Showing posts with label Sport. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sport. Show all posts

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Its all about the balls

Last night I got to see one of the truly great bands perform in Dublin. Accept, the German dinosaurs, rolled into town and blew the roof off the Village. For a band that started out almost 35 years ago they still know how to rock. Below the fold is a video of one of their most famous songs, Princess of the Dawn, but to get the full effect of last night you need to treble the volume and then add some more.

Accept's other main classic is the tune Balls to the Wall which was brought to every teenager's attention in the early 90s by Beavis and Butthead. I know I've mentioned the dynamic dunces before but I guess I'm just a product of my time. Anyway, the reason why I bring it up is that I also thought that was going to be the theme tune for the earlier part of the day when Ireland took on England in Lansdowne Road in the last round of the 6 Nations.

But how wrong was I in that prediction? For the first time this season everything clicked. The opening 40 minutes was incredible to watch and but for a few tight calls and loose passes we could have had another 15-20 points on the board. Maybe it just is the Old Enemy, 800 Years of Oppression stuff that fires up the team, but in the modern game, played by professionals that should not make the difference. All of a sudden I'm beginning to regret my decision not to go to New Zealand for the World Cup, but I guess if the Seanad is in session then it'd be a bit rich for me to be skiving off for a month or more.

Also being held last night was the annual Irish Blog Awards. The only link to the title is that it was held in a function room that could also double up as a Ballroom - tenuous, I know, but cut me a little slack! Glad to see that the Cedar Lounge Revolution picked up the best political blog award. I don't always agree with what they're saying but they are always thought provoking and their two repeat columns Meanwhile, back at the Seanad and Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week always entertain. Good job comrades!

Back to normality tomorrow, when I'm going to have a look at some more of the crazy stuff related to 3rd level that has been coming out over the last few days.




Thursday, November 19, 2009

At the end of the day ...

Ahh football, the game for gentlemen played by thugs. It appears that football fever has taken over the political system in Ireland in the aftermath of last night's match between France and Ireland and the "hand of frog" incident. Dermot Ahern has been on the airwaves demanding a rematch and has made if as far as CNN World Sport. Dara Calleary has also signed an open letter to Sepp Blatter demanding a winner takes all replay in a neutral venue.

Now I'm all for a bit of national pride, even when it comes to the game of two halves, but does it really need to get political? Surely our elected representatives might have something better to do with their time than get involved in this fiasco. Yes the ball was handled, yes we now aren't going to South Africa next summer but we're still 20B in the red this year and maybe keeping holiday makers at home next summer would actually be a good idea.

But the highlight of this whole situation is this tweet from Dara O'Briain showing how a story just loves to grow and grow

"Now I've been asked to go on Newsnight to discuss this Ireland France thing. Newsnight! Might get carried away and declare war or something."

The media are almost as bad as the politicians - they want a comedian to appear on a current affairs show to talk about sport. I'm sure he'll give 110%