Could This Be Our Year?

I can barely bring myself to write this. It's taken me two days to bring myself to perhaps utter in a public domain the thought that must be running through so many Irish men and women's minds... And still I'm not sure if I can bring myself to say it directly. Could this finally be the year where Ireland win the Six Nations?

Oh no, I've said it out-loud! For the last two days I've been afraid to even fully articulate the thought in my head - now, I've definitely jinxed it.

For the last two years that I've been living in Paris I've been waiting for last Saturday's result. At least three times I've had to endure Irish defeats to the XV of France and then face my clubmate's jeering. This was on top of the massacring I would get for my own poor results and served only to compound my embarrassment.

In 2007, Ireland were favourites going into the tournament were playing their historic first match at Croke Park and lost with the last kick of the game as the restart was fumbled and France ran in for a try in the dying seconds. Crushing our Grand Slam ambitions in their infancy. Extra insult to injury was added when we missed out on winning the tournament by a points difference of 4 to France.

In the World Cup in Spetember 2007, we were in the group of death and died. The less said about that tournament the better. This helped to compound a particularly miserable time for me in the Autumn of that year.

And in the Six Nations 2008 we forgot to tackle Vincent Clerc which put shut to that tournament for us before it had begun. Here's a clip of Jonah Lomu showing how it's done -

At least that tournament saw the end of Eddie Hobbs... sorry, I mean Eddie O'Sullivan... as manager and perhaps saw the death of the cult of the personality that had pervaded the team.

So in some ways the ups and downs of my own performance were being mirrored by the shortcomings of the Irish team (albeit in a different sport, at a different level of performance and being far closer to achieving their ultimate goals before exploding in an angry ball of rage and self-doubt brought on by that unidentifiable Irish-Factor which I will return to later).

A Sea-Change?

For for the last 2 years, and for another five before that, I've been watching Irish teams of various forms and at various stages in their attempts to win the Six Nations hitting a brick wall when it came to France. So much so that we invented a trophy for ourselves seemingly in the "Triple Crown" for the team that beat the three other teams between England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.* It was as if we were saying "Sure we'll never beat France anyway" to me.

One can never be comfortable watching Ireland. The match on Saturday was 80+ minutes of anxiety right up to the final whistle, even through the dying seconds with a 9 point lead. France's repeated line breaks particularly at the beginning of the second half when they began to pay dividends were truly gut-wrenching occasions but again and Ireland's defence tracked back and the vast majority of France's opportunities came to nothing.

Quite simply it was an excellent match, both teams were playing at their absolute utmost level and created an amazing spectacle even from a neutral perspective. All over the park there were outstanding performances and for once this actually paid off. So very often as an Irish fan (and this extends beyond rugby) you see excellent performances that end in narrow defeats. That an Irish athlete will be riding high and in excellent form only for them to be chopped down just as the whole country is paying attention and they crack under the pressure of that collective expectancy.

The Irish Factor

That is perhaps the Irish-Factor. That millisecond of doubt that creeps in... Those few crumbs of the remants of Irish catholic guilt that make us instinctually demand just for perhaps a fleeting moment "Do I deserve this?"... The fossil in the tar-pit of our national psychey that prompts us that perhaps not winning is the natural order of things... That all pervasive sense of subconscious inferiority born coming from a backward little, disorganised island on the edge of civilisation.

Our hope is that maybe an individual, or a group, can someday escape this and that maybe this will pull some of us along with it. It won't be our politicians, and it won't be our business leaders... you know, the ones who perhaps should be giving leadership to our nation... and asking a group of athletes to help the country grow up might be a above there station but it might just get the ball rolling. Nothing breeds success like success afterall.

Perspective

Now as the dust begins to settle, all the talk is of calming down and that this is just the first match - BOD tells us to chill. Kidney as is his want as a great manager and truly classy individual while heaping praise on his players and deflecting it from himself is being sure to instill the virtues of taking each game as it comes (More reaction here).

