J'Accuse, le trial de Matt O'Connor

J'Accuse, le trial de Matt O'Connor as Thorinho might write if he wasnt on about le top quatorze!

By Brendan Grehan

THERE were furious scenes yesterday in Harpin' on Rugby Manor when I was summonsed upstairs to the little room by Mr Big 'Dutch' Pagano, the boss, el jefe, el albondiga grande. I knew it wasnt looking good when I saw the single light bulb glaring at me.

Then the verbal tirade began: 

"What are you trying to do to me. I take you back to write a piece for my new blog empire, it's bigger than all the other rugby blogs. We've got control of the north side, the south side, those Italian boys down in Barrow street are on the run and you do this. You write a piece in praise of Matt O'Connor and you only mention him in 100 words.  You talk about 'Slimer' and 'McIvor' and bloody Trinity again and you didnt even mention Blackrock! What is it about Trinity can you not grow up, I pay you good money, provide you with a car and all the branded sportswear you want. Now get out of here. The next time you pen a blog for me you stick to the topic or you will be swimming in the Dargle wearing concrete shoes"

Leaving the imposing edifice of HoR Manor (They say he got an interest-free loan from you know who to build it). I trudged back to my lodgings and used the downstairs telephone to ring my rugby mentor, The Earl of Kinners, DSO, MC, QFA, Order of Mount Temple.

He wasted no time putting me on track, "I doubt anybody knows who Slimer was or McIvor, could you not stick to the topic." 

So here goes.

In my humble opinion, Matt O'Connor should be let see the season out and then the powers that be will take it from there. I do have some involvement in the modern game and I do know about some of what I am talking about. 

Yes, O'Connor has not had a good run. That I accept but it would be a step too far to sack a coach effectively mid-season and it would mark a rubicon for Irish Rugby as it has never happened before in the professional game in Ireland. 

Yes, coaches have announced their departure but they were not sacked. By the way, I have no problem with criticism. I work as journalist and am used to it. Writing a blog for me is a recreational activity. I earn no money for it (but you never know) and I don't take myself too seriously.

Back to Matt, I don't think some Leinster fans understand how competitive professional rugby is now. At European level, the margins between success and a verbal dust-up from Franno are tiny. You are either a king or a knave, but never both.

I missed the Leinster v Munster game as I was away supporting my club but talking to fans afterwards, we all agreed that a kick up the rear end was what Leinster needed. Leinster have some big units in their line up now with Ben Teo coming from the Rabbitohs and Kane Douglas from the Waratahs getting a good run.

I try to stay positive. You support the team, the whole team or don't bother supporting them.

Here's to a win on Sunday evening.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist

Twitter: @brendanxavier

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

Time for the MOCkery to stop

Leinster should send Wasps, not Matt O'Connor, to Coventry, says Brendan Grehan...

IN THE AFTERMATH of Leinster's defeat to Munster two weekends ago, one would be , forgiven for thinking that ccc-wearing tribes of Dublin and the pale were facing a bigger catastrophe since Donnybrook Fair last ran out of organic peanut butter.

And now as Matt O'Connor faces one of the most important games in his coaching career, can he call on the Leinster 'faithful' to support him. I have seen the rumblings about O'Connor among the faceless internet forums. Keyboard warriors love taking a cheap shot. But a cheap shot is just a cheap shot, it isn't a knockout punch.

Calling for O'Connor's head at this stage of the season is quite simply not the Leinster way. It's not the rugby way. There is a truth universally acknowledged in  team sports in that you give a paid head coach a minimum of two seasons to prove his métier and then he moves on.

Rugby is now a world game and there are countless opportunities for professional coaches throughout the northern and southern hemispheres.

The thing I really don't understand is that it was obvious to everybody that Leinster and indeed Munster are in a period of transition. 

I am lucky enough to have witnessed professional rugby in Ireland from its second season. I was in America for the first.  I well remember that summer of 1995 in the aftermath of RWC 1995 when over 100 years of amateur football was turned on its head. 

It was even a topic for discussion amidst the leafy avenues of West Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was chatting to a prop who played for Boston RFC and he mentioned that two of the Welsh players who lined out for Beacon Hill RFC were going off to play Rugby League for the USA Tomahawks (The USA's national rugby league team). This was all possible because of the IRB's announcement in Paris turning the game professional.

The ridiculous divide between the two codes of rugby came to an end. Former players could now make some small profit from their fame without losing the link to the game many served so well.

The point is that I was privileged to witness the development of Leinster as a professional sports team. Some hate the term "Club Leinster" but that is a point for another day. Any rugby fan should check out Brendan Fanning's excellent "From There To Here" which chronicles the early development of the professional game in Ireland.

Am I digressing, sorry at this stage I must point out that its a blog piece, its my blog piece and I'm entitled to take a trip down memory lane every now and then.

There is some method to my madness. We will get there. When I got the big metal bird back over the pond, it was a source of some pride to me that some of my contemporaries from school and college, two in particular, were now holders of IRFU contracts. They in fact were semi-professional at this stage. Only one of my year from school went on to win a full Ireland cap, Stephen McIvor, against Australia in 1996. Paul "Slimer" Cunningham who played with distinction for DUFC and later Garryowen and is now a successful coach.

Leinster went from strength to strength, reached the top of Mount Olympus in 2009 and scaled even greater heights in 2011 and 2012.  But no party lasts for ever, well some do but drinking a warm can of lager at 8am  with a dehydrated gob isn't exactly my idea of heaven.

Was the Leinster squad that O'Connor handed a poisoned grail, an unholy cup which could only bear misfortune. No, he had O'Driscoll and Cullen and things have not gone to plan but now is not the time to send the former Brumbie home.

On Sunday afternoon, they face Wasps (formerly London Wasps). We can send Wasps to Coventry, not O'Connor. It's a good Kerry name, O'Connor. You dont send Kerry people away, they are a wily, cute sort that always come good.  So less of the negativity from the ranks of the faithful and lets support this team and the coaching team.

PS I was shocked to hear from a long-time Leinster fan (who knows who she is) that a section of fans booed when Michael Bent's name was called out at a recent match (I missed it to my shame I may have been in the queue for a soy latte!). Now I just don't understand that and I don't know why any fan who pays their hard-earned money to support their team would boo an Ireland international. Shame on you. People who carry on that sort of behaviour should be ejected from the ground. 

Brendan Grehan is a journalist

Twitter: @brendanxavier

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

*****

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What Next for the Celtic League?

We’d like to welcome Brendan Grehan back to HoR2 as he gives his take on Rabo’s early withdrawal from the Pro12…

LAST Week it was interesting to see the positive spin being put on the news that RaboDirect are pulling the plug on their sponsorship of the Celtic League.

I always thought it was curious why the Dutch company chose to sponsor the league in the first place given that they only have a presence in Ireland and not in the three other member countries. In a curious parallel with German sportswear firm, Puma, who exited from their gear deal from the IRFU one year early, RaboDirect are also returning to the land of canals, dykes and jazz cigarettes 12 months ahead of schedule.

