Thierry Henry - Class to Cheat in 0.5 second

To get some rambling and unordered thought out of my head before going to sleep...

The difference between Ireland and France this evening was the blatant cheating of the one of the erstwhile greatest players of this generation and a man who was formerly a great ambassador for the game. Thierry Henry handling the ball (twice) intentionally to keep the ball in play has lead Ireland to crash out of the World Cup qualifiers.

After exiting undefeated from a group with the world champions, after being told a week before the draw for the play-offs would be made that the play-offs would be seeded, explicitly to allow greater revenue generating nations a better chance to get into the world cup, a group of footballers dismissed as journeymen and second-rate go toe to toe with one of the greatest nations in world football... and then lose to a blatant act of cheating from the very leader of the "generation Henry"! There is no justice in sport, it is inherently unfair.

Here's my Jerry Springer summing up moment before I cry myself to sleep. If Robbie Keane had stuck the ball up his jersey and ran into the French goal and somehow the referee had allowed the goal (I know, completely hypothetical since the referee was never going to give Ireland the benefit of the doubt), would we Irish still be celebrating...

No wait, I can't do it. That situation didn't happen, that is fantasy. Henry did cheat (blatantly and intentionally) Ireland fought honestly and were given no reward. I feel nothing but disappointment and shame for Thierry Henry - he knows he cheated.

Lizarazu had the class to come out and be frank about what had happen. To paraphrase 'we cannot be proud of what happened this evening it was shameful. We can be relieved but we should be ashamed'. No one chimed in to agree (his co-host was Arsene Wenger who's hardly one to concede wrong-doing) but he was right and I think most reasonable people would agree.

Anyhow, I suppose that is the advantage of sport - "It's not a matter of life or death... it's much more important than that!".

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.

Intervarsities Epilogue: 70's Porn Man

Since the 'varsities I've been inundated with emails, text messages and phone calls congratulating, thanking and many more just asking for the full story about what happened on the weekend.

Many have asked me to recant the fictional story of the fictional character called 70's Porn Man and the fictional characters he interacted with, who I invented over the course of the weekend. Obviously any resemblance to real people living or dead is completely coincidental. 70's Porn Man and his actions are entirely a work of fiction in no way based on real life. Enjoy...

...

Dr. 70's Porn Man was the honorary president of X University Fencing Club. His predecessor won something like 16 'varsities or at least his team did while he did nothing. X college haven't won since he took over 6 years ago. He decided this year was going to be his year and started getting the team together, coming down to training, taking attendance at training, encouraging as many of them as possible to go to Salle X and buying them all green arm bands with XUFC to wear during the 'varsities.

I'd seen him around the odd time before but the 'varsities weekend was the first time I've been exposed to him for any prolonged period. He wears dark sunglasses all the time, has ridiculous oily shoe-polish-black hair and has incredibly bad teeth. He's also a tremendous windbag and I'm fairly sure I saw him carrying around a picture of him on some team or other on the weekend. All his conversations start with "Back in my day..."

This was all well and good before the 'varsities, XU were happy enough to take his money and have rally the team a bit and no one else gave two shits what he was doing. He was hanging around all day one of the 'varsities cheering on XU really loudly and being a bit of a dick we noticed him and gave him the name 70's Porn Man because he looks like some sort of aging sleazy seventies porn star and director or something. On day 1 he'd made a complaint to the DT about Stephen trying to influence the ref in some match or other... complete bullshit considering how much he was bothering the refs and the first sign of things to come.

The shit started to hit the fan on day 2 though (the shit being him). We were winning by 2 weapons to 1 after day 1 so that must have rattled him a bit. I saw him wandering around talking to fencers from other clubs and then eventually he went up to DT. News quickly spread over to me that he was making a complaint against UCD. I went over to the desk to hear him suggesting that UCD should be thrown out of the competition because they had failed to have the trophy on show (Aidan had it back in his room and was going to come with it later). I laughed at Des and said something along the lines of "So we're going to let some randomer make up the rules of the 'varsities now". Des wanted to appease him, so I brought Stephen over and he got Aidan to bring down the trophy. As we walked over to the table he slow-clapped us. We were just thoroughly bemused.

Talking to Hugh afterwards he told me that 70's Porn Man had been trying to convince him to go up and complain with him too, so it seemed like a few universities were annoyed by this. At this point 70's Porn Man who was walking into the other hall, made a detour from the wall, walked into the crowd of three of us and barged his way in between Hugh and whoever else it was I was talking to. Shouldering them and sarcastically saying thank you before walking off again. It was around then that Cahill and Keith came in hung-over and wearing big aviators. I borrowed Keith's aviators and marched up to the DT desk and demanded that I wanted to launch a complaint against XU. All the while 70's Porn Man was right behind me.