So while everyone is saying this is just another game, the paradox is that that at once is true and untrue and that only a reflection on the tournament as a whole will prove this. For the players that are playing these games (as any athlete will know) there is only one game to focus on - the next one. For those following this team and has seen them take shape over the best part of a decade and is willing them to succeed on our behalf with every fibre of their body this is just another game... but if we are to look back at this in a few months and this was the start of the road to glory, then I'll never forget this springtime in Paris.





*While the term had existed since 1883 a trophy was only presented for it by Bank of Scotland in 2006. Ireland had won the Triple Crown and Bank of Scotland had just entered the Irish market - mmm, I smell synergy.

What's been going on in France lately?

April is a relatively quiet month for me in terms of travel anyway, with all my competitions in Paris or it's environs, so I'm taking the opportunity to enjoy Paris a bit and take in the atmosphere of what is still my favourite city in the world.

A war is raging in Paris at the moment, or more accurately in the miles above Paris, as the biting winds, snow flurries, hail and downpours compete with burst of exquisite sunshine and crystal blue skies. It seems though that the Spring and late the Summer will likely win out though and finally I'll be free to walk around in my shorts and sandals like the hippy bum I was born to be. Hoozah!

...

I've been taking intensive French classes in the Alliance Francaise for the last few weeks, an investment I hope will stand to me when I eventually get a proper job in this place. The classes are good and I can feel the jumble of awful grammar that I have in my head starting to unravel and make sense. I've picked up some bad habits in French over the last year of speaking the language but never really studying it, so hopefully this will get me back on the right track.

It's nice to meet new people as well and with the weather starting to improve and relatively light month for competitions this month, I'm sure I'll find time to have some more fun with my classmates.

...

In terms of my training, I've been training intensively in the club but also trying to seriously hit my fitness this month as I've perhaps let it slide slightly over March. I've headed back to the gym and the pool in a big way. Need to buff up a bit before surfing holiday in the Summer anyway.

Last weekend saw the quarter final of the French team championship. I was selected for my clubs second team, a step up from the fourth team last year. In the end, my team ran out fairly easy victors against Chatou - 45 - 25. We have a return leg to fence next weekend on the 19th in their club and then hopefully it will be on to the semi-finals.

Our women's team that fenced that day also claimed a convincing victory against Chatou's women's team but unfortunately our men's first team dropped their match against Orleans in Division 1 and will have to get a victory in Orleans next weekend in order to force the fixture to a decider.

...

Anyway, I hope the sunshine will keep up for the weekend (even if the forecast which is never accurate) is for showers and thunderstorms. At the minute I'm waiting impatiently for a delivery from DHL which I was promised would come between 14:00 and 18:00 [Thanks, DHL!]. One of these days I'm definitely going to update all that I've missed over February and March and then after that I'm going to go back and update everything from August to December (well, maybe not everything).

Dtus!

The Other Charleville...

...The one where Cheddar is laughed at!

We left for the Circuit National in Charleville on Saturday afternoon as the competition was to start early on Sunday morning.

The trip to Charleville passed without incident much like the actual town of Charleville. We walked around Charleville on a Saturday night for almost 2 hours looking for somewhere to eat. Despite being somewhat picturesque, the place was an absolute ghost town. Those restaurants which were even open were full and laughed at us, at the suggestion that we might get a table without a reservation (there was 8 of us, so this was somewhat understandable).

Eventually, much to my discust we found an Welsh bar (apparently they do exist) and we ate there. Reasonably cheap pizzas were greatly appreciated after the long walk. Less appreciated was when I managed to pour my entire beer into my lap - absolutely soaking my trousers. Between that and stuffing my Calzone pizza with chips I amused my French team-mates at least.

...

The next morning we travelled to the venue which was over half-an-hour outside of Charleville. The setting was incredible - it was a lake-side sports/conference centre in the middle of an evergreen forest. All this on the warmest day of the year, with blaring sunshine twinkling off the lake.

The setting seemed to suit me and produced my best performance at a French competition so far. While the referee in my poule was absolutely blind (afterwards he went back to his actual job at the refreshments stand), I managed to rescue my poule with two victories (but that really should have been at least 4 were it not for the ref). I was ranked 41st and in the Last 64 managed to overturn my opponent who was seeded 24th after the poules.

