Episode Transcript
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Alright, you're very welcome along. It's Tuesday morning,
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we've got a full house for you here. Shane's here. Shane, how are
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you? Good morning. How are things? Colm is here. Colm, good morning
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slash off the ball. Make sure you're subscribed, otherwise you won't be able
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to leave a comment. And plenty
0:52
to get our teeth stuck into this morning. The
0:55
build up to the Ireland football final started in
0:58
the papers. Jack O'Connor and Desi
1:00
Farrell
1:01
both doing press today. Desi Farrell saying
1:03
Clifford's the greatest he's ever seen. Jack O'Connor
1:05
saying the lads haven't come back for the crack. Which
1:08
was the same line he used in the immediate aftermath of the semi-final. So
1:11
only to be expected that everybody's saying
1:13
they're an amazing team. We'll do well
1:15
to keep the ball kicked out to them. Mind
1:17
games. The Hurling Pod lads were
1:20
asking could Paul Connor at 37 be
1:22
GAA's first legendary coach? Better
1:25
than a manager.
1:27
I'd say 37. I'd
1:29
say Eamonn O'Shea when he stopped the five in a row
1:32
and created all that space for a
1:34
hat-trick in an all-Ireland final to stop the
1:36
five in a row. That was, that's
1:38
the start of it.
1:40
I'm sure if you go back. Yeah,
1:43
there have to be others as well. I'm sure there's some
1:45
Hurling historians watching this morning who'll be able to go. There
1:49
are others. I guess it's what he's achieved with his
1:51
young age. I think the level of
1:54
praise that he gets all
1:57
the time. I think because.
1:59
probably because we saw it in action, right? When
2:02
COVID happened,
2:03
we saw the breaking play, we saw the board come out and
2:06
we saw a
2:06
supercharged performance over the next
2:09
quarter. And it was like, oh, they
2:11
seem to be doing exactly what the man with the
2:13
whiteboard told them to do. And that seems to have won
2:15
them the game here in this like second quarter or
2:17
after the water break. So I suspect that
2:19
that's one of the reasons why it's, you
2:22
know, there was a camera on, we watched what happened
2:24
and then we saw the impact of it. Like, obviously
2:27
you can see the impact and anybody you
2:29
speak to talks about the impact
2:31
he had. And then
2:32
obviously one, not Adam O'Claire and
2:35
who were essentially a team of kids at that stage.
2:37
So, I mean, the CV is pretty, pretty impressive, right?
2:39
People in Kilkenny, certainly last week would
2:42
scream about father Tommy Marr, the great
2:45
legendary seven all-yrlands in 18 seasons.
2:47
So you're not the manager, no? Like he was, he
2:49
was, you see, he was very much a coach,
2:52
hands-on coach, but he was the number one. So
2:54
I don't know how you, I don't know how we're differentiating
2:56
here.
2:58
Are we just talking about someone who's hands-on or someone
3:00
who's number two? The number two is
3:02
the thing, is it? Yeah, it's the legendary
3:04
coach. And now there's two reasons, like,
3:07
definitely the age, like most people starting off their coaching
3:09
career at that point in their lives. And then also
3:11
if you look at the speech afterwards, Kean Lynch was,
3:14
he described this person before naming
3:16
them. And for all intents and purposes he taught, he's gonna say
3:18
John Kylie. And then he says Paul Kenerk's
3:21
genius, you know. But no, that's the,
3:23
he described the impact that a genius
3:25
manager would have. Obviously Kylie is
3:27
the brains behind the whole thing as well. Like, I'm
3:29
definitely gonna leave Kylie to last though. Oh, totally, but I'm
3:31
just saying that that's the influence that this guy's having. Like,
3:33
Kylie would also say that about him, I'm sure. No, he does,
3:36
yeah. You know,
3:37
I'm not like intimating
3:39
a jealousy thing or anything, but it was just the esteem
3:42
at which the players hold Kenerk, like to go
3:44
first and to be so effusive
3:46
in his praise, like, you know, using every adjective
3:48
under the sun to describe this brilliance. He's even
3:50
more mythical because I don't know what he sounds like.
3:53
Like, I don't know. He has
3:55
done interviews, I'm sure, but I just haven't. A few YouTube
3:57
seminars which are like an hour long, coaching.
3:59
And yeah,
4:02
like that's the type of stuff
4:05
that you see as opposed to any of
4:08
the big sit downs. Or I'm sure, well, I
4:11
don't know, maybe when they've made
4:13
their,
4:14
when they've stopped making history, there'll
4:16
be a bit more. They'll talk more. Yeah,
4:19
but it just adds to the mystique and the grandeur around him. He's
4:21
like, but they all
4:23
speak of himself so highly that they can't all be wrong.
4:25
And he's just, you
4:28
get the sense very much that the halftime team talk that they
4:30
all spoke about, I'm sure, Canarko's heavily involved there.
4:35
Maybe he is the man that does the team talk. Kylie's more
4:37
of a manager, a man manager. I'm
4:40
sure it's a combined effort, but Jesus,
4:43
he's unbelievable. Like
4:46
everything he touches turns to gold. And it's
4:48
just the fact that this limerick team can react
4:51
to absolutely anything thrown at them.
4:53
And you always feel like going
4:55
into halftime three points, you're like, that's not enough. That
4:57
is not enough for Kenny to lead Kenny,
5:00
the slight breeze in the first half of it. I'm saying, Oh
5:03
yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't that slight either.
5:05
Right.
5:06
So even at that, you're thinking now
5:08
this lead needed to be a six at least.
5:11
So that little key and Lynch kind of mini period where they drive
5:13
them back into the game was, was all the more important,
5:15
but just the performance was just,
5:18
it won't be an Ireland final. I don't know. Will it be an Ireland
5:20
final that we look back on? Oh, I
5:22
think so. For years. Well, maybe sorry, because
5:24
of the foreign foreign, but, but I think because
5:27
of the quality of the opposition, I think look any played really well. Yeah.
5:29
Like that's the, you know, it's like the, the
5:32
Kalkene tip rivalry was
5:37
amazing.
5:38
And I think it was only amazing in the end because
5:40
Tipperary got them.
5:42
And that was an all time great team. A
5:45
lot of people are saying it's the clear rivalry that is the one that we're
5:47
going to remember the most from
5:49
the Claire from this era, that Claire
5:52
and the team who were putting up to Limerick the most, but
5:55
I don't think the story is fully written yet. If you'd said
5:57
before the game that the Kene would score
5:59
two goals in Limerick.
5:59
What's going on and yet then record win
6:02
by nine points you like that's limerick like
6:04
yeah You just don't need them and hence
6:06
the little fist pumps of 30 points that mark between
6:09
Kylie and kinetic They're
6:11
just a very kpi Again,
6:13
yeah, you just finding a raw I
6:16
guess they just ended on 29 points You get the sense
6:18
there be a sense of disappointment. Maybe a little
6:20
tiny modicum of ah we did
6:22
we didn't quite get to our level but um We're
6:24
just so many leaders and that could any or a limerick
6:26
team and the chat you'll
6:29
have a lot of people watching
6:29
this morning will have seen achine's chat with
6:32
them darren donovan and
6:34
David Reedy yesterday at the homecoming
6:37
Dara in very very very
6:39
good form. I love the setting of that you know just
6:42
on a bench on a park bench Just hang it
6:44
out. That's amazing
6:45
Hose darren's
6:48
line at the end. We're gonna go full Jack Riddish That's
6:50
I mean like kind of a bunch of Jack Reedish's
6:53
in their celebration. Yeah,
6:55
they were a well They they kind of
6:57
the hat backwards seems to be unofficial clothing
7:00
range. Yeah, I remember I saw someone posting that the
7:02
way that the limerick team's Clothes
7:04
have changed the homecomings over the years 2018. It
7:07
was very formal. They all were the same and the
7:09
Navy stuff last year I think it was
7:11
a less formal, but but still
7:13
sharp short sleeve shirt They're the same everybody
7:16
around same everyone for him and then yesterday It
7:18
was like we're in limerick and we're all wearing the most
7:20
comfortable clothes We have darren's and a Gucci top
7:22
like they're all just wearing whatever they want more
7:25
successfully You are like the more freedom
7:27
you have to wear what you want like Eric Antonin United
7:30
He was allowed where runners with a suit ahead
7:32
of time I would say that's another thing now But
7:35
everybody else used to be lambasted out of this if
7:37
they didn't wear exactly what Alex Ferguson told
7:39
him to except Cantona Yeah, you know you weren't
7:41
the right to be a fashionista. Yeah It
7:44
is interesting though that they've decided that there's not gonna
7:46
be like so
7:47
Everybody has to get fitted for that stuff during the week.
