Not sure it’s a pure rugby question, more a national pride question. What are the opinions?
Evan Ferguson doesn't count as a the right sort footballer either seen as his father played professional football I guess.
What’s bollòcks is your contention that there is a conscious effort on the part of the “elites” as you called them to exclude everyone else. Total rubbish.
As has been explained already the preponderance of private school players is a function of tradition and coaching. They’ve simply been playing rugby for far longer than new coming schools.
Why are Kilkenny so good at hurling? Are they genetically different to the average Irish person?
No. It’s because hurling is the main sport there and people grow up playing it and their grandfathers and fathers and uncles and cousins all probably played too. They are steeped in it from a young age - this provides a positive feedback loop in that there are a lot more people that can coach and train other people to a high level. It’s something that’s very difficult to replicate in a short period of time for other counties, but it can be done.
It’s the same with the private schools - some of them have been taking rugby very seriously for 100+ years, of course it’s going to take a while for formerly non rugby schools and clubs in non traditionally rugby areas to catch up. But it will happen as time goes on.
Your idea that people in rugby deliberately exclude others because of background is total nonsense. Everyone is happy to see the sport grow as much as possible and to see the best players play regardless of their background. What you’re saying is close minded, ignorant rubbish.
If the FAI have any sense they will look at how the IRFU have grown the sport at every level over recent years and learn from it.
How exactly?
What could the FAI learn from the IRFU about growing their sport?
Your idea that people in rugby deliberately exclude others because of background is total nonsense.
Everyone is happy to see the sport grow as much as possible and to see the best players play regardless of their background.
I think we’ll have to agree to disagree because you’re either a) on a windup or b) comically, absurdly naive to the point of being child-like.
The kind of people who go to those schools, the same ones where our rugby “stars” come from, are the same people who rig the game in this country to keep themselves on top and the rest of us scrambling for scraps in the mud at the bottom.
If you really think that they play fair and are happy to let the public school riff-raff impinge on their god given right to govern Ireland rugby then I have some magic beans to sell you. 🫘
As soon as there’s any shift away from the “private school rugby boys” hegemony then they will be spitting bullets and changing all sorts of rules to fix it in their favour. Mark my words.
I presume they left the swimming and filed hockey viewing figures off the list for 2022 for a reason.
And this year
1.2 million watched Ireland South Africa on RTE and there were 250k live streams
1.19 million watch Ireland scotland on Virgin with 100k live streams.
1.45million watched Ireland's grand slam match against England.
They don't include the numbers from NI who would have watched on ITV.
Sounds niche alright. All went to private school of course.
That post makes no sense.
It's clear you have an agenda. What, I don't know...actually I have a good idea.
What agenda would that be?
Inferiority complex perhaps. Hatred of unusual proportions to those who've done absolutely nothing to you.
Tv viewership really doesn't paint any type of accurate picture when it comes to lengthy events like rugby coverage.
As an example, this Saturday the Virgin media coverage of Ireland V NZ is going to be four hours and ten minutes. Starting at 6:50 and running until 11pm. That is a ridiculously long television slot, but crucially , it counts as "coverage" of the rugby game. All 4h 10m of it.
When you have something on television for that long, it's almost a given that it's going to amass a fair number of viewers, regardless of how popular it is.
It's like RTE putting a head of lettuce on for six hours – I'm pretty sure it would rack up 1 million plus viewers. People tend to stumble upon and by things when they're channel surfing, and even if they only stay for a relatively short amount of time, they still count in the ratings.
So, I'd argue that when it comes to TV viewership figures for really long time slots, like sports coverage, they can be somewhat meaningless when used to gauge the true popularity of the event. It's also a highly circular argument, people are watching it because its on TV, its not on TV because people want to watch it.
If you take any 4 hours of national television broadcast and add all of the people that tuned in at any point, its probably a figure close to 1 million anyway. These sport numbers are hugely inflated.
Such unbelievable reverse snobbery and complete horseshit.
The number of schools providing players to the Irish Rugby team is growing annually with more and more non fee paying schools represents. Even Leinster, where the private schools were in the ascendancy are seeing more and more players form non fee paying schools (eg. Henshaw, Furlong).
The bulk of the Munster and Ulster squads would be from non fee paying schools.
Yes, they tend to be on average form more privileged backgrounds. That's not a reasonable reason not to support them though. You want to take care of your back, carrying around all those chips.
What will be your next peice of horshit?
You can argue away but that doesn't mean you are right. This is total nonsense.
I won't even bother asking you to explain the thousands of people going via train/plane/automobile over to France, with and without tickets.
FYI: You only have to watch a programme for one minute to be deemed a viewer, but if the programme is, say, 30 minutes long, then this single minute only counts for 1/30 of the programme. So the published "ratings" are actually an average for each of the minutes of the programme.
I think Livia thinks Rugby in this country exists entirely within the walls of Leinster and the Irish National team. No clubs or schools play at all and theres not even a word for it in the west of Ireland. Its comical
Honestly its sounding more and more unhinged with each post.
Will Andy get the same adoration as Jack, no, but simply because its a totally different time and country now. I dont even think he'd want it. I dont know why it cant be left at 2 great managers that did great things with their squads and brought alot of happiness to alot of people without it resorting to getting nasty.
And here we go again.
High profile rugby games get big viewing figures, but that vanishes once you drill down.
How many are watching a URC game between Connacht and some Italian team on a random Friday night in February ?
Rugby people constantly fall into this trap of thinking that just because the high profile stuff is popular the whole sport is popular.
It's not.
I agree
No only rugby supporters live in D4
In regards to the manager, as I posted already both Charlton and Farrell are gruff no nonsense Northern Englishmen. If they met each other they would probably be best mates.
The viewing numbers for the URC are growing and growing rapidly. The support at lower levels is also growing. The AIL final this year in the Aviva had great support.
The number of people playing at mini's etc and right up is growing. 35% the number of players have been up over last 20 years from recollection, posted earlier on thread.
Rugby popularity is growing, it's not as big as other sports in Ireland but it's growing.
The number in Feb would be down because first off the URC is not playing for the most of Feb due to the 6 nations and on a Friday night the U20 play which are some exceptional games of rugby. You should check it out
It’s popular with bandwagoners and the elitist media class.
Maybe you can explain how you know what is popular or not? so far you don't really seem to have your finger on the pulse.
I thought after your grovelling apology earlier you would have the sense to stop embarrassing yourself, and yet here we are.
What on earth is the media class???????
When did I apologise to you? or do you have two accounts?
Still waiting for the answer by the way.
I doubt you will get an answer to that.
The South County Dublin types who went to rugby schools and ended up either working in the RTE Sport department or marketing, developing commercial campaigns for Island’s Edge, Rockshore, and so on.
I 100% do. In fact it's the definition of plastic Paddy.
A blood-link is nonsense if there is no cultural connection, and in nearly all cases, the same "oh my granny was Irish" althetes are here for money and a chance to compete where they didn't make the cut in their home country.
You’re obviously blinded by prejudice of people you don’t even know and it’s clear you’re not very informed on the sport in general with that conspiracy theory level analysis you’re giving.
Happy to leave it there.
Ohhhh so people who work for these companies entirely went to rugby schools and come from South Dublin! I see.
Livia, your posts are getting more and more unhinged.
I will leave this here
Ehhh are you really suggesting that the Ireland rugby squad and the Irish media class have not been historically disproportionately made up of people from private schools in the leafy suburbs of Dublin? This isn’t controversial.
Declan McBennet for who is head of sports department in RTE went to Queens and started his career in Northern Sound in Monaghan
Also a keen GAA player
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