Though the Celtic League has always been the European Cup's ugly sister, it has established itself as a competition of note.

And Ireland is the market where it has flourished. All those inter-provincial rivalries over the last decade has left their mark on the competition. One thinks in particular of all those Leinster-Munster match ups in Lansdowne, the RDS and Thomond.

To be honest it made sense for RaboDirect to bid adieu to the Celtic League given that the bank’s market is Ireland.

In a statement, Tim Bicknell, General Manager at RaboDirect said "key business objectives have been achieved".

He added: “The partnership with the PRO12 has helped us achieve key business objectives and has been extremely beneficial, especially in terms of developing and communicating our brand values, connecting with rugby fans and giving us a platform to reward our customers.Our commitment to the PRO12 will be the same this season, and we will continue to push the boundaries, innovate and bring our energy and expertise to the competition through a strong programme of activity."

As the domestic rugby season starts to wheeze up again, RaboDirect could be the perfect partner for the game on these shores.

It will be interesting to see what sporting activities the Dutch will choose to sponsor.

And what will become of the Celtic League. Will Sky swoop down like a deus ex machina and come to the rescue given that they are due to screen 33 matches a season in a four-year deal from next season.

With all the kerfuffle about the alcohol sponsorship, the drinks companies may choose to keep their distance from the oval ball.

So it will probably be a big financial institution. You can't beat the old reliables.

Brendan Grehan is a Journalist.

twitter: @brendanxavier

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

American stars and bars

It will take more than nicknames & and a leprechaun to promote rugby stateside, writes Brendan Grehan…

by Brendan Grehan

IN A LITTLE over a month, Les Kiss's Ireland will line out against the USA Eagles in Houston.

Joe Schmidt will be watching in the stands. The marketing wizards in USA Rugby came up with an oh-so funny promotional video with the Eagles captain, Todd Clever having a chinwag with a leprechaun on a park bench. There is even a pot of gold.

Frankly, the video is insulting and dare I say it racist. If the Eagles were playing the Springboks, would the Leprechaun be replaced with an African warrior, I don't think so.

It saddens me that the best that this is the best that USA Rugby can come up with promote the game.

Given the great links between Ireland and the USA, one would have expected something with a bit more wit. Maybe they should have got Ed Burns to direct a short video.

One could argue that were it not for the Irish influence over the years in the American game up to and including Tony Smeeth and Derek Dowling , Rugby in the USA and

Canada would not exist.

Last year, Over 17,000 turned out to see the USA play Italy in Houston. So roughly the same as a sold out RDS. The USA have some way to go before the greatest of the oval ball games leaves its niche and enters the mainstream.

Of course, now that Sevens will be an Olympic sport in Rio, it offers the best hope of rugby getting some manner of stakehold in the USA.

Recently it was with some surprise that I read Tom Dart's article in The Guardian indicating that the NFL are planning to back a professional rugby union competition stateside.

There is talk of London Irish playing a USA 'Barbarians' selection at Gillette Stadium on August 10, the home of the New England Patriots.

It doesn't look like it will be much of a contest given that London Irish will be playing a selection of International 'stars' bolstered with American footballers who will have spent a month learning the union game at a training camp in the midwest. No current USA Internationals will be involved in the game.

The USA is the great untapped market for Rugby Union and it was only a matter of time before somebody came up with a proposal for a professional league stateside. I was living in Boston when the game went open in 1995 and they were even talking about it back then. Every so often it comes back again. It could bring extra revenue to the NFL as the stadiums could be used in the spring and summer months. But I don't imagine that there would be much atmosphere at an empty Gilette Stadium for the Boston Leprechauns playing the New York Shamrocks.

This proposal looks far-fetched and I would be surprised if anything comes of it. Mind you Boston or San Diego in the spring could be the perfect base for an Irish player on the cusp of retirement.

As it stands the development of the game in the USA lies with USA Rugby and their pal "Lucky" the Leprechaun.

A future USA Captain, Scott LaValla from Olympia, Washington State, will be lining out for Stade Francais against Leinster in the RDS.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.

Twitter: @brendanxavier

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

 

Never stand on a Puma’s paw

For his latest HoR2 blog Brendan ponders the thought process behind Puma’s decision…

Outside Herzogenaurach, there is a little hamlet called Konigschintzel. It is famous for its bratwurst, cooked over birch wood on huge grills in the main square. Last December, there was a whisper of snow on the cobblestones as Dieter Heinrich Von Bankstein ate a modest breakfast of bread and sausage in the Gasthaun Um Himmel.

The Innkeepers daughter, Helga, poured some bitter coffee into his mug. She was smiling as ever. Dieter, who has an MBA from Insead, and a double first in greats from Oxford, would be what is known as 'a good catch' in that part of Franconia.

Dieter, fluent in English ,Spanish, Catalan, French, Occitan, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Dort, wanted to put his arms around helga's bounteous waist and feast on her eyes of Savoy blue, but he had work to do.

As the go-to guy in Puma, he had to drive to Herzogenaurach along the banks of the Aurach for an urgent meeting with the board.

He left the gasthaus and got into his Audi A8. The soft nappa leather on the seat was icy to the touch. It took a number of minutes for the seat to warm up but Dieter had a cold feeling in his heart that no amount of Ingolstadt technology could fix.

Dieter loves Ireland. He loves Doolin, Paddy Casey, Glen Hansard and the other balladeers that peddle the real irish music. He likes nothing more than flying into Dublin for a good old knees-up with the folk kids on Wexford Street. He has been known to kip on Mundy's sofa in the Birr balladeer's gaffe.

With a creamy pint in front of him, he can let the world slip away. All talk of profit margins and keeping up with that other sportswear giant across the Aurach, seems to subside into "ze waters of my beloved liffey" when he lands in Dublin.

Dublin has captured his heart too. A titian-haired programmer from Kells, Ciara, she doesn't really love Dieter. The thing that gets Ciara going is seeing her boys in blue. She never misses a home match and puts on her skinny jeans, ladies fit blue leinster jersey and sequinned blue beanie for 90 minutes of thrills. She got into Leinster "loike in 05 before everybody else did". She burns as many calories trying to catch Fergus McFadden's eye as she would in a Zumba class or 90 minutes of salsa dancing with Ramon at his studio in Trim.

Dieter knows about Ciara's passion and it is what brought him to the oval-ball game.

So in 2009, he and the board decided to commit to the IRFU for an eight-year deal. The only other international rugby team that wears his brand is Namibia, the former German South-West Africa.

The thinking at the time was that "rugby is so sexy".

Dieter told the board: "In Dublin all ze women wear the rugby gear. De vill wear anythiing if it is Leinster. But ve cannot get Leinster, dey are with Canterbury it must be Ireland. Dey have won der grand slam".

"Wot is that", Dr Claus-Maria Von Schonbrunn, Puma's head of R & D had asked at the time.

"It is when vun team wins all der games against de other countries, France, England, Scotland, Wales und Italy".

Three years later and Heinrich’s beloved Ireland were still wearing Puma. Sales were good but they weren’t shipping platinum as his friends in the music industry would say. Maybe it was the black jerseys, or the really horrible materials they use.