7:50
There's like a you're just adding on
7:52
an extra layer of Formality
7:55
tilting is like no you just wear whatever you want. You know
7:57
don't worry about it. We're we're not sweating the small
7:59
stuff here
7:59
Yeah, exactly it adds to them. Yeah, exactly
8:02
I was also thinking yesterday, they're not gonna get
8:04
to the Children's Hospital But they of course were at the Children's
8:07
Ark in UHL
8:08
Yesterday or the morning after the game as well. So It's
8:12
nice that they're doing everything I think in Limerick They're probably gonna
8:14
set a new trend here in some ways. They are
8:16
missing out in the boars head As you know, that there is that
8:18
I'm like I'm against I'm for it
8:20
for every other aspect apart from the missing out in the boars
8:22
head Maybe they did the boars head in a few days come back maybe
8:25
maybe but waking up the morning after at
8:27
the All-Ireland in Limerick I think just
8:29
so we couldn't get them. I'm well. Yeah. Yeah,
8:31
they seem so much happier though being in Limerick Oh,
8:33
they said it didn't they? Yeah to Ashling was
8:36
so much better so much more crack back home
8:38
And that was it, you know It was just a relaxed nature
8:40
of the whole thing and they can actually be themselves It's that culture
8:42
of family as well did I was a David really said with Ashling
8:44
is like literally most of my best friends
8:46
are
8:47
on this team like a lot
8:50
of the lads are just So so
8:52
unbelievably close and I know that that culture
8:54
and that family is words that John kind of
8:56
used in The in the wake of the game
8:58
and other coaches used as well. Like it's just
9:01
Not that other teams and counties like
9:03
the Kenny I'm sure have the same sort of culture and embedded
9:05
in their squad but Limerick's just seems
9:07
to be so special and they keep that team together
9:10
and even Darrow was talking yesterday that Park bench with
9:12
Ashling There was a few young lads on
9:14
the panel sitting in the background that we maybe didn't see much of this
9:16
year But he said these lads are common like no any names of all
9:19
often tell out where they were It's amazing. I'm
9:21
really looking forward to see what the bull does the
9:23
ball no pressure. No pressure on the ball It's 740
9:26
here's what's coming up between now and 10 o'clock
9:28
for you Tommy Walsh is going to join us at 8 o'clock and
9:30
pick his
9:31
team of the championship Sue Rowland
9:33
is going to preview the Canada game and reflect on
9:35
the opening Australia Game Force Sports
9:38
News at 8 45 Alan
9:40
Quinlan's top five tries of his career Of
9:42
matches he played in rather as opposed to his own tries and
9:44
type for along Speak machine
9:47
and that's coming your way at half nine. We have
9:49
Tommy Welch's team of the year as you said there and
9:52
we have some of the names
9:54
Start to fight guaranteed, but he's leaving
9:56
room for a bit of debate
9:58
That's the excitement that is gonna be after
9:59
the first ad break because he just can't
10:02
pick because it's been pretty competitive. It
10:04
has been competitive. I saw people
10:07
saying, oh no, no, Clare, hang on there, Clare,
10:10
be a limerick.
10:11
Yeah. Do we remember this? Do we remember actually, like,
10:15
short memories? Yeah, and put
10:17
them to the pin of their collar. The Sunday Game team, the
10:19
Sunday Game didn't pick Tony Kelly, which caused
10:21
a little bit of
10:23
controversy maybe in some quarters. The
10:26
controversy then is who do you take out for Tony Kelly,
10:29
but like... They picked Shane O'Donnell, didn't they? They did, yeah.
10:32
See, I don't know. It's hard to
10:34
leave kind of Kelly out as well, really. Yes, Lucas.
10:37
Yeah. Well, we'll see. We'll see if Tommy does. He
10:39
knows a bit more about this than
10:41
I do. Come here. I know we're going to go to Kathleen. They're
10:43
imminently in parts this time, the other side of Australia,
10:46
but before that, I think it's important to say, because
10:48
we don't have any other soccer on the show today, Killian Mbappe
10:50
of Saudi Arabia. I was
10:52
reading the math about this, right? So the
10:55
weekly Saturday, if he does go to Al-Hilal,
10:57
who have made a world record 300 million dollar bid, 260 million pounds,
11:01
would be 11.63 million
11:03
pounds a week
11:05
that Mbappe would earn, which
11:06
is precisely 9.6 million pounds more
11:10
than he earns a PSG at the moment, every
11:12
week. He's only on 2 million a week at the moment. Perdad.
11:14
Yeah. So, and with all the creative freedom
11:16
that you want. So if he
11:18
does this for a year
11:19
and then gets his dream move to Real Madrid, happy
11:22
days Killian, isn't it? But sad days for football.
11:24
They're giving him 500 million, is that what
11:27
they're doing? Yeah. For
11:29
the year. It does seem like
11:31
quite a bit. It's not into them. Well
11:34
you could buy a Premier League team for less than that. So.
11:36
I don't think they want to though. I think they want to do their thing over there.
11:38
I understand that. I do. I like, I
11:41
know what they're doing, but at the same time, it doesn't
11:43
seem like they're getting good value.
11:46
You know, that, oh, this will be the moment where they catapult into
11:49
everybody's in rooms. Really? Are
11:51
we all going to sit and watch Saudi Arabian football on TV?
11:54
The lads at the, well, that's the best. Maybe we are. Maybe the
11:56
two big leagues in the world in 10 years time are going to be America.
11:59
and Saudi Arabia and they've
12:02
long been allies, haven't they? Yeah,
12:04
the lads had a similar conversation recently
12:06
on the show. It's
12:08
almost like an episode of Black Mirror, but at what point will
12:11
we be watching match of the day
12:13
Saudi Arabia and watching highlights and kids
12:15
going around in the Al-Al-Al shirts? You can
12:18
watch
12:19
the local football in
12:21
your neighborhood if you choose to. If
12:23
you get sucked into watching Black
12:26
Mirror style, if you don't have the brain
12:28
power to not do it, then
12:30
fair play. Congratulations on being on the common
12:32
ground. But if they sign enough of these unbelievable players,
12:34
then the Western world and kids are going to want
12:37
to watch them. Who cares? The MLS signed
12:39
a lot of washed up has-beens, right? And, OK,
12:41
so this is not washed up has-beens. No, it's not. This is
12:44
some of the best players in the world. But they're playing a low standard
12:46
of football. Do you watch pre-season friendlies
12:48
that don't involve your team?
12:50
Ever? No.
12:53
Why would you? Yeah, but... Yeah,
12:55
but... Killing a Bapi and his prime doesn't take
12:58
part in a lot of... But hold on a second. Are you telling
13:00
me you care about the outcome of one team versus
13:02
another in Saudi Arabia? You've literally no connection with it. No,
13:04
but it's more the players, isn't
13:06
it? I couldn't care less about the team. And
13:09
I'm not saying I'd watch them. I'm saying I think
13:11
a large cohort of people will.
13:12
Like, if Killing Bapi, Jordan Henderson, all these lads are heading
13:14
off. OK, they're... Not
13:17
to put Henderson the same in the same sense. Like,
13:19
come on. No, you
13:21
don't have to watch us.
13:23
They could sign the 25 best players in the
13:25
world, but
13:26
I'll still be far more interested, because I follow
13:28
Aston Villa in Aston
13:31
Villa's fortunes, and that is also in
13:33
itself ridiculous. I'll
13:35
still be
13:36
trying to get more interested in my domestic
13:38
league and more likely to bring my
13:40
kids to my domestic league than... It's up
13:42
to us to... We
13:45
have incredible power when it comes to what's
13:47
going on here by not watching
13:50
and not caring about it. Killing a Bapi could score 600 goals.
13:54
Remember the gold Zlatan scores
13:56
where he drills around like 12 people in a pre-season friendly? It
13:59
was IX.
14:00
In the preseason friendly off Riley Galaxy. Yeah. No,
14:02
no, it was IACs. It was back in the day. Yeah, but like It
14:07
it's just it's just it's meaningless um
14:11
But
14:11
what about the young people who don't support
14:14
clubs and they support players to go wherever
14:16
in bat big goes You know you're saying Aston Villa, but that's
14:18
your thing You know and you come from a time
14:20
where you'd support the club over the player But oftentimes
14:22
now it's like the players marketed so
14:25
much that
14:25
they're the new club for people
14:28
So like if they sign in off at those type of players
14:30
of the
14:31
Types of in bat being and get them in longer
14:33
term contracts Why wouldn't the new generation
14:35
of football fans watch their football in Saudi Arabia? Why
14:38
would they care about the political aspect of it or the morality
14:40
aspect?
14:41
Well, then they're not good people if you
14:43
don't care about Morality
14:46
if you're making a choice to go. Oh, I don't really care
14:48
about this thing like fast But
14:50
kids don't kids don't care about Saudi but
14:52
Saudi Rights issues well their
14:55
heroes are going to play right for these leagues They're
14:57
gonna follow their heroes there are repercussions for that. I think
14:59
if there's enough that go
15:01
the people will follow If
15:03
the product is better eventually follow though enough
15:05
enough to a point where I know friends enough people are watching
15:08
all they want is people Watching it. But hang on that's
15:10
a different you're saying we're all going to be watching
15:13
the change But we change question was when
15:15
will we be watching that was his question and
15:17
I'm saying I'm never gonna be watching it Yeah,
15:19
but rather when I was already asked when were the TV
15:22
Can't put it yeah, when are the TV companies be showing us
15:24
highlights regardless of artists individual decisions
15:26
to watch? Well, we'll be thrown this well You
15:29
can get it now if you want what TV companies
15:31
talk about when will sky show us? Well,
15:33
when will it when will they prior to that over the Premier League?
15:35
Yeah, I never gonna prioritize it over the Premier League because the
15:37
Premier League like has a domestic market
15:40
of 60 million people and so short
15:43
the the rights for the Premier League are
15:45
six billion Richard Masters in the papers today and I it's
15:48
slightly greater international rights than
15:51
local rights, but the still local rights will be two billion
15:53
and For two billion you'll still get
15:55
a really good league a really competitive league where
15:58
the storied history of Manchester United
15:59
and Liverpool and Arsenal and Chelsea
16:02
and everybody else
16:03
actually matters. That's why this stuff matters.
16:05
You can't just... So the reason
16:07
that the the Saudis and Qatar
16:10
and the UAE are trying to buy
16:13
football is because it has a history that they don't
16:15
have. That's the cache that they're trying to get.
16:17
It's not just about the geopolitical power, why that's
16:19
very important. It's also about the
16:22
kudos from owning something
16:24
that has history and a tradition.
16:27
And the Saudi League will never have that. So no matter
16:29
how good the quality of football gets,
16:32
it's gonna be like one of those Champions League games that you watch
16:34
where it's like, oh the quality football is very good
16:36
here but I actually don't care about what happens here.
16:39
And so sure there will be a critical
16:41
mass of people around the world who are watching this
16:43
but it won't matter. Abu Dhabi bought Manchester
16:46
City in 2008 and it's basically a new club now.
16:48
It's
16:48
nothing to do with the previous club. And they
16:50
have a whole new generation of fans. There's Man City fans
16:53
walking around the street now that would never have supported City. The
16:55
fact about Dhabi didn't buy them. Are they Abu Dhabi fans?
16:57
They're fans of what they're seeing in front of them. They're
17:00
fans of the Holland and the Broyna. They don't care about
17:02
where the money's coming from. That's my point. If
17:04
the players go, people will follow. People
17:06
just want to watch a good product. People want escapism. They're not
17:08
gonna look into what's happening here. Your point
17:10
is that...
