The IRISH RUGBY thread

[Canalman]

From talking to some Leinster fans I know the "Ladyboys" jibe spat in their faces over many years by Munster fans didn't go down well at all. Might explain some of the lingering bitterness.

[Donnellys Hollow]

From talking to some Leinster fans I know the "Ladyboys" jibe spat in their faces over many years by Munster fans didn't go down well at all. Might explain some of the lingering bitterness.

Both sides are as bad as each other. I was sat behind two idiots who kept referring to Keith Earls and Conor Murray as a turnips at the last international I attended.

Professionalism and the Heineken Cup has been fantastic for Irish rugby in many ways but the provinces have grown so powerful now that they might be starting to hinder the national team.

[AZOffaly]

Love the revisionism, silence for the kickers is an IRISH tradition and is still observed at the RDS, Sportsground etc and every senior and junior rugby ground in Ireland.

The problem with Sunday was that every time Farrell went to kick a rendition of 'Sweet Chariot' started up and the response of the Irish support was to drown it out with boos and whistles.

I agree with this by the way. I meant to say that, I've heard silence for kickers at every Leinster and Connacht match as well. I do find you get young lads whistling etc, probably because they've seen it elsewhere, but generally they get told to cop on by fans nearby. I've also seen drunk idiots in Thomond Park roaring at a kicker but they generally get shut up quickly too.

[AZOffaly]

From talking to some Leinster fans I know the "Ladyboys" jibe spat in their faces over many years by Munster fans didn't go down well at all. Might explain some of the lingering bitterness.

Both sides are as bad as each other. I was sat behind two idiots who kept referring to Keith Earls and Conor Murray as a turnips at the last international I attended.

Professionalism and the Heineken Cup has been fantastic for Irish rugby in many ways but the provinces have grown so powerful now that they might be starting to hinder the national team.

Sure Dinny calls Munster Turnips, that's just slagging. The Ladyboys jibe died for me back in 2006 when Leinster put up a fierce resistance to an unstoppable Munster tide, and only for Contempomi missing kicks and a couple of strange tries (O'Gara's breakaway and Halsted's intercept) the score would have been a lot tighter. My respect for Leinster grew hugely that day. There was always the suspicion they weren't as 'up for it' in other years.

[Bord na Mona man]

The Leinster/Munster rivalry was ongoing in the amateur era also.
Very often the claim in Munster (Limerick anyway – Cork rugby being more middle class) was that when it came to Irish team selections, the doctor from Dublin got unfairly picked ahead of the Limerick binman.
It was difficult to prove due to the club structures at the time. The advent of the All Ireland league in the early 90s gave greater clarity on it though.
From the off Munster teams dominated and I would say they particularly enjoyed going up to Dublin to lord it over the blue bloods.
I'm guessing the big clubs in Leinster thought they were better than they actually were and may also have lacked the same motivational point to prove.

In motivational terms it came full circle. By the 2009 Heineken Cup semi in Croke Park, Leinster had the point to prove with all the ladyboy jibes and duly did so.

[deiseach]

Article today on balls.ie on the current atmosphere at the Aviva actually.

What The Hell Has Happened To The Atmosphere At Ireland Home Matches?

Alan Quinlan went a bit further in the IT yesterday, saying the fans had let the poor players down:

Why were the crowd still eating chips when the chips were down for Ireland?

ALAN QUINLAN

On Sunday morning, I woke up at seven and the first thing I thought about was the game against England. Three o'clock couldn't come quick enough. I went on Twitter to gauge what people were saying about it. I read the papers. I wasn't doing it as a rugby analyst or even as an ex-player – I was doing it as a supporter.

I was really looking forward to going to the stadium and getting a feel of the atmosphere.

I presumed it would be electric. Why wouldn't it be? With France losing a second home game on Saturday, we couldn't have asked for better:England in the Aviva with a chance to take a huge step towards winning the competition outright and maybe start thinking about a Grand Slam.

But it didn't turn out that way at all. And look, before I get into it, I know there are loads of reasons why it didn't and I totally understand them.

A Sunday afternoon kick-off will always bring a different atmosphere to a Saturday tea-time one. The weather was miserable and some people would have been cold and wet for long spells of the game.

Above all, Ireland didn't play well – or weren't allowed to by a really professional and well-drilled England team.