He would tell the R & D Department: "Ze players do love the technical aspects of ze jersey but ze fans they do not. Many Irish rugby fans have wot is known as 'ze beer belly'. Ze girls love to drink pints and pints of horrible lager and cider. It is terrible for ze skin. Dey wear lots of make up to cover up. Zey look like oranges. My Ciara is different. She has skin as white as the ze cliffs of Bray Head and her hair is so red. Oh boys, I love her i do."

Ireland have yet to win another Grand Slam, or win anything of note.

Dieter had been in New Zealand in June. He had phoned back the board: "Vee nearly beat the Adidas team. Vee nearly beat ze All Blacks".

Given that the board just about knew who the All Blacks were, they weren't impressed.

Rugby is a global sport but it is a global niche sport. Outside the core IRB countries. It is in reality a university or a private school game and the clubs tend to come from universities. That is how it has developed in Spain, Portugal, Germany, Chile, Uruguay etc. From a sports marketing perspective, it will always attract the abc1 but it will never have traction or volume in those countries compared with Soccer. But the IRB is doing some excellent work from their headquarters in Dublin.

So Dieter finally made it into the boardroom.

Ulf Jagerkampf, Puma's head of International Sales and Morketing, EMEA, made the announcement: "Ve are ending our agreement with the ze IRFU. Ve vill be moving out of rugby for the future. Our Dassler cousins across the Aurach now have france, italy, Stade Francais, New Zeeland and of course, Munster. Vee are going to move into more traditional European sports like Olympic Handball. I hear that Eddie O'Sullivan is doing great work with the Irish Olympic Handball team."

Dieter cried into his bitter coffee. What was he going to tell Ciara and the zumba girls. He was going to be roasted, broiled and grilled alive like one of those bratwursts.

He said to himself: "Ze Irish girls with ze red hair, ze scare me when they get angry".

Brendan Grehan is Journalist

Twitter: @brendanxavier

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

Stuff That Works

Some so-called pundits who should know better need to cop on, writes Brendan Grehan…

WHAT IS IT about pundits and bile?

In the wake of Leinster's hard-fought victory over Exeter Chiefs in Sandy Park, I was astonished to hear that one former player on his Monday night slot with his Lee-side buddy was telling the nation that "Leinster didn't look as fit as a few years ago".

I know that the former player and leading rugby intellectual did play the game at the highest level. He was a highly-talented schools player and by all accounts is a good egg but could he for once stop talking rubbish. Does he have access to Leinster's strength and conditioning programme?

Is he in the gym while the players are practising their powercleans and dead lifts. The thing that really annoys me about the pundit in question is that he seems to have a problem with the normal player who trains hard. Given that he himself was a player with incredible talent, did he ever live up to it. Yes he wore the green jumper with pride but he never won a European Cup or a five or six nations. He never won a grand slam and he never played on a lions tour. Given that he has described the current England coach as "a nobody" and launched streams of vomitous bile at other hard-working players, I think it is time to shout stop.

Any chance you could have an ounce of cop on as a former player who straddled both the amateur and professional era.

To be fair, another former player, who was also on Monday's panel was quick to check on the intellectuals outburst. He is an excellent pundit snd was at the heart of the Leinster team in the late 90's. No surprises that he is a Limerick man. What is about that jewel by the Shannon that produces so many great players and great people. Since I was a child, I have had a deep affection for the county and city as the gateway to Munster, the greatest of the four provinces, the greenest of the four, the most hospitable of the four and the loveliest of the four.

The pints taste sweeter down there too, not like the gold-coloured swill that they are currently serving in the RDS. At €5.80 a pint, one would expect a pilsner of the highest quality served by a Wagnerian maiden with blonde ringlets. What is it about Ireland that we must always stiff the punter. Leinster Rugby should really look into their pricing policies because the last time I checked cans of lager are not being sold in the RDS. There seems to be an awful lot of people drinking them.

Are you allowed to bring cans into the stadium? I come to watch the game, not to drink.

Some former Leinster players do rather make bilious pundits. One in particular, who should know better, spent many a year heaping barbs of bitter vitriol towards his former team. I never understood it. Again, he played the game at the highest level during an era when Ireland weren't very good. After leaving politics, he has gone to the dark side and we seem to hear little of him. He seemed to have a particular problem with Michael Cheika.

Cheika was instrumental in Leinster winning the Heineken Cup and one could argue that there would not now be three stars above the Leinster crest without Cheika's groundwork.

A true servant of the game, Cheika will coach a world-cup winning team. Success breeds success.

Leinster may have bowed out of the Heineken Cup but there is always the Amlin. It is a good cup to win and good teams usually win it. The blue army need to pick themselves up. Real fans support their team through the ups and downs.

As Guy Clark sang in "Stuff that Works":

"I got a pretty good friend who's seen me at my worst. He can't tell if I'm a blessing or a curse. But he always shows up when the chips are down. That's the kind of stuff I like to be around".

Here is Houston's Jack Ingram singing. No protunes, no lipsync. Just one man and a guitar.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist

facebook: Brendan Grehan

Twitter: @brendanxavier

The Parnassian Groves

Jamie may ruffle some feathers but he should be welcomed as Irish captain, says Brendan Grehan

I WAS mildly surprised by some of the bombast that surrounded Jamie Heaslip's appointment as Captain of Ireland for the Six Nations. One radio station that should know better really stuck their oar into deep mud, describing O'Driscoll as having been "dropped" as captain.

Eddie O'Sullivan was later talking on another radio station, owned by the same chap, about how it would have been good for O'Driscoll to see out his last Six Nations as captain. Note that I refer to O'Driscoll by his full surname. I love to hear when fellows and rugby femmes start trouting on about "ROG" this "Dorce" and my all-time favourite "Axel". They have a name, use it.

I may be an old romantic and God knows I was getting misty-eyed at Donnybrook when Old Wesley U21 Premier XV beat Greystones 20-14 last Sunday. It was particularly satisfying given that we were savaged by Greystones last October on a balmy Sunday evening in Dr. Hickey Park.  Zack Jungman's try was particularly good.

There can be no room for sentimentality for choosing a captain and in his heart of hearts, O'Driscoll would like to concentrate on his own game.  My dad has always said that O'Driscoll is the greatest Irish player and he is and still is a devotee of Dr.Jackie Kyle.

Getting back to the new incumbent. Heaslip, like his predecessor, lives his life in the glare of the camera and smartphone. He seems to enjoy it and it does rankle some people, not me. Rugby players for all their athletic prowess will never earn the same as their cousins in Association Football and Heaslip is entitled to use his fame to generate as many benjamins as he can.

As it is all about the green, in both senses of the word.  He does seem to ruffle some feathers. Was it his venture into the restaurant business?

Waiting for the 4 bus on O'Connell Street after the Exeter game a few months back, A Leinster fan, flag, jacket, tracksuit bottoms, beanie hat, little cuddly lion toy, Leinster pins, Leinster water bottle and a phone cover, told me "He's never been the same since he opened that restaurant".