17:12
Their senses would be dulled. In Manchester,
17:15
a club exists
17:17
that has a lot of money that has come from the
17:19
Gulf, right? Yeah. But you
17:23
could build that same team in Saudi Arabia
17:26
and
17:27
you're not gonna have kids in Manchester wandering around
17:30
in shirts for one of those teams.
17:33
Well, Manchester, no, because City are
17:36
doing that in England. Yeah, so... But another
17:38
City in England... Shane's questions, which was the
17:40
basis of this, is when are we gonna be watching this? When is it gonna
17:42
be our TVs? And my point
17:44
is that it's never gonna supplant
17:46
the Premier League in the hearts and minds of the people who are
17:48
Premier League fans, genuine Premier League fans as opposed
17:50
to the casual fans who you're talking about who are like
17:53
Instagram fans. And like, I don't really actually
17:55
know. I mean, you
17:57
could basically just buy the Kardashian brand.
17:59
and access a similar sized
18:02
audience and that's the conversation I think
18:05
you're like oh this doesn't matter because the audience is gonna
18:07
be so big. That wouldn't achieve sports washing though. This
18:11
is feel the dream stuff, build it and they will come and
18:13
I feel like a lot of people are gonna
18:15
head towards the study league because it is not
18:18
like the MLS whatsoever. It's players in the prime of their
18:20
life and kids, the
18:22
generation of kids nowadays as you say call
18:24
them, only care about players.
18:26
They do not care about teams. They're in bat-blade fans
18:28
and they're highland fans. Some of them support teams of course. Yeah I
18:30
mean come on, kids, you're saying kids like
18:32
you know every single kid right? No. They're
18:35
the individual players that become big brands that's true.
18:37
At some point everybody
18:40
starts to think about stuff.
18:42
Like oh they will never think about it.
18:44
You can never reach a moment where you tip over
18:46
from and they
18:49
just execute another 200 people there. Oh with
18:51
the football? No
18:52
with the 200 people. No but you see
18:55
you and me would have the same preference. I'd never
18:57
leave the Premier League for Saudi League. No I'm
19:00
sorry for the record. But I'm not talking
19:02
about us. That's my point here.
19:04
There is a market for this
19:05
if prime players go over. Sure.
19:08
That's the thing. I'm not gonna say it's gonna overtake
19:10
the Premier League completely but in 5 to 10 years time you
19:12
could see kids walking around with Saudi Arabian
19:14
club jerseys.
19:15
I'd be so unsurprised. I'd be so unsurprised.
19:18
How many of them though right? Because there's always gonna be one or
19:20
two. Yeah totally. Because
19:22
we thought that was gonna happen in China and it didn't. And MLS
19:24
as well.
19:25
And it hasn't really. It hasn't taken over the
19:27
Premier League. This is probably the biggest threat to it. There's
19:29
obviously way more money here than there is
19:32
in either of those two leagues. Like
19:35
in raw terms the money that's being talked about by Mbappe.
19:38
I just don't think they're getting good value for money. I think that Mbappe
19:40
could go and be like oh this is a...we'll
19:42
see. Well the one sorry because it's only a one year contract so
19:44
you're just gonna leave after 12 months of how much
19:46
positive impact
19:47
will that have for the league. I don't know. The only
19:50
thing with Mbappe is that he doesn't get
19:52
challenged as it is enough with
19:55
Paris Saint-Germain. He doesn't play
19:57
enough high quality games in Mbappe. The world doesn't really
19:59
see him. Like so many of those games
20:01
in France. He's breezing through them even
20:03
when they lose whatever like even if they win
20:05
the league It's like Grant or in the PSG ultras,
20:08
whatever them. They're anything the Champions League. We
20:10
don't see him that often We don't see the best of them happy
20:14
Let's go to Australia
20:17
Kathleen McNamee. Good morning to you. How are you?
20:19
Morning guys doing good doing good. How
20:22
is the World Cup? Yeah,
20:24
it's gone well and sitting in Perth
20:26
a very very rainy and cold Perth
20:28
arrived in late last night So just spent
20:30
the morning kind of wandering around exploring.
20:33
I was just watching the Canada press conference
20:35
there so their
20:36
coach bev priestsman was saying that Ireland
20:38
are horrible team to play against and Jesse
20:42
Fleming will be fit. So that's probably the big news That's
20:44
just happened in the last 10 or so
20:46
minutes from over here There's
20:48
another Ireland press conference today at around
20:50
about half past nine, but Vera is in the all
20:52
the papers this morning So obviously there was something yesterday as
20:54
well
20:56
That's actually from the weekend So
20:58
Vera was chatting and to
21:00
the newspapers and she was saying that a
21:03
be lark and did she didn't say
21:05
specifically that she's going to start but that
21:08
she Kind of hinted
21:10
that it could be a possibility and if that is the case
21:12
the likelihood is that Marissa Shiva and may
21:15
come out of the
21:16
squad which would be tough one for
21:18
her to take considering the performance the other
21:20
night and being substituted so quickly after
21:23
the Penalty but
21:25
the big question mark is kind of is
21:27
Abby She was absolutely brilliant when she came on
21:29
is she ready to have that
21:32
starting position and to play as
21:34
well as she did from the get-go and So
21:36
yeah, it's gonna be interesting to see what Vera says
21:38
She's as you say she's up for media around half
21:40
night your time the last time we did one
21:42
of these press these are like The FIFA press conferences
21:45
and normally a lot of the time the Irish media
21:47
gets to chat to Vera kind of you know Sure,
21:50
the Irish. Yeah, so it's a lot easier and The
21:53
last one only lasted for 11 minutes. So
21:56
yeah, the big ones will be chances of a
21:58
b-lark and starting and up to
21:59
on Louise Quinn. She flew to
22:02
Perth in a protective boot but did play
22:04
in the training session they have. They have another training session
22:06
later today and then also how is Katie
22:09
McCabe's hand because
22:11
her fingers were fairly heavily bandaged
22:13
after the last game. It's not Katie
22:16
up for media today, it's Keira Carissa so
22:18
it'd be interesting to see. That kind
22:20
of implies that there won't be any changes up front
22:22
for Ireland in terms of who's going
22:25
to start in that solo position.
22:27
So the team Kathleen went back to the base in Brisbane
22:30
after the Australia game and then what
22:32
four and a half five hours west
22:34
to Perth. Turns out Australia's pretty big. Yeah
22:37
turns out it is. I had the good fortune
22:40
of having a screaming baby behind me for the five
22:42
hours yesterday which is very fun although I felt
22:44
a lot worse for the parents than I did myself but yeah
22:47
five hours it's a long trip. There was a lot of people kind
22:49
of questioning why the team didn't maybe stay on in Sydney
22:52
for a day or two and then
22:53
go straight to Perth and kind of get because there's
22:55
also a jet lag so like there's a two-hour time
22:58
difference and so in Brisbane
23:00
and Sydney we were nine hours ahead of Ireland
23:02
here we're only seven but
23:04
it was FIFA mandated that they go back to Brisbane because that
23:06
is technically their base. So
23:08
the team had a bit of media on Saturday
23:11
morning and then they had a day off,
23:13
a training session Friday, a bit of media on Saturday
23:15
morning they had the rest of the day off on Saturday
23:18
which was quite funny because I think
23:20
a lot of people took that as an opportunity to
23:22
recharge their batteries so you know I was wandering
23:24
around South Brisbane going into the fan
23:26
zones and you just kept running into the players and
23:29
I got to the point where I felt like saying to them I swear
23:31
I'm not trying to stalk you this part is just
23:33
very very small and it's
23:35
kind of the nice part of Brisbane and
23:37
so yeah a lot of them went to the fan zone in
23:39
Brisbane which was really really good vibe and
23:42
I watched the England game there and then they flew
23:44
out on Sunday morning and they've had a
23:46
training session here since and then yeah another one
23:48
today and also a familiarization with
23:51
the stadium later just where the team get to
23:53
kind of walk
23:53
out and around the field and then game
23:55
day tomorrow.
23:56
Should be a lot more Irish fans what is it 20 I think 20,500
23:58
capacity
23:59
the Perth Retangular Stadium so that the shape
24:02
of the stadium was surprised no one.
24:04
Yeah, yeah, I don't know if there will be
24:06
more Irish here. I definitely, Perth's because
24:09
it's so off the beaten track,
24:11
it's kind of harder to get to for
24:13
a lot of Irish fans. I
24:15
went to a couple of Irish pubs this morning because what else
24:17
do you do at 11 o'clock on a, what day is it,
24:20
Tuesday? And
24:22
I was chatting to just some of the owners there
24:24
and stuff and they say there's a nice Irish crowd
24:26
in Perth but they don't really expect too
24:28
many people to be flying in. I've
24:31
heard of a couple of groups but a lot of people are staying
24:33
over
24:33
on the other coast just because of that five
24:35
hour flight
24:36
there and five hours back. It's not particularly
24:39
pleasant and also just
24:41
it's not as regular as some of the other internal
24:43
flights but there should be a good Irish crowd.
24:46
There's a couple of the pubs here that are throwing events
24:48
so we'll pop along to those and see
24:51
who has come out for the big
24:53
game. Does
24:54
it get much coverage in the local
24:56
papers? I'm just keeping an eye on the score here from
24:58
the New Zealand Philippines game and Philippines on
25:01
course for a massive shock won the lead
25:03
there after just over an hour but I'd
25:05
imagine that the papers in both countries Australia and
25:07
New Zealand are
25:08
fairly heavily weighted towards this.
25:11
Yeah, I was actually just watching that game before I came
25:13
on with you guys and if New Zealand
25:15
had won that would have been them true so that would have been massive
25:18
considering like the last game was the first one they've
25:20
ever won at a World Cup. The papers are definitely
25:22
going heavy on it. It's just actually getting to watch the
25:24
games. It's really difficult because apart from the Matildas
25:26
games all the group
25:29
stage games are all behind the paywall so
25:32
you can get up to sports which is basically the equivalent
25:35
of Sky Sports here which a lot of homes will
25:37
have anyways but even if you go
25:39
into like most hotel rooms like a lot of the
25:41
Irish press
25:41
pack hasn't been watching the games. I bought
25:44
a subscription because it was like $20 for
25:46
the month that I was here and I was like it's going to be worth it in
25:48
terms of actually seeing what's happening
25:51
in the World Cup but a lot of places
25:53
you go into either don't have a subscription
25:55
or just aren't showing it so there's
25:57
definitely in the traditional media there's a lot of people.
