All times Irish.

Abseil down 12 floors of the Irish Life Building in Abbey Street on Saturday the 14th May.

A unique opportunity to enjoy the breath-taking views of Dublin 150 feet up before abseiling to the ground. The money raised will help Age Action to continue to provide their free services to Irelands older people. These services include a Care and Repair programme, a free Information Line and free training on How to use the Internet and a Mobile Phone. Apart from having the courage to do abseil all you need to do is raise a minimum of €300. This event is limited to 100 people and the spaces are filling up fast!

Email email hidden; JavaScript is required or ring Rhona on 01 4756989 www.ageaction.ie

And yet there is much to be positive about.

The Good

Provincial fan hat on, I’m happy enough that all the international players, from all provinces, are there or thereabouts. Admittedly guys like Sean Cronin (throwing) and Luke Fitz (in general) need to find form, but overall this bunch of players are massively talented, are fit, and are hungry for success. Also, importantly for a 6 Nations campaign, we didn’t see any major injuries, which we can be very thankful for after a few bad Championships on that score.

The Bad

From an Ireland fan’s point of view it’s been a hugely disappointing tournament, particularly when you look at selection and management. I’m firmly in the “blame team management for discipline issues” camp. In any team sport, in any competition, I believe that it is managements job to set the tone of the campaign and stifle discipline issues.

The Ugly

If I am to criticise Declan Kidney, I need to acknowledge his achievements. He has a proven track record of success, with Munster’s HEC wins, and a 2009 Grand Slam with Ireland. You can’t argue with that. Or can you?

A missed kick was the difference between an Ireland winning or losing out on that Grand Slam. Eddie O’Sullivan lost the 6 Nations Championship to France 3 times on points difference, and once losing the Grand Slam because of a single missed tackle in the final seconds of that heart-breaking match in Croke Park in 2007. The margins between winning and losing are minuscule.

Emperor Kidney Has No Clothes?

But it is fair to question some strange decisions from the Irish manager. In my eyes he has made incredibly poor decisions, particularly regarding selection and use of the bench: bringing on Sexton vs Wales, and Ross vs England stand out in particular, but there are many, many others instances. There are allegations that he’s been unjustly favouring Munster players in selection. Looking at the provinces relative performances of late, this does appear to have some element of truth, particularly his persistence with TOL.

We can get over those issues if we get the performances we should be getting. But we’re not.

One of the many criticisms I had of EOS was that he never seemed to learn from his mistakes. I think Kidney is a decent manager, and I don’t think we have a suitable replacement for him waiting in the wings, so I’m not calling for his head – yet. But I’d like to see him learn from his mistakes. More focus on team discipline. Less of the smiley glib answers in interviews, and more transparency about selection issues. And less bloody stupid decisions on how to use the bench.

The Rugby World Cup

We got lucky with a big performance against England, with Kidney’s hand forced on selections by injury, but when it comes to the RWC I see us getting to, and then losing, the Quarter Final to South Africa on 9th October – at least that’s what I’d put my cash on were I a betting man.

The Up-side

I think the best Ireland can hope for this year is Heineken Cup, Magners League and Challenge Cup wins, but the optimistic part of me says we not only could but should win all of these competitions – here’s hoping :)

The 6 Nations kicks off tonight in Cardiff and it should be an interesting tournament this year – much more open than last year.

There’s some interesting stuff going on in the betting – England have been named favourites. I find that quite amusing. Here’s how the bookies have them seeded:

2011 Six Nations Winner (Ladbrokes)

1. England – 15/8
2. France – 9/4
3. Ireland – 11/4
4. Wales – 7/1
5. Scotland – 16/1
6. Italy – 250/1

Here’s how I’d seed them:

1. France*
2. Ireland*
3. England**
4. Wales**
5. Scotland
6. Italy

My notes being first: * Ireland could win the tournament outright if we manage to hold off the French in Dublin on the 2nd weekend. That’s the game of the tournament, and coming so early on will massively influence the outcome.

Secondly ** Wales could easily surprise England and push England down to 4th. I’m not sure what the odds are on England to come 4th but it might be worth a punt :)

RBS Six Nations Fixture Schedule 2011

Friday 4th February - Wales v England - 7.45pm
Saturday 5th February - Italy v Ireland - 2.30pm
Saturday 5th February - France v Scotland - 5pm

Saturday 12th February - England v Italy - 2.30pm
Saturday 12th February - Scotland v Wales - 5pm
Sunday 13th February - Ireland v France - 3pm

19/20 February Free

All times Irish, add an hour for France and Italy local games.

The accusations

1. “If I’d been a referee I would have handed out a couple of yellow cards. It’s the usual old faces that are doing it, but they’re good at it and get away with it. Richie McCaw did a great job at slowing it down’ – Stephen Ferris, Ireland and Lions flanker
2. “We came off a fixture against the All Blacks … they don’t scrummage. They just manipulate, they play the referee constantly. It’s all about trickery” Robbie Deans, Australia Head Coach
3. “Richie McCaw and some others get over on the wrong side of the ruck. He should be penalised every time in my book” – Willie John McBrides, former Ireland and Lions captain
4. [Many, many more - see sources in the post below].

