The Rugby Thread

The "Team of Us" PR strategy, that many hate, certainly becomes more real.

In other words, football needs less resentment and more emulation.

I'd consider the wins over SA and Australia on a par. The Australia win was our most significant RWC victory, up to that point, and it was also achieved in the Southern Hemisphere. There is a large delineation between Ireland as a professional rugby entity, and its amateur status. We had one victory over South Africa before 2004, and went 20 years between the late 1970s and early 2000s between victories over Australia. The 1990s was also a significantly difficult time, with tour defeats to Namibia, a hammering from Samoa in Dublin in 1996, three defeats to Italy (who were 'tier 2' at the time), and the nail in the coffin was the defeat to Argentina in the 1999 RWC. In 1998 we were whitewashed in the Five Nations. Ireland struck out with a new found confidence after it started trusting in its own structures, with its provincial teams mixing it with the best in Europe, rather than looking at the Premiership for players.

Sure, the national rugby team has not won an RWC. In fact, it has never come close to winning one. But it has won more local tournaments than in its past, and the provinces have massively raised the stature of the game, by giving people a catchment and an outlet for support. When people refer to 'tests' as 'friendlies' its ignorant, as the way rugby is played is that even matches with no material prize on the line are still given massive weight. I guess this is a hangover from the amateur era, which isn't that long ago. As such, victories in the Southern Hemisphere are rare, and are celebrated. 

That's an interesting take.

I think a lot of it is also unless your interested in it you don't understand the specifics rules and laws. A lot of people just couldn't be bothered trying to get up to speed with it. It's like looking at Cricket and thinking what the fook is going on here. 

For week in week out I would struggle to watch rugby.  

Some definitely don’t. But there is a bit of a psychology behind some of the dislike for the game, which has reasons beyond finding it uncompetitive or unaesthetic.