Soweto Connection is a purely voluntary organisation with no overheads at all which means every cent donated goes to help the townships.

There’s a fundraising table quiz on Wednesday 26th in the Brazen Head, Limerick, at 8.30pm. Forty euro for a team of four, ten fast rounds of all-original themed questions, team prizes for first second and third place, and some very nice raffle prizes too.  All the prizes are sponsored, so there are no costs associated with running the event. That means all forty euro will be helping kids like the lad in the picture. That was taken two years ago when they gathered old GAA jerseys to make up strips for township soccer teams.

Well, let me put it to you this way: do you know of another team where every man will put his body on the line rather than disappoint the supporters? 

Where every man will fight to the death for his team-mates? 

And as Mick Galwey once put it, where every last supporter in the ground is ready to pull on the Munster shirt and line out alongside them if needed?

(Pic by C’est la Craic)

This is a phenomenon you won’t see often.  Last night was an experience we should all savour, because it revealed so much of the honest human spirit, and even though it ended with a victory for the All Blacks, it was by a thin margin and turned on the bounce of a ball.

The New Zealand players were rattled by a Munster team running on raw pride and last night’s game was a contest of equals.  I looked at Peter Stringer last night after the final whistle blew, and I saw a man who never for one second feared the greatest team in the world.  I saw a man fit to scream with frustration.  I saw Doug Howlett and Mick O Driscoll and Barry Murphy and all the rest of them, utterly unfazed by the name or the reputation of our visitors, and I saw a bunch of players emotionally shattered that they had let the prize slip away at the last second.

But I also saw the Munster crowd stand and applaud them and I heard the crowd roar defiance and pride as the players limped off, bruised and battered and holding back the tears.

If it’s about passion, it’s also about respect, as some ill-mannered visitors learn in this little clip:

Goddamit, why am I asking if this is the best team in the world?  Why would I ask a question like that?

Of course it is.  Where else would you get it?

I read a comment on one of the boards that summed it all up.  In 1978, the supporters walked away from Thomond Park amazed that Munster won. In 2008 they walked away amazed that Munster lost.

That says it for me.

I was proud of our team last night, and I was proud of our supporters.  I was proud of our town and our stadium and our spirit. 

Most of all, I was proud of people like my son, who wiped away tears, not of disappointment, but of rage that we didn’t dispose of the mighty All Blacks.

Two Hakas:

__________________

Also on Bock: Munster versus All Blacks

New Zealand:

Stuff

TVNZ

Otago Daily Times

Scoop

New Zealand Herald

Rugby Heaven

Sportal

Well here they are:

These are Limerick people.

You might also have been wondering about the lowlifes who hit the news with depressing frequency.  The kind of scum who have earned our town such shame even though they aren’t our people and are held in utter contempt here.

Do you know what?  Unusually for me, I don’t have any words to throw light on the question.  I look at these people and I’m as baffled as you are.

I might as well be looking into the monkey cage in the zoo.   

19th November 2008:  Munster 16 — All Blacks 18

____________________________________

I have the tickets here in my hand.  I’m looking at them.

They’re saying, You know what, Bock?  You could probably sell us for a large amount of cash.

And I’m replying  Yes. You’re right of course, but I’ll never sell you.  I’m going to hold you close.  I won’t let you out of my sight because you’re … well, you’re like a … like … dammit, you’re like a ticket to me.

I wipe away a manly tear.

The young fella and myself are off again tomorrow but this time it’s more than a match.  It’s an iconic moment.  As you know, we’ve been to a lot of big games together in recent years, including the two European Cup finals that Munster won, and we’ve had a lot of nervous moments along the way, a lot of disappointments and a lot of big days, but this one has an entirely different flavour.

I don’t know what to think about this.

On paper and in theory, we shouldn’t have the remotest chance of beating this crowd.  Look, let’s be straight about it: these Maori lads are the super race.  There’s no other way to put it.  They’re bigger, stronger, faster and more skilful.  For Christ’s sake what else would you expect from people whose ancestors went thousands of miles out into the Pacific in little open rowing boats and colonised every goddam island from Hawaii to New Zealand?  I find that terrifying.

Truly, I do.  I find such enterprise and self-confidence terrifying.  Such fearlessness.  These people are not easily defeated, especially when you remember that they’re not only fearless, but also bigger, stronger, faster etc etc etc …

God almighty, they’re also nicer than us.  I hate them.

And that’s only the Maoris.  That doesn’t include the likes of Richie McCaw and Dan Carter.  It’s simply astounding.