The New Zealand reaction

“[The accusations are] actually becoming quite boring”  – Steven Hansen, New Zealand Assistant Coach.

“Boring”?

“Accurate”, more like. Having watched and re-watched the New Zealand play at the ruck, it’s clear to me that they’re getting away with it.

The IRB reaction
I asked Mike Miller (CEO of the IRB) about this, and the current scrum debacle situation on Twitter:

@irbmikemiller any chance of undoing scrum damage, and asking refs to apply laws to New Zealand? – @AMcDermott

His reply:

@AMcDermott Stats show that scrum resets down. Laws are applied to all Unions equally. – @irbmikemiller

The Stats

Mike’s reply pertaining to scrums got me wondering what kind of stats are available on McCaw and New Zealand cheating.

From SAReferees:

Some Totals in the 2010 Tri-Nations

Penalties conceded per country

Australia: 7 + 11 = 18
New Zealand: 12 + 9 + 13 = 34
South Africa: 5 + 9 + 10 = 24

Tries scored per country

Australia: 2 + 3 = 5
New Zealand: 4 + 4 + 7 = 15
South Africa: 0 + 2 + 2 = 4

Disciplinary sanctions per country

Australia: 4Y, C
New Zealand: Y
South Africa: 4Y, 3 C

Y = yellow card
C = citing and suspension

Those figures show that:

1. During Tri-Nations 2010, referees gave Australia one yellow card for every 4.5 penalties conceded
2. During Tri-Nations 2010, referees gave South Africa one yellow card for every 6 penalties conceded
3. During Tri-Nations 2010, referees gave New Zealand one yellow card for every 34 penalties conceded

From the Courier Mail:

Wallabies v All Blacks Analysis of that Test shows McCaw failing to join the ruck from behind the last man’s feet at least seven times and contesting kicks while offside on at least three occasions.

Despite being captured flagrantly entering the side of rucks and chasing in front of kickers, flanker McCaw proved “Mr Untouchable” by escaping without a single offside penalty.

And The Australian:

In the All Blacks’ Wellington win against the Springboks, Irish referee Alain Rolland penalised the Kiwis three times for slowing the ball at the breakdown.

On the fourth occasion, Rolland told McCaw that “this is an official warning”.

It was black comedy, All Black comedy. McCaw must have had to stop himself from laughing.

It seems to me that the evidence is there that McCaw in particular, and the team as a whole, know how to play the refs very cleverly, and are getting away with it. The referees should be wise to it, but don’t seem to be. The IRB insisting that “Laws are applied to all Unions consistently” are either naive or lying – I hope it’s the former.

New Zealand are a great team, seeming almost superhuman at times. We certainly don’t need to give them this advantage. We can only hope that the referees and IRB will take some action on it.
Update: someone on boards.ie said that only 2 of the yellow cards in the 2010 Tri-Nations were awarded for ruck offenses, the rest were for violence or dangerous tackles. The point was made that you can dress up stats to prove any point. I agree with that, but it doesn’t invalidate the overall point of this post.

As the IRB are happy to mis-use stats to say that scrums are fine (which they’re clearly not), I’m happy to mis-use stats to say that McCaw is getting away with murder at the ruck (which he clearly is).

I don’t really care about the stats at the end of the day, but I would like to see NZ getting policed properly. They’re good enough when they’re playing normally, without giving them a further advantage.

Expectations

For Leinster fans, it was a glorious, shocking victory. There were a minority of optimists talking up our chances before the game, but the vast majority of fans and press reckoned on a Munster win, by a hefty margin.

Twenty minutes into the game I was even more convinced of the upcoming Munster victory as Leinster failed to secure their own ruck ball time after time, and racked up handling error after error when they did get the ball to the back line.

It Really Matters

Let’s be clear what this game meant. For Munster it was revenge for the past four defeats, the usual bragging rights, and a few league points. For a Leinster team without form and in serious trouble at the wrong end of the table this was already “do or die” stuff – lose this game and the season is effectively over, even before the first round of Heineken Cup.

By half-time the mood amongst the Leinster fans was surprise that we were evens on the scorecard – it felt like we should have been a long way down.

My Usual One-sided Anti-ref Rant

Yet another poor Magners League ref. Awarded Leinster a scrum after Munster conceded not one, but two penalty offences in front of their posts (offside, deliberate slap down). He didn’t enforce players coming through the gate at the ruck, causing Leinster to lose ruck ball time and time again (Schmidt: how about committing another man or two there?). And the worst, most blatant of all, the countless crooked-in throws to the Munster line-out. This is unforgivable – if the jumper needs to reach back towards his own try-line to catch the ball IT’S CROOKED IN REF!

We didn’t have the luxury of replays in the stadium (and of course, neither did the ref), but Mafi’s yellow for the high tackle on Kearney seemed to be a fair punishment at the time. Those watching on TV suggested a red might have been more appropriate. I need to see the match replay to make a fair call on that and the other incidents I mentioned above (except the lineouts – that is black and white stuff).