26:00
buzz but it's kind of hard unless
26:02
you're going to very specific places
26:04
to catch the games, which is
26:06
a shame because I think that's the way that
26:08
you get people the most is you
26:10
know those people casually flicking around
26:12
on their TV and see a game pops
26:14
up and decide to pay attention to it. And
26:17
there's a lot of anger on the ground here from Australians
26:19
that if Optus was allowed by
26:21
the rights to it, I think it was a good few years and go
26:24
now because they see it as a barrier
26:26
to grow in the game here. I mean
26:28
if you look at the viewing figures from most
26:29
other countries, I think Brazil's last
26:32
game was watched by like 11.5
26:34
million people, which is the biggest viewership
26:36
they've had since
26:39
the Beijing Olympics or something on women's
26:41
football. So like stuff like that's great to see
26:43
and it's definitely happening.
26:46
I think there's 54% more attendance so
26:49
far at this stage of the tournament. So all
26:51
those figures
26:52
across the board are really positive. It's just annoying
26:54
if you're in Australia to try and watch it. Ireland
26:56
are playing the reigning Olympic champions here
26:58
in Canada, but
27:00
Canada only won one of the last seven games. They
27:02
haven't scored four of their last six matches. They can see
27:04
the 10 in their last eight.
27:06
So you're saying we have a chance?
27:08
Possibly. I thought another
27:11
interesting fact about Canada, the 32 teams
27:13
that are in the World Cup, 30 of them have domestic
27:15
leagues. Canada are one of the ones that do
27:17
not have a domestic league. They have the eighth highest
27:20
income in the world and the other team who doesn't
27:23
have a league is Haiti, which is one of the poorest
27:25
countries in the world. So it says a lot about the
27:27
setup for them there. If you
27:29
watch the game they played against Nigeria,
27:32
I think it summed it up very well to say they're really
27:34
good defenders, but you don't know where their goal
27:37
is going to come from, which makes
27:38
me think that tomorrow could be a little bit of a trudge
27:40
because that's kind of how people look at
27:43
us. Now, Jesse Fleming going into the
27:45
setup does change things massively because
27:47
she's a really high-impact player and
27:49
there was massive worry on the Canadian side
27:51
that she wasn't going to be available. Likelihood
27:54
from what I've seen in the Canadian papers and
27:56
stuff is that they think Christine Sinclair is going to be
27:58
taken out.
27:59
Yeah, it is.
28:01
But also, yes, you remember what, Christine
28:03
Sinclair is like 40 odd. So like,
28:06
you probably don't expect her to play a full match
28:08
anyways, whereas Jesse Fleming is competing at
28:10
the highest level with
28:12
Chelsea and the WSL.
28:14
So that's going to be really interesting. And
28:17
then, I mean, I have expected
28:20
there. I was like 50-50 on whether
28:22
there'd be any changes. And
28:23
I thought the only change on the Irish side would probably
28:25
be Abby Larkin or Lucy
28:27
Quinn coming in. So
28:29
that kind of midfield role and also providing a little
28:31
bit of cover for Katie. And
28:33
so really interested to see what Vera says about that
28:35
in a couple of hours time. What kind of shape
28:37
to kind of have? How do they match up against R-shape?
28:41
Actually very similar. That's the
28:42
thing. The two teams set up pretty much the same
28:44
way, or at least have in their
28:47
last couple of games.
28:48
They like to go heavy on the defence. And then
28:51
like Fleming is really good at breaking behind the
28:53
lines. So utilizing her in
28:55
the best way possible would be really important. We also have Ashley
28:57
Lawrence, who is like one of the best
29:00
players out there at the moment. And
29:03
she has just signed for Chelsea. So we've seen a lot more
29:05
of her this season in the WSL. She
29:07
was up for media today as well.
29:10
And again, I feel like herself and Beth Priestman
29:12
were kind of egging Ireland
29:14
on and putting
29:15
us up a little bit. But yeah, tomorrow's
29:17
crucial. I mean, we lose tomorrow. We're out of the tournament.
29:20
So a result of some kind is absolutely
29:22
essential. I think I probably felt a lot
29:24
more optimistic coming out of the Australia
29:27
game
29:28
than I do now having had like a couple
29:30
of days. I just I really don't know where
29:33
our goals are going to come from unless it is a set
29:36
piece or something, especially if Vera was
29:38
like so reticent to use Amber Barrett
29:40
on the night in Sydney. So yeah,
29:44
the team is going to be interesting tomorrow,
29:46
especially I feel like after the first hour, if
29:49
it looks like we're not going to score a goal, I just wonder
29:51
will Vera have the confidence to stick on
29:53
someone like Amber?
29:54
Part, what's
29:55
it like?
29:57
It's a strange city. I have.
29:59
I only had a proper chance to look around at this
30:02
morning because I got in late last night.
30:04
It's kind of hard to work out what its vibe
30:06
is. Sydney was very
30:09
hoppin', happening central
30:11
city. Brisbane's very chill. Whereas
30:14
here, you definitely notice it's
30:16
a little bit more rough around the edges than the
30:18
other cities that I've been to so far. It's
30:21
also been the worst weather since I've been here. So that
30:23
could be adding to it a little bit, but
30:25
you kind of go very quickly to slightly
30:28
rundown areas into big bustling
30:30
districts. So yeah, I'm
30:33
curious to have a proper look around, maybe a little bit
30:35
today and then tomorrow morning as well, to see
30:38
if I can find some of the nice places. Yeah,
30:42
good Irish book called Dirty Nellies who is showing all the World
30:44
Cup games. So that has been my main recommendation
30:46
so far. It's also a great name for a pub.
30:48
Not bad. Can we expect
30:51
Vera Power play a Kitty McCabe higher up the pitch? Does
30:53
that seem to be something coming out of the papers as well this morning
30:55
that she maybe feels a
30:57
little less reluctant to do that?
30:59
Yeah, I don't think I've ever actually heard Vera so
31:03
open about the fact that Kitty needs to get higher up
31:05
the pitch normally. She's like, no, no, no, she wants to
31:07
sit deep. But you can see you're doing that, like
31:10
the places that Shiva was getting herself into
31:12
on the pitch, it was obvious that that was something that they'd
31:14
talked about. I think
31:16
because she was talking about it so much, I really do
31:18
wonder if there is gonna be a tactical
31:21
switch to allow that for Kitty because realistically,
31:24
I don't know if we should be having someone who is five
31:26
foot one in our back five,
31:28
especially if that's a
31:29
target area for teams to put
31:32
in high balls. So
31:34
yeah, Kitty getting higher up to both teams, so Vera
31:36
thinks that she was the only one likely to score,
31:39
which again, I have to question a little
31:41
bit when you look at where a lot of our goals
31:44
have come from recent times. We all know Kitty
31:46
playing higher up the pitch is a good thing, but we also
31:48
need to make sure that we're not leaving
31:50
ourselves open to things that
31:53
happened with the penalty where someone who isn't
31:55
used to playing in defensive positions does
31:58
something silly and that's the decide.
31:59
later in what was an incredibly, incredibly close
32:02
game. I don't feel as sick about this one, which is
32:04
maybe a bonus
32:05
or else it's a sign of resignation. I haven't quite decided
32:07
yet. I know, it's hope. They're the same thing.
32:09
Flip sides of the same coin. Good stuff, Kathleen. We'll let you
32:11
go and get ready for the press conference. Cheers. Thanks,
32:14
guys. Kathleen McAuley, me in Perth
32:17
in Australia. We'll talk with Sue Ronan
32:19
about the tactical breakdown of the game in
32:21
about 20 minutes time. If you want to get in touch 087 9180
32:23
180 is the WhatsApp number. Braeburn
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32:28
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32:40
After the break, Tommy Walsh first. Here's Kathleen speaking
32:42
with Áine O'Gorman.
32:44
A couple of days after the game, I had a bit of
32:46
time to relax. What was
32:48
it like sitting there watching
32:50
everything happen? Yeah,
32:52
it was amazing. Obviously, I think before the girls came
32:54
out of the tunnel, Ole, Ole, Ole kicked
32:56
off and kind of gave me goosebumps. And I turned
32:58
around and I was just like, something,
33:01
huh? Yeah,
33:04
so it was pretty special. And obviously the national anthem
33:06
was some really loud and proud. And
33:09
yeah, it was just a really special moment. And everyone's keep saying,
33:11
like, take it in, try and enjoy it. So that
33:13
was my moment. And then it was obviously, focus on the
33:15
game. Can you take it in at the moment? Like,
33:18
I feel like even from outside, it's
33:20
really hard to actually look at the game
33:23
and take it all in, soak it in. It was
33:25
brilliant in the moment, but now it almost
33:27
feels like a little bit of a dream where you're kind of questioning, did
33:29
that actually happen? Yeah,
33:32
I think that's sports people as well. Anytime you play
33:34
a match, you kind of just park it, take what you have to out
33:36
of it and then look forward to the next game
33:38
as well. So I think it's
33:39
something you more reflect on probably
33:41
when your career's over or the World Cup's over.
33:44
Very fast talking about careers being over, but too soon.
33:48
Get through the World Cup first. That's what happens
33:50
when you get to my age. In terms
33:53
of Canada, Nigeria, have you had much
33:55
of an opportunity to look back on the
33:57
game that happened yesterday?
33:59
Mine yesterday when the match was on,
34:02
but it was actually on the telly last night, so I look
34:04
back on it obviously, Canada,
34:07
penalty saved as well, so they're unfortunate
34:09
in that front, but within that year I put
34:11
a look to them as well, so I can take
34:14
positives out of that result going into Wednesday.
