Biblical Portions

It started with a murmur and finished with the roar of 7500 voices. Headlines like ‘Who Took Him’, ‘In From the Cold’ and ‘The Prodigal Son Returns’ meant mini Humph’s return to the Ulster fold and team took on almost biblical proportions.  

There was even a tumult in the shape of the fevered cyber musings of the UAFC messageboard, whilst the general all round sigh of relief when the sometimes mercurial 10 was selected was clearly audible.

Where Niall O’Connor is the very epitome of the earnest but staid humdrum fly half who does nothing extraordinary and little wrong, mini humph represents the other end of Ulster’s fragile fly half spectrum.

If Ulster’s team warm up represented the disciples at work, mini Humph would certainly have stood out.  Where others merely wore striped garments and shorts, Humph buzzed round the hallowed turf in black tights. More men in tights and Holywood comedy, than cool dudes of muscular physiques and sporting attire.

The game itself represented all the good & bad of Ulster rugby at the moment. We are still gelling but nevertheless, as I remarked, amazed we’re winning, or should that be unbeaten.

There are many constituent parts that don’t come together as a well oiled machine, nevertheless it is heartening to think that we can play so much better.

Somewhere some team will feel the heat when the team gels and all those little bits and pieces that don’t quite fit like completing a 5,000 piece jigsaw, suddenly snap into place.

We again left so many points on the pitch, not just in the kicking where we squandered 6, but in try scoring opportunities where we left I reckon about 3 tries in the turf through lack of clinical finishing.  

So to Biarritz.

I Wish I Was Here

I will not be at Biarritz next weekend, I lament not being able to make it but he BP household purse isn’t going to stretch that far and it will be the near Pavillion for me. 

I wish all the travellers to the little of oasis of tranquillity (bar the 80 minutes on Sunday) all the very breast wishes and trust you will all uphold the honour of the Ulstermen on foreign fields.

I trust the team will do so in the finest tradition established in the Great War, when the men of Ulster fought and died on the Somme in the best tradition of upholding the honour of the country. 

Not that I’m inferring they should die of course but merely that the team fights the good fight and gives it their all in the name of rugby and Ulster.

I am sure they will, though Bath today spoilt the script by losing to Biarritz in their (Bath’s ) backyard.  This is not a good result for us and ideally we would do a number on B.O. over there.

It’s an unlikely scenario as I feel we haven’t reached the point of maximum precision finishing just yet. The best we can hope for I think, is to take a losing bonus point and then beating Bath in the Rec is an imperative.

Whilst maybe not beating Biarritz, I am confident we can take something from them. I saw nothing today at the Rec that makes me think they are an all powerful, all conquering team. 

As I watched, the Bath, Biarritz game today, I idly wondered was Ulster’s man in Bath, Flat Top back in time for the game.

A Meeting of Eyebrows

Flat Top appeared in the beer tabernacle on Friday night, possibly on a spying mission for Bath, ha, ha! He was somewhat dressed down from whenst I last saweth him in suit at the FRU awards night where he stood in true sartorial fashion, suit and trousers above everyone present. 

I was somewhat relieved that he appeared to recognise me from our last meeting at the FRU awards night and our eyebrows at least met in collective recognition.

The Raven was also present fresh frometh his cyber collision with Mote on the subject of mini Humph and attack and defence.

Raven was the offensive, (in the nicest possible way) correspondent, whilst Mote presented the case for the defence. I couldn’t make head nor tail of it in the end.   

Twas not surpriseth when the Editor showed a yellow card to anyone stupid enough to post more than 750 characters in defence of their wholly tentative position.

I gotta ask though, do you people not read more than the first article in my blog as there was a distinct lack of interest in Kimble world and other such momentous events.

Unreported World 1

This week’s unreported world focuses on Kimble and will remain, well…..unreported.

Unreported World 2

There has been some talk, of the office gossip variety concerning Neil Doak.   Doakey you will recall was once a top class cricketer and represented Ulster at rugby as well as gaining Ireland ‘A’ recognition. 

He is now the Ulster backs coach as far as I know and in recent times there has been some concern expressed over his use of bad language on the touchline towards the players. 

Further reports reach me of him pointing skywards with box kick instructions and possibly other manifestations of touchline coaching as the match progresses.

A clash of personalities also seems to emanate from the same source and it has to be said as a supporter, that the Ulster team ethos should not be put at risk by toys from pram approach to team selection.

Ulster rugby and its team performance is all important, not the constituent parts and their personal feelings.

