Top 10 Sportsmanship Moments of 2011 Romanian captain, Cristian Petre, who after suffering a 67-3 loss to England, was asked by a reporter about the game and replied “I play rugby for happiness.” More. The French rugby team won the toss to choose who wears their own home jerseys in the Rugby World Cup Final [...]
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What is sporting success?
Celebrating its 125th year anniversary, Arsenal FC, are the first British Club to qualify for the (European) Champions League knock out stages this year. They have consistently qualified for both this ‘highest level’ league and its subsequent knockout stages every year since their manager Arsene Wenger joined them some 15 years ago. Despite this, some [...]
Dignity in Defeat – This Is Magnificent
This is magnificent. An All Ireland Gaelic Football Final between arch enemies Dublin and Kerry went all the way before it was won by the Dubs in the last second of the match in front of 82,500 fans. With the game over, the defeated young Kerry player retrieved the ball, carried it up the pitch [...]
Leprechauns Challenged Darren Clarke
That moment when the eventual Open Winner, Darren Clarke’s ball clipped the top of a bunker and somehow escaped and thundered on safely down the fairway. There were at least two other ‘magical’ moments when the commentators suggested that Clarke had ‘the little people on his side’ (note: Clarke did, in fact, play sublime golf [...]
Entering The Cauldron – The Final Siege
When asked about the illegal Welsh try that won the game, the Irish coach, Declan Kidney did not fulminate in the manner of Sir Alex Ferguson, but said, that ‘while he felt extremely frustrated, he was not going to make an issue of it at a time when so many in the world were suffering [...]
I had a dream
I have often wondered whether I would live to see Ireland beat the All Blacks. The famous team from New Zealand are the best in the world(despite only winning one World Cup). Something unreal happened……. Although Munster, a province of Ireland, beat them way back in 1978, Ireland never managed to beat the Kiwis in [...]
Kiwis coming to play or to cheat?
So here’s the question I put to the 2005 twin spear tackling duo, Tana Umaga and Kevin Mealamu (the latter has just been banned), and to the infamous 1978 diver (former World Rugby Cup ambassador), Andy Haden – would you want your child to behave similarly? Would it make you proud of your children? That [...]
A Virtual Tour of the Newest Stadium in the Oldest Venue
The oldest international rugby venue in the world, Lansdowne Road, and its brand new 51,700 all-seater Aviva Stadium opened its doors to the world on Saturday 31 July 2010. Here is my virtual tour as I sat in awe of this wonderful new stadium. One wonders what historic moments in rugby and football (soccer) will [...]
The Sacred Venue Bears No Crown But Just The Mantle Of Nobility
And so the dream was taken away by the better side on the day, Scotland (20-23). It was interesting, when I asked Scottish fans before the game to forecast the result, all but one said ‘A Win!’. The other singular Scottish voice said he forecasted ‘a good weekend!’ Whilst most of our Welsh friends the [...]
3 Wise Frenchmen Ask for Replay
Frenchman and Arsenal manager, Arsene Wenger, says “France should offer a replay – which I support personally. We want to beat Ireland properly.” French captain Thierry Henry says a replay of the World Cup play-off with the Republic of Ireland would “be the fairest solution”. France’s former superstar, David Ginola, said “there is no pride [...]
