Ireland's Most Under Appreciated Sporting Achievement

Grand Moff Tarkin wrote: »

My eldest stopped playing at club level when he was told by his trainers he had to pick either hurling or not to bother coming back. He has stuck with the soccer and has not looked back since.

Yeah because no rugby or soccer coach in history ever told a player to choose between
their sport and another...
Nice chip on your shoulder

Eddy Irvine is an interesting one as he did come close to a world championship in F1 but....it was only as Schumi broke his leg and his replacement (Salo) gifted a couple of race wins to him. Not bad really as you have to be the position in the first place but overall his career never really hit the peaks it at one time promised.

In the context of the time and the opposition Eddie Jordan did very well in F1 team managment. Came close the year above when Frentzen had a mech failure when leading one of the last races. They were unlucky. There was an Irish driver (forget his name) who might have driven for Jordan in the early days but it didnt happen. Pity as this guy was apparently as good as anyone but didnt have the application. If he was with Jordan and they had a good engine the world might have been their oyster but such are the way of these things....just remebered his name Tommy Byrne there a good book on him for anyone whos interested

However in my view its our equestrian heroes who are definitey underappreciated. If horse racing was compared go F1 the dominent nation by a long way would be Ireland. We breed the best horses our Trainers are regarded as some of the best and then when it comes to jockies we pretty much have most of the top 10 in flat anf national hunt (let alone show jumping though why that has not been better is a whole other discussion....)

on the superstar jockey front way to many to mention (which proves the point) but in context guys like Pat Eddery, Ruby Walsh, etc are up there with Senna, Schumacer, etc but for whatever reason we dont appreciate their phenomenal achievements. Weld, Ox, O'Brien to name a few have achieved amazing success as Trainers but again dont really get widespread acclaim...

kenco wrote: »

on the superstar jockey front way to many to mention (which proves the point) but in context guys like Pat Eddery, Ruby Walsh, etc are up there with Senna, Schumacer, etc but for whatever reason we dont appreciate their phenomenal achievements.

*Ahem*......

kfallon wrote: »

*Ahem*......

Didnt want to embarrass you!!!

chrysagon wrote: »

pandoras box...
and yes at the time she passed the tests, and when u read about so called American superstar athletes during 80s and 90s failing out of competition drugs tests, and it passed to one side, maybe the Irish were to honest!!:rolleyes:

I suppose we will never know for sure .. the Americans were the ones who led the campaign against her, it would be tragic for Smith personally if she was actually clean.

I think Andy Lee's recent world title would have to be considered.

I'd have only a passing interest in boxing, but probably would have sought out the fight if I knew of it in advance ... First I heard or saw of it was on the RTE website the morning after.

chrysagon wrote: »

Ireckon the first time RTE KNEW he had won was when they looked at SKY sports!:p

In fairness it didn't get much publicity in advance. The Second Captains lads did talk about it a bit but they were the exception

iDave wrote: »

Denis Irwins career in general.

Eddie Irvine only being a few points off a world title.

Jim McGuiness taking an average team to an All Ireland. ( boo hoo they hand passed a lot)

I don't think Dinny Irwin was underappreciated, more so that Dinny himself was a shy guy who rarely did interviews. He certainly wasn't under appreciated at ManU and I'm sure most ManU fans would recognise the contribution he made to their early success. He was always a shoe in for Ireland too, an automatic pick for Mr.Reliable. Once Irwin was at left back you knew that position was covered and covered well.

I agree with you about Eddie Irvine completely. We've never had much of a history at Formula 1 and then in the late 1990's suddenly came along Eddie Jordan who ran a very successful small F1 team on a budget yet managed to finish 5th in the Constructors Championship, some achievement for a small team battling against billionaires and outfits like Ferrari, McLaren, Williams, etc.

Eddie Irvine himself was a bit special IMO, he was a right proper entertainer as well as being a superb driver. But it was his audaciouness that I always loved and especially the story of Irvine vs.Senna. Most F1 fans will tell you that the fastest driver the sport has ever seen was Aryton Senna, until his death in 1994 he was like a god on the track and his style of driving intimidated drivers. Senna had this unbelievable ability at passing out drivers without letting his foot off the gas, in one race he began on pole position but his engine stalled and four cars passed him out before he got moving. Within the space of the first lap Senna had overtaken all four cars and moved from fifth to first in under three minutes. That's what he was capable of. But when he came up against Eddie Irvine Senna found a match. Senna was the race leader at Japan in 1993 and he came up behind Irvine to lap him. Rules state that if you're being lapped then you should let the man through as he's faster than you. Irvine was having none of this and gave Senna a torrid time to get past him. When he eventually did Irvine stayed right up Senna's arse until the two of them approached the Williams of Damon Hill. Senna was having problems getting past Hill and Irvine was getting frustrated so in an audacious move Irvine overtook Senna and unlapped himself. What ensued for the next few minutes was a classic bit of Formula 1 with Senna Irvine and Hill all in a dogfight on one of the twistiest circuits on the F1 calender. It culminated later that evening with Senna going into the Jordan motorhome and punching Irvine in the face, telling him he needs to learn some respect

In 1999 Irvine was driving alongside Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari. In the third race of the season Schumacher crashed badly and broke his leg and suddenly Irvine was the no.1 driver. iirc he was on course to be the first Irish driver ever to win a F1 Championship, he racked up some six or seven first places that year as well as a number of other podiums. And then in one of the final races Irvine went in for a pit stop and the mechanics came out with three tyres instead of four. The whole cock up cost him about 20 seconds and ultimately the race and partly the championship. At the time Irvine was supposedly arguing alot with the team principal Jean Todt and some believe the mechanics arriving with three tyres was delibriate sabotage of Irvines championship push- if Ferrari were to break their duck they wanted Schumacher to do it, not Irvine. The truth will never be known but one thing is for certain- a bunch of well trained and drilled pit lane mechanics arriving at a car with only three tyres is just beyond belief. Even to this day it has to rank as one of the biggest ever cock ups the sport has ever seen.

Thomas F. Kiely, all round Olympic Champion. That is all.

Scott Evans the badminton player.. ranked 33 in the world, in a sport dominated by asians mainly.

(ok not the greatest win, but what hes done with the resources hes had is brilliant)

castletownman wrote: »

Someone mentioned earlier Fermanagh reaching the All Ireland semi final in 2004.

I remember that Fermanagh team, they were all circa 25 years of age and they could handpass the ball faster than any team I'd seen up to that point.

This may or may not be true but I later heard from a Louth player that the success of the 2004 Fermanagh team was due to a big push by Sean Quinn to try to land an Ulster title for Fermanagh. So he employed virtually the entire team in his businesses except they hardly did any work- the team were essentially Irelands first ever professional GAA team in that they spent more of their week training than they did working. He employed the best coaches money could find and it was all very professionally set up for an amateur game. Again I'm not sure if it was true but it would certainly go a long way towards explaining how Fermangh were useless one year and then suddenly they looked like a good outside bet for the All Ireland the next.

Grand Moff Tarkin wrote: »

My eldest stopped playing at club level when he was told by his trainers he had to pick either hurling or not to bother coming back. He has stuck with the soccer and has not looked back since.

Your hatred is misplaced.

I played soccer growing up and had to sign a contract stating I'd play no other sport as I hit my mid to late teens.

My rugby school also tried to ensure rugby was the only sport I played.