson in Iceland? I can see the goal in my mind and Lawro springs to mind (he probably didn't even play!)
The Uruguay game though....damn...I used to know this stuff inside out.
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Lawrenson didn't play. Line-up here (although don't click if you don't want to know the goalscorer yet): http://www.rsssf.com/tablesi/ijs-tri86.html
Lawrenson didn't play in either game of the Icelandic tournament actually so perhaps wasn't in the squad?
The goal in question is at 04:44 in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpOYoaRCB9w#t=4m44s
Indeed, don't watch either if you don't want to know! :)
Is that the tournament we won or am I mixing it up with some other Icelandic tournament? I have no idea who scored. Ooh Aah perhaps ?
It's nice to remind the country that we do actually play another international sport. Sunday evening could be a game changer for how footy is perceived. Declan Lynch's description of "Official Ireland" is bang on in this regard.
Seeing Aer Lingus' ar$e licky sponsorship of the rugby team all over Dublin airport today annoyed me. Imagine how the BIG felt en route to Warsaw this morning - no mention of them. Likewise on the way in. You know that corridor in Arrivals with portrait photos of Irish celebs and characters. Someone from pretty much every walk of life except football. Also, Queen visits Dublin. No football figure invited to the dinner at Dublin Castle.
Yet I bet you more people on the whole planet know about last night's result than will even know there's a RWC going on, or at least that we play France on Sunday anyway.
You know what. I think Ireland can fcuk off. This win was for us.
Had to look this up. The article is online here: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/of...-31102551.html
Ken Early published this the day before - http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/socc...orts-1.2156535 - which is a good accompanying piece to Lynch
During the "Green is the colour" series, Eamon Dunphy made the point that GAA was respected because it was Irish, and so was rugby despite its English roots, because it had money, whereas footballers were the working class.
Aer Lingus posted a picture of the goal celebrations from the last night with the caption "Thanks, Shane Long!".
A token gesture or the first step on the road to redemption with Stutts? :)
I think you're completely correct in the main points you make, I suppose it's just not something that bothers me too much, or at all even. Maybe I'm just not as exposed to the pretentious spoofers as you are. Back in the 90's Paul McGrath & company were hotter than Simon Geoghegan, granted I don't think there was a concerted effort to put down the sport of rugby as a whole. I wouldn't have much of an issue with Aer Lingus kitting the place out for the Rugby World Cup over a soccer qualifier either, sponsorship is sponsorship, and that's something that could be easily reversed if the football team were the ones playing in a major tournament. Anyway, here's hoping for a double celebration tomorrow, the more success stories we produce the better, regardless of media imbalance.
I'll most likely watch important Ireland rugby games when they're on or if they're on and it suits, or if I'm not doing anything else. I wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to do so or try and work other things around it. They're not something I'll really get too worked up about weeks or even months in advance. I do think it's a great game to watch nevertheless. It's entertaining, end-to-end stuff. I probably would have enjoyed playing it if it had ever been part of my socio-cultural milieu growing up, but it never was, so I've always found it difficult to "adopt" or properly embrace it without feeling unease at the perception of being some sort of outsider, blow-in or johnny-come-lately. It just wouldn't feel right and I'd feel like a phony as I'm not really all that well-versed in it and all that surrounds it anyway. Obviously, that's something I could do something about, but I'm not really bothered. I'll go to an Irish pub here to watch the game against France tomorrow afternoon, but it'll only be to provide some atmospheric build-up to the real event that evening.
Rugby's not my sport, nor is it really the sport of the wider Irish people. It's a niche sport that is inaccessible to most and, as is covered in those pieces, its status/support is of a superficial bandwagon nature and this idea of "national sentiment" for it is primarily propped up and bloated by an over-indulgent and unrepresentative (but dominant) D4 media clique. I don't know anyone connected with the Irish rugby team nor do I think I know anyone who knows someone who is part of it. With the football team, I feel a genuine connection. I've always played football and supported it, like most people I know. I know not everyone in Ireland will share that experience, but would it be the experience shared by most Irish people? I would have thought so.
International rugby comes around for a few weeks in the year rather than lasting over the course of a whole year, yet it receives such a disproportionate level of coverage and adulation. Possibly it is that short-burst nature of it that makes it conducive to more intensely focused spotlight or short-term, seasonal marketing campaigns. Guinness deck pubs out in all sorts of branded rugby-related decorations during the Six Nations. Actually, the Irish pub I went to on Thursday night was full of this sort of promotional stuff for the Rugby World Cup; Guinness scarves hanging from lights, posters and some sort of inflatable archway in the shape of warped, elongated Guinness pints around the pub's entrance. It peeved me a bit - the national love-in (and it extends beyond the oul' sod) can be nauseating for an admittedly-envious football supporter - as did the fact that there was only a third of the crowd in the pub for the game than there had been for any rugby game I've ever watched there (although I'd imagine, with the rugby games usually falling on weekend days, that'd probably help draw larger crowds in to watch).
