All Blacks v Irish property developers

FrancieBrady wrote: »

It is a marketing thing now. WR try to protect it and I think have issued directives about how it should be faced.

The 'haka' is a challenge and you should be allowed to counter that challenge as you wish as a 'competing side' and as a spectator.

And some Maori people believe that rugby has bastardised the Haka and that it is inappropriate to do it.

I don't think the Haka is any more intimidating than some of the Northern Hemisphere national anthems. The French one would frighten me to death, if I thought they meant it.

Arise, children of the Fatherland
Our day of glory has arrived
Against us the bloody flag of tyranny
is raised; the bloody flag is raised.
Do you hear, in the countryside
The roar of those ferocious soldiers?
They’re coming right into your arms
To cut the throats of your sons, your comrades!

To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions
Let’s march, let’s march
That their impure blood
Should water our fields.

Mint Sauce wrote: »

In fairness, at 22 nil down against NZL (and after lossing to Japan) it probably was more about the piss up for most at that stage.

Yeah there is probably an element of that but it seems specific to the event junkies, I think the hardcore fans who go to rugby games week in week out would have been sitting there devastated at getting so badly beaten by NZ and not jumping around like loo-lahs when we were taking a hiding. It was the same at Euro 2012 and it reminds me of a t-shirt that used to be sold during Italia '90 with the slogan on it 'Win or Lose, we're here for the booze'

marieholmfan wrote: »

It's tradition and was for a long time a strong anti racist statement.
But as I say in competitive matches it should be done before the anthems.

And of course it would be after the Haka because so much more important.

When I lived in NZ my Kiwi flatmate was going apesh1t before a Australia-NZ game in the Bledisloe Cup because after the Haka the Aussies brought some singer onto the pitch with a guitar to do a rousing version of Waltzing Matilda. It was quite clever by the Aussies because it took the sting out of the Haka. iirc NZ rugby complained to World Rugby and made sure the practice didnt happen again. Flatmate was ranting and raving for hours about the Aussies insulting 100+ years of the Haka tradition and it shouldnt be messed with. Then he went on another rant about the underarm bowling the Aussies did on NZ in the cricket (basically cheating), between that and the Haka I thought he was going to punch the walls down over it !

But just on our own fans booing it, I think it was lacking class. Sing against it alright but booing is just crass. Had the game been at Lansdowne Road and the event junkies started booing it they would be told to shut up, same way they are when an opposition kicker is taking a penalty or conversion.

JupiterKid wrote: »

I'm not mad into team sports but do enjoy watching major rugby and soccer matches - but I have to say that the level and degree of bitterness towards rugby and those who play and support it is unreal in this thread.

Well you have to hand it to AHs; it's fair if nothing else.

Wait a few months and there will be a soccer bashing thread if Ireland don't qualify of the Euro's.
The bi-annual GAA bashing thread should be upcoming soon enough as well.

Baron Kurtz wrote: »

Hadn't listened to BOD in a long time but he has developed a seriously gay voice. Maybe it's always sounded like this.

The ma once observed that after hearing him speak on the telly back in his heyday.
I responded that it is just the way they speak in the posher areas of Dublin and that I doubted that he was gay.
She then asked me, "How do they know up there and who is gay who is not?"
I had no answer. Still don't.

Ole ole ole...did you hear the numpty irish over the weekend?? after a match in which they get trashed ole ole ole, and yesterday during a match that didn't even involve ireland ole ole ole

Jesus wept

Muahahaha wrote: »

But just on our own fans booing it, I think it was lacking class. Sing against it alright but booing is just crass. Had the game been at Lansdowne Road and the event junkies started booing it they would be told to shut up, same way they are when an opposition kicker is taking a penalty or conversion.

Were you even watching it? They were singing The Fields Of Athenry, not booing.

FrancieBrady wrote: »

I would hazard a guess a lot of the bitterness has nothing to do with rugby.
Like most bitterness it has to do with failures in various lives.

I enjoy reading the real criticisms, those based in a knowledge of the game and how it operates, the other 'criticisms' are just sad and wasteful of energies best spent elsewhere.

How about the criticism that rugby is still very elitist.
70% of the ROI players in the squad went to fee paying rugby academies.

Maybe if the IRFU spent as much on developing 'project players' from Finglas, Tallaght and Knocknaheeny, as they do in bringing Bundy, CJ et al halfway across the world to become Oirish, then and only then would they earn the support of your average punter.

The fact is that your average punter has more in common with these hired mercenaries than he does with the Clongowes/Blackrock College set.

#teamofthem

Sleepy wrote: »

Jaysus, some of you lot have some serious chips on your shoulders. Should those of us with no interest in soccer condemn it as a game for knackers because our best player of living memory was a scumbag from Cork? Wouldn't seem fair fair to the likes of Niall Quinn.

Niall Quinn is a long streak of piss

Irish rugby is a victim of its own hubris and the general over inflation of the egos of most involved. The sourest bunch of grapes going.

There’s an article in the Irish times saying the irfu should ramp up poaching players from the gaa.

For all their sh1te talk The posh boys just not up to it, it seems

The_Kew_Tour wrote: »

It was men v boys.

New Zealand were just a joy to watch. What a team. The Tournament starts now with all good teams left

Men vs goys.