Paul O’Connell has arrived in London. Rumour has it that tomorrow Ian McGeechan will announce Paul as the man who will lead the British & Ireland Lions in South Africa.
Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
Paul O’Connell – Lions Captain
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009Legends
Saturday, March 21st, 2009- Ireland 30 – 21 France
- Italy 9 – 38 Ireland
- Ireland 14 – 13 England
- Scotland 15 – 22 Ireland
- Wales 15 – 17 Ireland
This Ireland team are coming home as legends.
Heroes
Saturday, March 21st, 2009Lose today by less than 13 points, and the Irish team will be welcomed home as heroes.
Win today, and they will be legends.
Irish Team vs Wales, 1948
- HIGGINS
- O’HANLON
- MCKEE
- REID
- MULLAN
- KYLE
- STRATHDEE
- DALY
- MULLEN
- MCCONNELL
- CALLAN
- NELSON
- MCKAY
- O’BRIEN
- MCCARTHY
Irish Team vs Wales, 2009
- KEARNEY
- BOWE
- O’DRISCOLL
- D’ARCY
- FITZGERALD
- O’GARA
- O’LEARY
- HORAN
- FLANNERY
- HAYES
- O’CALLAGHAN
- O’CONNELL
- FERRIS
- WALLACE
- HEASLIP
Fantasy Rugby – 6 Nations
Friday, February 6th, 2009Cormac has set up a fantasy league for the Six Nations. He’s under the mistaken impression that his team will win. I scoff at his team picking abilities. I’ve picked my own team:
15 S Williams (WAL)
14 J Simpson_daniel (ENG)
13 T Shanklin (WAL)
12 J Roberts (WAL)
11 P Sackey (ENG)
10 R O’Gara (IRE)
9 C Cusiter (SCO)
1 M Rees (WAL)
2 J Flannery (IRE)
3 M Castrogiovanni (FR)
4 D O’Callaghan (IRE)
5 P O’Connell (IRE)
6 T Dusautoir (FR)
7 Ma Bergomasco (ITA)
8 I Harinordoquy (FR)
The league is the Croke Parkers and the PIN is 8547. You can sign up here.
Munster Squad to Face New Zealand Named
Friday, November 14th, 2008On Tuesday the 18th November 2008, a new piece of history will be written in Thomond Park. New Zealand will play Munster to commemorate the opening of the new Thomond Park. As it happens, it’s also 30 years since New Zealand were beaten 12 -- 0 by Munster. You may have heard about it.
The question on everyone’s lips is will we do it again. No matter what my heart says, my head says “No”. With the Ireland -- New Zealand test on the Saturday before, and with Argentina to follow the week after, there’s a distinct lack of first team players available, especially in the pack. (Though I have to say that our back line looks strong).
Despite the fact that the match will be played between two second-string teams, I think it’s going to be a great occasion. For the lads in red, it’s going to be a tough game, but there’s no doubt that they’ll show the All Blacks just how tough they can be.
The Munster Squad vs New Zealand:
Federico Pucciariello, Timmy Ryan, Dave Ryan, Frank Sheahan, Denis Fogarty, Donncha Ryan, Mark Melbourne, James Coughlan, John O’Sullivan, Niall Ronan, Justin Melck, Billy Holland Barry Murphy, Kieran Lewis, Brian Carney, Anthony Horgan, Doug Howlett, Lifeimi Mafi, Rua Tipoki, Paul Warwick, Jeremy Manning, Conor Murray, Mike Prendergast.
Thomond Park Update
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008I passed by Thomond Park yesterday and some of the seating has gone into the new West Stand. While there’s a bit of work to be done, it looks like the new stadium is really taking shape. The Munster Rugby website has pictures from June, before the seating went in.
The first match to be played in the new stadium will be a Magners League match against Glasgow Warriors on the 3rd, 4th or 5th October. The first Heineken Cup match will be against Montauban on the 10th October – Friday Night, and the one that everyone is looking forward to is Munster vs New Zealand on the 18th November. Expect to see guys selling their grannies for tickets to that match!
Follow Up: Cool Star
Monday, July 7th, 2008
Heineken Cup 2009 – Draw
Tuesday, June 17th, 2008The draw was made this morning for the Pool Stages of the Heineken Cup 2009. This was the first draw to be made using the new ERC ranking system. Having won the Heineken Cup twice in the last 3 years, Munster were ranked number 1. The Pools are:
Pool 1
Munster, Sale, Clermont, Montauban.
Pool 2
Wasps, Leinster, Castres, Edinburgh.
Pool 3
Leicester, Perpignon, Ospreys, Benneton Treviso.
Pool 4
Stade Francis, Llanelli, Ulster, Harlequins.
Pool 5
Toulouse, Bath, Newport, Glasgow.
Pool 6
Biarritz, Gloucester, Cardiff, Calvisano.
The first round of games kick off on the weekend of the 10th October 2008.
Munster have a tough group. There’s no doubt that the away matches to Sale and Clermont will be prove to be both very difficult and very important to our qualification hopes, but the away match to Montauban could be a bit of a banana skin.
Playing any French side in France is tough, but so is playing against a team that you know so very little about. Montauban finished 7th in their first year in the Top 14. That’s not bad. What’s even more remarkable is that they were the first team to beat Stade Francais that season.
Euro 2008 – What a Bore
Sunday, June 15th, 2008I’m sitting here watching the opening minutes of the Turkey and Czech Republic match in 2008. So far the highlight of the game so far has been a Turkish player changing his boots.
After less then ten minutes, I’m bored. Not just with this game, but with football in it’s entirety. I don’t have the interest to follow who’s playing for which team, or whether the last foul really deserved a yellow card or not.
My interest started to wane several years ago when players started to spend more time rolling around on the ground in faux agony than they did trying to score goals. That period also saw the huge increase in players wages. When players are regularly receiving in excess of STG£100,000 a week to kick a ball, you know there has to be something wrong with the world.
But what really bugs me are the rules of football. There’s no consistency. Not just within the game, but during a match. For example, two players jump for a high ball. In 90% of these cases the refferee will blow the whistle for some unnoticeable foul. If the free kick is near the box, then you’ll have at least 15 players in the box jostling for positions. They’ll push each other, tug at each others jerseys and generally do everything they can to break the oppositions concentration and movement. Where’s the whistle? Where are the yellow cards? Where is the ref? That bugs me. If you’re going to give a free because two lads had a minor collision in the air, then surely you should be giving frees, and yellow cards if required, for all the messing that goes on while waiting for a free kick to be taken?
Don’t get me start about defenders “shepherding” the ball over the line while physically holding the attacker back.
Just as well I follow rugby. At least in rugby, the physicality is part and parcel of the game. It’s true what they say:
“Rugby is a game for hooligans played by gentlemen, while football is game for gentlemen played by hooligans.”