Life is grand

The 2007 Cricket World Cup is coming up in March. Thankfully Ireland is such a cricket mad nation I, a cricket fan, won’t have any problem watching any of the games.

Oh wait, sorry, that’s India, not Ireland.

The Irish would rather pick up a cricket bat and beat you with it than sit through a cricket game. It is a shame really as the average Irish fella, and wan, is sport mad. They love their sport and are fiercely competitive even if just sitting at the pub counter swilling pints. I’d bet a hurling fan or an Irish rugby supporter would, were their preconceptions and love for the English set aside, be leaping off their stools in excitement during a Pro20 game.

Sadly I’d be beaten by that aforementioned cricket bat should I even suggest it.

Being a cricket fan though I am determined to get my cricket fix. Going down to the pub, even a sports pub, is not going to happen. They’ll probably rather show reruns of the Croke park massacre than show a second of cricket in an Irish pub. Local TV channels are not showing it. A mate has Sky Sports which is showing it but… he is Irish. Not going to happen.

It turns out I have exactly two options if I want to watch games from the CWC while living in Waterford, Ireland. 1: Fly to the West Indies and buy some scalped tickets. 2: Get Sky Sports.

The funny bit is option 2 would probably end up costing as much as option 1. Sky is expensive, to get what I want it would cost €64 a month. I can’t subscribe for just the two months the CWC is on either, oh no, Sky will be with me for a solid 12 months. That is €768.

Anyone know of an affordable way I can watch cricket in Ireland?

I was watching pole vaulters on TV earlier. I cannot comprehend them. They must be supremely stubborn or have amazing self-denial, I’m not sure which. Think about it. The first hundred times you run at that frame with a pole in your hand you must fail and fail miserably. I’ll bet you not only don’t go over the bar but that you end up going in the opposite direction. I’ll bet the first 20 times you don’t even get the end of the pole seated in the socket, it must wang off the cushion or scrape along the run-up track before wanging off the cushion.

Pole vaulters are amazing.

I took a 40 minute walk home in the rain yesterday evening after the shocking France vs. Ireland Six Nations match. To swing from the joy of Ronan’s 4 point gap-making penalty in the third-to-last minute to the gut-dropping try in the second-to-last minute by the French is an intense experience.

Either team deserved to win that match. Based solely on the first half France were brilliant but a Rugby game is 80 minutes long, not 40 and Ireland earned respect by clawing back. Games with 1 point differences are always great and this was a great game, best of the Six Nations by far.

Croke Park was a big part of the game too and having been there once myself I know it must have been a thunderous experience. Well done to Ireland for moving forward in that regard. Ireland should beat England in two weeks time at Croke Park and that will be a magnificent sight.

The fourth player in the game was not to blame, for he refereed very well for 90% of that game, but the two decisions against Ireland were felt very hard. What if? What if.

As the French say, C’est La Vie.

There are only two things I can say about this past Saturday’s Ireland vs. South Africa Rugby match; I am embarrassed by my team and well done to the Irish for playing so well.

Was that Springbok Rugby?

Video at YouTube

Spent a fantastic Sunday with Fi at the infamous Croke Park in Dublin. We watched Waterford take on and beat Tipperary in the Hurling Championship quarter-final.

Blimey! The Kaizer Chiefs beat Manchester United today 4-3 on penalties (0-0 full-time.) The Chiefs are a South African soccer team (not the band) from my home province. Well done lads!

9 tag rugby games later and The Shellakybookys show how much fun they had. We beat the Wallace Warriors last night and claimed the Grade C Bowl cup for 2006.

We have all had a great few weeks in the ITRA league.

As you can see we took some beatings but began to start winning with 4 straight wins at the end. A pity the final two games were not league games (one was a semi-final and the last was the final) as we would have posted higher on the league had they counted.

All the same we had a blast and will be back next year to challenge for the top cup.

The team from the TSSG will have to figure out what to do next as we will miss our weekly practice and game.

Thanks to the ITRA and other organisers for a great event.

We all had a good night out at Waterford’s local dog track, Kilcohan Park. I have never been to the dogs, or horse racing for that matter, before and it was an interesting experience. 11 races in quick succession with betting on each. I struck out on the first 9 races and then bet right on the last two, recovering some of my loses. Thankfully we were betting a max of 5 euro a time, usually just 2. At the end of the night I was down 17 euro on winnings of 8.

I know this won’t happen but I do wish the world would call it soccer. Back home in South Africa we call it soccer, not football. The USA does it, Australia do too and so does much of Ireland. In Ireland if you asked about the football you would be quickly regaled by a bunch of GAA (pronounced “Gaah!”, not “Gee Ay Ay”) fans. Gaelic football is very popular in Ireland. Ask for football in the States and you’ll get yardages. Down under football will get you Aussie “no” Rules which makes any other sport look tame.

By the way; Google has a handy feature where you can search for “football Argentina” and the first “result” is a summary of the games. Try any team.

Last night the Shelekabookys played their first mixed-social Irish Tag Rugby Association game down in Waterpark, Waterford against the Sun Life team. We lost (10-0) but had a really good time. We had trained only twice and only two of us on the team had ever played Rugby before.

One thing I learnt was that you have no chance without boots. On wet Irish grass you either go spinning off the field as you go full tilt in runners (takkies for us Saffas) or you end up only going at 50% to avoid slipping. A couple of the lads on the Sun Life team had boots and could dodge and weave around us with ease.

Our next game is this coming week and it should be even better.