Heaslip scored the try that set our 2009 Grand Slam campaign and he is a product of my beloved DUFC, the oldest continuous rugby club in the world.

One would like to think that some of the College Park mud has rubbed off on him. My minute concerns about Heaslip were put to rest by a former international, coach and TV pundit who told me last October that Heaslip is a "free spirit" but he has always wanted to captain Ireland.  I think he will make a great Captain. He will lead from the front, like his predecessor.

There is only one command in the Israeli army: "Follow me".

The DUFC that Heaslip played for and the one I had a minor involvement with are completely different animals. With the advent of professionalism, the University teams had to pull up their socks literally and they have gone down the elite road.

The powers that be in Trinity, UCD and so on will tell you that they have "social" teams. Surely a player of any level should be able to play and wear the colours of their University. Some of my happiest times in Trinity were spent supping on a lemo in the Pav after training as the hockey players wore their bandannas. What is it about hockey that every team, both male and female, must always have a few bandannas in their line-up. It's oh-so rock and roll for possibly the most foreign of all the foreign games.

The sad thing now is that generations of players are being lost to the game. If they are not elite, they can drift through university, possibly without any athletic involvement at all save for working on their guns for their night-club visits.  I believe that all the Dublin clubs and beyond should be targeting the Universities and colleges for players who have fallen through the net.

They probably will have played at schools level so the basics are there already.

Good luck to Leinster tomorrow and to all the Irish teams playing in the Heineken Cup this weekend.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist

facebook: Brendan Grehan

Twitter: @brendanxavier

The Gathering

Should Irish rugby take part in The Gathering? asks Brendan Grehan… 

I have been 43 years on this little Earth of ours and I have been a 'journalist' for the last 15. I dabbled in 'student journalism' when I was in University but it was mostly tittle-tattle. In fact, one little article led me to being punched in the stomach as I was striding across College Park. I deserved the punch. I wrote something which I was not proud of and I later apologised to the individual that I had offended.

But as a journalist you do have to rock the boat, to provoke debate, to initiate change. In Ireland we are a nation of knockers. It is not good to stick your head over the parapet. Change is not welcomed. Organisations talk of change but in fact they do nothing. It is all window dressing, hot air generated by so called management consultants who can barely manage themselves let alone a team of bleary-eyed number crunchers.

I like to rock the boat but sometimes you capsize.

I have always had a bit of a gra for the Pumas. Being half-Spanish may have had something to do with it and playing as a prop for most of my undistinguished rugby career could provide you with another hint. As Argentina always produce good front rows. You can't have a good rugby team without two solid props and a chippy little hooker. It saddens me to report that there are some "professional" coaches in Ireland who are sending out teams without proper front rows. I have witnessed this aberration at first hand and to say it is a disgrace is an understatement. When you have a two props who can't scrummage and spend their time masquerading as centres, but without the ball skills, then we have a problem. A really great prop can do his job in the setpiece and flash it out when needs be. I have bumped into a few great props over the years and they are always the best people in the bar to share a bottle of el vino collapso with.

Getting back to the pampas. The Irish side of the family hails from Westmeath and earlier from Roscommon. Many from Westmeath emigrated to Argentina in the 19th Century. My second cousin Betty O'Reilly from Mullingar went to live with her Argentine cousins in the '50s. Famously, they didn't speak Spanish. So there was a little bit of Westmeath out on the Pampas and I bet the beef was as good as anything you would find in the fine town of Mullingar.

A number of rugby players were murdered or gave their lives in the 9/11 attacks notably Mark Bingham but a name also appears in the footnotes. Pedro Grehan (35) from Buenos Aires who was living in Hoboken, New Jersey , was working as a broker for Cantor Fitzgerald when the planes struck. Pedro had played for one of the top clubs in Buenos Aires.

The current coach of Argentina, Santiago Phelan, is a man also of Irish extraction. I know a number of Phelans who would love to welcome him to his homeland down in the sunny south-east. He didn't seem to like it when I reminded him of his Irish heritage in the wake of his teams defeat to Ireland. He looked at me like I was an eejit (is there a word for eejit in Spanish but in fairness I was one). I suppose I was thinking laterally and for Santiago's benefit.

I have a proposal for Philip Browne, The IRFU, and Enda Kenny. As this year we are celebrating The Gathering, would it not be a good idea for the IRFU to mark the year with an end of year international between an Irish XV and a Gathering XV. The Gathering XV could be coached by Santiago Phelan and managed by Sean Fitzpatrick

Lawrence Dallaglio, whose mother is Irish, could coach the forwards. My younger brother, Mark, whose idea this was, always reminds me of the time when we visited Adams Park in 2007 for the Wasps-Leinster Heineken Cup Quarter-Final. The Leinster fans were verbally joshing the Wasps pack as they warmed up. Dallaglio, in his own inimitable way, turned to the stands and pointed to the Leinster fans. His pack knew what was expected of them and they performed. Leinster were beaten fair and square. Limerick man Eoin Reddan scored a fabulous try for Wasps and I remember him running over to his family on the touchline. Reddan, that day was an exile and he sent a message to Eddie O'Sullivan that day. Irish rugby wouldn't breathe without the treaty city.

Dallaglio, of course, could have played for Italy too, In some ways he is a true son of Europe, or rather of Charlemagne. A warrior, the younger brother is also of the opinion that if Dallaglio had been on the pitch during the first Lions test of 2005, the Lions would have left the field honours even in the wake of the O'Driscoll incident.

But we would have no problem selecting a team of International players of Irish extraction. Agustin Creevy, Declan Danaher, Shane Geraghty, Paddy Ryan, Liam Gill, Brett Sheehan, Blaine Scully, Nick Cummins, Pat McCabe, Stephen Moore, Jamie Cudmore, Jebb Sinclair, Liam Messam, the list goes on and on.

It is just an idea, a vain dream but could you imagine the sports tourism potential of such a game. Kiwi and Wallaby fans would travel over from the UK for the game.

You can guarantee that the English fans would come over to as they love Dublin. It would be a game that would celebrate Irish Rugby and the Irish rugby spirit that travels so well wherever it goes.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

Twitter : @brendanxavier

Show some respect

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

Blue is the colour

In his latest piece for HoR2, Brendan Grehan is on about provincial jerseys again, only this time wearing them with pride.

A CHAP I know works in a sports shop. Well, I suppose I must stress that Mark isn't "a chap".

A few weeks ago he was telling me that a young boy of 11 or 12 had come in all distraught. There had been a washing accident with his dad's prized Leinster jersey. It wasn't any old jersey though. It was the prized Canterbury Jersey back when Leinster were sponsored by ACC Bank. The boy and his mother thought that they could buy that jersey new and replace it without papa knowing. Maybe they were able to locate one on the internet and I know that Mark would have pointed them in the right direction.

Some of the Leinster faithful wear their first jersey as a badge of honour to prove that they have been supporting the Province since that particular season.

I am not going to grandstand about this but I have been going to Leinster matches since the mid-80’s and it has been a great trip.

