At my own expense it will be admitted that if worrying was an Olympic sport, yours truly would be a gold medallist multiple times over. And yes, in complete contradiction of the beautiful Serenity Prayer, a lot of said anxiety tends to stem from matters over which one has no control. Do I like the fact that such is the case? Of course not, but, if you have a solution, send it on on a postcard.
In the past week, several teams in which this corner has more than a passing interest in cocked up what looked like winning positions.
Well, in the case of the Meath senior footballers against Offaly that might be stretching it a bit. But they had got themselves into a position to nab what in fairness would have been the unlikeliest of victories. Indeed, they might have been even closer to pulling it off as Rian Stafford was done out of a blatant two pointer.
Following on from that, Sunday afternoon saw Munster come unstuck against Toulon in the third round of the Investec Champions Cup.
The red province finding themselves in a bind is nothing new. Nor, indeed, is the sight of them extricating themselves from the seemingly impossible.
You know what, they did it again on Sunday too, as two tries within a minute from Calvin Nash and Jack Crowley turned the tie on its head.
However, like Leinster against La Rochelle the night before, this tale had plenty of turns left in it. As firstly, the home side kicked on again as both White and Dorman touched down which, at the time, looked to have sealed the deal. As it left the former club of the great Jonny Wilkinson eased into a 24-13 lead with 13 minutes left.
Job done? Maybe with other teams, but Munster don’t do normal. Never have and please God never will. No, they do it their way.
Which in this latest instance meant two more tries – one of which guaranteed them a bonus point – courtesy of Jack O’Donoghue and Tom Farrell. When Crowley nailed the extras, it gave the visitors a most surprising 25-24 lead with eight minutes remaining. For four of those eight minutes, Munster did as we have become used to them doing for more than three decades.
Turning back wave after wave of Toulon attack and, so attuned are they to doing such things that only outside obfuscation would obstruct the inevitable from occurring.
And, alas, on this ocassion, fate – or to be more accurate an atrocious refereeing decision – was indeed their undoing after Farrell was pinged for an infringement that not even the neutral match commentators could identify.
It was a cruel ending to a day that deserved so much more than losing bonus points. That said, those very commodities could end up being priceless.
Castres Olympique come to Thomond Park next weekend. Familiar foes. Home comforts. They’ll go again.
***
As for where Manchester United go from here, your guess is as good as mine. Yes, they currently sit one point off fourth place in the Premier League. But, having shafted Ruben Amorim as manager, they now find themselves out of the one competition left in which they could have nabbed silverware. As if that wasn’t enough to be dealing with, they now have a caretaker manager in place until they put a full time caretaker in until the end of the season. If you told it to an ass, the animal would kick you!
***
To briefly return to rugby, one is trying desperately not to become paranoid about teams in which a particular interest is held being unable to hold onto leads.
Thoughts are drawn back to the most excellent documentary broadcast about Connacht Rugby what is probably more than a decade ago now. At the time what was probably some cigar-puffing toff in a duffle coat came up with the asinine idea of abolishing the province in its own right and subsuming its players into the other three.
To the point that, in what is probably the seminal moment in the entire film, a clearly choked up Eric Elwood – then coach – is almost pleading with his players to win whatever match it is they’re playing the following day. Inference being that their very survival may be dependent thereon.
Of course, they duly did the needful and actually kicked on from the precipice to actually go on and win the PRO12 as it was then, under the management of Pat Lam. Ironically defeating Leinster in the final thereof. Granted, they may not have exactly pulled up any trees in the interim, but at the very least they’ve held their own at their own level of competition.
Granted, that might seem a bit of an oddball description given that the five team province are this season competing in the Challenge Cup at European level rather than the top wrung of the ladder. Sometimes, though, there’s no harm in re-calibrating the machine. Cutting the cloth according to measure if you will.
For comparative purposes, certainly there was much hand wringing and head shaking when Meath ended up in the Tailteann Cup in 2023. However, hindsight and time may yet prove that diversion in the road to be crucial in the development of what we hope is still an evolving Royal County outfit. If for no other reason than the fact it got our lads used to winning in Croker again.
Likewise, Connacht have moved on galaxies from the time of Elwood’s impassioned plea. After all, it’s not that long ago Stuart Lancaster’s crew put 50 points on an opponent in a URC game at Dexcom Stadium (aka the Regional Sportsgrounds). You wouldn’t have to wind the clock back too far to find the aforementioned Irish amalgam on the wrong end of such pastings.
Like Meath, though, they too are still an evolving project. If evidence of that fact were ever required, regrettably, there were turf heaps of it available in Montpellier on Sunday evening when the away side somehow contrived to cough up a 17 point advantage.
Of course, the flip side of that coin is that they were obviously doing plenty right to accumulate such a buffer in the first place. Constructed via converted tries from Ben Murphy, Dylan Tierney-Martin, Sam Gilbert and Finn Treacy and a successful penalty from fly half Gilbert.
However, regrettably from the perspective of those from the West of Ireland, a score of the same denomination from the same player was all they could muster in the final 33 minutes of the contest. As tries courtesy of Melvyn Rates, Alexis Bernadet and Valentin Welch – which, even more sickeningly – were converted by that ghoul Stuart Hogg – reeled them in.
They’ve been here before. Harsh lessons learned. You’d just hope they get the opportunity to put them to use.
Fág freagra