The connection with football is a bit deeper and more personal too; there's the manager who was in the same year as my da at St. Columb's in Derry (a very minor claim to fame of my da's is having once played Martin O'Neill in the annual GAA handball final, and lost, unfortunately!). Some of our players are family/friends of people I know. Darron Gibson was two years below me at St. Columb's. I've watched some of the players in their younger years playing League of Ireland. I conversed with James McClean for hours once years ago during an away trip to see Derry play Shels in Dublin and he struck me as a thoroughly nice and driven chap; he was playing for Institute at the time, but even then declined my offer of a sip from my can and informed me he didn't touch the stuff. I played Gaelic football against Shay Given's younger brother a few times when I was younger. Packie Bonner is my uncle's cousin. This all adds to the sense of connection. The players seem like they have actually been and are a part of my life in some way. I can very easily imagine them as being part of my world. The degrees of separation are significantly less. I know where they're from and who they are. This won't necessarily be the case for everyone, nor will there always be friends of friends connected with the team, but the more authentic connection will remain regardless, as it has always felt that way.
What percentage of those who filled up Wembley and the Olympic Stadium in London for the recent Irish rugby World Cup games actually understand the rules of the game of rugby? Or how many have actually played the game or supported Irish clubs? I'm not sure what the exact figures would be, but I'd imagine the equivalent figures for football would be vastly more respectable. Rugby will never make me shed tears of pride or jump for joy in sheer ecstasy the way the Irish football team have on so many occasions down through the years. I'd imagine that's the same for the vast majority of those who have a passion for one or both of the codes in Ireland.
Posts moved from Jack Byrne thread to here
Also, George Hook acknowledge's football is still the game of the people: http://www.independent.ie/sport/socc...-31599830.html
He's quite a contrarian though, isn't he?
What,Tets?
No, Hook :)
Eamonn Sweeney saying today that rugby can also be seen as a team for the whole country now, a bit of a departure from his usual stance?
AUDIO: Ewan MacKenna On Why The Irish Media Is Biased Towards Rugby | Balls.ie - http://www.balls.ie/football/audio-e...s-rugby/313185
Interesting stuff here, something i always felt played a major part:
It seems as a sporting nation we're less inclined to produce that kind of football or rugby or GAA. Sometimes I honestly just blame the weather.
The expressive types aren't built for muddy pitches in November. The wind and rain inform so many aspects of our culture; sport clearly isn't immune. You take that muddy pitch, and throw in the inevitable pressures on developing players to win the schools cup or county final and suddenly 'expressing yourself' with any kind of freedom is less of a priority.
Interesting about the weather. Might explain why the English game is similarly inflicted.
I made this point elsewhere, just reposting here. While sports journalists will always criticise the national side after a loss in their sport (Fanning/McDonnell on football, Thornley on rugby, etc), it's the treatment of footballers on the front page of the paper that exposes the bias in my opinion.
A footballer will make it on the front page for getting behind the wheel of a car after having a drink, losing a bundle on a horse, or spending the night with a woman who isn't their partner. For whatever reason, this rarely happens for athletes in other codes, not just GAA and rugby, both of which have players with problems with alcohol, gambling and fidelity. More than one person that I know has been convinced that because Ashley Cole and John Terry are utter scumbags, that this must mean all footballers are.
And why New Zealand is so rubbish at rugby :)
I'll listen to Ewan McKenna later. Dion Fanning was on Second Captains talking about the difference in media treatment too.
I'm kind of enjoying the outrage over Joubert. There's always outrage at a refs decision, rugby World Cup or footy World Cup. TMO or no TMO.*
I love the assumption that the ref would have been harangued too, if only to show that just as refs are only human, it's only human to lose your cool for a bit too if the ref has cost you the game.
* was there not a blatant late tackle on a Scots player only moments earlier? That could face gone to TMO.
Not to go all Roy Keane on it but all Scotland had to do was secure their own line-out. They went for the riskier approach of throwing it to the back and messed it up. Even if the referee had made the correct call, a scrum to Australia, chances are they would have worked a score or penalty anyway. It had an air of inevitability about it I think. Obviously I can still understand their frustrations but that's sport I'm afraid, as we know only too well.
And the Scots lost their chance for Euro qualification at the death as well.
Next time you greet a Scot, say 'how's the curling?'
There's always indoor. Isn't that what they've done in Iceland and with great results?
Was away in Amsterdam for a few days last week and weekend and not really had chance to catch up on forum since I got back, but here's something I wrote in the meantime regarding Irish rugby's claim of inclusiveness after Eamonn Sweeney lauded the game as being "everyone's game" the other week: https://danieldcollins.wordpress.com...rported-to-be/
Had most of it written before I went away but only got round to finishing it and publishing it yesterday. I covered Ewan MacKenna's arguments, as well as the criticisms of others, but also examined whether the IRFU are actually truly inclusive of the unionist or Ulster Protestant community in the north too. I personally feel unionists get short-changed in terms of the IRFU's choice of representative symbols. There is certainly no notion of parity of esteem in effect anyway (not that the IRFU are necessarily legally obliged to adhere to it, but just saying).