If Leinster were playing in Donnybrook, one could make the quick 10 minute dash up the Merrion Road and park on Ailesbury Road. There might have been an odd blue scarf but back then one could not purchase replica jerseys. The players played for the clubs and may have got a day or a half-day to train with their province. As amateurs there was always more of a connect with the communities they represented. It is the same spirit that has driven the GAA to be the finest Amateur sporting body in the world.

Now more than ever Irish rugby, at club level, needs to take a few lessons from their sporting brothers and sisters in the GAA. As the GAA has got the edge on the oval ball in the realm of coaching and conditioning expertise. When a former International tells you that it is common at AIL level for training sessions to be cancelled because it is raining, one knows that there is a problem.

Would Brian Cody or Mick O'Dwyer ever cancel a session because of a few drops of rain, I doubt it. I have digressed but this isn't an issue with the professional game.

It is a source of great pride to this writer that I have seen Leinster transform themselves since our game went open in 1995.

There are few sure things in life - beer always tastes better from a glass or a bottle than from a can, An Irish TV personality of a certain age will always wears a red dress when she's launching some charity do (I hear loike she is actually quite boho in real life), a Fender telecaster will always sound best through a vibrolux turned up to ten, women are always right, and if you want to see a bloody good game of rugby football, then head down to the RDS or Lansdowne when Leinster are playing. After the game you might repair to Mary Mac's or toddle down to Stephen Cooney's fine hostelry, The Bath, and down foaming beakers of Irish craft beer or a MacIvors cider from the MacNeice's family’s orchards in the sainted county of Armagh.

The atmosphere may or may not be electric but the place will be full of parents and kids munching popcorn, eating burgers and enjoying the spectacle.

The hard work that Mick Dawson and his team in Leinster has put in over the last decade has paid off. There may have been a few false starts but the Leinster machine is now one of the new kingpins of World Rugby. Leinster Rugby is now a worldwide brand. The blue Canterbury jumper is now an iconic jersey, like the black of New Zealand, the sky blue and white hoops of Argentina and Williamstown, the light blue of the House of Savoy and Italy and the green of Ireland.

As the blue army gathers, credit must also to Peter Breen and his media team in Leinster HQ. The media match-up with the Evening Herald has been a win-win for both concerns. The Leinster coverage every Friday attracts new readers to a periodical which would not traditionally have a rugby readership but now it does.

So whatever happens on the weekend, Leinster Rugby are winners on every level and long may it continue.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.

Twitter: @brendanxavier                

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

The “Jersey Unsure” Irish rugby fans

People who go to support Ireland should dress for the occasion, writes journalist Brendan Grehan

A FEW MOONS AGO, I had been ranting on Facebook about Leinster and Munster fans and their supposed "age-old" enmities which are largely a media creation and or the love-child of the new rugby 'fan'.

Like it or love it, with the success of the Irish provincial game, there are a whole load of new 'fans' who wouldn't know one end of Kilgobbin from the other. Have they ever drunk a lemo in the Pav, had their cojones turned to ice in Kilternan. Have they ever froze on the sideline in Birr while their team of jobbing junior counsels, a secondhand car salesman, a tailor and a future High Court judge (watch this space) were dismantled by an XV mainly comprised of former inter-county hurlers. They say that it is the fastest ball-game in the world but let me tell you those hurlers were handy rugby players too.

Imagine if an Eddie Brennan or a Declan Ruth had picked up the oval ball, maybe we would be looking at three grand slams in the trophy cabinet in Lansdowne Road, but that is an argument for a winters evening, in front of a turf fire from the finest West Kerry peat and two balls of malt or even a large balloon glass of Cardenal Mendoza.

The old Cardenal. One of the pleasures of being involved in this old blogging lark is that you can feck off on a tangent, whenever you like, like driving to Mullingar on the N4 via Enfield and Edenderry.

Well Cardenal Mendoza is one of the best Spanish brandies out there on the market. I was raised on Spanish brandy from an early age and there is no finer Brandy De Jerez than the old Cardenal. Named after a famous Castillian Statesman and Cardinal, it also was the favourite tipple of Lee Brilleaux from Dr.Feelgood.

Some of my younger readers (do I have any, sorry does anybody ever read this, I know a few do) may not have heard of the Feelgoods, the legendary pub-rock band from Canvey Island in Essex but Brilleaux was a gourmand and lover of good pubs and eateries. A man after my own heart. Myself and my two brothers and three sisters,it must be pointed out do have a small reputation for sniffing out good nosheries for fellow trenchermen and trencherladies in most locales.

Back to Canvey Island, well Brilleaux while on tour would keep a diary with the best pubs and restaurants he ate and drank in. It was almost like a rock and roll Michelin guide. He alway used to end the night and sometimes start it (i'm sure) with a snifter of the the ol' cardenal as he used to call it.

Sadly Lee passed away from cancer in 1994 but here is a clip of Canvey Island's finest with Brilleaux on lead vocals and showing off some useful chops on slide guitar.

Back to provincial small-mindedness. Oh, the cat is out of the bag. And we should take it out because this phenomenon needs to be discussed because it has no place in our game.

In the bad old days when you went to inter-provincials, there may have been 300 there may have been 1000 but it was understood. It was the rest of Ireland versus the Cork rugby mafia and their cousins up in Ravenhill.

The boys, who sail in the summer months down in Crosshaven, decided how the Irish team was selected and really ran the show.

Now as rugby has embraced professionalism and its little love-child, sports marketing, we have a game that has morphed into a professional game but still retains some of its amateur roots.

But could you tell some of the 'fans' out there that just because a Leinster player is having an off-day while on a much-needed holiday in the Far East and he doesn't pose for photographs with a harem of orange-coated thong-wearing (the sandals) south Dublin witches, it does not make him 'obnoxious'.

He is a professional sportsperson and is entitled to his private life and private time.

Therein lies the problem. The new fan (who supports the professional game through their financial support) doesn't really get it.

Yes if you have to dress from head to toe in blue polyester sportswear and cheer on Leinster tomorrow against Zebre, do it. Down south, wear all those delightful red performance fabrics but because you have a ticket, it does not make you part of the game.

You are just another number. I feel some Bob Seger coming on. He captured man's disconnect with 'the man' in his 1978 classic 'Feel like a number'.

I may be a bit harsh but what really gets me going is that when you head to Lansdowne Road for International games. It is not a sea of green. It is a polycotton mess of blue and red and black and red. In fairness to Connacht, I have a bit of a gra for the men and women from the west. West of the Shannon is the real Ireland, they have suffered from the diaspora (and continue to do so) more than the pale and its dort-accent environs. I won't begrudge a Connacht fan wearing their green jersey to an Irish game but the idiots who wear Leinster jackets and their cousins in Munster and Ulster who do the same.

Are they trying to prove a point, that they have no cop on altogether?

On my way to last Saturday's game, I asked a couple of Ulster fans ( dressed head to mid-riff in Ulster gear): "I didn't know Ulster were playing today".

They scowled back.