We went back to whatever we were doing but 70's Porn Man continued. Next thing he went over to try and use the same line about each of the individual trophies. He corned Lorraine and started berating her. I could see her over with him for at least half an hour but I was fencing a match at the time and by the time I was finished she had walked away - crying! I talked with her for a bit then made my way to the DT desk to try and get that shit thrown out of the hall. Des and Jonathan talked with Lorraine but were again reluctant to cause a scene and he remained.

Marcos went over to him to appease him and let him rattle on to him for ages about 70's Porn Man's plans to take over the Fed! Marcos of course said we'd support him if he'd just shut-up for the day (yeah right!).

It was pretty quiet up until women's sabre began. As the probably the best sabre president there, I was asked to ref loads of the sabre. I reffed all the teams including XU and I reffed them all well. He was standing down XU's end and cheering for them for some of them and I was joking with Kate that he was making it very difficult for me to give them points. The things was - XU thought he was a dick as well and didn't want him representing them at all. They were already quite embarrassed about what he was doing and worse was yet to come.

I was asked by the girls on both teams to ref the UCD vs. Trinity match. I made sure that both teams agreed to that before the match and neither had a problem with it. It was a very difficult match for me to preside and if anything I overcompensated in favour of Trinity - and Kate agreed afterwards, when we had won, and thanked me for the presiding along with the rest of her team.

They were very pleased with my presiding and so much so that they sought me out and asked me to preside their next match against Colraine - a match they were almost certain to win and that I had no problem reffing. I had finished two matches and was changing over to the third when 70's Porn Man came up and squared off to me -
"I've asked the DT that you be banned from reffing all our matches. That's the way it works you don't ref us and we don't ref you. Now we'll have to find another ref."

"Well you're team has just asked me personally to ref them". The Ladies sabre team started backing me up and confirming that I was a good ref but he persisted."I very much doubt that you'll find another ref willing to take this match if you have me removed", I continued. "Now if this is not what the team captain (Colin had come-over and sided with me) or the team itself want I'm going to have ask you to back off"
I was shaking with rage at this stage, quite close to actually decking this shit. "I'm so close to having you expelled from this venue"

Jonathan came over at this stage to calm me down and explains things a bit. He claimed that Lorraine had allowed me to be banned - so I went off to Lorraine. She had obviously said no such thing; she had said that if they didn't want me to ref they themselves would have to tell me. So, I went back in to ref the match.

As the two fencers got ready for the next match, I leaned over to 70's Porn Man who was sitting down the end of the piste grumbling loudly and pointed and winked at him saying "I love you, 70's Porn Man". He immediately stormed up to me and squared up to my face - "Do you have something to say to my face?” So I laughed in his face and said "I love you, man!" patting him on the shoulder. "You do in your arse!" He grumbled and walked away. "Are you accusing me of sarcasm? And I'd watch that language or you're going to get carded. Now stay the hell away from my piste!"

At this point he got up and stormed across the piste out into the other hall. I thought he was going to go attack poor Lorraine again so I told Tony and Marcos to go interject. As the bout finished though, the XU captain walked up to me shook my hand and said 70's Porn Man had resigned and he thanked me wholeheartedly, as did the sabre team and any other XU members around me - it was incredible. So he'd had enough of them being ungrateful of his meddling and resigned - Result!

So I was a hero of XU they joked about me being the next president. The world has been turned on its head by one cantankerous old fart.

So there you go...

...

Once again I'd like to point out that 70's Porn Man and any other person mentioned are purely a fictional characters and is not based on any real person living or dead. The events depicted in this blog-entry are fictitious. Any similarity to any person living or dead is merely coincidental.

Intervarsities Part 5: Day Two - The Finale

Our hangovers couldn't hold us back in Men's Sabre and we finished out the weapon undefeated in the morning despite the best efforts of UCC who gave us a very good match. With men's sabre finished it was 2 weapons to 1 in our favour. The intervarsities however is always judged on total team victories so our superior performance in men's sabre might have given us breathing space of a couple of matches.

Despite the debut Irish appearence of a French top-20 epeeist for Trinity our girls took them very close but the pivotal match in Women's Epee went to Trinity. Our girls didn't drop any other matches however. A similar story in Men's Foil, the pivotal match was UCD Vs. Trinity but Trinity managed to get the upper hand in that match also.