I'm not arguing with any of that. But I'd love somebody to explain to me what any of it has to do with the stadium being half-empty as the Ireland team ran out on the pitch.

I'm talking about 10 minutes before the game kicked-off, when nobody knew how the day would pan out. Nobody had dropped a ball yet or knocked on or pulled up injured. Surely at that point, every Irish supporter must have been full of hope and raring to go?

So where were they? I looked around as the teams came out of the tunnel and the amount of empty seats was baffling to me.

Why wouldn't you want to be there to have the place shaking as Jamie Heaslip led the team out? This is England at home, a game you only get to see every two years.

Every half-interested sports fan in the country would have snapped your arm off for a ticket. So why not be in your seat in time to welcome the team?

New stadium

There's no doubt the new stadium has changed what it means to be a supporter. In the old Lansdowne Road (and in the old Thomond Park), the terracing meant people had to get in early to get a good spot. So you regularly had a decent enough crowd in a half an hour before the game.

They stood and watched the teams warm up and got the atmosphere bubbling up the closer it got to kick-off.

I'm not saying this happened all the time – there's nothing more boring than someone who goes on about how it was all better in the old days – but I guarantee you an England game in those circumstances would have had the old Lansdowne Road buzzing 20 minutes before the game.

As it was, you could almost have counted the people who were in their seats during the warm-up. That's down to the make-up of the stadium, no question about it.

People will hang on as long as they can to get a last pint in at the bar, to get a bit of food or a coffee, or whatever. They're in the stadium alright, just not in the seats. They can watch the teams come out on one of the wall TVs all over the place.

Overall, everything possible is done to distract people from going to their seat, purely so they will spend more money. The stadium is a business after all and it needs a revenue stream.

Maybe I'm a bit naive and maybe I'm hoping for too much here. But I don't really get the mentality of somebody who has spent a fortune on a ticket to go and see a game like this but isn't there to relish the atmosphere 10 minutes before the game.

And I'm not talking about the prawn sandwich crowd here – I mean the ordinary Joe Soaps with normal stand tickets. I couldn't understand why the stadium wasn't jammed to the roof in time for the anthems.

In fairness, they were mostly in for the kick-off but as soon as the initial roar died down the stadium was very quiet. Again, I know the Sunday afternoon is a factor here. And of course the team didn't exactly set the world alight from the beginning. The amount of handling errors was obviously costly because it meant the ball kept getting turned over but it also killed any chance of building up intensity or momentum in the crowd.

Problems

When I wrote before about the problems there had been in Thomond Park with some people just turning up to be entertained, I had plenty of fellas pulling me aside and saying the players had to take some responsibility here. Their point was you can't expect supporters just to blindly roar their team on if what they're seeing out on the pitch isn't up to scratch. I see what they mean but I don't think it totally stands up – in fact, that sort of thinking releases the supporters from any responsibility.

You might argue that just buying the ticket is your only responsibility as a fan but I don't believe that and what's more, the Ireland supporters at the game on Sunday didn't believe that.

The reason you know they didn't is the noise they made every time the England supporters started singing Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. It was met with boos and whistles each time and then a bit of a roar from the Ireland fans before it all settled down again.

To me, it seemed like the Ireland supporters knew they were supposed to be getting involved and they were annoyed at the England fans who were showing them up. You shouldn't have to wait for the opposition's fans to get going before you react.

The worst thing I saw on Sunday, though, came at the start of the second half. I was working for RTÉ Radio and we were on air all the way through half-time. So once we handed back to the commentary team, I took the chance to head off to the toilet.

Blown away

When I came out to go back to my seat the game was back on and running but I was blown away by what I saw. There were hundreds of people just milling around, standing there having a drink and watching the game on the screens. They weren't queuing for a pint or for food, they were just standing there looking up at the TV.

I couldn't believe it. Why would you bother making the effort to go to the stadium if all you were going to do was stand there and watch it on TV?

Ireland were 6-0 down but they were starting to come back. They had won that first scrum penalty and were starting to build a bit of momentum. I found it a totally unreal situation that the game was going on just through the gangway to their right and yet people were in no rush to get back to their seats. Instead they were just chatting away, not a bother on them.