Before the South African game, there were a couple of Munster lads wearing some smart branded anoraks. I passed a remark about Munster not playing but to be fair to them they wittily retorted : "Most of them are on the field".

I know that the provincial game has largely trumped its bigger brother. It is sad but there is more of a buzz now about the upcoming European Cup games than there ever was about the Autumn Internationals and that is a challenge for the IRFU.

It is a challenge they and Declan Kidney will meet but rugby fans you don't have to rub it in.

For your own sake, could you ditch the provincial sportswear for the odd time that you hit Lansdowne and wear something green.

Twitter: @brendanxavier

Facebook: Brendan Grehan

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.

Time to put the brakes on Leinster’s U21 juggernaut

Journalist Brendan Grehan reckons Leinster’s Under-21 setup drastically needs a re-vamp

PUT AN apple up against a truck and the truck wins every time. The apple may be a gleaming Granny Smith, its green skin is hard to touch while inside its flesh is ripe and juicy but it is no match for tonnes of steel.

The same match up is happening every weekend at Under 21 level in Leinster. Four teams packed full of semi-pro athletes on provincial academy contracts are cutting a trail of destruction through the U21 JP Fanagan Premier competition.

As a keen follower of the game, I doff my hat to the clubs involved. It is great to see their success and the excellent conditioning of their players. Leinster rugby is in safe hands with a steady stream of talent coming through ready to be the next "Club Leinster" pin-up for the swooning ranks of excited hausfraus, a Leinster flag in one hand, a quarter bottle of a cheeky white wine in the other. It does not take away from the fact that the JP Fanagan Premier is not a competition anymore. One of the four teams are guaranteed to win it. Such is their superiority that they regularly beat the other teams by 50 plus points.

The reason for this is so simple, they are not regular under-21 teams. They are effectively provincial academy teams operating as club sides packed with players on provincial contracts, the future of Irish rugby.

So if you are a clubman/clubfrau or alickadoo (are there any left?) associated with one of the 4 clubs you might be filled with pride every Sunday evening when you hear of the latest demolition. You may feel cosier in your down gilet and the sunglasses may still be at the top of your head, despite the absence of any sunshine but what you are forgetting is that rugby like life is a long game.

When William Webb Ellis while playing football on Rugby School's 'Bigside' caught the ball and ran (he had been reared in Munster on the banks of the Blackwater) he set off a chain of events that has transformed the sporting world.

Chief among these is the concept of fair play which you might ascribe to Victorian England but I think it goes back a bit farther than that (but that's an argument for another evening over a few large bottles of ale) and trouncing teams by cricket scores is not doing any good for the development of the future stars of the clubs concerned.

They are not being challenged and ultimately they will feel bored, spent. Are their academic needs being attended to. If they are in third-level institutions are they enrolled in sufficiently challenging courses that will stand to them in the future. Because the working world has changed and a club tie and firm handshake will only get you so far.

On the other side of the paddock, the clubs that are on the receiving end of the trouncings are gathering their forces. I hear the pikes and pitchforks have been taken down from the thatch and a proposal could be in the offing heading towards the Leinster branch.

I hear that that the missive is coming from one of the most distinguished and committed servants of the game. A man who has spent most of his young and adult life involved in the game. I think it is time that the Leinster branch avert their gaze, however fleetingly, from the cash cow that is the RDS/Lansdowne Road and attend to this matter.

Copyright: Brendan Grehan

Brendan is a journalist  Twitter: @brendanxavier  Facebook: Brendan Grehan

I trust the barrels are full!

Journalist Brendan Grehan reckons a few light ales could cure Leinster’s current ails…

ON MY way into the snorefest that was last Saturday's Heineken Cup game between Leinster and England, I was scuttling along Anglesea Road when I spotted two Exeter fans in front of me. They were looking for some pre-match sustenance. I suggested a burger bar inside the ground. One of the lads turned out to be former Bath, England and Lions player Gareth Chilcott (pic). I'm sure Mr Chilcott enjoyed the Irish hospitality as indeed did all our visitors from England's south-west which is a great heartland of the union code in England.

 

I don't know if there is a problem in the Leinster camp but I do know that it is not Joe Schmidt's fault. Rugby is a team sport and there should be little room for showboaters or fancy dans in any team. Getting back to Mr Chilcott. He was part of a Bath team in the 80's and 90's that spearheaded the revival of English rugby that led to a slew of grand slams and ultimately the World Cup in 2003.

 

I read Chilcott's biography recently. It is a short tome but it does have some pearls of wisdom within its pages. Chilcott was from Bristol and was from quite a humble background and when he moved to Bath, he found it hard to fit in with the Bath players. After matches, he would go home and drink with his mates in Bristol, instead of his team-mates in Bath.

 

That all changed when the team went on tour to the USA and Chilcott and two of his team-mates, both ex-public schoolboys, had a day off. They had a choice of white-water rafting, kayaking or going to a local bar and getting sozzled. Guess what option they chose and as they shoved the best things that have come out of Milwaukee and Lynchburg down their gullets, team bonds were formed and Chilcott was a Bath man from then on in.

 

Maybe Leinster need to take themselves off for a few light ales some time soon.

 

All the great coaches in all sports have to know their players and some times coaches need to be quasi psychiatrists, to get inside their players to motivate them.

 

Warren Gatland is a motivator par excellence. Former Bristol, Wasps, England and Lions player Josh Lewsey recounts in his autobiography "One Chance" that if you reached the required level of fitness, Gatland and his coaching team in Wasps encouraged players "go get away from rugby and celebrate whenever possible".

 

Lewsey writes: "Whether it's hearsay or not, in the 2008 Six Nations, after Wales had beaten Italy at home with a stunning display of running intensity, Warren explained that he didn't mind the boys going out, but told them to remember that they had a bigger, tougher game the following week:'Lads if you are to have a drink, just leave off the shots....use the pint glasses instead!'"

 

I do think it is important to treat a defeat with a smile and young players should be mindful of that.

 

It was heartening to see Brian O'Driscoll on the pitch after being trounced 60-0 by the All Blacks having a laugh with his pitch-side interviewer. The journalist asked O'Driscoll if he would ever be back in New Zealand again. O'Driscoll replied: "I might be back for a ferg burger". I am told that it is a gourmet burger restaurant in Queenstown.

 

An essential part of the game is japery. Back in 1987, Wales had just lost 49-6 to New Zealand in the semi-final of the inaugural World Cup.

 

Alison Kervin in her sublime "Thirty Bullies" recounts how Mark Ring bet Richard Moriarty, Chairman of the RWC 1987 Organising committee, that he could pinch John Kendall-Carpenter' handkerchief while the former England International and IRB official was making his after-match speech.

 

The Welsh players had observed that Kendall-Carpenter always had the handkerchief in his top pocket and Ring went to the salad bar, picked up a pair of tongs and sneaked behind Kendall-Carpenter. Moriarty had given Ring 6-1 odds but just as Ring pulled out the handkerchief, he realised it was sewn in.

