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early has compared the rugby team at probably its highest ever point with the football team arguably at its lowest ever point (certainly since the mid 80s). the articles conclusions are therefore hardly a surprise.Quote:
Originally Posted by DeLorean
i cant help feeling that no matter how bad the rugby team ever got, and for most of the 90s it was dreadful, that it ever received as much negative press as the football team gets when at its low points.
That's not fair Tets, just how many like myself tuned in to see England get beaten and were cheering on Croatia :)Quote:
Originally Posted by tetsujin1979
I don't see kids playing rugby in the streets.
Kind of an apples and oranges comparison? World cup semi versus a friendly in different codes?
Quote:
Originally Posted by brine3
Do kids still play on the streets?
Absolutely. In fact when the Golden Generation underperformed to their ability in the 2000s there was barely a murmur. Beating England regularly is a great way to have people on your side in Ireland. When the football team underperformed they were brutal, overpaid, detached and even cowards for not playing in Tbilisi.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
In general I thought the article was fair. He highlighted the different operating landscape: Football has a healthy international pyramid of 56 countries and national leagues (and that's just Europe) where population and TV market matters. AIL clubs couldn't sustain pro rugby but the provinces can play in a cross border league, one of the 3 biggest in Europe with guaranteed entry European rugby's biggest cups, and the national team competes with a guaranteed spot in a huge international competition - driven by French and British TV audiences - that is closed to new entrants and which distributes no money outside its member countries. He also highlighted just how brilliant a player you need to be just to be considered mediocre in football.
I do think our rugby system has produced players pretty much as well as any system can produce in a country of our size and that deserves great credit. But would a comparably gifted and well coached sprinter or middle distance runner, or tennis player achieve such elevated standing in the world game? The route to the top of rugby is far less crowded and less cut throat than most sports.
I loathe the blazers that run the FAI so I'm not looking to stick uo for them, but even the financial comparisons aren't 100% fair. In 2005 both associations earned the same income. Today ours is the same more or less, IRFU's has doubled. Obviously bums on seats and sponsorship counts but pro rugby was an underexploited TV product then, football was at a far more mature stage in its product life cycle. Guaranteed annual TV money in a growing market counts. To generate much extra revenue the FAI needs to actually qualify for a tournament - equivalent, or close to it in my mind, in difficulty to winning the 6N or being damned close.
The Aviva stadium debate has arguments on both sides. In the mid-2000s the FAI had to do something. I'd have preferred an eircom park style solution myself but still. The IRFU has done well with its real estate (more profits from a site at Red Cow announced last week), whereas the FAI got burnt. Real estate can be very capricious - look at the windfall Bohs nearly achieved.
It hurts that we're the ugly stepchild right now but maybe this is what's needed in the long term.
I don't see kids playing IRB2019 on their PS4s :)Quote:
Originally Posted by bennocelt
(I know IRB is called World Rugby now)
Tuned in to Prime Time last night as there was apparently going to be a big debate on the future of Irish football (which Prime Time thinks is just the international side). All we got were clips of Ireland scoring against the All Blacks (in a friendly) and a half empty Aviva just before the final whistle against Northern Ireland (totally unfair comparison) and Pat Dolan saying MONKE should go. That was it and it was the last item on the programme !! I had to sit through the lack of women professors and broadband down the country. If that's a debate on Irish football then I am a Bohs supporter.
Matt Williams is at it again. He’s virtually deranged in his hatred of football.
Ultimately the first month of every RWC reminds us that Rugby is blind to religion, skin colour, nationality or sexual preference, and is a community game that bridges cultures played in over two hundred countries. Very few in the rugby community are professional. Globally rugby remains predominantly an amateur sport.
Wonderfully, you will see no physical barriers between supporters at the matches. There will be no police on horses keeping the opposition supporters apart.
