X-Factor required

X-Factor required; what is it about Leinster Schools Senior Rugby?

The Hype

Annually in September, every Leinster Rugby playing school holds its second most hotly contested competition for its 6th year students. It’s a voting process to decide who will be a cheerleader for the SCT, (Senior Cup Team).

Obviously, the hottest of contests is gaining a spot on the SCT squad itself, but for those who know they won’t or can’t play for the squad, being involved is just as important. Why though?

What is it about this competition that holds so much mystique and pride for the schools involved? Is it because of its difficulty to win; due to the fact that every year, every school bar Blackrock College is the underdog? Is it because if you’re on a winning side, you enter the annals of School folklore?

And that’s a fact; borne from the successful series of books written about the fictional Schools Cup winning captain, “Ross O’Carroll-Kelly”, by the Dublin writer Paul Howard.

Time to clear out the Autumn and Winter collections.

Now that another season is almost over the tabloid newspapers can go into overdrive with their relentless summer transfer sagas, which will run and run till September, dragging sales and regular readers along with them.

Last year, we had the pleasure of following Garreth Barry and Cristiano Ronaldo  on their summer holidays. However, and this is where it gets interesting, despite the “Credit Crunch” this summer could put all before it in the shade. There are already a lot of long running stories popping up every so often in the tabloids since January, casual reminders of what’s ahead for 3 months of the year.

“Contenders-Ready?” Seconds out, quarter-finals.

“Whoever wins the Liverpool-Chelsea champions league game will pose our biggest threat, they will have the momentum to continue the chase”,  said a suitably happy Sir Alex Ferguson after he added another new name to lights at Old Trafford on Saturday, following their dramatic late come-back from a goal down to Aston Villa.

The 17 year old Frederico Macheda, who no-one outside of Old Trafford had heard of before Saturday, became the latest in a long line of youngsters to fulfill his potential on the biggest stage. Whether you like or loathe Ferguson, no-one can ever question the amount he has done for young players at his club and the English game in general during his reign.

No moaning about the break….from one side anyway.

This current international break in the EPL could actually be Manchester United’s saving grace this year in their attempt to take a 3rd title in a row. With United having lost their last two games and momentum to Liverpool who are currently dissecting all comers, this must be the first time in Sir Alex Ferguson reign that an International break has worked in his favour.

Wrap him up quick before he catches cold…

Full Flow

Let’s not start off on the wrong foot here; I have not won a Champions League or FA Cup, neither have I won two La Liga titles or ever pretended to have done so. With all this going against me in a straight comparison with Rafa Benitez, he wins hand’s down every time. So, why is it that I can’t fathom most of his selection choices surrounding injured players, that appear detrimental to me anyway, for the big games and the future of the club?

New Objectives take playing for your country to a whole new level.

7 Policemen killed, 5 International Cricketers injured to various degrees with shrapnel wounds and the on-going blaming saga of tit for tat between the Pakistani Cricket Board and the match officials who in their own words were left for dead and to fend for themselves. 

The world is a dangerous place; anyone with a parent or a good school teachers guidance knows this. Yet we all go about our business knowing these risks and not really letting them affect us in our daily lives. Normally, people in the spotlight also just go about their business and while they may have an army of minders, unless they are in a crowd, you wouldn’t notice them. That’s the way private security firms operate. The problem this time was no security and the little security that was provided, ran for their lives.

The Heavyweight Championship of Europe

There is an uneasy history between Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho, but one that contains respect and a mutual understanding that both of them are bigger than the clubs they manage and always will be. Go back to just before the self-titled “Special-One” arrived in England and changed the face of Chelsea forever, he arrived at Old Trafford with a Porto team no-one bar himself, including most of his players, expected to win.

Robo-refs on the way??

 “And it’s Pedro Mendes for Portsmouth from just inside the United half looking to catch out Roy Carroll in Goal, and what a mistake by Carroll, but wait the goal’s not been given. The ball was 3 feet over the line!” John Motson MOTD.    

Recently a number of gaffs so bad that managers have lost their jobs, still hasn’t helped referee’s in assisting them to push for more goal-line and TV technology to aid their thankless job. Sure endless TV replays and a variety of pundits after the game have plenty of time to pick and pull apart any mistakes the man in black might have or did make during the course of a game, which is completely unfair as a method to then bash and badmouth Referees who don’t have the same facilities available to them.

Referees, currently don’t have the use of endless replays or a TV official as they do in Rugby, Tennis, Cricket, American Football etc; they have to make their decisions in a split second and live with them after. It’s a job no-one in their right mind should want to do; think of poor old Anders Frisk, forced to retire from the game after numerous death threats from Chelsea fans after the beating by Barcelona at Stamford Bridge, this also happened only months after he had his head split wide open by a disgruntled Inter Milan fans’ spare change and the game had to then be abandoned, and Inter forced to play all remaining European games behind closed doors for two years.

Do you think the same fan would have thrown the same coin knowing what the repercussions would be, would his fellow supporters have allowed him?

Recession, what Recession, not for the EPL….

So, all the talk about tightening the belts, a global market crash and the horrible murmured word in dark rooms of a recession, has obviously fallen on deaf ears at most clubs in the English premier league.

So far, and we still have 3 more days to go, a whopping £105Stg million has been spent on improving, hopefully saving, or just getting rid of dead-weight from teams.

Do Chairmen not read the papers, were in the middle of the worst global downturn since the great depression apparently and they are all swaning around like Stadler and Waldorf  who just won a “Pimp my Club” competition!

At current spending the EPL will overtake last years January figure of £110Stg million. I know staying in the premiership, from TV rights alone will give approx. £30 Stg million per club, but should clubs saddle themselves with such debt during January on the hopes of staying up.

Aiming for the Stratosphere and getting burned at the Ozone layer!!

“If we don’t get Kaka it is not the end of the world. We got Craig Bellamy” – Gary Cook-Manchester City CEO.

I have to wonder if Mark “Sparky” Hughes will look at this week’s transfer win and loss column for Manchester City with the same pragmatism as his chief executive officer? I doubt it. Sure, he has managed Bellamy in a past life as his first spell in management with the Wales job brought him to the football world’s attention and then again at Blackburn. He got the best out of Bellamy on both occasions then and hopefully for city and Hughes himself, he will again.