 

That Welsh defeat was also famous for their second-row, Huw Richards, being sent off after he punched New Zealand second-row Gary Whetton. Richards was on the receiving end of a haymaker from Wayne "Buck" Shelford.

 

A few years later, Shelford was playing for Northampton and they played a friendly against Bective Rangers F.C. in Donnybrook. What Shelford hadn't counted on was that he would come up against one of the original tyros of the Irish rugby scene of the late 80's, scrum-half Jonny Kenny. Shelford, legend has it, was so taken with the spirit and tenacity of the scrum-half that he complimented him after the game.

 

On another gargle-related topic, I will always remember former BBC Rugby commentator's line just as Ireland were beating England in Lansdowne Road with a North Kerryman's famous try. As full-time approached, Starmer-Smith quipped: "I trust the barrels are full".

 

I shall finish where I started with my beloved Leinster. Would it be cheeky of me to suggest to Mickey Dawson and Joe Schmidt that they take the lads out for a few cold ones during the week away from the glare of both the old and new media for some much needed team-building. Sometimes the old ways are the best. You can always run it off in the morning!

 

Brendan Grehan is a journalist twitter: @brendanxavier Facebook: Brendan Grehan

The Red Mist Rising

Despite being a Leinster fan, journalist Brendan Grehan has good reason to look objectively at their situation.

 

AS LEINSTER were closing out the game on Saturday night, I turned to my brother and told him: "I want a contest". He swiftly replied: "No, give us a break. We should obliterate them".

 

Is there a crisis in the Munster game? There does seem to be a problem in the supply chain in the province and it saddens me to see this. By a quirk of fate, I could have been born and raised in Tralee and maybe I might have been in Lansdowne wearing a red jersey and barking about the "Dublin 4 Meeja".

 

The funny thing is that the media has been Munster Rugby's greatest champion. The Sports departments of the National newspapers are full of sub-editors for whom our noble code of football would not be their first love and it is too easy for them to resort to the "mighty Munster" tagline.

 

Apart from the odd young player coming through, it looks like Rod Penney has his hands full. They may sell a lot of Adidas jerseys but its what inside the jersey that counts. Munster will be back but it's going to take a while.

 

Young Kilcoyne from UL Boh's looks like he has good deal of potential. It is great to see new young front rows coming out of the treaty city.

 

A few years ago, I was sauntering down O'Connell Street in Limerick on route to a going away do when John 'Paco' Fitzgerald passed by enjoying a '99, content enjoying the late evening sunshine. I am a great champion of the Munster '99 as it is something that could disappear if the gourmet ice-cream brigade have their way. But that is a battle for another day!

 

Back to Munster, the problem is (and its a problem across the provinces) is that while interest in rugby has never been greater among the general public, there has not been a corresponding rise in player numbers. So if you go to any AIL club, there might be four senior teams and an under 21 squad. Hop back in a Tardis 20 years when the AIL was in full tilt and there would have been seven or eight men's teams at every top club. Of course the physical demands and the conditioning needed for the professional game means that you have to get the players in at early stage through the schools and the academies so at the end of the day you have a young centre who is built like an open-side and can break a tackle like a knife cutting a chunk of Manchego cheese.

 

The age-old Cork/Limerick divide is raising its head again down Thomond Way, with the worrying news that Penney (who lives in Cork) is bringing down the Limerick-based players to train down in the Peoples Republic. I don't know who is behind this but the Cork Con brigade really need to wake up and smell the Barry's Tea and move everything to Limerick. The team should have one training base not two. A Munster woman, whose late husband devoted most of his life to UL Boh's, expressed her concern to me on this issue on Sunday night. "Brendan, they're saying that he's going to move everything down to Cork."

 

She also then wisely pointed out that the IRFU won't let Thomond go and it is a magnificent stadium and I enjoy every visit. The walk down from the city as people from the most greenest of our four green fields assemble to cheer their gladiators on is always memorable.

 

Her grandson is lining out for the Clontarf U9s and got his first scrum-cap this weekend!

 

Funnily enough, when the FIR (Italian Rugby Union) announced they had chosen Parma as their base for the Zebre, there was a lot of unrest in Italian rugby quarters. They pointed out that rugby is not particularly well supported in Parma and that the current Italian coach, Jacques Brunel, lives in Parma and another powerbroker of the Italian game hails from the historic city in Emilia-Romagna.

 

Munster thrives on passion and there are few moments when a grown man starts to blubber, when the water works open, and its usually during the odd rugby match or at the end of a movie when the hero is on his deathbed. In 2008, I missed the Munster versus All Blacks game as I was doing a night class but what really moistened the old eye lids was the Munster Haka. 

 

Another rugby moment that moved me was back in 1995. Then I was living in Boston. I was "between jobs" and my financial situation wasn't particularly healthy. I had just returned from my sisters wedding in Dublin where I had seen some of the RWC 1995 pool games. We had cable in our apartment on Fresh Pond Parkway in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I was watching the American coverage of the RWC from South Africa.

 

The Springboks were playing Canada in what later became known as "The Battle of Boet Erasmus". Tensions were running high from the start as the kick-off had been delayed. The Canadian team of the early to mid-90s had a very tough group of forwards. In 1991, they put New Zealand to the sword in the quarter-final and legend has it that the All Blacks pack were so knackered after beating Canada that they went into the semi-final in Lansdowne Road against Australia slightly worse for wear. The Green and Gold triumphed that day and the Wallabies really need to thank the boys from Newfoundland, Ottawa, Alberta and British Columbia for getting their name inscribed on the William Webb Ellis.

 

Getting back to Boet Erasmus, a brawl erupted during the game and Irish referee sent off Springbok James Dalton and Canadian captain Gareth Rees (from British Columbia) and Canuck prop Rod Snow (Newfoundland). All three players recieved a 30-day suspension. It turned out rather well for the Springboks as it meant that Chester Williams made it onto the starting XV. That was just what the fledgling Rainbow nation needed at the time.

 

In the post-match interview, Rees was asked about being sent off and he told the interviewer calmly and proudly :"When we don the Canadian jersey we are representing Canada and its people. We must stand together. We must back each other." Missing Ireland, my family and decent rugby analysis, the waterworks opened because Rees had just summed up what rugby and all team sports are about, backing up the other guys or girls on the team. The clip of the interview is out there somewhere but I couldn't find it. Here is a video of the infamous brawl.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.
twitter: @brendanxavier

The West’s Awake; long may it continue!

He may be a Leinster season-ticket holder but journalist Brendan Grehan can appreciate the big picture when it comes to last Friday’s result in Galway.

DAVEY HENSHAW was teak-tough, I never saw him play a game but Karl O'Sullivan always said he was one of the best tight-heads in Ireland. Henshaw played for Connacht in the late 80's and hailed from Athlone.

 

Karl O'Sullivan also grew up in Athlone and he was one of my heroes in school. One would think that you wouldn't have a hero in your own year but Karl was cut from a different cloth. He was the tight-head on the Blackrock College 1987 winning Senior Cup Team. But he wasn't a jock or a glory-hunter. Front-row forwards tend to be pretty decent human beings. Like their position, they are solid and dependable and Karl like his team-mates in the '87 front row, Johnny Quirke and Justin 'Fletch' Lennon, you could put your house on them and the bank shares too (those were the days).