Sexy Performance

The 56th minute introduction of Jonathan Sexton, and to no lesser extend, Eoin Redden had a major impact on Leinster’s effectiveness. Sexton came on for Shane Horgan, and Isa pushed out to the wing where he seems much more comfortable. Redden had a straight swap with Isaac Boss, who was showed up by Reddan’s more obvious danger at the breakdown. For me it’s still evens at the scrum-half position, up until recently Boss was clearly the number two choice but he has improved his game significantly since the start of the season.

The Stadium

For all it’s faults, and it has plenty, the new Lansdowne Road looked fantastic last night, even in the rain. What an incredible atmosphere, spectacular view. Not bad for a wee Magners League game.

Constructive criticism for the organisers: beforehand there were major delays at turnstiles (particularly O and N) as fans used the new self-scan barcode readers to get in. The devices seem to read the tickets ok but with no human untervention what happens in case of a rain-damaged ticket? The device could give more tactile user feedback.

Your stewards did a wonderful job of whisking people out the door immediately after the game, to then stand unmoving outside said door for 20 minutes. Lansdowne Road is not Clonliffe Road. Please keep the bar open for 30 minutes after the game. You will make a lot of money, and the crowd will clear far more easily.

“We’re Still In This!”

Sexton and Redden had a big impact on the game but with 15 minutes to go it was incredible to find that Leinster were still in touching distance – Munster should be well out of sight by now. But the league leaders didn’t seem to be finding their form either.

Then Comes The Magic

Leinster fans are privileged to have a guy like BOD on the team. He hasn’t been on form lately, has had very little game time, and isn’t match-fit.

I would be more confident if I played more than 150 minutes [this season]. It really takes you four or five games to start playing your best stuff — Brian O’Driscoll 30/09/2010

But even when he’s not on form, he’s on form, and was deserving Man of The Match just based on his massive tackling all over the park. And when O’Brien linked with him in the 70th minute the crowd went wild. O’Driscoll, try. Leinster fans, ecstatic.

A nervous final 10 minutes with Leinster playing “up yer jumper” stuff, and the wonderful feeling of relief at the whistle – our season is not yet over, we might yet make it to Christmas!

Leinster 13-9 Munster

Handling and breakdown areas still need a lot of work, and with Top14 leader’s Racing Metro coming up in the first round of the HEC next week is a tough challenge. They were impressive in defeat to Toulouse yesterday afternoon, a particularly tenacious 2nd half fightback stealing a losing bonus point. If Leinster are coming into form it has the potential to be a wonderful game. On the other hand… well let’s leave that unsaid.

See You Next Week

As of last night there were still 5,000 tickets available for the RDS Leinster vs Racing Metro next week – they should sell a little easier now.

Your comments appreciated. I’m on Twitter at @AMcDermott

A while back I built a website for Dene Hickey, a “qualified neuromuscular therapist”. I hadn’t a clue what ” neuromuscular therapy” meant at the time, but it sounded impressive. I recently met Dene about another website for his growing sports massage business.

When I not so subtly mentioned the acute back pain I was suffering Dene immediately offered me a free deep tissue massage where he would “de-activate” the trigger points. I’ve had sports massages before and I’ve noticed that the masseuse or masseur rarely goes hard enough on the troublesome muscles. No such trouble with Dene, he’s a strong guy who works on amateur and semi-pro rugby players regularly, but as well as just going in strong, he really found the pain points and sorted them out.

As he was working on the muscles, one of the interesting things for me was learning a bit about Trigger Points. I won’t try to explain it here – click through the link to Wikipedia or Dene’s trigger points therapy page.

I felt an order of magnitude times better after the session, the acute back pain was greatly diminished almost to non-existance. If you’re suffering from chronic muscular spasm or pain, from sports or even from office chairs, then I highly recommend you find a massage clinic specialising in deep tissue massage and trigger point therapy. If you’re in the Dublin area, I don’t think you could do much better than to give Dene a call.

• Deep Tissue Massage
• Dene Hickey

Earls scores against England - photo from BBC site (linked)

After a disasterous visit to Paris and a very disappointing performance against the French, Ireland have got their 2010 Six Nations campaign back on track with a hard-fought victory in Twickenham.

It was by no means a classic performance, made more of grit and determination rather than a champagne performance. A huge amount of tackles put in by the Irish line, with the vast majority of possession to England.

A Win Is A Win

My post-match reaction was huge disappointment – we won, but just. The performance wasn’t what I hoped for: we didn’t see the back-lash against England after our Paris trip. But in hindsight, there is truth in the old sports clique – a win is a win. I went to so many 5 Nations games in Lansdowne Road with poor performances AND poor results so I have to be happy with the gritty victories.

There were some good performances across the board but for me the MOTM was Tommy Bowe who had a wonderful couple of tries.

I didn’t really have an opinion either way about Martin Johnson before this game – he’s a tough character but you have to have some respect for someone with his background in the game. However, I lost most of that respect after watching his post-match interview. You can take a look for yourself. Defeats are unpleasant for any manager, but a little graciousness wouldn’t go awry.

