POSTCARDS FROM THE WINDOW TO MY WORLD

Dear Reader,

The thunder, dash, cut & thrust and above all the passion of Heineken recedes into a muted interlude heralding the rumbling approach of the RBS Six Nations.

The respective corporate sponsors sum up the respective tournaments for me, with the Heineken all fizz & splash, refresh-e-ment, buzz and bubbling over with verve.

The corporate banking sector with it’s big boss bonuses and choreographed timings like Paris at 9pm for a game of rugby brings with it a sonorous, somnambulant feeling that is not assuaged by the standard of rugby in the 6N.

Sunday 3pm is not a time that rings my bell, I’m not a religious person by any means but it’s my day for relaxing. Not, watching prehistoric rugby nations plough into one another accompanied by politely clapping folk who’s rugby voyage is Dublin for the weekend and back.

The Heineken refreshes parts of my rugby alumnus that other tournaments fail resolutely to embolden.

Yours jaundiced.

Dear Reader,

I planned this blog as a series of vignettes to while away the time between Heineken finishing and the 6N beginning. The window to my world is indeed a small one.

Coming from a small country my view of the world is confined by not having travelled much beyond the Western side of Europe and the USA.

Yet over the years I have come to realise that Northern Ireland really is a small place, a commune in the context of the wider world. For all that, it is not easy to get lost out there. Someone near you, wherever you are, will remind you of home.

Two weeks ago last weekend I was in the hills of the Auvergne in France enjoying a mini Heineken rugby tour. No sooner had I arrived than one of my companions for the weekend, currently domiciled in France, reminded me they knew my face from somewhere.

Likewise I knew their face but couldn’t place the time or event in which our paths had crossed. Later in conversation with a couple from Belfast, again domiciled in France, I was recounting my unspectacular rugby ‘career’ with Malone and was asked did I know such and such.

Well I actually played with them on one of the teams.

“He’s a ….!” they responded, what goes on tour sometimes stays on tour but it’s a small world out there beyond my small window unto it.

I recall as a student, one murky time in an Irish bar in Washington:

The second night we were there, a tinker looking Irishman got on stage with his guitar and sang ‘Fields of Athenry’. I heard this song sung well, long before the Munster fans massacred it and turned it into a rugby anthem famous throughout the European rugby landscape.

Twas Paddy Reilly up on stage with all his oul Northern Ireland blarney that James Young made so unique

Yours truly,

Small World.

Dear Reader,

‘Farewell is a lonely sound, when told to someone you know,
You know you hurt inside, as you wonder why, you must leave the job that you love!’

There was more shock and awe amongst the messageboards and Irish media at the revelation that McGlocks contract wasn’t being renewed than if America had invaded itself.

Yours unfazed.

Dear Reader,

I can honestly tell you a week is a long time in rugby. In fact a few months ago, a fella on the Terrace with whom I occasionally wile away the interlude between scrums, mooted McGlocks would be replaced.

Now as you know rumours of this kind are two a crust of bread on any internet forum so when I hear something like this the source becomes the focus.

In this instance the feller wasn’t Wavey Davey, Ulster Director of Ops/Special Ops and clandestine interviews but was nevertheless a creditable source.

Personally I’m not a fan of Wavey Davey in the sense of having met him a few times but there’s no doubt he has ambition to take Ulster Rugby to a new and upward level and in doing that one cannot fault his modus operandi to date.

Neither do I see Tuesday’s press conference by Messers McGlocks and Humph as an opportunity to stick the boot into Ulster Rugby just because Mr. McGlocks played the jilted bride with great effect, evoking buckets of sympathy from a BBC Newsline audience.

(Wednesday) – a statement has been issued by a more circumspect Mr. McGlocks. One suspects as with all people who have been given another job and who think they are doing grand in the current one they may need a little time to get used to the idea of a new opportunity.

Yours unimpressed.

Dear Reader,

More shock and awe ensued last week, as if America had reinvented itself on the side of angels and mermaids.

It transpired that Boys on Tour (BoT) had made landfall on their rugby tour to the Tyre Park in Clermont.
For those uninitiated in this, a certain mythology has grown up around BoT, partly fuelled by the Boys themselves, regarding them not making it to the away matches on time or not at all.

The roll call of near and far misses is impressive, with Paris minutes after the match ended being the most enduring. Boys on Tour is of course a misnomer as they’re mature adults in everything they do except when travelling to away Ulster rugby games. In fact where one to quantify this phenomenon it would be along the lines of ‘time + travel<fog/snow= Bot-rugby’ or ti-tr<(f/s)= BoT(-r)

You don’t have to be Einstein to work out this equation doesn’t add up. For the average Ulster fan it doesn’t but when BoT go on their travels anything can happen and it generally does!

Yours amused.

Dear Reader,

Sunday’s 6N international was step up on Saturdays 6N international between the Cannae score and the flatter to deceive XV. Unfortunately my excitement buds remained in early spring mode as the thought of enduring nuclear rugby winters of the sort I watched between England and Scotland.

All the chat post match was tip tackles, spear tackles and non tackles as was the case for Messers McFadden and D’Arcey. Ireland’s hapless centres are undoubtedly still in the game thanks to the charitable leniency of Messers, Kiss, Tainton and Kidney.

As one uncharitable poster noted, blind Dave as he has become synonymously known is on a yellow streak of cards in successive games. Two weeks ago in Clermont he dissed one on Ulster’s very own Tuohy for failing to jump out of the way of a Morgan careering towards him.

Dave followed it up by copping out of recommending a red for a dangerous, off the ball tackle, by a Welsh boyo. Possibly reckoning they’d suffered enough with the RWC one, or more like he didn’t want the opprobrium dealt to Mr. Rolland for not ducking the red card issue.

If these things come in threes then Mr. Pearson, whose poised to officiate in Paris for Ireland v France, will deal a yellow card to someone in this weekend’s match.

Most likely, given his gutless display against Ulster in Clermont, it will be an Irish player.

Yours Ballpark