34:17
So the general thought, like I was talking to
34:19
a couple of the players last night, and the general feeling seemed to
34:21
be quite positive after that game, like obviously
34:23
the disappointment of not getting through something wanted, but
34:25
also after seeing that game feeling like there's
34:28
two wins possibly you've been taking
34:29
there? Yeah absolutely, like you do
34:32
every game, football to win don't you, so we just have
34:34
to back ourselves and even take
34:36
the positives out of the game in the old age and turn
34:40
yourself on eating and prepare like we always do.
34:52
Right, four minutes,
34:54
five minutes passed out this morning, we're turning back to hurling in the
34:56
Ireland final and the season in general. Tommy
34:59
Walsh, good morning to you.
35:00
Yeah, good morning, Jar. The dust has settled,
35:02
how are you feeling about it now? Ah,
35:05
it's tough now, it's one of the toughest defeats we've
35:08
got at it Jar. So
35:10
disappointed, like normally you dust yourself
35:12
down and you look forward to the following
35:14
year but definitely finding this one
35:16
would be harder to get over. You
35:19
know, why, like every Ireland is
35:21
important, but I suppose you know, like I
35:24
always shout out to you for the underdog, whether it's Fiske Kenny or
35:26
whoever it is, like I'm an underdog
35:29
man you know, and just seeing
35:31
the lads like, you know after losing the last couple
35:33
of all Ireland's,
35:34
I suppose a whole bit, you know seven
35:36
or eight or ten years ago and know
35:39
exactly what they put into it, like
35:42
you know, talk about role
35:44
models for your county or for young lads, young lads
35:46
now growing up and training young
35:48
lads and they're the guys we want them
35:50
to look up to and you couldn't pick better
35:52
role models and that's from being
35:54
in Witten ten years ago and in order, probably
35:57
got on to huge lengths since then.
35:59
game has gone on so much from training
36:02
two or three times a week, we'll say,
36:04
and maybe training a gym session every maybe 10 days.
36:07
Now, like they're training six, seven days a week,
36:10
like a recovery session now is nearly 10
36:12
hundred meter sprints. And so
36:15
just seeing what they put into it and just seeing walking
36:17
off the field after the disappointment of
36:19
an all-earn last year was heartbreaking
36:22
enough. Like, you know, so, but listen,
36:25
all congratulations to Limerick, they were met
36:27
by a team that is just absolutely outstanding.
36:29
Yeah, I think maybe one of the reasons
36:32
why it's harder to take is that there's
36:33
not much else that you can point to that Glocheni
36:36
could have done, maybe a
36:38
free here or maybe better
36:40
shot selection. But like they played about
36:42
as well as they could do. They were
36:45
feverish and tigress in that first half.
36:47
And it's it just wasn't enough.
36:50
Yeah, it wasn't enough. And like,
36:53
you know, I probably could
36:55
easily go and went along with that argument that
36:57
you said for, you know, for a little for
36:59
a minute or two. But when you take
37:01
back on it like games do change on
37:03
so many moments,
37:05
like, and you only have to go back to the other and then you find
37:07
like a emoji on it and all in part here
37:09
to weekend, Tipperary and Watford,
37:12
like to one eight to three pints. And
37:14
it looks like, you know,
37:16
an all-earn winning team versus a team that isn't
37:18
a contender at that stage. And
37:21
suddenly a few things changed for Watford
37:23
and suddenly they looked brilliant.
37:25
So, you know, probably
37:27
just a team that gets an all-earn and finds
37:30
should be good enough to win it. And I believe that any
37:32
team, I believe to have the forwards,
37:34
to have the team and to have the subs
37:36
coming on, we talked about their subs all year,
37:39
just a few different instances on the day
37:41
just could have changed, you know, like regards
37:44
the 65 that wasn't the
37:46
three
37:47
or
37:49
four goal chances that we had, like David Reedy's,
37:52
who got an O on Alan
37:54
Murphy at home was, you know, it looked ordinary,
37:57
but that was amazing because
37:59
he had so
37:59
much ground. He's reading in a beautiful kind
38:02
of a messy type of a ball
38:04
over the top and straight into into
38:07
the Kenny Forest hand and Alan Morphy then nearly
38:09
had a great goal chance yet. You know, you
38:11
had the Massey slip. We had the
38:14
half chance of a poll there in the second
38:16
half. Well, went into Nicky Crane the end. You
38:19
had the goal chance in the first half. And we did
38:21
have a lot of points as well, Jared, that we
38:23
normally would shoot over the bar and like
38:25
we have to rewind with 60 minutes gone.
38:27
I'd say it was around 60 a minute, it was 59 minutes.
38:30
There was only two sheet points in it. Like
38:32
a score, say if you had to go a few score before that,
38:34
suddenly you're two points up. It's squeaky bum
38:36
time then. So I know,
38:39
I think the last 10 minutes probably,
38:41
you know, painted a different
38:43
picture of the whole entire game. And
38:45
that's just, I suppose it is Limerick's ability to score
38:48
three or four quick points. That's probably what
38:50
stands them out from the rest. Like if you go through their
38:52
team, especially say from midfield
38:54
up, you couldn't say anyone was unbelievable.
38:57
Like you know, in regards, Peter Casey scored five
38:59
great points, scored two off,
39:01
two or three, you know, off different lads. Didn't
39:03
score them all off the one fella. And I just
39:06
think he got lovely ball time hard to defend it.
39:08
But other than let's say Peter scoring five points, everyone
39:10
else is only chipping him with two each. I think
39:12
I had to down for six, six of the Limerick
39:14
players score two each. And
39:17
you know, like if, say if you take Peter Casey,
39:19
the second half of the farm is out of it,
39:22
was it clear who was demanding a match? You
39:24
know, normally you would in such a,
39:26
such a victory, but no, I don't
39:28
think they were that far away when you go
39:31
back on it. But the scoreline obviously, the work
39:33
Tommy, I think it was Fann Larkin and Johanna Cisserie
39:36
last week. It's one thing walking around Kakeni as
39:38
a Kakeni Herrler, but walking around Kakeni as a all
39:40
Ireland winning Kakeni Herrler is what they all dream
39:43
of. Like this is going to enter now in ninth year,
39:45
next year since Kakeni won. Aside
39:47
from those seven or eight players that you said you played with
39:49
that maybe have won an A Mccarthy
39:51
at some point, like most of this Kakeni team have
39:54
never experienced winning a senior all Ireland. So I
39:56
think the last 10 and a half gap for Kakeni
39:58
was maybe 93 to 2000. and the
40:00
rest of the time there hasn't really been much of a gap
40:02
at all. So
40:04
does the pressure rack it up now year
40:06
on year until this particular
40:08
team wins one? I
40:11
don't want to listen when you get to the final,
40:13
obviously it will because of
40:15
the last couple of finals. But I don't think to
40:19
win an All-Ireland Championship for Kilkenny, I
40:22
don't think the time frame is really bothering
40:24
anyone. It's not bothering me anyway because
40:27
this is a great team at the moment. I
40:29
just think you have to look forward when you're young listening
40:32
you're always hopeful and hopeless what everyone
40:34
needs. There will be new
40:36
players coming in from the Canada 20s, there will
40:39
be new players coming in all the time that will have to be tried
40:41
and tested. We've
40:42
seen the Cork team that won the All-Ireland 99 full
40:44
of young fellas against the Hesse and
40:46
the Kilkenny team in the 82 against Cork. Young
40:49
fellas win All-Irelands all the time
40:51
and that's what you'll be hoping for.
40:53
But listen, the comeback is probably not the time
40:55
chain to be even thinking about that. It's
40:58
too far away. What they'll be thinking about is now get
41:00
back probably this week, probably a week or two off,
41:02
back into the club action then. It's amazing
41:05
how January comes around quick and you forget it all
41:07
and on you go again. There
41:10
is hope then for that team that it's less
41:12
despair.
41:14
Before we move on, I do want to just talk about Canark because the
41:16
lad in the hurling pot we're asking, he's still only
41:19
in his late 30s, mid 30s if
41:22
you're nitpicking
41:24
here. It's an incredible achievement to reach the point of this
41:27
stage of his career where everybody now universally acknowledges
41:30
him as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the game.
41:33
Yeah, absolutely. If
41:37
you think back, I suppose just
41:39
looking at interviews and listening to guys and you were talking
41:41
to a few of them, Joe Hennessy and Eddie Caron at the end
41:43
of the day, like Fadar Tommy Marr,
41:46
we don't know the extent of
41:49
the difference in his coaching by
41:51
their recollections at that time. It seemed
41:53
to be something similar in that he
41:55
started coaching players and analysing and
41:58
showing them how to perform.
41:59
the skills and the acts of hurling.
42:02
Then if you go on just trying to think
42:04
off top of me head like Eamonn O'Shea for
42:06
Tipperary was different, you
42:08
know he brought that difference in movement like that.
42:11
When Eamonn O'Shea came with that Tipperary team,
42:13
the
42:15
belief and the traditionalist and everyone that
42:17
was involved in hurling at the time was all about winning your
42:19
own ball and that if you kind of ran away
42:21
from your man you were kind of afraid of him. Because
42:24
when Eamonn O'Shea came along he changed all that
42:26
and that movement was key. So
42:28
you saw the likes of Laric Carpet, Owen
42:30
Kelly, Young Gnaw and McRab probably 19 years
42:33
of age, Jamie Calnan, their
42:35
games went to new levels probably under Raymond
42:38
O'Shea that might not have had under the
42:40
old regime of hitting down the ball and winning your own
42:42
ball. I
42:43
don't know
42:45
was it Newtown, Chandrum or? It was
42:47
wasn't it Ben and Jerry's dad? Yeah
42:50
I think it was that time like the running game again
42:52
was not a thing like it was kind of frowned upon but
42:55
like winning then makes everything right and that
42:58
Newtown, Chandrum and Carpet team after
43:00
that had huge success
43:02
with the running game and it
43:05
probably boils down to using the coaching
43:07
methods that suit your team maybe and
43:10
you
43:10
know dogging it out really against the public and not
43:12
being swayed
43:13
which leads us on to Canirk.
