The very man who has complained over Irelands use of foreign-born players is now complaining they are letting that player go😂
Luke Fitzgerald- the king of trying to stay relevant
#IrishRugby ☘️
Smart decision from Andy Farrell to extend his contract with the IRFU
He must have realized that the England national team are becoming the West Indies of rugby
🧵 Ahead of the Soccer World Cup next week, here's some football World Cup teams if they were rugby World Cup teams...
England football = Ireland rugby.
One has lost seven quarter-finals, the other has lost eight…
🗣 "Have you ever, in any sport, seen a team lose a final – and lose quite heavily – and then the narrative from the media is, so and so from Westmeath sends Leo a message saying: 'Great job'?" #URC
This is the real benefit of SuperSport Schools and the ubiquitous televising of schools rugby — that it saves careers from small-minded local selector politics and spitefulness.
How many potential careers have been scuppered thus?
Monnas lock van Geelen not being selected for Craven Week is actually a disgrace. Whether its down to meeting the selection criteria or the fact you have 7 Nories in that squad I don't know but it feels political. I hope he is in the SA U18 selectors radar! Very talented lad
USA. A backyard. One man guarding a grill for four hours.
He never left it once.
Everyone else drifted and drank and laughed. But one man stood alone before the flames, turning meat with a long fork, immovable. I knew him at once. The keeper of the sacred fire.
I took my place beside him and said nothing. After a while, he spoke.
"Low and slow," he said, eyes on the coals. "You can't rush it. Rush it, you ruin it."
I bowed my head. A blade, a tea, a life. None can be rushed. I had crossed four thousand miles to hear my grandfather's words from a man in a "KISS THE COOK" apron.
"Everything worth doing is slow," I agreed.
He glanced at me. Something passed between us.
"My wife says just use the oven." He shook his head at the fire. "She doesn't get it."
"They never do," I said.
And this is where it turned.
For the first time in years, this man had been understood. And he rose to meet it. His back straightened. His voice dropped low. A teenager reached for the grill and the man lifted one hand without even looking. "Not yet." The boy retreated. He was becoming what I already believed him to be.
A woman asked when the food would be done. "It's ready when it's ready," he told the flames.
Three people approached. Three were turned away with a single word. By the fourth hour, no one questioned him. The whole party had arranged itself around the man and his fire, the way a village arranges itself around a shrine.
Then he handed me the fork.
"Watch it a sec. I gotta pee."
I have been trusted with castles.
I have never been more honored.
He served everyone before himself, and ate last, standing, still watching the coals. We never traded names. We did not need to.
He believed he had finally met a man who took his cooking seriously.
I believed I had finally met America's last samurai.
Neither of us will ever correct the other.
So tell me, America.
Who is the man at your gathering who will not leave the grill?
Have you ever once asked him why?
I think he is still standing there.
Guarding the fire.
Waiting for one person to understand.