Video replays show that he controlled the ball with his hand at least twice, and possibly 3 times, in a split second incident 13 minutes into extra-time of the France-Ireland World Cup Qualifying Playoff.

Because of the resulting goal, France won, Ireland lost and won’t take part in World Cup South Africa 2010.

The referee missed the blatent (on replay!) handball at the time. Irish players, management and officials were incensed that such an obvious foul could be missed. Within 2 hours of the incident, 2000+ people had joined the Thierry Henry should apologise to Ireland Facebook group.

But is Henry a cheat and a thief? Well, honestly, I think that’s not relevant.

Sure, you can call him a cheat for his (probably instinctive) reaction, and hold it against him. If he was Irish, would we be complaining? I’d put money down that he himself was surprised the ref didn’t call him on it*. I also think that every sports person on the planet would admit that they occasionally cheat, whether it be deliberate or accidental. That’s why we have referees.

*Update: Henry post-match says virtually identical to the above:

I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him. – Henry

Damien Duff said he doesn’t blame Henry, and that he or Robbie would have tried it and would expect the ref/linesman to catch it.

An angry Twenty Major says we shouldn’t blame FIFA for our players squandering all those chances, and I’m 100% in agreement.

The real fault here lies with the wendybal football authorities on a different issue – they should have brought in video referral for controversial incidents like this one before now.  Every rugby fan is familiar with the question “Is there any reason why I cannot award this try?”. How about a bit of that on the soccer pitch?

Many (most?) professional sports have video or photo evidence: rugby union, rugby league, cricket’s 3rd umpire, tennis, American football, even the photo finish in horse racing and athletics, the list goes on.

I think the real topic in this incident is that soccer needs to bring in video evidence now. Enough of the stupid experiments with goal-line referees – let’s get the computers and videos in there.

Finally, Henry didn’t knock Ireland out. Even after the controversial goal Ireland still had to score just a single goal from the myriad of chances that we squandered. We cost ourselves – but it’s nice to have a scapegoat as we wallow in yet another glorious defeat.

A shock and total surprise. Sad news for Ulster and Irish rugby, Matt is a gentleman and a superb coach and will be greatly missed.

Sources: last few minutes of the Ruggamatrix podcast, transcribed by mikerob over on the UAFC board:

LK: “the other news this way.. who is catching a flight home.. is Matt Williams… is finished up at Ulster… they’ve moved that on as well… they are looking for a new coach… which is a bit of a surprise actually.. anyway”
Presenter: “He’s done quite a good job up there Les hasn’t he? .. brought that team together in the end”
LK: “Yeah.. got a lot of young kids coming through”
Presenter: “What happened?”
LK: “… I think he had another year but… I don’t know the true details… but I know that decision was made.. I just found out an hour or two ago myself … no one was expecting anyway..”

More news as we get it.

Leinster beat Munster 25-6 in the 2009 Heineken Cup Semi Final, a reversal of the 2006 result

What a win! What a glorious, glorious win! Here’s some pictures from the wonderful occasion, and it certainly was a massive win for rugby and Ireland, as well as Leinster. After my previous post being a humorous response to the drubbing Munster gave Leinster, it’s a massive turn around.

Fantastic performance all around from Leinster. 1-15 were immense. Actually, given the growing injury list, the squad, 1-25 were immense. Leo, Mal, Cian, BOD (BOD, BOD!), Rocky, Stan, Luke, Felipe…. poor Felipe: I genuinely shed a tear when I saw his face when he had to limp off. A massive player for Leinster, he deserves the biggest accolades we can give him. A real pity to lose him (though a bigger picture positive for Irish rugby to allow us develop an indigenous outhalf).

All of them were immense. Isa did incredibly well at fullback, we were seriously worried about that selection – but with Super Rob sick, and Legend Girvan injured, we had no choice. Isa, you did yourself proud.

Brian O’Driscoll summed it up perfectly:

We had lost twice to Munster this season and we really felt we owed them one.

People had questioned our pride and passion, but I think we answered our critics. Munster are a team that pride themselves on their physicality and we had to work hard to match them. They are a great team and have been the standard bearers for such a long time.

I don’t think anyone doubts Leinster’s passion after this win.

I think some elements of the Munster-Leinster rivalry is getting out of hand. I don’t know if that’s because of the new fans being attracted to the game, if it’s because Munster have had such success recently, or what it is. I’ve caught myself thinking some thoughts I’m not very proud of a couple of times after meeting some fans who brought certain views to the table.

As far as I know, and please correct me in the comments (linking a source) if I’m wrong, of their last 10 meetings, honours are shared 5 each. In fact, of all matches historically to date (May 6th 2009) I believe that it’s exactly evens. Fans of both teams, and all Irish rugby fans, need to be aware that success can be fleeting. We need to all avoid being bad winners.

I’ll leave the last word on this to a Limerick man. From the Irish Independent Myopic Munster fans a blight on old rivalry:

By Billy Keane
This Leinster-Munster rivalry is beginning to annoy me. It has gone too far and has Tom Tommed off in the wrong direction.