In the last 32 I faced Lombolay (the junior world #1) who I had faced in Budapest a couple of weeks earlier. The first couple of points went against me but then I started to get on a roll. I was really in the zone and started picking him off with counter-attack after counter-attack and when I launched my own attacks they were landing perfectly. Eventually, I found myself 14-9 up. Needing only one more point to secure a very impressive victory.

I suppose I started thinking of the victory too much, I suppose that when he started getting points back I panicked somewhat. Anyway, somehow I let the match slip away from me and what could have been an awesome victory turned into a crushing defeat. Damn.

...

Anyway, like I was saying, this was still my best performance at a French Circuit competition so far and I know myself now that I can perform at that level and improve my future results.

The journey home to Paris was not too long. We listened to the England - France rugby match, which was completley incomprehensible for me because of the speed at which the commentators spoke. I ended up thinking that France one and it was till the next day that I realised otherwise.

As we approached Paris, Jacque Chirac was making his final official address to the nation. I wish all french people would speak as clearly as he did - I could understand him perfectly.

A Visitation

The weekend of the 2nd of February, Rachel came to visit me in Paris on her way home from Erasmus in Belgium. No discussion of fencing, no extra training though so this is hardly the place to discuss this...

Knack-Pain in Strasbourg

I thought I best bring you up to date with my competitions before I start writing about my week in Budapest, so I'll fill you in quickly on my trip to Strasbourg.

The trip to Strasbourg called for another long minibus journey and another long lesson in how to play another French card game - this one even more upsurd then the last. Basically, the aim of the game was to get rid of your cards but losing the game meant you were given a penalty for the next round. If you came last you would have to give your two best cards to the person who came first. This lead to several hours of losing hands until I eventually scraped my way out of last place, by which time everyone had had enough and we gave up.

After a nice meal in the picturesque Strasbourg town centre, I had a good night's sleep blessed with the rarity of a room on my own.

As for the competition, I was once again disappointed with my performance in the poules. I managed to get through one round of DE, however, at the expense of one of my team-mates who I beat in the 128. My low-seeding however guaranteed me a tough next round and I drew Julien Pillet - the toughest possible. Despite some initial optimism and a couple of decent counter-attacks, he pretty much picked me apart and the match ended 15-5. It was a good experience and I really am in no position at the minute to challenge this multiple olympian and best french sabreur of recent times at the moment.

Again, I spent the rest of the competition as the club photographer... someday I may be a real fencer.

Circuit National Strasbourg 28.1.07

The competition ended at 6ish and we arrived home finally after yet another exhausting minibus journey around midnight. So after all that the highlight of the weekend for me whould have to be the discovery of Knack-Pain, a strasbourgeois delicacy. Pronounced it was basically two hot-dogs in a proper baguette. From this you should be able to judge how the weekend was for me.

I find my form still fluctuating as much as my confidence in my ability to fence and perhaps that is telling. After every time I get knocked down it's up to me to build myself back up again.

Alpine Disaster

...the competition in Grenoble goes somewhat awry.

We were to travel to Grenoble on Saturday afternoon, the competition took place on Sunday, and so met at the club at around 2pm. Our chariot for the 6 hour journey to Grenoble was to be the US Metro minibus which is really more a converted van with a tractor engine and the most uncomfortable seats in the world.

We whiled away the hours playing incomprehensible (to me anyway) French card games like Bullet. As far as I can tell it's the equivalent if not the exact same as Bridge. A ridiculous scoring system, team play and completely arbitrary rules all explained in french made for a stressful journey for me. I sat there wondering what the Valeé that they were talking about was for a good while (it's the Jack). Eventually I played a hand so stupid that it spelt the end for my team. I was excluded to the relief of both parties I'm sure from the next round and dosed or played my DS for the remainder of the journey.

We stayed at the customary Hotel Ibis that evening; dined on a luxurious meal of spaghetti and ketchup in their restaurant; and spent a few restless hours sleeping before we were to leave the hotel for the venue for check-in at 8am!

The venue was a converted Ice-rink in the centre of the city. It was well laid out and well run as I've come to expect from a French competition.

