Friday, November 20, 2009 Previous editions
Columnists
Today's columnist:
Matt Cooper
Fair play, my foot. FIFA is happy to have a con artist like Henry in finals
RUGBY fans should well remember what Neil Back did to Munster in 2002. It was the closing minutes of the Heineken Cup final between the Irish team and his side, Leicester. The English side is winning by 15 points to 9, but Munster have a scrum in front of the Leicester posts, in a perfect position to launch a final assault on the Leicester line, to score a try that would have left Munster with a conversion to win the cup.
Biggest game of their lives
GET SET for a rare treat in modern international rugby — a three-test series. The question on everyone’s lips, however, is how competitive will it be and for how long?
Promising Ghizao one to note in Bumper
MY main ambition, as far as Cheltenham today is concerned, is to walk out of the place relatively unscathed.
In Kilkenny, much wants more
I’M DOWN in Cork for a few days this week, took in a game, a senior hurling relegation match between Midleton and Carrigtwohill. It was a replay, went to extra-time, and all I can say is this – if I see anything tomorrow in Croke Park like I saw in Castlemartyr, the quality of the hurling, the play, the players, I’ll be a happy man. I met a man on the way out, and typical Cork, he thinks I won’t — “Hey boy,” he said to me, “you won’t see anything like that on Sunday.”
GPA raise the stakes in major gamble
WHEN I wrote on Tuesday that the GPA were opening a can of worms and that there would be many anxious eyes strained to see what emerges,I had a feeling that the story was going to grow and grow.
Today’s history is all that matters
FOR Henry Ford, history was tradition and therefore “more or less bunk”.
Kennelly stands out in boring mismatch
“SWITCH off your television. Go and walk the dog” – That is the group text Cork manager Conor Counihan should have sent from Croke Park yesterday to all his panel after Tommy Walsh’s goal in the second-half of this listless, boring mismatch.
For Kerry, the sweetest thing
WHEN the microphones are off and the cameras have stopped rolling, Kerry will reflect on this decade of five All-Ireland titles and eight finals and possibly conclude that yesterday was the sweetest of all.
Full time for political football?
WHEN the Labour Party subsumed Democratic Left into its numbers a couple of years ago, the photo opportunity of the day showed Labour boss Ruairi Quinn hugging Proinsias De Rossa in a gesture which could be interpreted as saying: welcome home, kid.
Lesson to learn from a rhapsody in blue
FORGIVE us our trespasses, not to mention our sloppy passes, but with those other Blues fetching up these shores at the end of the week, it was hard not to view yesterday’s grand slammer at Stamford Bridge against the backdrop of altogether more high-stakes games to come in Dublin and Paris.