After the matches in the local bars and on the trains from the stadiums there will be no hooligans rioting. The most opposing supporters will throw at each other will be some very off key singing, in voices that should never be heard outside the family shower. The players will refer to the referees as “Sir” or “Mame.” It’s old school, but it’s good school. There will be no players faking injury, rolling around on the ground clutching an untroubled knee in an attempt to get an imaginary penalty. But you will see many players acting. Many will pretend they are not hurt, when in fact their entire body is stinging after the joy of physical contact.
If he thinks there's no diving or faking injury in rugby, he's clear never watched the game
yes, including many of the teams that will play in this RWC.... most of whom are made play all their group games in half the period that the "tier 1" nations have to play their games in and against the likes of NZ, France and England who keep nicking their best players. yes, the RWC is a a beacon of light to the rest of the sporting world!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stuttgart88
...and a sport which has just sold its major rights in Europe to Private Equity, permanently pulling up the drawbridge to any nation outside the top tier.Quote:
Originally Posted by jbyrne
The article then goes on the criticise NZ's cheating. It's just bizarre. We all know football has its problems, as does rugby. To randomly pick on one sport's problems to highlight the best bits of his own is beyond pointless. It's chrurlish, misplaced and unhinged almost. Does he think Irish fans riot playing sweden in Paris?
I find many rugby and GAA heads draw a very clear line between "diving", that is to say pretending you have been illegally tackled when you haven't, and "simulation" which is pretending you are injured or need medical assistance when you really don't, usually to kill an attack or an opposing team's momentum. The first is the worst thing in sport, the second, which happens in rugby and in every game of GAA I've ever watched, isn't commented on much and when it is its usually just shrugged off. The fact that both involve hoodwinking the ref to try and gain an advantage is apparently immaterial.
The Rugby World Cup remains, as I think I said on here four years ago, a bizarre lesson in freezing out nations where the sport is in a state of a development, to the detriment of logical scheduling. A 24 team tournament is easily doable, could include four more teams on or above the same level as Namibia, and would eliminate this bizarre situation where one side has to do all of their games in a significantly less number of days than others. But the authority couldn't appear less interested. You might as well just do a Cricket World Cup style single group of ten teams.
Stutts can you write a follow up to your post last year, just so i have some ammunition when the RWC comes around and everyone is on the bandwagon who has much less a clue of rugby than I do, but a far "greater interest in the game and rugby" than I do, for the world cup and 6nations anyway.
You've clearly researched for your contempt and dislike of Rugby and its followers :D
The whole reason RL was created was because Rugby Union has and always will be a closed shop. An old boys network where the founding fathers wanted to keep it an elitist sport played by their privately educated children. Everything else is just smoke and mirrors. They talk of developing the game, the RWC has what been going 30 years now? Its still the same teams and still the same level of amateurism in all the nations outside the top 8 really. And no one seems willing to introspect and interrogate this from within.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeverFeltBetter
Which one? I don't actually dislike rugby. I used to love watching it but less so in recent years. I hate the fake smug moral superiority that goes with it. You could cite Leinster rugby players pi$$ing on people in pubs or knocking academy players unconcious at a dinner, university initiation rites in England, Welsh police complaining that there is more trouble in Cardiff on a rugby night than on a football night and so on, not to mention the commercial arrangements that lock out smaller countries - but no, that doesn't fit the narrative.Quote:
Originally Posted by paul_oshea
That one :D
There you go!
Here's some ammo for you Paul:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/rugby...aceful-7376002
http://jomec.co.uk/thecardiffian/201...ns-say-police/
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/w...after-13977858
“And asked if anti-social behaviour was linked to excessive drinking rather than “specifically a rugby crowd”, he said: “Rugby draws the crowd. Crowd drinks excessively. Crowd behaves anti-socially. I don’t have the same dynamics with football right now, or theatre-goers or cricketers. So, yes, for me rugby is a problem, but not rugby the sport, rugby the drinking culture.”
“I had a horrible experience with my uncle at the (Welsh) game on Saturday. Five drunk men who were aggressive and abusive. I’m never going back. Totally ruined the whole experience.”
And I never noticed this one before: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breaki...rk-922728.html