In his latest piece Keego doses us with an interesting cocktail of performance-enhancing opinions…
I took last week off to wash the 6 Nations off me, and to try and be positive about the rest of the season. I felt myself becoming grumpy about rugby, if you had the unfortunate situation of interacting with me on twitter, you got an ear full. Or an eyeful…whatever the twitter version is.
The reason is this. Rightly or wrongly, I feel that when Ireland is playing it is all about the green jersey. It is about picking the right players (regardless of provinces) in the right positions. A lot of you on twitter, were not able to pick up on this the provincial bias bled into the green jersey which is the exact opposite of what the national side is about.
There is a lot of pointless dislike for provinces. This is NOT football. This is a real sport. Players are legitimately putting their bodies on the line for us. If you hate Leinster for no other reason than they are Leinster then you are an imbecile. Same for other provinces. There is zero agenda for any team; rugby is the fairest game around. It is a game where you can only go forward. Cheer for your team by all means. Bring in the banter in the stands that is great. Anything else should be saved for football. If you tweet/facebook me about the ref being for/against a team I will let rip.
Ok, apologies for the rant. Now on to this week.
So what has been happening? Between Luke and his agent toying with every female in Leinster’s emotions to the top of the table Rabo match last Saturday between Ulster and Leinster to Neil Francis’s and his beautiful madness. Where do we start?
Let’s start with Luke. As usual, I have to point out that I think he was on his way to top form again. For the first time in years he looked back to his vital self. It was great to see. I think he was about 3 games away from being 100%. Then he got injured. The same knee issue that has caused problems in the past. Another surgery on a body part that is already less than perfect. Leinster stepped up the plate, for the second time. They offered him a 1 year deal when his neck injury happened. Then last week every female in Leinster heard news that reminded them of the time when take that broke up. Our Luke was headed to Munster to play in the 13 jersey. This was, in a roundabout way, confirmed by 98fm. Twitter lost its mind. Then later in the day, Leinster announced that they had signed Luke to a 2 year deal. The women stopped crying, and everyone (except your humble grumpy correspondent) changed their minds about Luke. If, and I repeat IF, his agent was using Munster again to gain a contract from Leinster then it is 1 part good business for Luke and 1 part biting the hand that feeds. Leinster stuck by him whilst injured. If he was to go on the public market he would find it hard to find a club being injury prone for the last two years. It is bad sport from him to pull this stunt.
Moving on from Luke, Leinster faced Ulster in a top of the table clash in the RDS last weekend. There was some good friendly banter in the stands. The match was enjoyable to watch. Some lethal tackling from both sides. The unfortunate thing from a Leinster standpoint is that we look short of fire power without Darcy, O’Driscoll and O’Brien. Yes any team would look weaker without those players, but we were very much on the defensive for most of the game. Minimal line breaks. The intensity at the end was great to see. Ulster, who had a lot of academy players on the pitch, defended like demons at the end and where good value for the win. Hopefully we can get our top team back in action ASAP. The academy needs to step up too. Maybe the added game time for the younger players this year will be exactly what we need for a strong campaign next year. The Ulster 3 Ricky Lutton looks to be one for the future. He was able to handle the more experience Healy on the day.
And now we are nearing the home straight. I read an article by our favourite mad man Neil Francis. I like Franno, he is very knowledgeable and prone to over exaggeration. It is almost as if he purposely has too much coffee and gets carried away. This week in the Indo (a publication it is hard to take seriously with writers like Conor George working for them), Franno spoke about the problem of creatine. Bringing up Lomu and his kidney problems and how they were blamed on creatine. He also mentioned schools rugby players being put on courses of the supplement to bulk them up.
Whilst lots of points where valid in the piece, it was all circumstantial. There are no studies that show creatine to be a problem when used correctly, as stated on the pack. For anyone to be so naïve as to say creatine ruined Lomu’s kidneys is laughable. Whilst creatine is a relatively new supplement, it has been used by millions of people. Have you heard of any deaths attributed to its use? No you haven’t. You have heard rumours like it turns you urine green, but you have never heard any facts. Do you not think that by this stage you would have heard something concrete? Franno was wrong in his assumption that it is causing cramp in players. With respect, the game he played and the game played in the Senior Cup final a few weeks ago is a million miles apart.
Creatine didn’t cause cramp in players, the intensity of the game and the nonstop nature of it causes cramp. Bringing the NFL into any conversation on performance enhancing drugs is also a sign of naivety. Creatine is the least of their worries. I have attached a piece I wrote on the topic a while ago. I feel this is a good, balanced article (if I do say so myself) and shows the real issues in sport. The problem is not creatine, and anyone who feels that it is is probably an older person who read about it once. The problem is the stronger stuff that is being used in a lot of rugby teams and a lot of national sides. The IRB even have a testosterone use exemption. When I try ringing governing bodies to talk about this I am hung up on.
So that ends this weeks rant. As usual, if you would like to debate/abuse/discuss then feel free to find me on twitter @nkeegan and at www.thedailyclothesline.com. If you like this weeks blog, please share and if you know Franno, please send it to him.
Until next week…
Keego (@nkeegan): Blogger, former professional wrestler, sometime attempted rugby player (@TheThirsty3rds), professional procrastinator and attempted musician with a fondness for long walks on the bar, tea and the couch. Opinionated Leinster fan and constant gardener.