I can’t handle the crowing after beating Leinster. If you want to motivate the opposition, there’s no better way than by poking fun at them, or by belittling their efforts.

We are all mixed up in the melting saucepan that is this little country. For me it has never been a question of being against Leinster — I’m just for Munster.

Those of us who cheered on our Grand Slam heroes in Cardiff didn’t care what province the winners came from; indeed, there was a spontaneous singing tribute in Thomond last Sunday when the Munster fans reprised Tommy Bowe’s greatest hit — ‘The Black Velvet Band’.

And that brings us to the last reason for being nice to Leinster — the bookies have it completely wrong and Leinster do have a chance. The All-Ireland semi-final will be some battle.

So, let’s go easy on Leinster just in case they flay us with our own words.

Wise words there in hindsight :)

Leicester Tigers:

Keith Earls was arrested after the Leinster match on Saturday for suspected theft and kidnapping after Gordon Darcy was reported missing.

When the Gardai took Earls down to the station he was asked to empty his pockets. They then found found Gordon Darcy there safe and well. Earls explained he’d just put Darcy there during the match and forgot to let him out. When the Gardai followed up with a full body search the also found a ticket to S Africa with Rob Kearneys name on it, Earls apparently said Kearney left this on the pitch after the match so he just picked it up.

Gardai are investigating further reports that Paul O’Connell and other Munster players assisted in the crime, rumours that Contemponi was among players abducted were found to be untrue however Felipe did report the theft of his bottle from the Leinster changing room.

Sadly, very accurate!

Conclusion: most have been approved and sent on to be ratified, but vitally the maul collapse rule has been rejected (woohoo, that was always a bloody stupid idea), and the “sanctions” rule, which changes most penalty offenses into free-kicks (and turns union into league) has been sent back for further review. Further review? What idiots let the Aussies into the meeting?

We’ll see how it pans out – May 13th is the date they change the Laws.

ELVs recommended to be passed into law:

Law 6 – Assistant referees allowed
Law 19 – Kicking directly into touch from ball played back into 22 equals no gain in ground
Law 19 – Quick throw permitted in any direction except forward
Law 19 – Positioning of player in opposition to the player throwing-in to be two metres away from line-out and the line of touch
Law 19 – Pre-gripping of line-out jumpers allowed
Law 19 – Lifting in the line-out allowed
Law 19 – Positioning of receiver must be two metres away from line-out
Law 20 – Five-metre offside line at the scrum
Law 20 – Scrum-half offside line at the scrum
Law 22 – Corner posts no longer touch in goal

ELVs not recommended:

Law 17 – Maul, head and shoulders not to be lower than hips
Law 17 – Maul, pulling down the maul
Law 19 – Freedom for each team to determine line-out numbers

ELVs sent for further examination:

Sanctions and free-kicks

From the IRB:

“We held a positive and constructive meeting at which all stakeholders were able to share their opinions on each of the ELVs. This was an important milestone for the ELV programme and it was crucial that robust discussion was entered into and that all positive and negative impacts of the ELVs were raised,” said IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset.

“Naturally opinions differed in several areas of the ELV programme. The IRB regards this as a healthy and positive state of affairs as the Game’s Laws have always and should continue to allow coaches and players to interpret Law so that different styles of play can be employed.”

“The Unions tabled detailed research and analysis to support their views. Everyone had the opportunity to air their views. What was clear was that there was agreement on many aspects of the ELVs and a collective will to see a return to one set of Laws to govern the Game as soon as possible.”

“This conference was not a decision-making meeting but at the end of the day the conference provided a set of collective recommendations on the ELVs to assist the IRB Rugby Committee in formulating its final recommendations for the IRB Council meeting on 13 May. Council will then decide which ELVs, if any, should be fully integrated into Law,” added Lapasset.

The Conference was the latest step in the extensive global ELV consultation and evaluation process. Attendees were also presented with Game analysis and statistical surveys from over 800 matches, involving more than 3,000 players, coaches and referees at the Elite and Participation levels of the Game from 15 IRB Member Unions.

“It is has been a long road since the genesis of the ELV programme at the Conference on the Playing of the Game in Auckland in January 2004 when national coaches and administrators gathered following Rugby World Cup 2003 to debate the state of the Game,” said Lapasset.

“Collectively the participants requested that the IRB look into the Laws of the Game and mandated it to undertake a major review in areas such as the lineout, maul and sanctions, including turning penalties for technical offences into free kicks. The Laws Project Group was subsequently conceived, as were the Experimental Law Variations with initial trials starting in 2005.”

“In the past Law changes were discussed in theory and implemented without on-field testing but importantly this ELV programme has included global practical trials. The entire process is now coming to an end and the IRB would like to sincerely thank its Member Unions for their participation in what has been an unprecedented review of the Laws of the Game,” added Lapasset.

For England – Scotland, I think this is a close game, if Scotland perform like they did in the first half against Ireland then they have a change of winning this game. On the other hand, England started off the Championship so poorly, and I really didn’t rate them (or Johnson who seems more like a captain than a manager). But England have picked it up and played well the last couple of games, resulting in a thrashing of France. Given the home ground advantage, I’ll call this as England by 7 points: England 22 – 15 Scotland.