43:16
I'm not sure if they left out anyone there along
43:18
the way but they were tough. So Canirk,
43:20
amazing man like you know
43:23
I was speaking to someone down around there
43:25
last winter and they said even away from coaching
43:28
this man is a bit of a genius so
43:30
I'm not sure how true that is but you're listening it
43:32
probably is. Regardless
43:34
you know his success
43:36
like he's had huge success with Clare on the
43:38
21s
43:40
and like I think even the minors that
43:42
time he
43:43
had success with the minors monster
43:45
but I don't think they won the All Ireland that year
43:47
and came back though and then was so successful that
43:49
Clare on the 21 team
43:51
went on to the Clare senior team then and
43:53
won with Davey Fitts back in 2013. Again
43:56
different methods again you'd have to say
43:58
went against Eddie Wentworth sweet but
43:59
was finally showing that on Ireland, then they pushed up and
44:02
nearly went the old traditional way
44:04
of changing totally up.
44:05
And then fast forward on then to this current
44:08
Limerick team for his successes after
44:10
all. But his humility I suppose is and his
44:12
ability to stay out of the limelight
44:14
is very intriguing too. You'd
44:17
love to know that bit more about him. Yeah.
44:19
Probably by the sound of that too,
44:21
Shane to, and Jared to, he's
44:23
a teacher by trait and profession. And
44:27
like if you go back to all the great managers,
44:30
the coaches in the GA and hurling, like
44:32
teachers have had a huge role.
44:34
And I would say it myself, like, like
44:38
the skills and the tactics
44:40
and all, that's one side of it,
44:41
but just getting the players to believe, getting
44:44
the players to buy into everything, like
44:46
that is huge because you're dealing with so
44:48
many different personalities. And as we've seen with that Limerick,
44:50
they have huge personalities, but
44:52
they're able to manage them, Canerka and Kylie,
44:55
but these teachers, you see, they spend four
44:57
years or three years up in the same paths or whatever,
45:00
learning how to deal with different personalities
45:02
as such.
45:03
And it's probably a trade. You
45:05
go off to be a block layer, you do a trade for four years, go
45:08
off to be a carpenter and electrician. You do a trade
45:10
for four years, learning the different,
45:12
the bits and all gets. And I think
45:14
teachers have a huge advantage in that, in
45:16
that they're learning how to deal with, we'll say, Jared Gilroy
45:19
versus Shane versus John O'Loughlin. You
45:21
know, it
45:22
has to be huge because you're a big personality
45:25
there, you take plenty of advantage. I
45:27
was wondering where you were going with that, Tommy. Come
45:32
here, you've picked a 15 for us for the season. So
45:35
this is your All-Stars team.
45:36
Yeah. Who were the
45:38
certainties? Yeah, so
45:40
the certainties, I'll
45:43
skip through to the full back lane. Two in the full back lane that you
45:45
had is Mikey Butler and
45:47
Hugh Lawler. So, Mikey Butler,
45:50
right corner back number two. I just think again, he's second year
45:52
on the Kenny team. He
45:55
had such an outstanding year last year. Got
45:57
young earlier than all-star. like,
46:00
is he going to have second year right? But he didn't. He
46:03
still marked the best of the best. Was brilliant all
46:05
through. Even in the other final,
46:07
he was super.
46:08
So Mikey Butler is right card back. You
46:11
will all, I think, is Kenny's player
46:13
of the,
46:13
probably the last couple of years. He's an outstanding
46:16
fullback. He's the ability to play from the front.
46:19
He's the ability to play from behind. He's massive
46:21
as well, I'm glad. He's brilliant in the air. Todd
46:23
Ashton and O'Reilly picked out his catch
46:25
there in the second half of the other final
46:27
as a great moment. I thought it was unbelievable
46:29
because you can't let Golan behind you.
46:32
99% of the time he will catch
46:34
that in its goal. But he will all are caught
46:36
down the field.
46:38
The half back line, then I thought
46:41
that was probably fairly straight forward. Deirah
46:43
McBurns, William O'Gonoh and Kyle Hayes.
46:45
Burns has gone from level to level. Like,
46:48
he's just gone up the levels every year. Like, he
46:50
started off as a kind of a guy that was winged
46:52
back many years ago that might score a couple
46:55
of pounds. But now he's just an absolute,
46:57
you know, I'd like to
46:59
hit all the wilder china in here. They're just, the ball can't
47:01
go past these guys. It's unbelievable.
47:04
High balls, low balls. You
47:06
just can't get past them. And he scored eight points
47:08
in the other one and found seven points from freeze.
47:12
And they're all tough freeze. They're out in the wing most
47:14
of them under the hook and they're accusing. William
47:18
O'Gonoh, who then sent her back. William O'Gonoh,
47:20
who was just an outstanding season. Even
47:22
if he was midfield, he would have been picked midfield.
47:25
I thought he was brilliant even up until the
47:27
changeover to send her back.
47:29
He's the kind of enforcer for them. He
47:31
loves being that mean machine. I
47:33
suppose he revels in it really. And in
47:35
fairness to him, he's very good at it. So
47:37
just from playing myself,
47:39
to have a player like that that is kind of unselfish
47:42
and doesn't probably look for it for
47:44
five points of play. It's unbelievable
47:47
confidence for a wing back that you can go off and attack
47:49
the ball, that you notice the lad there that's thinking
47:51
of the team all the time and will defend for
47:53
you. Good wing back then is Kyle Hayes.
47:55
You know, he's probably up for a hundred a
47:58
year as well. Kyle Hayes, center of...
47:59
forward last year, wing back this year,
48:02
this man is unbelievable. I mean, I always go back to that monster
48:04
final goal he scored down Park Leave.
48:08
That was just off the charts. So Kyle Hayes, yeah,
48:10
is a certainty there. Midfield again,
48:12
two more certainty.
48:14
Darryl Dunavant and David
48:17
Fitzgerald. I thought David Fitzgerald had
48:19
another outstanding season for a player, his
48:21
ability, and he gave Kyle Hayes enough
48:23
that he timed out play them, which
48:25
is a fair mark and a fair testament
48:28
to the player. But David Fitzgerald has definitely
48:30
gone on to be one of Claire's main players. He turns
48:32
up every single day and to be an all-around
48:35
champion and to be the Limerick's
48:38
of this world, you have to score a lot from play. And
48:40
David Fitzgerald regularly comes up with three, four, five
48:42
pints. Darryl Dunavant then, another probably lad
48:44
that's probably up for a hundred a year. I thought he was
48:46
outstanding for Limerick all year, especially when times were
48:48
tough. This man is a busy body out around the
48:51
middle
48:52
and nobody seems to be able to get the better
48:54
of Darryl there this year. Then
48:57
half-hour lane was tough. The full-fire lane then,
48:59
I thought, picks itself, Aaron Galan, full-fire
49:02
Connor Wheeling and the other Connor Owen Cody. Again,
49:05
if each of them won
49:07
the all-erlands both, each of them would be up
49:09
for a hundred a year, I'd say. So that's why they picked themselves.
49:11
Galan, just
49:12
the go-to man. I think the best forward
49:14
in the country at the moment. I think even
49:17
Hugh Lawler had a great battle with the other day.
49:20
But still he had a few important possessions
49:22
and pints and won a few
49:24
frees. Connor Wheeling then, the one trick
49:27
Bonnie, I think he's two tricks now. So
49:30
he was outstanding, I think.
49:32
He turned up every day, especially when they need him. Connor
49:35
Wheeling and the far far and then Owen Cody.
49:37
Owen Cody, just
49:39
incredible year for such a young chap, two times
49:41
young, harder of the year, all of his shows for the ball.
49:43
Very difficult as a car and a far and maybe to have
49:46
so many good games, but to have Owen was outstanding
49:48
this year. His dummy year in the all-erland final, I
49:50
hope it doesn't get lost to the annals of history
49:52
because it was amazing.
49:54
Yeah, I haven't been able
49:56
to go back at the game, though. I just remembered from
49:58
the year RA. Yeah, no
50:00
outstanding on there. There's a few little
50:03
dribbles there. I'd say that was part of that one there
50:05
in the first half Yeah, incredible
50:07
right. So there's a doubt about the goalkeeper
50:10
left corner back and the half forward line They're the
50:12
only ones who weren't certainties for you
50:14
Yeah, so on goal to the morphe or Nikki
50:16
quaid really at either quilligan had
50:18
a great year as well for clear outstanding really,
50:20
but the two lads it was a straight shoe out
50:23
a tank and I
50:24
Take puck out sport more brilliant this year.
50:27
I think saves bottom are brilliant
50:29
this year But I suppose that the
50:31
same an essential dollar and semi-fighting
50:34
was just this the small one that really
50:36
the tip that
50:37
The vote in all Morphe's favor.
50:39
So Morphe on the gold with nothing between
50:41
them. Okay, yeah Go
50:44
on. Sorry. Yeah, and the other left car. Yeah,
50:46
then was another shoe help between
50:48
two limerick lads I taught Barry Nash
50:50
and that dad Marcy I
50:53
Thought that Marcy was just he's
50:56
always mister, you know fix
50:58
it. He can play a fullback center back
51:00
wing back
51:01
Just anywhere where the need
51:03
and he has always played but fullback is probably the hardest
51:05
position in the in the field And he's played there
51:08
for the last couple of years But
51:10
I suppose what helps is that limerick defend
51:12
us a team as opposed to individual
51:14
So he was absolutely outstanding the
51:17
other car, but I saw who I will pick those
51:19
Barry Nash, right? Yeah
51:23
We lost Tommy there The
51:25
line appears have gone.
51:26
Yeah, we get him back. So it's Barry Nash He's
51:29
gone for in the end. We get the rationale behind that
51:31
I think you know as
51:33
a distributor of the ball as
51:36
Somebody who was trusted by
51:38
limerick for the short puck outs when they needed him someone
51:41
who always show for it as somebody who
51:43
has Transformed into a cornerback
51:46
by Nash having it put together quite the career. Yeah,
51:48
he's amazing I think Sarah had
51:50
opted for Dan Marcy as a dark horse for player
51:53
the for her of the year Right like saying he
51:55
was he was definitely a boater with his performances
51:57
towards the latter end. So That's
51:59
a tough one
51:59
Like leaving down Marcy out is tough.