I actually got pretty angry about it. You go to a sporting occasion because of what's happening on the pitch. In a game like this one, where the tide was against Ireland but they were coming back into it how can you just be casually sipping at a drink or picking away at a bag of chips? Why not bring them to your seat? At least then when something happens, you can be a part of it.

If you go to a game, you have to try and get behind your team. It can't just be entertainment or a social occasion – those things have to be secondary, especially on a day when the whole Six Nations could possibly be up for grabs. That was the case on Sunday but it never really felt like it.

I'd love to say it was all down to the weather or the timing or the players but anybody who was in that stadium on Sunday knows there was more to it. They know in their heart and soul that the crowd just didn't play its part.

You can't blame the players for not being in your seat as the team walks out and being 6-0 down while playing poorly is no excuse for waiting 10 minutes after half-time to rejoin the action.

Handling errors

On a wet day, players are going to make handling errors. Ireland made enough to last them a lifetime on Sunday and England made hardly any.

I thought those two scrums at the start of the second half looked like being a turning point but it just never happened because England were so good at keeping Ireland pushed back and under wraps. We're very quick to criticise the Irish team and I don't think England have got enough credit for the way they played on Sunday. They shut Ireland down from start to finish.

But as good as they were, I'd say they were pleasantly surprised by how easy they found it to silence the crowd. This wasn't a win they had to dig out in a hostile atmosphere.

Given the circumstances and what was at stake, that's a sad indictment of the home crowd.

[Dinny Breen]

The new Lansdowne stadium does what it was designed to do and that is make loads of money for it's owners. There were many reasons for shit atmosphere on Sunday.

1. Rugby Internationals always been primarily a social occasion due mainly to the fact we were shit, I started going to Internationals in 1988 and I don't think I even saw 10 wins in the following 10 years but they were always hugely enjoyable and you would take your place on the death trap of your choice aka as North, East or South Terrace, the stands were for the allickadoos, a good 40-60 mins before KO and wouldn't/couldn't leave till 10/15 mins after the game finished. Terraces  bring a better atmosphere, just look at any GAA ground or even the Bundesliga.
2. Ref links (guilty myself here), video screens, music all kill natural atmosphere.
3. The event junkie, England V Ireland will always attract this kind and ticket pricing is still an issue.
4. Corporate hospitality. Corporate Tours.
5. Identity - this is where the Provincial rivalry is a problem - I have a pain in my hole seeing supporters going to Ireland games wearing their provincial jersey/hat/jacket whatever - It is a clear sign that that supporter is Province then country, these are the type that will bitch endlessly during the game about Houdini Heaslip, Radge or whatever player they feel is playing instead of someone from their province.
6. Ireland played shit, knockons kill your flow and your momentum and drains the supporters of any positive energy replaced instead by groans and moans.
7. The weather was absolutely shit, cold wet and miserable and just sucked the life out of you.

Still I'll go to the French game and hope that we get a good game and we'll be talking about rugby rather than how poor the atmosphere was.

[camanchero]

Dinny, new all seater stadiums have been the death knell for atmosphere in stadiums.
There is a different in day and night between the old Celtic atmosphere at league games and the current Post 1998 atmosphere.
OK the CL games they have a big vocal crowd, but up until the new Green brigade was formed, it was getting more like a church (or epl game) year on year.
not as bad now, but still nowhere near what it was like when the jungle was there and up until the only the new stands behind the goals were there.
Reports from fans from english sides say the atmosphere is nosediving in similar fashion - due to taylor report and all seater more expensive stadia.
Dont talk about atmosphere at Derry GAA matches.
Rugby seems to be following on the soccer model. crowds less vocal and for all the reasons you have mentioned.

however I also say that an overhyped team that delivers feck all doesnt help. we used to hate England for this and we are as bad ourselves now for this.
I feared we were lucky that the welsh had no invention and imo four bad mistakes that Ireland fantastically capitalised upon gave the half time lead. After that when wales got their act together defensively, we had no invention of our own to break through them - likewise in the first half save for the mistakes they made. Wales were dire and their scores should have never been conceeded.
I feared the worst against england going into the game. while imo this 6N is wide open given the rebuilding that engerland, france and wales are doing - We should be actually winning more comfortably. The weather played its part on sunday, but we show a massive lack of invention. The centres are too old and too much is expected of young and for now, overhyped wingers. Poor selections and bad execution allied with too many unenforced errors have cost the side.

