In a recent column in the Bele Tele, Tyrone Howe revealed how he had imbibed chicken Bovril prior to the Italy, Ireland game starting and fell asleep after 10 minutes. He awoke like Rip Van Winkle to watch the final 10 minutes of the match and was really pleased he’d missed the worst excesses of the game.
Mr. Howe’s point was that he had a lucky escape and gained a 60 minute power nap to boot. My concern is that he should have checked the contents of the chicken Bovril as it would seem to possess powers the manufacturers can only dream of.
The sort of powers the likes of Heineken or Monsieur Artois have inherent in their contents, especially when you partake of said liquid in the small hours. I would admit to settling down to watch my beloved Ulster on SKY plus after midnight and waking up just as the final whistle goes.
Fortune favours those daft enough to listen
We had a fortune teller with a set of cards in to entertain the women of our house last Thursday and I stayed well away. The upshot was that I couldn’t do a blog due to the room with the computer in it being utilised as the fortune teller’s booth.
I wanted to enquire if she could predict Ulster’s score on Friday night, this week’s winning lottery numbers or Ulster’s Heineken cup fortunes, This was ruled inadmissible and I retired hurt.
Luck shouldn’t come into it anyway. I don’t believe in all this fortune favours the brave stuff, just ask brave Captain Scott and his polar mates about fortune, they got nil return. You make your own luck as Ulster showed on Friday night.
Camp Kidney
I managed to keep watching till the near death moment when Rupeenar tentatively lined up his shot at glory and it was then I turned to face the wall. Who says supporting Ulster is all about a few beers with feet on the sofa, except maybe if your Holywood Mike, then the beer is more important than the game.
I’m suffering for my art. That is the art of following your team through 80 minutes and beyond.
It wasn’t a great contest to watch but contained some startling insights such as Tom Court explaining to the referee what was going on in the scrum and Mr. McPherson acting accordingly.
More worryingly was the inability of any of the returning Ireland players from Camp Kidney to catch a cold, let alone the ball. A week or two in Camp Kidney and they come out all limp wristed, weak and unable to do simple tasks like catch a rugby ball.
Mind this isn’t unique to Paddy W, Trimby or Court of Ulster. Well known wristy players for Leinster have been incapable of making a pass at the ball let alone a passable impression of a rugby player whilst allegedly starring for Ireland.
Nor is this contagion confined to Camp Kidney as Scarlet fans complained on their messageboard of Scarlet players returning from Camp Gatland a whiter shade of pale and shadows of their former selves.
Someone needs to infiltrate these training camps to gain an insight into how decent players turn into incompetent fools in a matter of weeks.
Crouch, Touch Pause, Engage interests NFL
The NFL, American Football’s version of rugby’s IRB is looking carefully at the IRB’s intervention in the scrum laws. The way the Americans see it is that the IRB are unable to kill off the Northern Hemisphere ‘s sacred rugby cow, the scrum and have endeavoured instead to reduce it to a laughing stock.
Once the spectators stop laughing at the front row’s effort’s to be serious and actually get round to pushing against each other, the IRB will be able to plead that the scrums aren’t entertaining anymore and axe them altogether.
For the Americans, the entertainment value of introducing crouch, touch, pause, engage into their line of scrimmage is enticing and has a sub plot to reduce the game’s playing time!. For line of scrimmage in NFL read scrums in rugby.
Here the Americans face each other in a line across the pitch before the center grabs a hold of the ball, points to the some imaginary figure in the opposition whilst the quarterback puts his hands up against the center’s backside and snaps the ball into play.
Instead of the players crouching and glaring across the line of scrimmage at each other whilst the quarterback counts down the seconds before he snaps the ball, they would crouch, touch each other on the shoulder pads, pause and snap into play at the command of ‘engage!’.
Where it has slowed the rugby down with all the resets and pauses, for the Americans it would shave up to 30 seconds of each play. With about 60 plays in a game this would mean a nett gain in playing time of about minus 30 minutes, shortening the games playing time to about 2 and a half hours!! Voila!
This Sporting Life 1
At the last URSC evening with the players, Johann Muller said we should not be talking ourselves down, by that he meant Ulster and it’s team and players.
Muller continues to impress me with his natural self belief, an ingredient, you would hope will rub off on players around him, especially Ulster players who have grown up in sporting terms, in the shadow of Munster and Leinster.
On the surface Johann appears an easy going, genial character, who is clearly infused with the self confidence of someone at ease with his ability.
With Christian beliefs and natural athletic ability, he is an outstanding leader and sportsman. To date Ulster have reaped the benefits on the sporting field of play and the supporters have had benefit of his support for the supporters club.
Whilst much attention has focussed on Ruan P, not the least because of the sniping about his wages , JM has gone about his business quietly with a consistently high level of performance.
Long may he run!
This Sporting Life 2
When ruminating on the positives Johann Muller has brought to Ulster rugby my thoughts turned to another South African sportsman of similar background to Johann
I recalled watching a recent documentary on Hans Cronje, the cricketing hero and fallen idol of many South African sports fans. Cronje was educated at Grey’s College in Bloemfontein, (Ruan Pienaar’s alma mater incidentally), a school which purports to the following standards.
‘This educational ideal requires educationally justifiable parallel medium education in English and Afrikaans; a commitment to a common value system which includes respect for the individual, excellence, loyalty to the traditions of Grey, and respect for the environment, and a Christian educational philosophy and -practice.’
With a conservative upbringing of sporting excellence, Cronje embodied the Afrikaans, religious, sporting heritage as a captain and leader, revered by those around him.
Involved in a match fixing scandal, Cronje faced disgrace for engaging in something that was the antithesis of everything his public image stood for. He subsequently died in a plane crash.
Two different outcomes for sporting characters with a commonality of Christian and sporting backgrounds.
Corrections, comments or questions?