Equally its hard to see the point of training all week and then telling the players what to do from the touchline.  You clearly haven’t coached them terribly well when you have to instruct them from the side of the pitch.

To boot, an instinctive player such as mini Humph will play the game as he sees it in front of him.  Perhaps that doesn’t sit well with a control freak attitude on the touchline.
Stephen Jones – a life less well reported

Found it so hard to read Stephen Jones of the Sunday Times, gushing and misplaced review of the Munster match with London Irish. In fact I stopped reading it halfway through, so blunted and cringeworthy was the article.

I felt a few years back that Jones had lost the plot where rugby was concerned. Nothing he has written in the intervening years has pretty much dispelled that view.

He writes: ‘London Irish came of age yesterday as a European force. This was a win they deserved and, had not the referee made some shocking blunders at the end, they should never have yielded a bonus point to the visiting team – it came when Sam Tuitupou scored on the end of a chip through just when Munster seemed to be completely down and out’

Jones went on to describe ‘Athenry’, the Munster supporter’s anthem as ‘hoary old detritus’ before admitting that these occasions ‘would be diminished without them‘ (Munster supporters that is.)

This is shambolic and jingoistic journalism of the worst kind, which reeks of finger to keyboard for the sake of it and ignores some pertinent facts.

Munster were without a third of their frontliners and a few other guys returning after injuries.    I seem to remember them dominating the second half and a bonus point was in my opinion no more than they deserved. 

The refereeing blunders were never satisfactorily explained by said correspondent.

Jones should go on gardening leave though if he tends his garden the way he reports matches then there are likely to be tumbleweed roaming it rather than blooming fauna.

Don’t ya Just Luv ‘Em

Mention of London Irish brought to mind the once aptly labelled spide, who wrongly assumed he was being racially abused when in fact he was being labelled with a far more damming and accurate tag.

Neon Delon was living up to a certain reputation with a swanning and yappy performance bolstered by the odd dubious tackle.

London Irish must be the most bulls*it team ever to hit the high road.  I think Munster may well revisit them when they visit Thomond Park.  By then the Red Army will probably be at full strength and in full voice.  Putting Irish and neon Delon in their box will be a pleasure to watch.

Mention of snappy youngsters reminded me of Rob Kearney.  Here is another guy full of it.  Talented rugby guys they may be but it’s no excuse for the snappy, waspish, bull by the horns attitude from the likes of Kearney and Armitage.

Moss Keane is remembered with some fondness by those of us privileged to witness a real rugby talent. 

It may well be that Kearney and Armitage will be remembered for the bolshie attitude and not the breathtaking vista of full back play.

The Cap’n Kicks the Bucket

Those tuning in, thinking this is about Cap’n Grumpy will be disappointed or relieved.   

Some of you will recall my occasional past treatise on the perils and wisdom or lack of it of fishing for the lucrative crab in the wild waters of the Bering Sea.  Captain Harris featured strongly in those past articles.

Rough an exterior he may have had but beneath the many times varnished exterior there lurked a beating and soft heart.   Harris skippered a 50 metre boat on the Bering Sea with often lucrative results but still lived in a mobile in a trailer park.

He was hoping the two sons would mature into future skippers of his boat which he jointly owned.  Two years ago he suffered a serious heart problem and was advised to give up the sea.

After one year as a land lubber the cap’n was back, replete with constantly trembling knee and chain smoking habit plus a whole boatload of stress.  The sons have not matured as wannabee skippers and indeed one was filmed staggering about deck before falling into the watery hold that stores the crab.

It has transpired that he is a pill addict and had been pilfering the cap’ns medicine cabinet. 

It was all too much for the already sick Cap’n Harris and when the boat docked he suffered a stroke. As of the last filmed segment he had been rushed to hospital in a conclusive comatose state. 

There is something sad about how he faced his decline and the way he began to reminisce about his past, tried to coach his sons towards maturity as the approach of ill health and final denouement has loomed.

Captain Harris was last seen being craned on a stretcher from his boat, in the same way hundreds of thousands of crabs have been terminally dispatched to their resting place.  A crow squawked from the rail of the craft against a darkened sky as the cap’n was dumped on the dock.

I have though been enthralled by it all despite the dramatic enhancements the producer has brought to this documentary series. I will have to tune in next week to find out for sure the Captain Harris’s fate, though I believe it to be sealed.

Parallels with Moss Keane abound, a rugby folk hero and another character who by all accounts lived his life to the maxim of whatever was current. The Captain and Moss, characters in the public mind and persons to people that knew them. 

RIP both of them.