The competition itself went terrible for me. Anxious to impress on the piste... I froze. My movements were non-existent and I ended up with a very poor single victory from the poules when I should have had at least 3. (No need to make observations about this in the comments, I've already looked at my attitude in great detail after the fact and have worked on improving it since).

So my seeding was terrible for the DE and I duly ran into the talented young Belgian fencers Laurent de Trog. The score at the break was reasonably close but he pulled away in the second half as I became more disillusioned with the tournament and felt my involvement in it slipping away.

So I spent the rest of the day taking photo of my team-mates who were still in the competition. I was finished with the competition by noon and it lasted till 5ish - the repercharge system they use for the last 16 dragging it out by at least an extra hour.

Another 5/6 hour journey back on the bus arriving in Paris at around 12 and a lie in on Monday morning dreaming about what could have been if I had just had my head sorted better on the day...

Disappointment in the Alps

When I feel like talking about it I'll give a more complete account of the tournament. In the mean time, let's just say I had plenty of time to be taking photos. They can be found on my Picass Gallery

Circuit National Grenoble 14.1.07

French Nationals Final

As promised I've uploaded the Final of the Men's Sabre from the French Senior Nationals. It's just like Maynooth in May I swear...

Julian Pillet (left) Vs. Nicolas Lopez (right), world #3 and #12 respectively. The footage begins with the score at 8-7 to Pillet. Pillet has been around for ages and Lopez is the up-and-coming young pup on the French team (he wore a beret when he was being presented to the crowd - what a character!?)



The rest of the finals were incredibly disappointing and mostly noteworthy because of the absence of many of the national team fencers who had been beaten before the final. In Men's sabre the 4 national team members all made it to the semis making it a very high standard.

...

Here's a few pictures mainly to show the impressive venue but also how terrible the Men's Foil Final was - don't even get me started on the Women's Foil final.

French Senior Nationals 9.12.06

The Longest Weekend Part 3: Saturday Fencing and Drinking

The next morning David and Keith awoke on a floor in the Irish College to discover they were covered in pink permanent marker. A crude drawing of a penis seemed to be the most popular design with one or two each adorning their foreheads. There was also an address to a Bebo site scrawled down one arm and multiple penis down the other. It wasn't until the next day the Keith spotted the large pink swazkita on his shoulder, however. That being said he didn't realise about his forehead till well after he'd enter a bakery to get a baguette at 8 o'clock that morning.

I had spent the night in my own bed (which was still a sleeping bag on top of a bed, as they had interupted my house shopping on Thursday). My plan for the day was to head for the French National fencing championships which were to be held in a large stadium near Parc de Prince at Porte de St. Cloud (home of Paris St. Germain Football Club and the recent riots after the shooting dead of PSG fan as he was part of a mob attacking a Jewish Tel Aviv fan by a plain clothes police officer).

But I digress. The top 32 in France were fighting it out for bragging rights over one another. I arrived around 2pm with the finals at four so got to see all the semi-finals across the six weapons. By the time of the finals it was amazing how few of the national teams across the weapons had actually reached them. All in all the finals were disappointing, save for the Men's Sabre. The lads who had dragged themselves in just before four and who had found me during a break in the women's epee agreed. When I get a chance I'll try and post the final of the Men's sabre somewhere (Julien Pillet Vs Nicolas Lopez) - it was a very exciting match.

...

Once the dust had settled, it was agreed that we all needed sushi. Paris is littered with sushi restaraunts of various standards, we found a cheap one and tucked in.

There was business to be taken care of however and we were soon back at my place for an impromptu house warming and some wine. With the six of us in my tiny apartment it was pretty much packed so at around 11 we decided to seek out more space. Keith and David returned to the Long Hop (where the staff there would continue their attempts to kill the two of them). I decided to go with Phil, Liz and Rachel to a Reggae club that Phil had heard of.

Thinking that the club was only at Nation I decided not to bring a coat and wore only a light fleece instead. The club was actually near Mo Nationale, which is much further away in the South of the city. We found it slightly amusing that there was a reggae club on a road called Rue Des Noirs (french racial segregation in full flow), less funny when the road actually Rue Dunois and even less funny when after travelling the length of the road we found nothing resembling a club or even an open pub on it's entire length. On the return voyage the result was exactly the same.

