Ireland's crawl
A dejected Stephen Ferris during last Sunday?s defeat by Wales at Lansdowne Road
- It seems to be perpetual 'holy hour' in the Last Chance Saloon for our national rugby team. The craic has been 90 watching the golden generation, but alas the glittering prizes -- despite the wizardry of O'Gara and O'Driscoll -- feature only as lost opportunities.
The players have given their all, some even more, but the results are less than the sum of their parts.
When it comes to analysing why this is the case you need to look back down the tunnel through which they emerge; past the dressing room and up the stairs to the comfortable seats to the men with the shiny buttons who have presided for generations.
It is their crippling conservatism and eye on the bottom line that has chained Irish rugby to the wheel.
Sport is only great when the spirit is allowed to soar, this flight is what confers immortal qualities that make ordinary lads extraordinary.
Its wellspring does not come from the marshalling of a balance sheet or fear of rocking the boat, but from passion, raw courage and a bloody-minded refusal to set a border on possibility.
It thrives on freedom and love of the fray.
For the third time, we were beaten by Wales. Last year it was the Mike Phillips debacle, this year it was the Stephen Ferris farce. Whether we should have won either match is not really the point; what matters is the comfort with which we accept defeat -- even prepare for it, with stale selections. "It is what it is," was how Declan Kidney responded yesterday.
With respect, Mr Kidney, that's not good enough.
Where was the fire of indignation, the signature of conviction? Ireland probably deserved to lose but we did not deserve to be treated with disrespect, as I believe we were, by the administrators of the game.
Continually choosing the same personnel who have come up short shows that there is no method in the mediocrity.
The Six Nations is a sideshow in the context of the world game; it is not the holy grail, it is merely a treasure chest for the home countries. Instead of searching for Eldorado,we are sticking close to the piggy bank. The game is the poorer for it.
New blood is not given its chance. So we get a diet of stale, stolid, stodge.
If running to stand still ever becomes an Olympic sport, we will at last get a gold medal and the IRFU will finally have something for the trophy cabinet.
But it is what it is ...
T G Tyndall
Galway City
Irish Independent
