The feeble qualification rules don’t help smaller nations either.
I cheered on Japan when they beat South Africa in the World Cup only to realise about half of their players weren’t Japanese at all.
Players don’t need passports to represent a nation. I’m not sure they even need citizenship.
Bigger nations can poach good players, especially from Pacific islands.
It takes some nerve and frankly amnesia for anyone here to criticism rugby on how they run things. But I suppose it makes a change from seeing the latest revelation about FAI board/John Delaney in the papers.
As far as I can Irish football fans only seem interested in the senior teams desperate attempts to qualify for the Euros so they can go a **** up abroad. Everything else including all the humiliation and embarrassing incidents can be forgotten if we can sneak into a tournament that is harder to miss out on than it is to qualify
what a stupid generalisation.
matches are at home if we qualify anyway.
the irony of having a pop at the football team in their attempts to qualify when the rugby team get handed a spot at the rwc every 4 years. how hard is it for the rugby team to miss out on qualifying??
Last edited by jbyrne; 17/09/2019 at 8:21 PM.
The broad issue here is the hypocrisy of rugby insiders taking random opportunities to criticise football, when the charge sheet against rugby is just as vast - just different. Both games have serious issues just as both games have great qualities.
Nobody here is unaware of the governance issues football faces locally or globally. I'd say many here and even among the "rugby community" are unaware of the governance issues rugby struggles with.
The difference is the mentality of teams and supporters. For Ireland away soccer fans the attitude is “win or lose we’re on the booze” aren’t we great craic and everybody loves us.
For Ireland rugby fans traveling away they except the team to win and aren’t just hoping for the best
Thats a recent phenomenon, for years Rugby fans definitely had the lads on tour mentality and went on the pi$$ no matter what. Success means that there is an expectation now. You cant say that for years Irish fans went to Paris in the 5 or 6 Nations championship expecting to win.
Sports fans in general are fickle, if a team is successful it bring more people on board and attitudes change. Look at Man City, for years when they were in the lower leagues they had amazing support, now they expect to win so much they cant even sell out home games in the Champions League.
Anyhow, I hope Ireland wins the upcoming World Cup. Is this thread just for bitter, twisted individuals who should be in therapy?
I re-started this thread because I think Matt Williams is a bitter, twisted individual who needs therapy!
I had four friends who were in Australia at the time and travelled to NZ for the RWC in 2011. Two of them had never been to a rugby game in their lives before the tournament (and I doubt they've been since).
I'm sure the night Ireland bottled it against Wales in the quarter finals they were inconsolable and probably went back to their campervan early after the game in tears.
I've only been to one Rugby international ever - the game against France in Cardiff in the last RWC. Win or lose, I was definitely on the booze, and I make no apologies.
Last edited by DeLorean; 18/09/2019 at 2:20 PM.
Well, when we're one of the best teams in the world it's reasonable to expect to win. I've been at surprise defeats though (IRL v FRA at Croker for example, 2007?) and quite frankly the lack of disappointment among the corporate invitees I was with really annoyed me. It'd be beyond delusional to have the same expectations of the football team today that we have of our rugby team. Even in the early 90s footy team heyday there was a fair degree of hope added to the high expectations.
But that's neither here nor there really, I just don't see the relevance of your point.
Author of Never Felt Better (History, Film Reviews).
My point was that the people I was with weren't even deflated. And yes, France was first. Game 1 in a great Grand Slam opportunity.
Were you deflated?
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