I also think the refs are poor so far. so many offsides and forward passes not blown. Do wales even know what a backward pass looks like?

I admire how you didnt say anything about Quinlan - I know you see red when his name comes up!
Was kinda looking forward to what you would reply with!

[Dinny Breen]

I admire how you didnt say anything about Quinlan - I know you see red when his name comes up!
Was kinda looking forward to what you would reply with!

While never a fan of him as a player, another over-hyped Munster Ligind and a serial cheat I actually find his analysis alongside Shane Horgan as pretty refreshing and insightful. His article certainly stirred debate but sometimes I wonder do players think that the fans are actually there to see them only and not for the actually occasion and opportunity to support your country.

[Hound]

I admire how you didnt say anything about Quinlan - I know you see red when his name comes up!
Was kinda looking forward to what you would reply with!

While never a fan of him as a player, another over-hyped Munster Ligind and a serial cheat I actually find his analysis alongside Shane Horgan as pretty refreshing and insightful. His article certainly stirred debate but sometimes I wonder do players think that the fans are actually there to see them only and not for the actually occasion and opportunity to support your country.

Not convinced about Quinlan as an analyst. Was poor last night on Newstalk for one and I haven't been particularly impressed with his Times articles

But I suppose I start from the point that I think he's a bit of a dope. His career littered with dopey moments – most notably eye gouging in full view of the ref and costing himself a Lions tour.

So I sit down to read his analysis of the England match - and then he spends most of it moaning about the "fans"

"I got angry...." That was pretty self-centered! He might as well have said "Unless you care as much as I do about Ireland then you shouldn't be going to games".

The new Lansdowne stadium does what it was designed to do and that is make loads of money for it's owners. There were many reasons for shit atmosphere on Sunday.

6. Ireland played shit, knockons kill your flow and your momentum and drains the supporters of any positive energy replaced instead by groans and moans.
7. The weather was absolutely shit, cold wet and miserable and just sucked the life out of you.

The last two are the real reason in my view. I remember the England game 2 years ago being a good atmosphere.

The main thing that killed the atmosphere was the error ridden performance. The vast majority were in for the anthems. The roar for the 1st scrum in particular was great.

But 0 points in the 1st half and  44 seconds in opponents 22 in the 2nd half – yeah, that's really going to get a wet and cold crowd to roar their head off watching that rubbish!?!?

If one of our second half penalties had been just out of Rog's range and he'd been capable of hitting a decent kick into their 22 for an attacking line-out, then there's no doubt the place would have shook with excitement (until we dropped it anyway), but it just didnt happen for us.

[Declan]

Darcy now out for the rest of the 6 nations. We have a real era changing season I feel now with O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, O'Connell, O'Gara, O'Callaghan finished at international level. Kidney gone as well I'd speculate.
Time for the young guns to step up but I reckon that we'll be back in our natural position fighting with Scotland/Italy for the bottom places and yoyoing between 8-12 in the world rankings for the foreseeable future

[Bord na Mona man]

Darcy now out for the rest of the 6 nations. We have a real era changing season I feel now with O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, O'Connell, O'Gara, O'Callaghan finished at international level.

Anyone with an apostrophe in their name basically!

[muppet]

Darcy now out for the rest of the 6 nations. We have a real era changing season I feel now with O'Driscoll, D'Arcy, O'Connell, O'Gara, O'Callaghan finished at international level.

Anyone with an apostrophe in their name basically!

K'idney?

[screenexile]

Finally a gutsy call by Kidney . . . he faffed around long enough on the O'Gara/Sexton problem but I think he's showing a bit of ambition throwing young Jackson in at the deep end. It's exactly what we need another young lad coming along to challenge Sexton.

He needs a big game though!!

http://www.rte.ie/sport/rugby/six-nations/2013/0220/368664-jackson-set-to-replace-sexton-at-out-half/

[trileacman]

Big call by Kidney, but this should appease the critics. Easily recognisable as our best pairing at 10-12 in the absence of Sexton/Darcy, I don't rate Keatley and Madigan is far too inexperienced to play as a 6 nations ten. Calls for him to be included in the side are hysterical.