So.  What do you think?

They announced the Munster team yesterday and it doesn’t look too bad, but I had a bit of an experience last week that made me shut up about such things.  I was collecting my tickets from a gentleman who happens to be a rugby referee, and you know, in such company I should just keep my stupid opinions to myself, but did I?

Correct.  I did not.

Look, I said, we’ll have Freddie, Frankie and Mushy in the front row.  We’ll have Donncha Ryan and Micko.  We’ll maybe have Denis Leamy back from injury.  We’ll have Stringer at scrum-half, and you know Warwick has really lifted his game too.  We’ll have Dowling, Murphy, Mafi and Tipoki and we’ll have Dougie at full-back.  Not bad, is it?

He studied his pint for a moment, while nodding slowly.

True he said.  Not bad at all.

I basked in the glow of his professional approval.

Of course, he went on, you realise that’s pretty much the team Ulster beat 22-6.

Right.  Now you understand why I’m making no predictions about Munster winning this game.  The truth is, we haven’t a goat’s chance of beating these fuckers unless something magical happens and somehow a happy conjunction of pride and spirit combine to lift the Munster players to another plane of existence for eighty minutes.

Look, don’t dismiss the possibility. It happened in 1978 and, remote though the likelihood is, it could happen again.  At least, that’s what all Munster rugby fans hope, and that’s what everyone in the ground will be thinking.  Everyone in the ground, and everyone in Limerick watching the game at home or in the pubs.

Hey.  Cut us a bit of slack.  It’s been a dark week.

UPDATE

Now really.  Seriously.

Who would have thought that a Munster second selection would rattle the All Blacks so badly that they’d need a try in the last three minutes to beat us?

Who’d have thought it? And yet, who today isn’t proud of our lads who could quite easily have won this game, had it not been for one moment of brilliance from a gifted New Zealand player?

We were all over them and they knew it.  Perhaps they thought they were coming here to give an exhibition match, I don’t know about that, but in the end their captain was one happy man to pick up the ball after they had edged past Munster by 18 points to 16. 

One relieved man, having faced the probability of defeat for 77 of the preceding 80 minutes.

This was not some casual throwaway encounter in the course of an all-conquering Northern Hemisphere tour.  This was a test more intense than most full internationals, and certainly tougher than the Ireland XV were able to produce.  This was a Munster team that put it up to the world’s foremost internationals and left them reeling for the entire game.

I saw no triumphalism from the All Blacks at the end of this game.  I saw only relief, and though they won in the end, their victory was earned at the expense of pain and effort and respect for their opponents.  This was no whitewash.  This was no crushing of some upstart challengers.  This was a game between equals where nothing more than the swing of a pendulum decided who the winner was going to be.

When it was over, I was proud of our players, but I was even more proud of my son, who shed tears of anger that we didn’t finish them off.

_________________

Also on Bock

Heineken Cup 2008 - Pictures

Heineken Cup 2008 - We Won!!!

Heineken Cup Final 2008 - Cardiff

Heineken Cup Final: Limerick On The Move

Heineken Cup 2008

Heineken Cup Final 2008 - Munster vs Toulouse

Cardiff Pictures

Munster v Leinster

Munster 25 - Leinster 11

Munster 18 — Leinster NIL

Munster 19 — London Wasps 3

Gimme a bag of chips there, my good man.

Certainly Sir.  That’ll be two euros.

Look, I said.  I seem to have forgotten my wallet, but I just happen to have a wheelbarrow overflowing with Bank of Ireland shares.  Two million of them.

He snatched the bag of chips out of my hand.  Are you mad?  Two million Bank of Ireland shares wouldn’t buy you a bucket of rotten potato skins.  Don’t you have anything more valuable? 

Well, I said.  What will you take?

Surely you have something better than Irish bank shares.

I shrugged.  All I have is this pillow-case stuffed with worthless Zimbabwean dollars. 

That’ll be fine, he smiled.  Enjoy your chips.

Well?  What did you think of Fachtna Murphy’s performance?

I found it dispiriting, in a time when we were never more in need of a professional police force, to hear their leader mouthing pre-digested platitudes, as if that sort of pompous old nonsense still impresses us.

What struck me most of all was the poverty of his imagination.

I don’t care how good their detection rate is.  I don’t care how many murders they solved.  It makes no difference to me how many people they caught after the fact.  Why can’t he figure that out?

I don’t care.

So they catch my murderer?  What good is that to me after I get a bullet in the head?  What use is it to all the victims of crime if Fachtna Murphy’s boys and girls found out who did it?

