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History of Irish rugby

  • 26-05-2006 2:45pm
    #1
    EdgarAllenPoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,686 ✭✭✭


    Currently reading Rugby And All That by Martin Johnson. It's quite interesting but I'm looking for something more focused on the Irish game. There was a book advertised on irishrugby.ie a few months ago but I can't remember the name of it. Anyone know the one.


Comments

  • #2
    mikedragon32
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,939 ✭✭✭mikedragon32


    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0717129306/104-2327165-8002361?v=glance&n=283155


  • #3
    EdgarAllenPoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,686 ✭✭✭EdgarAllenPoo


    Brilliant stuff,thanks.


  • #4
    Snickers Man
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,301 ✭✭✭Snickers Man


    Ned Van Esbeck is the official chronicler of the IRFU and was for years the rugby correspondent of hte Irish Times. His book (I have an earlier version that stops in the mid 1980s) is fairly thorough but is a bit dry and fussy.

    It's like the bible with full records of just about every competition that was organised in Ireland in the game of rugby. If you really must know who won the Leinster Schools cup in 1936, it will tell you.

    Other good books on aspects of Irish rugby are 'Lions of Ireland' by David Walmsley. It's a series of interviews with or about leading Irish players who went on Lions tours down through the ages. Walmsley is (I suspect) English though he claims his great grandfather played for Ireland. And sure enough, a quick consultation of Van Esbeck's book reveals that a Wlamsley did indeed play for Ireland back around the dawnof time. The book makes an effort to tell you something about these great players from all eras and is a good read.

    DO NOT CONFUSE IT WITH A SIMILAR TITLE written by somebody called Coughlan. That was ( I think) published around the same time and is utter muck, full of claims like 'The Lions would have won the series if they'd only played a few more Irishmen'

    Probably the best book on Irish Rugby that I have read though is 'Stand up and Fight' by one of the English Brothers. It tells the story of the Munster win over the All Blacks from the perspective of the players and their backgrounds. It is really very well done.

    It encapsulates Munster rugby (warts and all) by showing on the one hand how financial and familial depredation acted as a spur for many of the players and on the other it reveals the general Munster attitude to back play with a lovely observation by Moss Finn, Munster's right wing that day. At the end of the match somebody ran on, hugged him and told him he was a 'ligind' His reply was 'Sure I never touched the ball all day!'

    Quite.

    I don't really rate rugby players autobiographies but they tell you a little about the guys at the centre, I suppose. Willie John McBride's and Mick Doyle's have a few nuggets in them, hidden among the stodge that such books are generally comprised of.


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