Having a Leinster cover on your iPhone doesn’t make the players your property, writes Brendan Grehan, among other things…
TIMES ARE tough at Chateau Grehan. We had to fire cook last week and Symes the gardener has run off with the maid, Magda, a stout but voluptuous girl from the Carpathians.
The staff didn't receive their Christmas bonus, a whipping with branches but they seem happy. The next few months could be a difficult time for Joe Schmidt and especially for Declan Kidney. I don't share the Irish press corps' optimism after the victory over Argentina. The Pumas were not in the zone that day in the same way that Clermont Auvergne were the victors before they stepped on the pitch two weeks ago in Lansdowne.
Walking down Bath Avenue towards the stadium, I had a bad feeling in my gut. There was too much jollity around. A lot of the crowd seemed to be well on. I had been out the previous night and did not need any lubrication save for a delicious Americano on the way in Probus Wine and Spirits.
Funnily enough, I walked part of the way with a young dad, who was bringing his infant son to his first Leinster game. The little fellow was a smasher, decked out in his mini-Leinster kit. His dad plays for Stillorgan RFC and we had a good old natter about the Club game.
Another old pal was bring his teenage daughter to her first rugby game. Her father is a Ballina man and he keeps on reminding me that Ballina, the home of Gavan Duffy, Ronan O'Gara's mother and Fergus McFadden's dad is a rugby town and it is.
The game was a real disappointment but after the first half you knew that Leinster were not going to come back. Clermont Auvergne played as if they were in the Stade Marcel Michelin. They looked bigger too. Was it the white jerseys? They had the psychological upper hand and one could see the sledging that was going on from the Clermont players.
Surely the air-fare from Georgia (actually most of their players are based in France) is cheaper than a flight to the Antipodes or the high veldt but I can't for the life of me see why the IRFU have not targeted a few Georgian props as likely recruits. Is it because they can't compete with the French clubs financially or is that they use agents who don't have necessary connections in Tblisi!
We could have done with the man from Wagga Wagga (Nathan Hines) but the powers that be deemed him to be not worthy of a two-year contract so there he is, classic Hines, like a lusty Crusader at the gates of a Saracen citadel, laying waste.
Mind you, we may not have lifted the Heineken Cup last year without Brad Thorn so what do I know!
As our Gallic visitors turned the knife, the Leinster 'fans' seemed to either lose interest or become more manic. There are two types of 'fans', the ones that turn up for the big games and are usually inebriated and then there is the psycho brigade, the super fan, and woe betide you end up sitting beside one. Talk about a lack of perspective.
Yes we lost to Clermont but it isn't the end of the world. Tomorrow is another day and show some respect for the players. A real fan minds his tongue and does not heap insults on a young full-back when he tries a move that doesn't work. And then they expect the players to wait on them hand and foot when they are out socially.
Woe betide any player who doesn't stand for a photograph when he is out (in his own free time) for he is then deemed to be 'obnoxious'. The 'fans' don't seem to get it.
This isn't Hollywood or the Premier League, This is Ireland. We do things differently here and if a chap wants to go for a few scoops on his day off, he's not on PR duty so he's entitled to his privacy. Smartphones are dangerous.
That said, two of the Leinster squad turned up at a particularly raucous Christmas party I was attending. They had been celebrating in a local hostelry and came down to have a drink with the team I have some involvement with. The lads were thrilled and a big thank must go out to the players concerned, one an Irish international, the other a Springbok.
If a team loses, the last thing they want to do is to go out on "a lap of shame" to thank the fans for turning up. They want to get the hell out of Dodge, to recover and to make sure they can recover for next week.
The Sunday to Saturday turnaround for the Clermont game did Leinster no favours allied to the alleged burglary at Joe Schmidt's house while he was away in the Massif Centrale. A perfect storm of sorts.
Leinster will be back and there were green shoots in their mannered defeat of Connacht last Saturday. It was a typical December derby as the players know each other so well.
The lads may be celebrating a final win in May in Dublin but methinks it will be on a Friday in the RDS, not a Saturday in Lansdowne Road. But We can still dream.
Dreams are what make us.
This correspondent decided to forego New Years Eve celebrations for spiritual reasons (I have never enjoyed it and could Jools Holland please stop joining in with his boogie woogie piano). I fell asleep watching a really excellent BBC Wales documentary "Shane" on Shane Williams.
Those internet tablets are dangerous.
A Happy New Year to all.
P.S. This blog was written while I was staying in a particularly spacious suite at Carton House, You could hold a line-out drill in the bathroom and a scrummaging session in the bedroom. Thanks are due to David Webster and his courteous and professional team at Carton. www.cartonhouse.com
Brendan Grehan is a journalist.
Facebook: Brendan Grehan
Twitter : @brendanxavier