Phil rang his friend from the jazz club to find out where it was. Apparently the small community hall we had passed was the place where the gig was on and it finished at 11 O'clock, not started at eleven o'clock. Either which way it was very much closed when we reached it at twelve. Suspicions that the rasta who gave him the information may well have bin praisin' de almighty Ja wit dem holiest mari-ji-juana spread quickly about the group as we wondered how the hell we'd get back to civilisation, or at least the proto-civilisation that was the Long Hop.

We ventured forth to Place D'Italie where a massive taxi queue left us pondering our next move - until we saw a bus to Gare de Lyon. This was in the general direction that we were going and we thought we could get that towards the Long Hop. Although the bus said Gare Du Lyon on it several stops later we realised we were heading out towards the Banlieue. Rather than go through a midnight stroll in some of the most dangerous areas in France, maybe in Europe, we decided we needed to get off the bus. The minute we had, we saw another bus for Gare Du Lyon heading the opposite direction and hopped onto it without a second thought.

On this extra-pleasent, journey a woman threw-up at our feet and a drunk who smelled of petrol approached us for a light. Declining we got off at Place D'Italie, where we'd started, and began to walk. Highlights of the walk included the Paris zoo where we saw some ostriches and the several times where I felt I might be coming down with hypothermia (see my mention of only wearing a light fleece).

Eventually, we reached the Long Hop only to find it closed. David and Keith were at the lock-in ongoing inside. While the staff of the Long Hop did their level best to end the lives of my two friends, the rest of us went to the Pomme D'Eve to wait for them. It was at this point, as I sat down in a chair in the cave that three nights of excess began to catch up with me and my eyelids became intolerably heavy. When the lads arrived they were in a similar state perhaps induced more by having vodka poured directly into their mouths rather than tiredness but none the less the spirit of the evening had turned distinctly tired and/or emotional.

Whatever was going on in David's head he decided that we should leave, minus Keith, and having no more energy to resist I gave in a followed him out of the bar. We paused briefly to have a photo taken with the South African flag outside and then headed back to David's for a respite before tomorrows fun. Keith eventually followed after an hour or two later with the assistance of Phil. This didn't stop him from trying the door code on the wrong door for a good while but that is a story for another day...

Where Were We?

I move into my new apartment with a brief detour via Ireland.

Thursday morning the new sofa-bed was to be delivered to my apartment. My landlady had suggested sleeping on the floor for the night and waiting for the bed to be delivered sometime between 7am and 2pm. In the end, I chose the comfort of my bed in the Irish Centre over the floor and sleeping bag and I felt quite vindicated in my choice.

That Wednesday evening, Kerry had come to watch fencing training. A good night for it too, as it was a busy night's training with a lot of fencers, drills and even champagne afterwards.

When I got back to my now-empty room in the Irish Centre, Phil was just on his way out to a jam at a jazz club so I tagged along for a bit of listen. It was a really cool spot – absolute stereotypical Parisian basement jazz club (if you can't imagine that then you have no culture). I even got an opportunity to practice my Japanese on Phil's two Japanese friends; it was just like that scene from Austin Powers. A good night was had by all, as far as I was concerned.

...

I slumbered peacefully until, at 6am, it was time to head across to the apartment to wait for the bed. Once I reached the apartment, I decided to doze for a bit while waiting for the Swede from Ikea to arrive. There was no chance I would have been able to sleep on that parquet floor for a whole night[[?]], but just after about an hour of struggling to find sleep, just when my head was filling of dreams of home (like some Erin hotcup ad), just then the buzzer rang.

My disappointment was compounded further when there was nothing Swedish or even remotely female about the French Ikea delivery man, but not wanting to hurt his feelings I hid my resentment towards him well.

I hate whiney observational comedians who complain about flat-pack furniture. Within an hour I had constructed a sofa-bed, a foot locker and a standard lamp. This was the most manly I had felt in weeks. With my natural instincts to use tools appeased, I spent the rest of the day strutting between the Irish Centre and the apartment, moving the rest of my belongings over.

...

I decided to leave training a bit early that evening to have time to pack for my return to Ireland for the weekend.