On to the big game of the day at Cardiff. Lots of people have written off Ireland because we haven’t won the grand slam since 1948, because we’re competing with NZ for the title of top chokers of world rugby, because we’re nervous, etc. I’m happy enough to go into the game as underdog according to most bookies.

First of all the Championship. Wales might beat this Irish side, but it is highly, highly unlikely that they’ll put up more than 13 points against us. Ireland will end today as Six Nations Champions.

Ok, to the real business of the day, Ireland’s potential Grand Slam. This is tough against a good Welsh team who will be doing their damnedest to get revenge on the Irish for many recent beatings in international rugby and club competitions, and to stop us from doing what they could not do this year. Honestly I think the game will be extremely close, but I think this Ireland squad under Kidney just has a psychological edge, a new mental strength, that we didn’t have under EOS. Ireland to win the game by 2 points to win the Grand Slam.

You can follow my updates on Twitter @AMcDermott where I’ll be ranting and raving as the games go on.

Here’s the route map thanks to Gmap Pedometer.

By the numbers:

• Distance: 28.8km (17.9 miles)
• Time: ~ 1 hour 20 mins
• Average HR: 135
• Maximum HR: 170 (took it easy!)
• Calories: ~ 1149 (estimate from Polar)

Picture from Dad of a spin we had out last Friday.

Man-bags are a great place to carry a couple of extra hipflasks and a few cans of beer.

I didn’t see much of the Italian visit to Twickenham, what little I did see was predictable but nothing awe-inspiring from England. From the Italian performance they’re still the whipping boys of the 6N, although Scotland look like they might be racing Italy to this years Wooden Spoon.

Ireland had a wonderful start to the championship with a fantasic win over a decent French side at GAA headquarters. France had an experimental but dangerous side and it was real back and forth stuff. Ireland managed to keep the penalty count lower than the French, and with a couple of really spectacular tries from both sides, it was a pleasure to watch. Eventually I think our experience and team play won out, I’m really happy we didn’t let them back in before the final whistle like we might have last year. Great defensive performance there. Particularly delighted for the 3 try scorers – Heaslip for show-casing himself in the Lions selection year, and BOD and D’arcy for both getting deserved scores and coming back into form after a quiet 12 months (particularly for the injured D’arcy). The photo shows my view of the pitch – I was in the middle of a huge crowd of really sound French guys, fantastic folks and not a sore loser amongst them after the game.

Wales are getting rave reviews after what was probably the most boring Six Nations game I’ve seen in years. They are the defending champions, and I expect they’ll improve hugely, particularly by the time we meet them in the last round, but I think the BBC et al are going a little over the top based on a yawn-inspiring performance against a pathetic Scotland team who did their best to knock themselves out. Literally.

I think Williams will enjoy watching the replay of Webster going for a smashing tackle only to knock himself unconscious, and what back wouldn’t want to smile about a tight-head prop knocking himself out after going for a dirty in-the-air hit? btw good call from Alain Roland on Webster, the medico’s should have taken him off the pitch immediately.

Aside: On that point, it’s something that happened during a J4 match recently, one of my teammates took a bang to the head and went down like a tonne of bricks. He immediately rolled up on his feet and continued playing, and noone insisted he go off. In hindsight and after some post-match discussion we agreed it was bad form to have him continue and I very much regret not following my first instinct in forcing a substitution. For all of us, amateurs and pro’s alike, let’s bear in mind that head injuries aren’t to be messed about with, and ignore the player if they want to play on, it’s not worth the risk.

@joescanlon rightly recommended that I mention @patrickphelan‘s analysis of the Twitter #merde tag which people were using to flag tweets related to this game – great work there Patrick!

If you know of another good 6N round 1 post please mention it in the comments.

Must attend:

• Hong Kong Sevens Tournament (rugby) – there are loads of rugby 7s tournaments, this is the original headline event.
• State of Origin series (Australian rugby league)
• A Superbowl (American football)
• An All-Ireland GAA football final with Dublin beating Kerry, Meath, Cork, or Tyrone.  Actually, make that 4 All-Ireland finals (with Dublin …)
• Tour de France Alpe D’Huez stage finish

Would like to attend:

• Heineken Cup final (rugby), preferably with an Irish team, preferably not Munster again (I don’t mind Munster, it’s just the bloody fans that are annoying).
• Rugby World Cup final
• Snooker World Championship match at The Crucible
• The Ashes (cricket)
• CFB Bowl game (American college football)
• MLB World Series Game 7
• NBA Championship Game 7

What about you, sports fans, what sports events must you attend before you meet your maker? Post a comment and let me know!

Updates from Twitter (I’m @AMcDermott):

@TheMenace said: @AMcDermott Ireland vs England 6 Nations at Croke Park. Although I think you’ve only got 1 more chance to do that :D

@interactivemark said: @AMcDermott Stanley Cup game 7 (preferably w/ NY Rangers) any Olympic event (preferably ice hockey) and the running of the bulls.

