The Rugby World Cup is over, gone like a long lost uncle who overstays in your house for a few days. You are glad to see the back of him and I’m glad to see the back of it. I’m pleased for New Zealand like every other rugby fan on the planet or so it seems.
The result was so pre ordained, you wondered why we just didn’t leap straight to the final and draw lots to see who played the All Blacks.
You could argue it was something of a lottery that France got a chance to have a stab at beating the Blacks in the final and stab at it they certainly did, almost outrageously pulling off the win.
As I noted in my last blog, Joubert penalised Pocock twice at the start of Australia’s semi final against New Zealand with Pocock being effectively neutralised at the breakdown thereafter.
In the final he penalised France twice, at the start ignoring Richie McCaw’s transgressions at the ruck twice. The tone was set, the scene established and I lost a little more appetite for the game.
By half time I had decided to record the remainder of the match and go for a cycle in unexciting damp conditions.
A colleague in work told me about a programme he saw on TV in which 4 experts analysed All Black play at the breakdown and could find nothing wrong with it.
With experts like this, it seems pretty much every joker, including myself, who watches a rugby game and wonders how McCaw manages to find himself on the wrong side of ruck so often with so little attention from a referee, must have a skewed idea of how the game is played.
What’s at stake here for the credibility of the game is consistency on the part of IRB applying the laws of the game. I personally don’t think they do and it’s making, the international game in particular, so unappealing.
The All Blacks have won the cup, good, now let’s move on.
My Name is Richie
Hello, my name is Richie,
I play rugby on the floor,
I play close to the ground,
Yes, I think you’ve seen me do it before,
Some kind of…
Just don’t ask me what it was.
Tinker Taylor Ardglass Spy
A source close to the players asks in a messageboard post is Dan Tuohy all that?
Seems he mightn’t be if stats are to be believed.
He’s not hitting enough rucks apparently.
Some players in the dressing room are beginning to question why not.
They wonder are the management asking him to play like this.
My question is, what is to be gained by this ‘agenda’ post other than to cock a snoop at the management and suggest they aren’t communicating with the team.
URSC IN PARTNERSHIP WITH BSL
No the Supporters Club are not about to adopt British Sign Language, rather I see they have entered into an arrangement with the Belfast Snooze Letter. Quite what this meeting of minds will engender is difficult to gauge.
It certainly garnered column miles in the latest edition of Stand Up. Referring to the Snooze Letter’s efforts to garner more readers through a URSC column in the paper, the ever media savvy Mulligan gushed, ‘Remember this is your dedicated column, please make use of it every week.’
Above a picture showing 3 little lambs, Mulligan, Supreme URSC Commander Kimble and bodyguard sidekick Grumpy, clasped in a media type embrace, Mulligan, the snooze Letters rugby scribe, was busy trying to prove his street credentials.
Gasped Mullers, ‘I guess being able to mix with supporters on some of the away day trips – even joining a lively bus trip from Belfast to Glasgow…’
I remember this trip well, as myself and a crony had to console Mullers on the bus all the way from Glasgow to Stranraer, that the limousine would be waiting for him at the Belfast quayside, the minute the boat whacked the moorings.
Media savvy Supreme Commander?
Less well known is that URSC Supreme Commander Kimble is also media savvy. Appearing on UTV to explain away some dubious singing by the second barrier crew, Kimble spoke smoothly and without blinking an eyelid, to the camera.
“The second barrier crew supporters sing a song,” he intoned, “called, ‘Dodgey, Dodgey Dragon’. We sing it when someone uses poor entrepreneurial skills on the pitch.
An off colour Newport Dragons player,” he continued, “thought he heard us singing ‘dodgey dodgey, drag job’ and reported he had been abused by the second barrier crew Ulster supporters!”
“It was a storm Brewed out of nothing really,” sighed Kimble before signing off with a toodle pip to the camera.
Quintessential Kimble
I of course owe Kimble a small favour. 10 cans of freshly brewed Guinness are his, should he step forward and arrange to claim them. Perhaps another meeting in the Craigavon branch of McDonalds is on the cards, as it wouldn’t be kosher to be seen handing him a brown paper bag in the celebrity car park at Ravenhill.
My next step will of course be to upgrade my C- list blogging celebrity status by writing a tome for Stand UP. I plan to blog on such heady items as how ordinary a bloke Kimble is when you meet him and is Captain Grumpy cleaning the URSC toilets to disguise the fact he is actually the editor of Stand UP?
My tour de force though is how Neil Armstrong’s ‘giant step for mankind’ on the moon almost went awry when, in a grim portent of the future, he skidded on a copy of Stand UP and became the first person to step on the moon and a copy of the hallowed rag.
Quintessential Craigavon
Mention of Craigavon has got me thinking on what is quintessential Craigavon. I spend a bit of time there, (not in the McDonalds!), but on business and I cannot grasp what is the essence of the place.
Actually mention of ‘place’ is something of a misnomer, as there isn’t really a place at all. There’s a big shopping centre, Council offices, a Hospital, a large thunderbirds type government office, a few roundabouts and a couple of satellite towns known as Lurgan and Portadown.
But where is the population?
Quintessential Craigavon is a soulless conglomeration of smaller towns with a shopping centre and a giant roundabout at heart.
Next week I plan to ruminate on quintessential Larne, if the editor will allow it! Here’s a preview:
Travellers step off the ferry at Larne harbour and drive straight out of port rather than seek the quintessence of nearby Larne.
Stand Up For The Ulstermen in Sign Language
Should the supporters club decide to adopt sign language in order to stop the 2nd barrier crew annoying the neighbours and become more DDA compliant, then it might go something like this.
Point the middle index finger of your right hand skyward, top it with your left palm, gesture with four fingers, clasp the red hand of your skin tight Ulster shirt, (without damaging your breasts) and point at the nearest male, completely ignoring outraged females standing beside you!
Corrections, comments or questions?