 

One could accuse me of engaging in schoolboy nostalgia but sometimes you just have too remember those days of tip rugby, muddy boots and jumpers for goalposts.

 

Karl was one of the fittest schoolboy players out there. Remember, he locked the scrum but when he was 16 or so, he announced that he was going to run the Dublin Marathon and he would have too if somebody hadn't stopped him. He completed a remarkable treble along with two other players from 87, Derek Liddy and Michael O'Brien, of winning the SCT for Blackrock College, The McCorry Cup (U19) and The Leinster Senior Cup against DUFC for Blackrock College RFC. It was an incredible triple in over slightly more than a calendar year and I can't recall anybody else doing it.

 

He studied in Trinity for a while and then joined the Defence Forces as a cadet. He was originally in the Air Corps and legend has it that he had to transfer to the Army because his shoulders were too wide to fit in the cockpit. Karl went on to play for Connacht at senior level and is still as far as I know in the Army. He was another great prop from the west like Ray McLoughlin before him.

 

As primarily an Irish rugby supporter, it was good to see the men from the west trounce Leinster in Galway. The result was good for Irish rugby and might be good for Leinster too. Leinster have been here before. In 09/10, they lost in Treviso and many were questioning Joe Schmidt's appointment at the time. Nine months later all had changed and the streets of Cardiff were filled with Leinster blue.

 

Munster in Lansdowne Road on Saturday will be the perfect red rag for Schmidt's men and I have every confidence that they will turn the ship around.

 

The real question is can Connacht consolidate their form and have a great, consistent season?

 

Playing in the Heineken Cup last season was an undoubted filip and morale boost for the Galway boys but certain sections of the Anglo-Welsh media seem to think that Connacht have no place in the top tier of European Club rugby. Mr Jones and his ilk are wrong because Connacht may be minnows but they have the capacity to be giant-killers. Whether they can consistently slay Goliath with a Galway sling is another thing and that is the real challenge for Eric Elwood's men.

 

One of the aspects of rugby in the professional era that really annoys me is the provincial small-mindedness which has no place in our code of football. So some 'fans' and commentators patronise Connacht as the nearly men, the third-raters, the soft touch while there lies in the West the true heart of Irish rugby. It was where Gatland got his start and it is not inconceivable that Eric Elwood could coach Ireland some day with the same guile and dignity that he wore the green jersey of the four provinces.

 

Connacht have given so much to Irish rugby over the years. So many great players, so many memories. Neville Furlong scoring a try against the All Blacks in 1992 with a broken leg, Connacht beating Northampton in Franklin Gardens, Noel Mannion from Ballinasloe racing down the field in the Arms Park, Ciaran Fitzgerald leading from the front, Mark McHugh kicking like a metronome, Connacht beating a Willie-John era Ulster.

 

While Friday's result may be bad news for us up in soy latte land, it could be boost that Irish rugby needs as we face into the autumn internationals against a Pumas side hardened by matches on the high veldt and both sides of the Tasman sea.

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.
twitter: @brendanxavier

Why we need more of Craig Doyle on TV

We have everything from 'celebrity transgender dwarf ice skating' to '44 stone and keep the cream horns coming' so why no RaboPro12 highlights show? asks journalist Brendan Grehan.

 

 

I HAVE A CONFESSION, I can't solely claim the inspiration for this week's missive.

 

Last Monday evening, I repaired to a tavern of my acquaintance for some much-needed sustenance. The pint bottle of Dundalk's finest via Kilkenny, McCardles, was produced and I was about to tuck into a plate of pasta carbonara (not the healthiest of options but the ultimate comfort food) when from around the corner, a local man of letters and a very serious rugby fan approached. He's working on his latest play, which is due to open in the Gate for the theatre festival in the coming weeks.

 

Being a Monday evening, the bar isn't exactly mobbed and I ask him how the play is coming along.

 

"We are in rehearsals at the moment but I am off home now to watch the Aviva premiership highlights", he says.

 

"Ah yeah, is it on ITV or Setanta. Have you read the blog yet?," I say.

 

As he heads out the double doors, he turns like John Wayne in 'The Searchers' and says

 

'You know what you need to write about. There needs to be a dedicated RABO PRO12 Highlights show with coverage of every game. I want to see the Italian games, the Scottish games, everything, highlights of every game that weekend."

 

"I have seen the AVIVA Premiership one with Craig Doyle, its great. You know, Matt Williams and Franno won't be back for a weeks and Setanta are not bringing back 'Italksport'." I say.

 

"Thats not the same, it needs to be just RABOPRO12 games, every weekend", he says as he departs into the chilly late-September night.

 

I turned back to the main object of my affection, a delicious concoction of cream, pasta and bacon (not pancetta, chef tsk tsk). I have recently been promulgating a theory that you can rank the really great states of Europe by their tradition of producing high quality bacon products. So Spain, with its jambon, would be in first place, then Italy with Parma Ham and assorted salamis etc in second and France would be in bronze with Bayonne ham and various charcuterie.

 

I digress, the man of letters has a very valid point. When I returned home that evening, I watched the Aviva Premiership highlights with Craig Doyle and Martin Bayfield. Doyle gets a lot of stick in the Irish press. Is it because he's a 'Rock boy? They are easy targets. Yes I agree, 'The Craig Doyle Show' on RTE TWO never attracted the red button on my remote but how many RTE chat shows work anyway.

 

Give the Doyle boy a microphone and a yard of grass and before you can say "you know Oi heard he's really great mates with Drico, loike them and their old dears are always down in Bear tucking into skirt steak and that loike amazing organic West Cork gooseberry juice they do", you have a great hour of rugby highlights interspersed with Doyle's informed rugby banter (never negative or insulting towards the players other pundits please take note) and Bayfield's commanding presence as a former international second-row and policeman. It's a pretty simple formula and it works.

 

The duo visit one ground for the big game of the weekend and then show highlights of each match interspersed with chats with the coaching staff and team from both sides. I cannot understand why RaboDirect have not stipulated that a highlights package should go out every weekend as part of their sponsorship package.

 

Yes 'The Breakdown' on Setanta does show RaboPro12 highlights but it takes in Top14 games too and if Mattie has his way some Aussie rugby league! It is a fine show but we need a dedicated RaboPro12 highlights hour and believe if you put it on, they will watch it.

 

What would Irish rugby fans prefer on a Monday night: Listen to Pat Kenny warbling about the banks or the public sector or fiddly bits on 'The Frontline' or an hour of rugby highlights with chat in between?

 

Of course any RaboPro12 show may have to be shown on TG4. Maire Treasa Ni Dhubhghaill, Eoghain O'Neachtain and the other guests put on a very good show but sadly I am not a gaelic scholar (to my eternal shame) and I don't understand a word of what they are saying.

 

Brendan Grehan is a journalist.

 

Twitter: @brendanxavier