On July 22, Romero bought a supplement at the GNC store in Cherry Hill. He had it checked by his personal nutritionist, who said there was nothing in the supplement that was illegal. There was no warning on the label. Romero mentioned it to Phillies strength and conditioning coach Dong Lien.

There seems to have been some confusion in testimony during the October arbitration hearing. According to Romero, Lien told him to get a second opinion; Romero took the supplement to a second nutritionist, who cleared it.

On Aug. 26 and Sept. 19, Romero was tested, as all players are, randomly. On Sept. 23, players’ association counsel Bob Lenaghan informed Romero he had tested positive.

“I immediately stopped taking all supplements, although I had no idea it was the cause of the positive test,” Romero said.

He spoke to Michael Weiner at the MLBPA and told him he did not know the cause of the positive test. On Oct. 1, Weiner told Romero that the specific supplement was indeed the cause of the failed test and that because it was purchased over the counter in the U.S., he believed the case would be dropped.

That same day, Oct. 1, Romero was tested again. The results were negative. So for the NLDS, NLCS and World Series, the supplement was no longer in his system.

Two days later, Romero was informed that MLB would be willing to reduce his suspension to 25 games, starting at the beginning of the 2009 season, on the condition that he admitted guilt. Romero said he couldn’t because he did not believe he did anything wrong.

Sounds harsh. I’m all for cracking down on drugs in sport, especially in cycling and baseball where they seem to be rife, but this is a travesty. More at http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3812334

Ireland attacking Argentian line in a rare moment of excitement in the Autumn international. Typically for the game it ended in an error.

Leinster Supporters Terrace drown out the Dragons lineout call and Leinster force a turnover – great work! Twas a damned cold night out there!

Brief update with details from my cycling & camping tour to Loire Valley in August 08

940km total
15 days cycling
63km/day average
~40kg gear on bike

Tour photo set on Flickr

The canal route was pleasant, and I don’t regret cycling it, but now that I’ve done it, I think I’ll stick to a road route in future – the canal section was just too slow and wasted a lot of time early in the day. If I was on my hardtail my average speed would have been a lot better on the canal section (but not on the road ) I did take quite a few photos, but had the camera in my bar bag so that didn’t slow me up much at all. Will post all 4 videos I took while moving onto YouTube, first here: Royal Canal

Flickr set with all pictures is here

Fuel strategy was good. I made an enormous pasta bake the evening before (enough for 6 people ), ate it for dinner that night, and for breakfast, lunch and dinner on the cycle. Had 1.5l of DIY sports drink (oj/water/salt/sugar), and a camelbak of plain water. Bought some sweets (see pics) towards the 100km mark when I thought it might prevent bonk, though I was still going strong – increasing speed in fact!

The route was along the towpaths from Croke Park as far as Kilcock, then after that I was on the old N4 for most of the way. I’ve thought a lot about the next route that I’ll do, Dublin-Mayo, I’ll write up a new post for that in a couple of weeks.

All videos will be here after YouTube processes them

By the numbers

Distance: 133km
Time: 7 hours 40 mins
Avg: 17.3 km/h (approximately 12-13 km/h on the canals, 21-22 on the road)
Mechanical: 1 (broken front fender after going over a branch)
KCals (according to HRM): 6557
Average HR: 126
Max HR: 163

Check out a small selection of photos on flickr, we’ll have more pictures and hi-res videos of the heats uploaded to Vimeo in a couple of days time (it’s hard to find bandwidth to upload several hours of 1080P).

My call on the match is very tight, both in terms of scores and playing style, with a fair amount of kicking in the first half, opening up a bit after the 30th minute or so when people settle. It’s too close to call a winner, but I just think Munster might shade it. I had a look around the online prices from the bookies and across the board they’re all shading it Munster by 1-2 points.

Current odds, 3 hours before kick-off:

VCBet Munster 8/11, Toulouse 11/10
Blue Sq Munster 8/11, Toulouse EVENS
Bet365 Munster 4/5, Toulouse 11/10
Stan James Munster 5/6, Toulouse EVENS
Celtic Bookmakers Munster 4/5, Toulouse 11/10
PaddyPower Munster 4/5, Toulouse 23/20

Well, good luck Munster!

Before we do, I’d just like to point out the incompetence of our manager, Eddie O’Sullivan. I say incompetence, because he is simply not a competent manager in this day and age. This kind of idiocy makes me livid:

“Substitutions are my decisions. We make substitutions late in the game occasionally – if we’re in a certain position,” he said.

“We don’t tend to make substitutions in blocks. I’m not going to change my philosophy on substitutions. I’ve done the same thing for however many years now.

“I have a logic and a reason why I do it. I know people don’t agree with that, but that’s OK.”

(Source: RTE News)

Eddie, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Finding live games online

I’ve been looking for some sites to watch GAA (Irish football) when I’ve been away on business, I still haven’t found one (you can watch it live if you’re within Ireland but that doesn’t help me!). I did find a site which shows live soccer matches, might be useful especially with the Euros coming up.

