‘They could argue, of course, that they should never have been behind after a first half in which they were on the wrong end of the original hometown refereeing performance by George Clancy.
Who wrote that?
The Raven? the FRU editor? Fu Manchu? Niall Crozier? nope!
It is a direct quote from Peter O’Reilly in the Sunday Times last weekend reporting on the Ulster interpro with Leinster. Perhaps O’Reilly’s antipathy towards Leinster was peeking through there, but it is refreshing to see in print, an elaboration of a problem that bedevils the Magners League. I enquired more in sarcasm than anything else had Niall ‘Bele Tele’ Crozier written this and alas, the supine nature of chez Niall’s tomes for the Tele, means he is completely at sea as far as telling it as it is. Despite a debut, all a flurry with speculation and potential breaking news which ended damper than a gunpowder plot featuring sugar, Niall’s rugby writing toes a line so middling it makes Scotland’s border with England look like an international conflict zone.
My point here is that Mr. O’Reilly highlights a problem that rumbles along below the surface of the game like an iceberg which occasionally catches the unwary vessel. Referees like Clancy in my opinion come to the game with preconceptions derived from watching videos of teams and then referee the game looking to spot the misdeeds by individuals they saw in the video. They also appear to be of the notion that the team at the top end of the league are there because they proportionately give away fewer penalties, in this instance Leinster.
Admittedly I’m no expert on the laws of the game and I’m careful not to tread were the ground under my feet is metaphorically spongy therefore I will only highlight the most blatant aspects of Mr. Clancy’s performance as follows. A Leinster player (Sean O’Brien) kicked the ball out of Isaac Boss’s hands as he played it from a ruck. From memory this happened 3 times, twice I think from the same Leinster player and later in the game an Ulster player committed a similar offence. These offences all merited yellow cards yet Mr. Clancy chose to focus on an Ulster player going off his feet whilst Ulster pressured the Leinster defence in their 22. How this merited yellow whilst the other kick ball efforts didn’t will remain a brain storm in the inner recesses of Clancy’s head.
At the end of the evening Ulster had lost a game they could so easily have won and of course Peter O’Reilly apart, the press chose to focus on other aspects of performances in the game. Whilst this kind of refereeing conundrum is perpetrated, spectators of the sport will start to wonder are they watching a fair contest between teams or are they observing the workings of a middle eastern sharia court presided over by a religious zealot. Ulster won’t win games whilst referees like Clancy preside over them with all the focus of a gay Cyclops.
I’m not going to bother rattling on about poor passing, dodgy defence or players falling off tackles which were some of the offences committed by Ulster because my baseline here is that Ulster, as Mr. O’Reilly rightly observes, were on the wrong end of the original hometown refereeing effort. I just wish our local media (FRU excepted), had some steel in their nuts and the wherewithal to put into print, events as they happen in front of them and not portend to a line of writing that is from the wishy washy end of the spectrum.
Granny smith hits correspondent on the head.
It wasn’t a great week for another correspondent at the same game as he speculated in print that Ulster’s outhalf Niall O’Connor had been removed from the game at halftime as a result of poor performance. Mark Jones, the unlikely sounding rugby correspondent for the Tribune must have felt like he was having an Isaac Newton moment as granny Gertie O’Connor laid into him with all the bustle of a return fire crime victim. Where Newton discovered a thing or two about gravity after being hit by a Granny Smith, Jones discovered only rectitude of a righteous kind following granny Gertie’s broadside.
Clearly an Ulsterwomen of the right kind, who tells it as she sees it, the disgruntled granny questioned whether Mr. Jones had departed for the bar as a priority at halftime rather than reporting on the game. One ventures that Mark Jones will be more careful in future when he reports on a rugby match as he had indeed missed Gerties grandson being halved by Isa Nascewa. Let’s hope it doesn’t put an end to Mr. Jones sporting, reporting career due to psychological damage inflicted by a disgruntled grandmother.
White Mouse of the Weld.
During the month of November the garage attached to my house is invaded by mice coming in from the fields that surround two sides of the building. Occasionally one slips the defences due to an open door or an unplugged gap in the wall and makes its way into the house itself. It has to be ruthlessly hunted down, trapped, and eliminated in a permanent manner. If the rodents are not hunted to death it stores up a whole lot of trouble for the unwary householder as they leave a trail of devastation behind them, exemplified by a line of little black droppings.
I was uncomfortably reminded of this nature event when reading the UAFC message board. Having previously and gratuitously reported in my last blog that White Knight of the Weld had been let out for the day, I regret to say he/she is back on the board and behaving like the mice that invade my garage. The UAFC moderators should take the same line against white mouse of the weld as I do against natures rodents and eliminate him from the board.
The UAFC have been warned … ignore pests at your peril.
Only a Winter’s day!!
Our little country is once again half paralysed by a few centimetres of white icy powder. This would be no bad thing, having a proper northern white New Year and all that, except that one recalls a previous game with Munster being called off. Not because the pitch was unplayable but because the environs to Ravenhill were unwalkable.
Could history repeat itself on January 2nd?
Strangely enough yes it could, as it’s not looking terribly good weather ways.
I recall last Sunday morn, setting off for the newspaper shop to fetch Mr. O’Reilly’s missive and as usual I was on foot and hoping to reduce my carbon footprint by not using the car. Fine and dandy, except by the time I had reached the footpath, about 3 metres from my front door, I was an unwilling participant in dancing on ice.
Dressed in my new Kukri Ulster jacket, beanie hat, gloves and Timberland boots I made John Sergeant look graceful as I slithered across the frozen tundra of the road before sliding back down the camber of the ice encrusted opposite footpath unto the road again. All this without so much as a dance step in between. Fortunately this was at an early hour of the morning otherwise neighbours would have given me minus 1 for performance on ice and probably telephoned the emergency services. A quick change into my guddies and off again I set up the north face of the development. I eventually reached my local newsagents feeling like Captain Scott and wondering how I was going to get home again. Well it was worth the effort if only to read Mr. O’Reilly’s tale of the errant whistler.
I would not want a repeat performance of my prancing on ice effort down Onslow Parade this Saturday, so let’s hope the weather moderates sufficiently for the Munster game to be played.
As BJ Botha might say, ‘does snow give you vitamin D or just cold feet?’
Corrections, comments or questions?