52:02
Yeah, look it's gonna be It
52:05
is gonna be tough. I think it'll be
52:07
interesting to see if the all-star selectors
52:09
skew more limerick than
52:11
Kokanee on the back of
52:14
The final tending to count double
52:16
or treble.
52:17
Yeah. Why is that like as well? Look, because it's
52:19
the honor final. So you've gone for Barry Nash
52:21
there Tommy your back
52:23
Yeah, so Barry Nash then in their car. I just think
52:25
he's after he's
52:27
just an odd star I think he's a
52:29
guy you nearly have to mark every day of go out He's
52:31
an eye that's always attacking from the corner back
52:33
like it's rare that you would see that and he has
52:35
to be marked I thought he was in every game he
52:38
turned up. He was either in eighth or a nine odd season.
52:40
So a very Nash cornerback I thought
52:42
in the half backline then I just thought just an
52:44
honorable mention Dear McRein and John Conlon
52:47
I thought they were unfortunately missed out to just missed out
52:49
because the other three limerick lads were just Off the
52:51
charts. So Dear McRein or brilliant near so
52:53
did John Conlon
52:54
the half hour line Then is the next one and
52:57
this was a tough tough one now really
52:59
to be honest
53:00
But I went for Tony Kelly wing forward
53:02
T. J. Reed center and Tom Marcy the other wing
53:05
Tom Marcy gets it on the base of a
53:07
top when limerick were under pressure all year Tom
53:09
Marcy was the one man that showed up
53:12
time after time after time remember
53:14
the all-earn championship Well, it starts
53:16
with the league all year Then you go into the months around
53:18
robin and even months are fine. I learned semi-final
53:21
final So we can't just base on maybe
53:23
being outstanding in the final that's all I
53:25
thought Tom Marcy just all year Was
53:27
just a go-to man when
53:29
everyone else was dipping in farm Tom Marcy was there
53:32
and you could depend on him and you could see the embrace maybe
53:34
John Kelly had with tom after the game He
53:37
knew how important that man was all our
53:39
findings aren't just one on the day They're one in
53:41
a couple of months beforehand and tom was crucial
53:44
Senator farron and tj reid is a tj
53:46
at 35 36 years of age what he's doing is
53:50
Is amazing really in the modern game
53:53
and he's not just standing up there in the fall
53:55
fire like trying to win ball He's all over the field and
53:58
his catch by tying the all-earn final
53:59
the finalist pass even into for the
54:02
goal chance near the end, just sum them up.
54:04
He never stays going to the very end and we
54:06
take free tickers for granted. Like
54:09
how many teams have lost games
54:11
through vital freeze? Tije never rarely misses
54:14
a free. He's kind of an eight, nine out of ten
54:16
free taker all day long. In the old days
54:18
used to be if you were a seven out
54:20
of ten free taker, you were a brilliant
54:22
free taker. Now it's gone up. The standard
54:24
has gone up and it's mainly down to Felix Eich himself
54:26
and Hargen. He's the all time harder score,
54:29
all time score, hard and score of
54:32
the century. So fair play to him. The
54:34
other wing far in is Tony Kelly. So
54:36
this is between himself and Shane O'Donnell.
54:38
Now, listen, I saw Shane O'Donnell lost
54:41
picked on the Sunday game and this and this,
54:44
there was only, you know, such
54:46
small things changed for me. But I just look back
54:48
at the scoring of Tony Kelly during the year. He
54:51
scored four points against Limerick in their own drop.
54:53
He scored two, four versus Karth. He
54:56
scored 13 points for from play against
54:58
Watford. He scored six points against Limerick
55:01
in the monster five four from play. He
55:03
scored three, four from play against
55:05
Dublin. He scored two points, one
55:07
or two points against Kiekenny. But he wasn't
55:09
it like one to bad against Kiekenny.
55:12
Like he was on a bit of all. You just don't have
55:14
to score to be to be an outstanding, have an outstanding
55:16
game.
55:17
And how could you leave a lot of with that
55:19
score? So Tony Kelly gets number 10
55:22
just slightly ahead of Shane O'Donnell. Shane O'Donnell
55:24
was outstanding. And sorry, earlier the year, then
55:26
you're who have you got?
55:28
Earlier is I didn't really even have to think
55:30
about this. Golan. Right.
55:33
Yeah, I know. I know his was picked in some
55:36
quarters there, but Golan
55:38
on season was just really just
55:41
couldn't mark. He was on mark with it going back
55:43
as far as the league. And this is a guy didn't know
55:45
at the start of the league, was he going to be
55:47
back on the panel or not?
55:49
By God, when he came back, he came back in style.
55:52
Like he plays from the front, he plays from behind. You
55:55
just can't mark him right here at the moment.
55:57
I think your point about this being a.
55:59
long thing like we now fully appreciate
56:02
just how difficult it was for Limerick to get out
56:04
of monster and they won the semi final and the final by
56:06
nine points not with fan of the fact that the
56:09
game was much closer in the final and
56:11
the final scoreline suggests but when
56:14
the the
56:15
entire season was in the melting pot
56:17
it was Tom Marcy and Galan who
56:20
were showing up in those games and getting them through
56:22
while the rest of the team were just getting the dirty
56:24
diesel out of the system so I think that's why I
56:27
think you're right about Galan to be honest
56:29
yeah and Flanagan as well definitely
56:31
deserves huge credit and he was
56:34
quite in the semi-final and finalist was
56:36
Jer
56:36
I was worried about him for the final but
56:38
in fairness to the young Tommy, Tommy
56:41
Welsh here from Tolaron
56:42
like he his performances probably get lost
56:45
because the other two lads are so good Mikey
56:48
Butler and Nulaner Tommy Ita,
56:51
if the other two lads weren't so good he'd be honest
56:53
there Ita he had an incredible season and
56:55
he was on Flanagan like kept him quiet
56:58
for the majority that game like Flanagan
57:00
was brilliant in that months or championship yeah like
57:02
he was you know along with Galan they're like the
57:04
twin towers up there. Tommy we've got to
57:07
go I'll let you go thanks a million that was great
57:10
cheers Tommy was there giving us his team of
57:12
the year and his Herder of the Year Aaron Galan and
57:14
we'll stick that team up on Twitter and you can you
57:16
can have at it if you want right
57:19
here is Ashling O'Reilly at the Limerick Homecoming
57:21
last night chatting with some young fans we're back very
57:54
good so
57:55
you have a certain player
57:57
on from your club who's that? Carol Raggerty
58:00
Have you ever met Grode? Yeah. And
58:02
what is he like? He's a nice man. He's
58:05
out. What boy? Have you ever took a training session?
58:08
Once for like a half an hour.
58:10
Oh! Love the simple train oil. It
58:12
was very good. It helped me improve a lot. And
58:15
what do you like about Grode? He's just very
58:17
good pair. Yeah. He's
58:19
a leader and he carries the team. And
58:23
do all of you dream of playing for Limerick one
58:25
day? Yeah. No.
58:26
No, I don't miss him. I wish I could play with Trudy
58:28
and Lillie with that strong casey fella. Right,
58:32
okay. Soccer fans getting a look in as well. Okay.
58:36
Yeah. They're in a sweet spot at the moment, Limerick.
58:39
And let's wait and
58:41
see what happens. But yeah. They're
58:43
pretty good.
58:46
087-918180 is the WhatsApp number. If
58:49
you want to get in touch with us this morning, you can leave a comment. YouTube.com
58:51
forward slash off the ball. You can watch us live
58:53
every morning. And of course, you can listen to us as a radio
58:55
show on OTB Sports Radio.
58:58
Just tell your smart speaker to play
59:00
OTB Sports Radio and we are with you. Now,
59:03
let's talk about Ireland. Obviously, it's a
59:05
massive game against Canada. The way the results have gone
59:07
so far, it would suggest that this is going to be a tight
59:09
game. That we're going to... We're staring at the barrel
59:11
of two very tight games. Sue Ronan is with us. Sue,
59:13
good morning to you. How are you?
59:15
Morning, guys. How are we keeping? The niddle will draw
59:17
between Canada and Nigeria last night. Not
59:20
last night, earlier in the week.
59:22
What does that suggest about
59:25
the game that we're going to see tomorrow and even the game that we're
59:27
going to see against Nigeria at the end? Well,
59:31
it shows, I think, what we knew all along that
59:33
the group is going to be very, very tight. I
59:36
think I said it from the very beginning. I did
59:39
fancy us to come out, but I still fancy
59:42
us to potentially come out of
59:44
the group. But, you know, I think we knew there was
59:46
going to be very, very tight results amongst
59:48
the four teams. And
59:50
that's been the case so far. Canada
59:53
seem to have had a slow start,
59:55
but Nigeria, we can't forget, they're a very, very good
59:57
team. We mentioned that they've...
59:59
qualified from the
1:00:02
CAF Confederation for I think almost every
1:00:04
World Cup. They're very experienced, they're very
1:00:06
fit, very physical.
1:00:09
Canada obviously Olympic champions are also
1:00:11
a very good team so yeah
1:00:13
they had a chance to win the game they missed a penalty.
1:00:17
Sinclair who you'd normally put your house on
1:00:19
to
1:00:20
score I think she scored nearly 150
1:00:22
goals for her country. Christine
1:00:24
Sinclair she missed it was actually quite a weak
1:00:26
penalty I think but
1:00:28
yeah I think it's it's gonna be another tight game
1:00:30
for us tomorrow and I think we're still well in this group
1:00:33
and I suppose that draw has has really
1:00:35
brought us back into it following our defeat in the opening
1:00:37
game.