I don’t care who did it.  I don’t want it to happen in the first place, and when I heard Murphy going on with all this pious old shit I realised we’re in the wrong hands.

This is just another sad old Irish cop who fails to understand that reactive policing isn’t good enough.

We don’t want detection.  We want protection.

Did you ever hear such an out-of-touch old dinosaur trying to spin the failures of his management in a positive light?  Oh, wait a minute — did I say management?  Did I somehow contrive to use the word management for a police force that thinks raiding pubs will solve the country’s crime problems?

You probably don’t know what I mean, so I suppose I should tell you. Did you know that one of the central tenets of received wisdom within our police force is the following gem: control the bars and you control public order offences.

Now, the fact that this belief is entirely unsupported by empirical evidence doesn’t deter these geniuses from continuing to believe it.  Indeed not, and why would it?  After all, these old crusties who run our police force are cut from the same cloth as the venerable Fachtna Murphy.  Authoritarian, old-fashioned policemen from the DeValera age, who have all, without exception, failed to make the transition to the 21st century.

We do not have a modern police force in this country.  Let’s be clear about that.  We don’t have a police force in touch with technology, or strategic thinking, or professional management techniques.

What’s worse, we don’t have a police force in touch with the middle ground: you and me.  Our police force is far more comfortable alienating your support and mine by petty bullying, by raiding pubs, by being obnoxious to the middle-ground people like you and me, by swaggering around on a contemptible power trip, when it should be confronting real criminals.  Instead, our semi-detached police force thinks that people like you and me are the threat, and treats us as such, while psychotic, demented families have the freedom to do as they please.

Why?

Because our police force wants an easy life and finds itself far more comfortable bullying people who won’t fight back.  People like you and me.

The people who pay their wages.

______________________

More: Garda Síochána

It all went downhill after that.  Do you really want an account of the game?

Bah!

It was the Infant Jesus.

You heading into town?

No.  It’s my hobby to stand at bus stops in the freezing cold.

Get in and shut up.

I’m truly grateful for being rescued from the ridiculous non-service that is Bus Éireann. 

Howya? I say.

Grand.  We’re gigging tomorrow night.

Dolans?

Yeah.  Kind of a tribute band.  Half-Arsed Half Biscuit.

I look at him a little crooked.  You mean, like Half Man Half Biscuit?

Yeah.  It’s a tribute to a band nobody ever heard of. 

Nice concept, I say, but possibly not a huge money-maker.

No, The Infant Jesus says.  True, but still, that’s Art for you. 

How are the rehearsals going?

A shambles, the Infant grimaces.  But still better than the original.  We were thinking of doing more tributes.

To other bands no-one ever heard of?

Yeah. 

Like?

Well, the Cramps.  Atomic Rooster.  That kind of thing.

Richard hell and the Voidoids?

Sure.

Not Mogwai, I hope?  Or Arab Strap?

Get the fuck out of this car now. You can walk into town.

Jesus Christ, Infant Jesus, chill.  I was only joking.

The Infant Jesus doesn’t look too chilled and I’m seriously worried.

Did you say fucking Mogwai?

No, I assure him.  I said Hog Pie.  I just love eating hog pie.

The Infant relaxes and puts away the stun gun he pulled from the glove box.

Sorry, he says.  Sorry.  For a minute there I thought you said …

God no, I reassure him.  Let me out here.  Thanks.

________________________________

In one of those happy coincidences, Mr Darwin also has something on  them HERE.  Probably a lot better than this shite.

This is our place.

Get out of my town you half-wit thug.

Our people are decent.

Get out of my town you parasite.

This is our home.

Get out of my town you inbred savage.

You don’t belong.

Get out of my town you vermin.

We are better than you.

Get out of my town you filth.

We know what you are.

Get out of my town you prick.

We detest you.

Get out of my town you virus.

You are less than an animal.

Get out of my town you cancer.

Get out of my town.

Get the fuck out of my town.

You don’t belong.

You are a piece of shit.

Get out of our town.

No Bock tonight unless I come home drunk and decide to babble some nonsense at you.

Tomorrow I’m going to Dublin with the Bullet for the All Blacks game, and with any luck I’ll take a few pictures.

OK?  Seeya later.

________

UPDATE

I didn’t come home drunk.  I came home fairly sober because I want to hit the road early, but I might well decide to do a small bit of ranting before I retire.  Who knows?

It could be worse.  I could be Prince Charles.