UCD were always going to favourite in Women's Sabre and I helped warm them up for the event. In the end, UCD were undefeated in women's sabre destroying all in their wake.

Finally, after possibly the longest weekend of my life the Intervarsity was secured for UCD in the most closely fought 'varsities in years. This was UCD's 20th intervarsity victory and our seventh in a row.

Intervarsities Part 4: Day One

After the bad nights sleep I was up early to fence Epee. I had a light-breakfast of museli and some toast. I was delighted to see my fellow Epee team members tucking into an enormous fry half-an-hour before we were to start fencing. I managed to scrounge a lift across to the venue from Sonja, so we were over there in two minutes.

Epee, it must be explained is a unknown foreign land to me. I've spent the last 3 years training exclusively in Sabre, the most frenetic and immediate of the weapons. Epee is the aboslute antithesis of sabre, patient, often slow and methodical.

After our warm-up, our first match was against Queens. This was not the Queens of previous years by any stretch of the imagination. Some of the experienced fencers they had previously had left and some of the experienced fencers they still had didn't show up - so they were left with a team of beginners. 10 minutes of them walking on to our epees later and we were finished.

This didn't really work in our favour as our next match was against our main rivals Trinity, who while we had been able to snooze through our first match had been given a good warm-up by a decent UCC team. Colin, our no. 1 epeeist had a disaster, as did I. Aidan carried the team during the match but it wasn't to be enough and I had to endure my only team defeat of the weekend - ugh, how horrible!

Things went according to plan after that. We crusied through most of the rest of the matches, that is until I was faced with Noel from Maynooth. The man will not attack, will not make any offensive action, will not do anything except wait for a definite attack and then parry reposte. My matches against him have always been frustrating as a result. The sheer monolithic boring nature of his tactics always enfuriate me and this match was no exception. I freaked out a little and after one more match, I had had enough of Epee for the day and was subbed out for the more than capable Matthew, who had a blinder for the rest of the Epee.

We finished second in men's epee behind Trinity after our sole defeat to them. As that was happening our women's foilists were cleaning house and destroying all in their wake, including Trinity which on paper seemed like it would be a closer match. It was 1 weapon apiece as we entered Men's Sabre, back to what I do best.

Men's sabre was a cruise for us with myself, Stephen, Julian and Ken tearing lumps from most including a very one-sided match against Trinity. Trinity however were destined to suffer with a weaker men's sabre team. They lost to us, UCC and Royal College of Surgeons (forgetting about the very talented foilist and sabeur, Mohammed). As the day wore on it seemed likely that despite everything, Men's sabre was going to run onto the next day. We were going to have to fence again in the morning, hang-overs and all.

...

The evenings entertainment was exceptional and it was great to get a chance to talk to everyone after being away for a while. The intervarsities Initiation was the usual law-suit-waiting-to-happen drunken slip-fest that it normally is and UCD won the boat-race at a canter (Stephen and Eimear displaying what stunning drunks engineers are).

I took a backseat to the madness for the most part and took the oppurtunity to catch up with people I hadn't seen in ages.

The night just wouldn't stop but at 4am in the residents bar I felt it wasn't going to yield much more and decided to call it a night.

Intervarsities Part 3: Destination Maynooth

Friday made the mammoth trek to Maynooth's Glenroyal Hotel.

Maynooth is a weird place. It's situated maybe 30 minutes outside Dublin when there is no traffic. It's quite blatantly a suburb in Dublin's great conurbation which stretches well past this small Kildare village. All that being said the locals seem determined to be as country as possible perhaps as a reaction to being swallowed by Dublin. The pubs are very much country pubs (albeit bigger and full of students), the hotel is very much a country hotel with weddings with people with mustaches on-going 24 hours. Although it's a poor reflection on me I was quite taken aback when the owner of the Centra spoke to me in Irish. Anyway, to me it might as well be Ballybunion as 30 minutes from my house.

Getting out there on a Friday evening it might as well be BallyNaHoolieWoolie with the M50 jock-o-block the entire way out to the exit for Galway and the N4 snailing along after that. The team had a meal together in the hotel that evening. As the time crept on towards ten we headed in to the main street to meet up with the other teams for the draw that would decide the order for the weekend.

We headed down to the Roost and when most of the teams were there we made the draw. I didn't stick around too much longer after that, as I found myself pretty shattered once again.

The idea for the team to all travel and stay in the hotel was a master-stroke. There was a real sense of togetherness about the whole thing and making a weekend of it, even if we were so close to UCD.

