Brian O’Driscoll Injured
Posted on Saturday, August 18, 2007Help me out here, would you?
I’m not an international rugby manager, you see, and so I’m not fully up to date with modern management techniques, unlike Eddie O Sullivan, the Irish coach.
So let me just get this straight, now. Is this how it goes?
When preparing for the World Cup, you ask yourself which country has most to gain if your best player is injured. You decide the country is France so that’s where you send your squad for warm-up matches against local clubs. You then arrange a game with a low-level club notorious for its thuggishness. This club’s players have absolutely nothing to lose because they’re not good enough to play in the World Cup.
The morning before the game, this club’s captain tells the papers it would be good for France if your best player was badly injured, but you proceed to play them anyway. And then, when your best player duly has his face smashed in by someone’s fist, knocking him out of the opening World Cup match, you express surprise and regret.
Oh right. So that’s how a top-flight manager prepares, is it? Fuckin hell, I have a lot to learn.
=============================
Stumble it!
YOU'VE BEEN SHOUTING ABOUT ...
August 18th, 2007
Ley’s hope one of the savage stupids can return the favour tonight
August 18th, 2007
Well Bock, you don’t need to be an international rugby manager to foresee the events as you recount them. As we say in certain less than salubrious locales, a dog with a mallet in his hole could have seen that one coming. Where does that leave our international management?
Nuts
August 19th, 2007
Bock, it’s worth bearing in mind that the offending player is not French, he’s from Auckland in NZ and plays for Tonga. Still, I’d have to question the wisdom of playing a French side prior to the world cup. Apparently Dourthe (spell?) of Bayonne said before the game that O’Driscoll should be the focus of attention. At best, the choice to play a French side appears naive.
(P.S. any word on that mid-west party taking off? I’m in if there is!)
August 19th, 2007
Mr Dare: That doesn’t seem to have happened.
Mr Nut: Exactly so. Entirely foreseeable.
Cnuimh: I know he’s a Kiwi. In fact, nearly all the players involved in the various assaults were from outside France and to me, that seems even more sinister. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if that guy turned out to be twenty grand richer after his day’s work.
To answer your other question, I still think a Mid-West party should be organised, but it would probably degenerate into a Mid-West piss-up.
August 19th, 2007
I don’t know much about rugby, but I always thought that getting punched in the face was part of the game.
Oh, wait, that’s boxing. That’s right. Sorry. I don’t really follow sports, I’m a musician.
August 19th, 2007
Mid-West piss up? That can’t be any worse than what’s on offer right now…seriously! Be careful now, your ideas are gathering momentum beyond the confines of the blogoshpere
August 20th, 2007
Captain: These things are mutually exclusive? Goddamn! I must pass the word to our sport-following musicians over here. Stop!
Cnuimh: I doubt very much that anyone but a madman would pay attention to my ideas.
August 20th, 2007
Thanks be to JAYSIS I’m not the only one here who smelled a rat. And as for the fact that the culprit wasn’t actually French, who better to do the job??? Kind of like the way Tony Soprano would always fly in a couple of hoods from Italy to whack someone. But I agree with the Bockmeister in pointing blame at Ireland’s management…why the bloody hell were we playing in France??? And what’s more to the point, why the bloody hell was B O’D playing at all??? If he can’t even get a game for his club in the Magners League (an actual competition) because he’s wrapped in cotton wool, why risk him in a meaningless friendly??? It looks like Eddie O’Sullivan has backed himself into a corner and the only way out of it would be to reach the semifinals.
August 20th, 2007
You should have brought that rifle you were using at the adult Féile, and took out a couple heads. And when you’d finished with Fast Eddie, and Big Mal, then you could have looked after the Butcher of Bayonne ( never understand this bull-shit). And it was a cowardly blow too, from behind. Whatever about two fellas squaring up to each other……
Bock, is this one of these things which we thought about and never said anything out loud, cause I neither heard nor saw anything before- hand.
August 20th, 2007
As I’ve mentioned on the bruffrfc.com site, We should offer to bring all the French squad over to Munsters at the “Killing fields” and line up a few dozen likely candidates to do the same. I’m sure the three Clohessys would come out of retirement for that one, along with the Fitz’s and maybe Ger Earls (He’s probly still fit now that the young Earls is there or thereabouts on the scene). Theres a few of ours would come out of retirement for a crack at dose boyos..
Mind you Prop Claw has a bit of history with french teams heads hasn’t he…..
August 20th, 2007
Mr Pagano: Whatever way you look at it, Eddie seems to have handled this badly, and we really really don’t want ODriscoll to be injured just as the World Cup is about to begin.
S&C: I don’t know about seeing it in advance. Some of the guys around here were unhappy about it in advance, but as I said, I’m not an international rugby manager, so I wouldn’t understand the nuances of it all like Eddie would.
Dickler: Those lads would be delighted to walk all over them. I’m sure Peter would be only too willing to oblige by trampling another French head or two, for old time’s sake.
August 20th, 2007
Isn’t it a wonder our Brian is not from Munster?
;)
BTW, maybe some of you lads can solve a mystery for me. I always understood that B O’D started playing rugby in St. Paul’s in Sybil Hill, Raheny, Dublin. And was “poached” by Blackrock College. But if so, the Northside school has been expunged from the records. Wikipedia says he was born in Contarf, and then goes on to say he was educated at Blackrock. Period. His profile on the IRFU site only mentions Blackrock too.
Anyone shed any light on this?
August 20th, 2007
Actually, Nora, I think he might have been born in Cork. His father is certainly from there.
August 20th, 2007
Getawaywitcha!
“O’Driscoll was born in Clontarf on Dublin’s Northside, and was educated at Blackrock College from which he was capped three times for Ireland Schools in 1996.”
August 20th, 2007
I can verify that did indeed go to the “Rock”, and also that the school was (allegedly wink wink) very good at poaching (ie send your son to our school and forget about fees). Not sure if that’s what they did with BO’D, mind you.
August 20th, 2007
It’s what I heard about how he left St. Paul’s. :)
But I can’t find any verification online that he ever *was* at St. Paul’s. Gone! Pouf!
August 21st, 2007
Bock makes with presciet, re: whether Oireland should be playing a shower of Basque butchers before World Cup, and the conversation drifts towards Drico’s school and his origins. Plus ca change, plus la meme chose. Who gives a fuck where he’s from, surely it more to do with his ability. He’s 1st name down on any team-sheet. That’s a reality.
Getting back to le original point, and dans mature reflection, and now that we know he’ll “only” miss the Georgia match, maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea after all. The wise heads may have anticipated the Bayonne attacks knowing, like everyone’s favourite Man Utd. manager, that it would further isolate les lads en France and bring on le siege mentality. Keener, meaner et more tuned in.
The cult of personality and celebrity makes les professional rugby players available to nous, Pat Kenny, Ryle Nuggent et Tracy Piggott. North side, south side, who gives la shit. Le important thing is that the cheeky fucker is available to play for le Oireland and that he retires immieidtely from public life when he finishes with the rubby. Petit shit.
August 21st, 2007
Quelle finesse.
August 21st, 2007
Formidable, mon brave!! Allez les Verts!!
August 22nd, 2007
Jaysus!
What I want to know is; why yer man didn’t get a good battering by one of our second row guys?? We better start expecting this stuff. Especially if we get to play the Kiwis in the World Cup.