After the peak years is rugby slowly sinking - Abbeyfeale Golf Club Abbeyfeale After the peak years is rugby slowly sinking Facebook Twitter WhatsApp Telegram It’s 27 years since World Rugby Chairman, Vernon Pugh, declared rugby union an “open game”, and so began the professional era. Since that declaration, the game of rugby has bobbed along, ebbing and flowing, reaching a level of popularity in some countries – Ireland – that made it a marketer’s dream, while in others, particularly Australia, it has flirted with near extinction. Even its most cynical detractors have likely been swept along at one time or another by the momentum of goodwill its more profound moments have inspired, particularly in its formative years of professionalism – O’Driscoll’s hat trick in Paris, the O’Gara drop goal in Cardiff, Munster’s ascension to the apex of European rugby, Leinster eventually bettering them. All of these memories are linked by our insatiable need as a country and people to be taken seriously. When Connacht won the 2016 Pro12 Grand Final, it felt like the final piece of a jigsaw 20 years in the making. For so long the red-headed stepchild, the western province out-danced Leinster in Murrayfield, a likeable team sprinkled with hometown boys and prodigal sons, the runt of the rugby litter were finally best in show. Even the most stony-hearted of men must surely have felt something. They came home to a parade worthy of the new ground they broke. Now, some six and a bit years later, something seems…off? Which seems strange to say, given that the national team has never seen such riches. Number one in the world, All Blacks defeated, a year out from a World Cup and genuine hope that the hoodoo of failing to reach a semi-final might finally be broken. So what gives? Does the hesitancy to stay aboard the bandwagon reside solely with this writer, or is the malaise a broader effect of the creeping contempt familiarity can sometimes breed? Were the sepia-tinted days of Simon Geoghegan, living off a paltry two passes a season but still managing to round Tony Underwood, somehow better in their authenticity, their romance, their innocence? Is the casual fan too fat off the excess of success to really care, I mean really care about who and what they are supporting? Have we tested and tasted too much? The peak of professional rugby’s first age, the halcyon days of O’Gara, O’Connell and O’Driscoll, of Munster and early Leinster, was a rush of adrenaline for a generation of people keen for a post-millennial fix. Rugby’s ascension in popularity hit as the nation’s graduates bought apartments in Bulgaria with the same care our parents bought the family car. It was a sport that was on-the-nose, representative of a new confidence, hubris even, that was at odds with the Catholic guilt that suffocated the early decades of an infant nation. Rugby never challenged GAA and soccer as much as it excelled in parallel. You didn’t have to pick a side. You could enjoy both. The star players for the most part were likeable and approachable. They earned well, but never too much to make them aliens to our reality. Yes, its most zealous disciples maybe took themselves a little too seriously, but it was a welcome change from our overly apologetic default personalities. Rugby was Adderall for the masses. The prettier the paradise, however, the more likely it is to be a façade. The dystopian disclosure of concussion has ensured that the same fans who pack the pubs to watch Ulster trounce Treviso can now bloviate how they will never let their kids play a game that’s such an obvious danger to their health. I’d argue that point of view is a smokescreen – their kids would never have played the sport anyway. Despite genuine efforts to grow the game, rugby in Ireland largely remains the preserve of private schools. At least those born into it, the club scene is a fading shadow of its former amateur self. Our teams may be winning, but as the sport has reached peak professionalism, its soul seems sadly lost, flogged by overexposure. Where it goes next is hard to discern. Like the Seychelles, rugby remains a nice place to visit, but may be slowly sinking. Walker’s descent into being elected? Herschel Walker was arguably the greatest running back to play college football in America. The 1982 Heisman trophy winner left the University of Georgia one of the most recognizable faces in the country, eschewing his senior year to join the ill-fated breakaway United States Football League instead of the NFL. It was there he first met Donald J. Trump, who came to own the team Walker played for, the New Jersey Generals. By the time the USFL folded in 1985, Walker was drafted by the Dallas Cowboys. Tension followed wherever he ran, and in 1989, one of the most notorious NFL trades was pulled off, sending Walker from Dallas to Minnesota for a total of five players and six future draft picks. The trade is now regarded as one of the best/worst in NFL history, as Minnesota destroyed what appeared to be a budding dynasty by selling the farm for Walker, while Dallas promptly restored its place as America’s Team, becoming the team of the 1990s, winning three Super Bowls. That should’ve been it for Walker. A storied college career followed by a successful stint in the NFL that didn’t quite match his potential. Remarkably, Walker competed in the 1992 Winter Olympics as a member of the United States bobsleigh team. What followed thereafter was an “OJ without the alleged murder” style descent into narcissism and self-indulgence. In filing for divorce in 2001, Walker’s wife accused him of “physically abusive and extremely threatening behavior.” After the divorce, she told the media that, during their marriage, Walker pointed a pistol at her head and had used knives to threaten her. Walker has since fathered children with several women. Last week, a former girlfriend told the Daily Beast he paid for her abortion in 2009, an allegation Walker has denied. The New York Times subsequently reported Walker urged her to terminate a second pregnancy two years later. You could say all of this is his own business, and you’d be right, if it wasn’t for the fact that Walker is a candidate in the US Senate election in Georgia, and a viable one at that. His public appearances, once so graceful and full of purpose as a sportsman, now depict a man riddled with conspiracy theories and Trumpian rhetoric. It being America, he will probably win. Kenny picture will soon be complete Stephen Kenny’s most vocal critics have long contended he gets an easy time of it when it comes to the auditing of his team’s performances, with the charge leveled at many in the media that they are far too lenient on Kenny due to his likeability as an underdog and homegrown footballing philosophy. Whatever incomplete picture we have of Kenny now, it will likely look very different by the time his team concludes their Euro 2024 qualifying group, which, we learned yesterday, includes the Netherlands, France, Greece, and Gibraltar. Sure, the chances of qualifying are much greater than the strength of the group suggests, but big performances will be required to ensure Kenny survives long enough to lead them there. No amount of cheerleading will save him. It’s up to him now. Corofin dynasty paused? Corofin, once the standard bearers of the club championship, crashed out in the Galway county quarter-final on Sunday to their rivals Mountbellew-Moylough in a repeat of last year’s county final. It may be too soon to say it’s curtains on a dynasty that defined what the club championship has become, but consecutive seasons of no silverware already represent a drought for arguably the greatest club side in the history of the competition. That Galway’s re-emergence as a force has coincided with the monopoly ending may be evidence that dominant clubs rarely help a county’s evolution. How long their Coventry lasts will be interesting to see. They have more than earned their rest. Related Facebook Twitter WhatsApp Telegram Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. 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