This return required an early start on Friday to get to Charles de Gaulle by 8am for my flight at 10am. Charles de Gaulle terminal one is currently undergoing a massive renovation to restore the look of the insane structure, which looks as if several motorways are trying to strangle one central hideous tower of concrete –so good luck with that.

My plane was ten minutes delayed coming into Paris, so it was twenty minutes late for departure and in turn we lost our place in the queue and spent an hour on the tarmac. Eventually, however, we reached Dublin.

The Long Road To, And Back From, Damigny

This was my first taste of French competition, how would it compare to that which I have experienced before?

As I may have mentioned before all the club members at US metro have been very welcoming to me. I already feel like part of the team and although my French is at times abysmal, my ability to laugh, smile or nod when appropriate is becoming quite awesome.

Damigny is a small Normandie Village just outside the slightly larger town of Anecon. The Senior Sabre competition was to be held on Sunday and there was to be a Veteran competition in Foil and Sabre on the Saturday. As it happens, both mini-buses that were hired to take the team there on Saturday evening were full. Hence, I took a lift from Jean-Francois (Jef) on Saturday early Saturday morning since he was entering the veteran's competition.

It was a two and a half hour journey each way with four French people with me sitting in the middle of the back seat (I got stuck with the worst seat there and back). The absolute exhaustion I felt from trying to listen to what each of them was saying, cannot be adequately described. That is not to mention the fear I felt when it seemed likely that one of them was going to ask me a question. Eventually I fell asleep to avoid having to concentrate on the French.

I got to take in the full weekend of competition and see how they do things over here. Not surprisingly, they do things well. It was quite a packed hall with 16 pistes and a seperate finals piste and bleechers in a seperate hall. Everything ran on time, the refereeing was for the most-part excellent (no fencers refereeing at all), snack and dinning facilities were excellent. Everything you could want from a tournament.

The day of veteran's competition dragged on but ran smoothly enough. That evening we stayed in the local campanile and watched France against New Zealand. Jokes were exchanged before the match generally at the expense of Ireland and Irish rugby but these tapered off as France were annihilated by the All Blacks save for a single wobbly drop-goal. I kicked myself when I didn't learn about Ireland's fantastic victory against the Spring-bocks until after we had all left for our rooms - I could have really made friends then.

Sunday morning, there were 119 in Men's sabre including a few French internationals and one or two ex junior world champions, apparently. I was very nervous going into my first few poule matches. I really wanted to impress my new team mates. Added to this the ability of my opponents and I had an abysmal start to the tournament losing to my first two opponents. My first win on French soil came against a slightly awkward left-handed fencer who I dispatched quite easily. Glad to get this under my belt I started fencing slightly better but I could only manage one other victory. I knew that a measly two victories wasn't goig to get me an easy draw.

Realistically, I should have been looking for 3 wins from my poule out of a possible six and on a good day I feel I could have got 4, which could have seen me quite well placed. On the day though the novelty of this new environment and wanting to impress my teammates got the better of me. In the Last-128 I faced another left handed fencer who ranked 43rd after the poules. I started the match well and took an early lead, in fact I was leading going into the break 8-7.

During the break one of the coaches from metro advised me, in French. Most of the break was spent with me trying to figure out in my head what was said to me. The basic gist of it was hit him on the head, not the wrist but I couldn't be certain. Anyhow, I can't say that this momentary confusion played any part. After the break, I lost concentration somewhat, my opponent capitalised and ran out 15-11 victore. I was pretty gutted.

...

To give this some sort of context the British no. 1 Neil Hutchinson went out in the Last-64. Alexander Woog (my US Metro teammate) and no. 5 in France went out in the last-16. Evangelos Efstathiou a US fencer and in the top 100 in the world went out in the last-16 also. It was a high standard of competition.

...

My final rank of 85th was very disappointing, not least because a top 50% result would have got me some money at the end of the season, but in the overall scheme of things has only strengthened my resolve to work harder. After all I have only been here for a week and I didn't come here to show off how good I am to the French but to improve through fencing them. Week 1 over and I feel I've accomplished quite a lot.

I'll keep you posted...

Salut!