Update: Giants destroyed the 17-0 dream in a fantasic Superbowl – what a great game, the best I’ve seen in years.

I am absolutely ****ing livid that anyone could even consider anything else for Irish rugby right now.

The honourable thing would be to resign but for financial reasons he probably won’t do that and I understand his position on that front. The IRFU board members responsible for the contract extension should also resign on general principles.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about “not making emotional decisions”, “let the dust settle”, “wait until after the competition before the inquest begins” and lots in a similar vein.

For us, the competition is over. The dust has settled. We still have a lot of unanswered questions, all of which are real and valid, and none of which are emotional (although I must admit they inspire a lot of frustration).

• How could this group of seriously talented players fail so completely?
• Why did we not make use of our squad?
• Why do we never make tactical substitutions?
• Why didn’t we know how to ruck?
• Why don’t we change our lineout when it’s not working?
• What exactly did Geordan Murphy, Alan Quinlan et al. do to gain social outcast status?
• Just how badly does our out-half have to perform, game after game, after game, after game, to get dropped?
• What’s different about scrum-half that he can get dropped?

We don’t have a replacement for out-half, so that last question is unfair? Ok, well answer me this:

• Why in the so called “development tour” to Japan in the summer of 2005, did we play a half-back pairing of Peter Stringer and David Humphries? How is this “development”?

Could we have maybe tried a couple of new 9s and 10s (y’know, development)? We beat Japan 44-12 and 47-18. Was it was too risky with our Lions players and manager in New Zealand? Don’t bother telling me Eddie wasn’t involved in selection – this is his job, he’s a professional manager.

On the topic of O’Gara, I don’t care about his private life, it’s entirely his business. What I do care about is his form. His kicking and passing was way off form for every single World Cup game and he should have been dropped. That’s not the player’s fault, it’s the manager’s.

Speaking of fault and whether the players should bear the brunt of the blame… what a load of rubbish. The manager is the boss. The gaffer as Steve would tell us. “The buck stops here“. If there is a problem in the squad, with the players, with psychology or group dynamics, or social order, or the bloody breakfast cereal, it’s the managers fault.

Eddie, be a f##king man and put your hand up. Maybe you really don’t know the answers to why the team performed so poorly, but I know you can answer the other questions we’ve asked, like why you don’t use squad rotation, never make tactical substitutions, and never, ever change the pack. Your choices may not have been the sole cause of the embarrassing demise of this Irish rugby team, but you’ll find a hard job convincing me that they didn’t strongly contribute to it.

I’m not embarrassed by the Irish players. I’m fairly embarrassed for most of them who didn’t perform, and suspect they’re very disappointed with themselves. It’s worse for the likes of Hickey and BOD who did stellar jobs considering the circumstances and didn’t have support around them.

Standing in Parc des Princes on Sunday evening, roaring out “The Fields” as our World Cup lay in tatters, we did everything we could to try and help the team bar coming onto the pitch and actually driving over the rucks. I hope the players appreciate the noise we made in such conditions, they didn’t come out to us after the medal “ceremony” but I can imagine the absolute disappointment took hold at that stage. We will continue to try to be the best sports fans in the world, regardless of results.

IRFU chief executive Philip Browne told RTE: “We have put our faith in Eddie. We made decisions last May in terms of where we wanted to go over the next four years – we’re happy with that decision. In our view he’s the best man for the job.”

Browne added: “What we have is a situation where we’ve had three bad matches and people are very disappointed – no more than ourselves.

“But we also have to reflect on what has happened over the last four or five years, where we have had the most successful performance of any Irish team or squad.

“That, in effect, really dictated and set the scene or the context in which we made decisions.”

I think Philip has been going to the EOS School of Media Interviews. What we have here is a situation where we have a manager with what is the most talented squad of Irish rugby players EVER. That’s not even in question. What do we have to show for this? Two failed Championship efforts, a couple of Triple Crowns and our worst ever World Cup performance. Philip, I don’t know what planet you’re on, but we’ve had bad matches against Argentina (twice), Scotland, Italy, Bayonne, nearly beaten by minnows Nambia, scraped past Georgia without a bonus point (did you know they have 8 rugby pitches and three hundred adult players in the entire country?), beaten by a poor French team, and thrashed by an utterly superior Argentinian team for the 3rd time this year.

Do you want to talk about our great Six Nations instead? Where we were lucky against Wales, had a terrible first half against France, almost stole it but for our useless defence in the last minute. Yes, we annihilated England, and we’re finding out just what that victory meant with their performances in the RWC. We scraped a win in Scotland, and finally managed to throw away a Championship victory by letting Italy steal a vital try in the dying minutes in Rome. Yes, 2nd place in the Championship and a Triple Crown sound better, eh?

No, Eddie must accept responsibility for his squa team’s performance and the sham that has been Ireland’s greatest ever world cup preparation. Philip must accept responsibility for giving a 4 year contract extension blank slate.

In case any hacks attack me as an “anonymous internet blogger”, let me state that my real name is Alastair McDermott, and I am in no way anonymous.