OH the weight of sporting history, how it landed heavily on all our shoulders last weekend and gentled nudged us out the door of another World Cup at the quarter final stages.
Go home, lads, ye don’t belong here, it seemed to be saying.
You can’t fault the lads for effort. It was an immense performance for a team that looked like they had given their all but came up against the wiliest foxes in the game - the brilliant, cagey, almost faultless All Blacks who stepped on our collective dreams like Oliver Cromwell marching through the Irish countryside.
If that isn’t slightly overstating it.
My main emotion in the days that followed was one of anger. Anger at myself for actually caring so much about a bunch of young fellas chasing a lump of leather around a field.
Anger for somehow conflating this with the actual self-esteem of the nation. Anger at the rugby officials who concocted such a one-sided draw that effectively saw us play two semi-finals without ever actually reaching one. Anger at God. Saint Patrick. All the saints actually. Paul O’Connell. Joe Schmidt. Thierry Henry, for some reason.
What can I say, I was mad!
It wasn’t helped by Clon beating Ardfield in the Junior A hurling, either, the news of which filtered in on Sunday afternoon when I was at my lowest ebb.
And if I felt like that, can you imagine how a competitor like Johnny Sexton must feel now having to stew over what might have been, for the rest of his days?
Sport is cruel but as Johnny himself said – ‘That’s life’. And he’s so right. Failure in some shape or form is inevitable for us all, and we know that the human condition is to simply keep striving, so we’ll be back watching a slightly different team in the spring and do it all again for another four-year cycle.
Like Mrs Doyle, maybe there’s just a part of us that loves the misery?
We can all understand what it feels like to be on the other side of the Mayo curse at this stage. Maybe it’s a double-curse? Maybe they have to win an All Ireland before we’re allowed reach a World Cup semi-final? Should we just pull every other county out of the championship next year to test the theory?
The most deflating thing this week is the thought that we will never have a team like this again, that we will never have a better chance to be the best in the world. But I remember having that exact feeling after going out the last time, and we came back with a stronger, better team and with even more strength and depth.
So you gotta trust in the systems the provinces have put in place, with a conveyor belt of real talent coming through, including our own Jack Crowley who looks set to be the next candidate to fill those very big boots vacated by Johnny.
We haven’t reached the mountain top yet. Perhaps we never will. But boy did we have some joyous moments along the way. But perhaps we can give Zombie a rest until Australia?
EU shambles over Gaza
A TEAM that is performing with far less cohesion than Ireland’s rugby players is the executive team of the European Union this week, with its fairly shambolic response to the disaster that is unfolding in Israel and Palestine. There were rogue tweets by officials stating all aid would be stopped to Gaza, without any approval from member states.
There was Ursula von der Leyen issuing strong statements in support of Israel, with Israeli flags projected onto EU buildings. By the end of the week the word ‘backtracking’ had been translated into all the EU official languages as efforts were made to find some balance and claw back some credibility. Humanitarian aid would actually be increased to Palestine. There were calls made for Israel to play by the rules of international law in the seemingly inevitable assault that lay ahead.
Ireland had its own part to play in this, of course. We understand more than most how a community can be marginalised by those wielding power and how terrorists can take advantage of this. We understand that a bunch of murderous savages doesn’t necessarily speak for the rest of the population.
In this case, the actions of Hamas were particularly barbarous and vile and the kneejerk response from von der Leyen was understandable on a human level. But times like these call for clearer heads, especially in a situation as complex and increasingly tragic as this one. It was a bad mis-step and one that could cost her yet.
Glittering prize
IT was more of a positive week for the UK Labour Party, long in the political doldrums but finally getting a bit of love in the polls across the channel. The Labour leader Kier Starmer was covered in glitter by a protester during his Labour conference speech in Liverpool last week and responded by removing his jacket, rolling up his sleeves and saying to all those present that he favoured ‘power, not protest’.
His personal approval ratings leapt by nine points, raising to 35%, compared with the 34% who disapprove. In the UK they are calling it the ‘glitter-bomb bounce’. It’s amazing what can get you elected these days and isn’t it great that these are the sorts of bombs we are discussing on these islands now? As Patrick Kielty so eloquently put it in his monologue during Friday night’s Late Late, we are living in a miracle of peace that we should never take for granted.
Give it up for Chuck
I WAS reading up on Chuck Feeney during the week, the Irish American philanthropist who made his fortune in the duty free business, amassing $8bn during the first half of his life and spending the rest of his life trying to find good ways to give it all away. What a fascinating character.
Through his foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies, he funded education, health and science projects in Ireland and around the world. He became particularly fond of Ireland and played a huge part in funding the peace process, leading to the Belfast Agreement. Now there’s a legacy to be proud of.
And he hated any displays of ostentation, happy to leave nothing out there after a life of 92 years, contributing to the good of Ireland and the world in immeasurable ways.
Ar dheis dé go raibh a h-anam.
