waider

We won. Woo. What a terrible game; even the refereeing was rubbish.

There's some irony (or perhaps no irony whatsoever, I'm not sure) in the fact that Ireland's best showing in the Olympics so far has been in "fisticuffs with rules".

Seen on Ireland.com this morning: "Irish boxers off to Olympics". I guess we're mooning in protest or something.

I've set up a twitter feed called waider6nations in which I will be attempting to type live commentary of six nations games. Unaffilliated with anything, etc.

We're currently being stomped on by Argentina. It's been frustrating to watch our performance in the World Cup games; it's like we pick out an area where the opposition can beat us, then we keep going back to it. For Argentina, it's turn-overs: given the option of kicking the ball clear, passing it, or going to ground and attempting to hang onto the ball, we're choosing the last, and losing the ball almost every time. The fact that we've scored two world-class tries is poor compensation.

updated to add: we lost; no surprises there. The TV commentator gets a cookie for leading out to commercials with "after the break, the wake".

From Ireland.com: "Langer refuses to lie down". I presume it's about golf as opposed to an overdose of sildenafil.

Well, we beat Italy. Boy howdy did we beat them. Then France did to us in the championship what they did to us at Croke Park: snatched the win from us right at the last second. Bah.

Well, that was controversial: Italy's winning try was scored by a player who should arguably have been sent off for deliberately punching an opponent in the face while tackling him, and then Wales were denied their final move of the game through a disagreement on the amount of time left between the television official and the referee. Still, Italy deserved the win.

Bloody hell. George Hook is still going on about how the Triple Crown isn't the same now that there's an actual trophy for it.

From the GAA Official Guide:

42 Non Affiliated Bodies
...
(b) A Club or other unit shall only participate, as such, in games controlled by the Association and against a Club or other unit of the Association, unless the prior sanction of Central Council has been given.

Today, Ireland plays rugby against France at Croke Park. Much is being made of the first instance of an "English" game in the GAA's flagship sportsground, but the bigger deal will be on Saturday 24th, when England play Ireland at the same location, with the accompanying obligatory performance of "God Save The Queen" (and no, not the Sex Pistols' version).

RTÉ is covering both the historic background (including the Bloody Sunday incident in 1920) and the Vox Pop reaction. Frankly, the only negative voices have been from the entrenched GAA members, 25% of whom voted against allowing the Irish rugby and soccer teams to use Croke Park while the regular home ground (Lansdowne Road) is being renovated.

(aside: They're showing prematch coverage right now, and Oasis' Wonderwall is blaring over the PA - second-generation Irish Boys who Made Good in the UK. I wonder if that's someone poking a bit of fun...)

I'm looking forward to the match. Let's hope we win!