Well it seemed like a good idea until I tried to get to sleep in my room. Just outside the window there was a vent for an air-conditioning vent which was making a noise like a tractor, right outside the window. Shortly after 11pm that noise was joined by the noise of the nightclub which must have been directly below us, the throbbing irregular beat of the base from whatever best of 90's trance CD that they were playing filled the room and there was no way I could get to sleep. Eventually just before 2, I went down to the desk to complain, they apoligise and told me that there wasn't much they could do tonight but tomorrow they would change the room. The nightclub was due to close at 2am anyway, so with the promise of quite to come I returned to bed.

At around 2am the nightclub finished and by about 3am the stragglers who had been talking loudly outside it's door, also under the window had been cleared. I was just about getting to sleep when someone statred shouting in the corridor. I soon overheard that it was some female knacker with a thick Dublin accent who was very tired and emotional whaling down the phone to someone called Sharon "Shrad-don" as only drunken scum no how to do at three O'Clock in the morning. Eventually it stopped but at 4am she came back and I could take no longer - I got and got my trousers on again, ready to smash her head in with the nearest fire-hydrant. Luckily enough as I poked my head out the door some hotel staff were coming down the corridor to collect her.

Finally, I could get to sleep... for 4 hours!

Intervarsities Part 2: Back to Training in UCD

Thursday I spent running errands during the day and taking it easy at home; watching a few DVDs that my brother, Niall, had bought since I've been away.

Training that evening in UCD was pretty good. I was glad to be back and see everyone and training was packed as I was told it had been for several weeks previously. The team was working hard towards the weekend as we knew it was going to be close.

I did a bit of epee again just to get my eye in a bit (although later I think I would have been better working on instinct for the weekend) and finished off with some sabre towards the end of the night, including a bit of an exhibition against Marcos. His DKIT lads watched on as we fought. As a gentleman, I shall save the blushes of my coach and not elaborate on the score.

After a good session, I went home for a relatively early night as I knew it would be a long weekend ahead.

Intervarsities Part 1: The Prodigal Returns...

Wednesday 21st February I returned home to Ireland for the Irish Intervarsities. I'd changed my flight from the Friday to the Wednesday since there was no training in Paris that week since the club was closed for the mid-term ski holiday. Hence I thought I'd get a couple of days at home before the weekend and maybe get in a few training sessions back home.

I flew CityJet/Air France back to Dublin and arrived mid-afternoon. After returning home and recanting my stories from the last two weeks to my Mum and Granny. I went to training in Salle Dublin.

There was myself and another sabreur, Stephen, that's all there was to fence in sabre. It reminded me why I left, I suppose. I don't know how Stephen puts up with it. The two of us were fencing weapons other than sabre on the weekend so we took the oppurtunity to fence epee or foil; so that saved the session from being a complete waste.

Valentines Day

Fully convinced that I was broke in Paris, Rachel didn't expect me to turn up to her placement with French chocolates. I was in Dublin for about twelve hours and flew out the next morning back to Paris.

Needless to say she was surprised and seemed pleased but there was no fencing done, so this is hardly the place to discuss this.

Voodoo Chile Brief Return

Well I'm home for Christmas. It's on my mind to add a few pictures and the like to my blog over the next few days. As well as this I'll hopefully be updating you all on my last couple of days in Paris for the year.

This should all be very much easier when I remove this ridiculous bandage from my hand tomorrow.

So little time...

After a month in Paris; while my family, Rachel and friends were no doubt glad of the extra storage space my absence left for them on this tiny island of ours, a surprising compulsion of being glad to see each other seemed to sweep uniformly over us all.

Aside from a lot of catching-up and some errands to run there was only one small piece of business to attend to - the Irish Open. In order to amuse my self and mess with others' heads, I hadn't told anyone I was going to be there - I hadn't even entered myself. I chuckled quietly to my self while people asked if I was going to enter and I said "No". I am truly hilarious.

The competition itself passed without too much fuss. I was pleased with how i was fencing and found myself in a different rhythm to my previous hectic state on the piste. In the end, I reached the final only to be beaten by David Downey, who was the better fencer on the day. Giving up the nice piece of mantle-piece clutter that is the Irish Open Trophy stung slightly but then again I have only been training in France for three weeks and I'm already feeling a change for the better.

I feel I'm facing into the packed half of the season in good form and confident that I can reach my goals for the season.

...

I'm sitting finishing off this post in Dublin airport while I wait for my plane back to Paris. There probably won't be any more updates over the next week, not until Saturday at least when I am getting my Internet connection installed in the new apartment.

If I missed you on this visit, I'm very sorry but I'll be back over Christmas and hopefully we'll get a chance to meet up.

Until then...

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.