1:00:38
The breaking news this morning is that the Philippines have
1:00:40
beaten New Zealand 1-0 so obviously New Zealand
1:00:43
got the tournament off to a flyer when they beat Norway by
1:00:45
goal to nil and now they've lost
1:00:48
so we are seeing Topsy
1:00:50
Turvy results we are seeing teams who we thought
1:00:52
would be pushovers like Haiti for example put
1:00:55
it up to England over the course of the 90 minutes
1:00:57
and that one so no
1:00:59
one's taking anything for granted. In terms of the
1:01:01
quality of the performance that Ireland put in as the dust
1:01:04
has settled on the Australia game
1:01:05
how well did we do? I
1:01:08
think we did very well you
1:01:11
know we started off we were quite
1:01:14
we were in a compact low block which we
1:01:16
knew we would be early on we wanted to
1:01:18
frustrate Australia we knew they were going to have much
1:01:20
more possession than us we
1:01:22
knew where their danger is what where which
1:01:24
were down the flanks I mean it was
1:01:27
a real blessing in disguise for
1:01:29
us that Sam Kerr
1:01:30
was injured and obviously you don't want to wish anyone
1:01:33
an injury but of course that was a bit
1:01:35
of good luck for us as she wasn't playing one of the top
1:01:37
strikers in
1:01:38
the world so that was one less danger
1:01:40
to worry about. So
1:01:43
I think their biggest threat came from the wingers their
1:01:45
two wingers are very good vine I think was on the
1:01:47
left and Raso on the right and the full back supporting
1:01:49
them trying to create overloads or trying
1:01:52
to create one-by-ones and I think part of them
1:01:54
a couple of you know maybe a couple
1:01:56
of dodgy dodgy
1:01:58
moments early in the game I think
1:02:00
we were quite comfortable. We
1:02:02
frustrated them. They were
1:02:04
restricted to shots from distance. I don't think Courtney
1:02:07
Brosnan had a shot to save in the first half.
1:02:09
And
1:02:10
then unfortunately, we were looking
1:02:12
to try and I suppose, Nik, a goal on the break.
1:02:15
I think we didn't get forward in numbers
1:02:17
enough in that first half. Anytime we did
1:02:19
manage to get the ball forward, Caruso was isolated,
1:02:22
or
1:02:23
Shiva was isolated, or a couple of times you
1:02:25
saw McCabe making runs forward
1:02:27
and just wasn't working
1:02:29
out for us. And
1:02:31
then unfortunately, you have the city penalty
1:02:33
in the second half, and then all of a sudden you're chasing the
1:02:35
game and you have to really look at now, well,
1:02:37
what can we do to get back into this game?
1:02:39
And I
1:02:41
think Australia's backs were up for a few minutes,
1:02:43
obviously, after they scored. But I think after
1:02:46
that, then the last 20 minutes, we sort of owned the
1:02:48
game. And you wonder then, could
1:02:50
we have gone at them maybe a little bit
1:02:52
earlier? I think the subs
1:02:54
made a huge difference.
1:02:55
I think Abby Larkin
1:02:57
was tremendous when she came on and she was fearless,
1:03:00
as you'd expect from a young one, but she's got
1:03:02
such an amount
1:03:03
of skill as well. And we created
1:03:05
two or three really good chances on another day
1:03:07
we could have scored. So yeah,
1:03:10
I think we did well. I think the fact that everyone
1:03:13
was disappointed that we didn't get something from the
1:03:15
game shows that we did well. And Australia are
1:03:17
a very good team. They're not one of the top five
1:03:19
or six in the world that we mentioned before, but they're still
1:03:21
very, very good and very experienced and have
1:03:23
been at every World Cup for most World Cups
1:03:26
to date, where obviously this is our first.
1:03:29
Would
1:03:29
you expect Abby Larkin to
1:03:31
start tomorrow, Sue, given, I guess, well,
1:03:34
certainly the paper seemed to be hinting that it's
1:03:37
on the cards. But obviously, I
1:03:39
guess, for an 18-year-old from the start in a World
1:03:41
Cup game is
1:03:42
a little bit more daunting, I guess, than coming off the bench.
1:03:44
Yeah, I don't think Vera
1:03:47
will start her, to be honest. I'd like to
1:03:49
see her start, but I don't think Vera
1:03:51
will start her. I think maybe she'll spring her from the
1:03:53
bench again if we need her, or maybe
1:03:56
whether, you know, at some point to change it up or
1:03:58
to put on fresh legs. She
1:04:01
is fearless, but don't
1:04:03
forget we're playing an opponent now who's a level
1:04:06
up again like Canada are a stronger opponent
1:04:09
than
1:04:09
Australia. Some
1:04:11
of the defensive players they have on that team
1:04:13
are playing in the top teams in the
1:04:15
world, they're excellent. So
1:04:18
I'd be surprised if Vera does start her. If
1:04:21
she changes it up much, we all
1:04:23
know she tends to go
1:04:26
with the same players in the same
1:04:28
shape.
1:04:30
But certainly I'd like to see us get that counted a little
1:04:32
bit more. I mean, you know, we can't be gung-ho,
1:04:34
of course, and we have to keep it tight. And,
1:04:36
you know, we can't be naive either and
1:04:38
think that we can take the game to them. But
1:04:40
I think we need to pick our moments and maybe, you
1:04:42
know, every so often you're going
1:04:45
to go at them
1:04:45
and you're getting one or two players, you
1:04:47
know, more in attacking
1:04:49
positions like our two wing backs, for example. There
1:04:53
has to be moments when they can maybe attack and try
1:04:55
to support the front players because that
1:04:57
was missing last week and especially in that
1:05:00
first half.
1:05:01
Lucy Quinn, another option too, I guess Marisa
1:05:03
Shiva, the player who maybe
1:05:05
didn't have the best of games against Australia, it was tough for her out
1:05:07
there. Yeah, it was
1:05:09
tough for her. I also didn't think Caruso
1:05:11
had the best of games and she has done well up front.
1:05:14
But and again, it's a difficult role. You know,
1:05:16
she's up there. Balls are coming to her. She probably
1:05:18
had two or three defenders around her. She had
1:05:21
no options and it wasn't
1:05:23
really sticking. It was going up to her. Marisa
1:05:25
Shiva, yeah, didn't
1:05:27
have the best of games either. You
1:05:31
know, there was one or two, while we did play well in general
1:05:34
and some of the players really wearing that nine
1:05:36
out of 10 or 10 out of 10 as you need, there was one
1:05:38
or two who you'd expect
1:05:39
maybe between the nines out of 10 that were probably
1:05:41
only maybe about seven or eight. So they can maybe give
1:05:43
a little bit more as well. I think
1:05:45
we're concerned to get more out of the cage. I thought
1:05:47
Denise was all over the pitch, but her
1:05:49
passing wasn't as sharp
1:05:52
as normal, whether she
1:05:54
was still carrying the effects of the
1:05:56
injury or what, I don't know.
1:05:57
But at times she's caught in possession.
1:06:00
you're very, very sad to see Denise come in possession.
1:06:03
So I certainly think one or two of
1:06:05
the more experienced players can probably
1:06:07
even go up another level. I
1:06:10
thought Nia Fahy was tremendous. At the
1:06:12
back three centre-halves
1:06:13
were excellent. I
1:06:16
thought Farley when she was on the pitch
1:06:18
was very good also.
1:06:21
Heather Payne did well
1:06:23
too. So yeah, I think, you
1:06:26
know, I definitely think that there's more in us and I
1:06:28
think that there's
1:06:28
an opportunity to get something from this game
1:06:31
tomorrow.
1:06:32
The back three and
1:06:34
their lack of pace is something that Veer
1:06:37
has spoken about, about why she wants to
1:06:39
stick with the back three for now. And
1:06:41
like, it's very pragmatic
1:06:43
and it's very honest in her assessment.
1:06:46
You know, you could say stereotypically Dutch if we were to
1:06:49
indulge ourselves in a bit of profiling. Sometimes
1:06:52
they're very blunt when they talk about football in Holland, it's
1:06:54
their culture. Ours is like a little bit, oh,
1:06:56
you know, maybe we have certain strengths
1:06:58
that are like, nah, we're just not fast
1:07:00
enough. She might be right.
1:07:03
Perhaps, yeah. Yeah, no, look, perhaps
1:07:05
she is and you do,
1:07:07
when you're up against very fast and attacking
1:07:10
players, you do have to have speed. But, you
1:07:12
know, I think maybe what we, if we do
1:07:14
like speed there, I think we've got
1:07:16
great experience. You know, you look at Nia Fahy and the
1:07:18
way she reads the game, I mean, she's been around
1:07:21
the block. She might not have been at a
1:07:23
World Cup or a European championships, but she's
1:07:25
very, very good at reading the game. Likewise, Louise
1:07:28
Quinn, again, mightn't be blessed with the,
1:07:30
with lots of pace, but,
1:07:33
you know, it was very strong, can read what's
1:07:35
going on, can cover where
1:07:36
it needs to cover, can maybe get in ahead of
1:07:38
her, of her attacker to
1:07:40
win that ball. And then Megan then
1:07:43
provides a little sweeping up, I guess. Personally,
1:07:46
I'd like to see Megan at midfield. I really would. I think
1:07:48
that would release Denise a little bit, maybe into a little
1:07:50
bit more of an attacking role. She
1:07:53
could sort of do that number six role.
1:07:55
She could sort
1:07:55
of sweep in front of the back,
1:07:58
whether it's a back five or back four.
1:07:59
whatever, but I'd
1:08:01
certainly prefer to see her a little bit further
1:08:03
up the pitch. But
1:08:05
yeah, it is a back five, very
1:08:07
much a back five, but I think in this game, you
1:08:10
know, we can turn into a back four at any given
1:08:12
moment and get one of those wing backs in a forward
1:08:14
position because both of them are well capable
1:08:16
of getting up the pitch and getting back if need
1:08:18
be. So I think that's something
1:08:20
that I'd certainly like to see.
1:08:22
Jesse Fleming that we've mentioned this
1:08:24
morning, Sue, like a lot
1:08:26
of the creativity from Canada, by all accounts
1:08:29
seems to come through her. How
1:08:31
is she best nullified as a Katie McCabe? I guess they're
1:08:33
familiar with each other as rivals with Arsenal
1:08:35
and Chelsea. So is that a job
1:08:37
for Katie?
1:08:38
She's a very good player, Jesse Fleming, and
1:08:41
she didn't play the other day, I think against Nigeria.
1:08:44
She's excellent and she's had an excellent couple of seasons
1:08:46
with Chelsea. And she tends to play
1:08:48
on that right side, all right. So you're probably looking
1:08:51
at maybe Katie getting into another another battle
1:08:53
again and no better player
1:08:56
to do that. So yeah,
1:08:58
look, I mean, we're just going to have to try
1:09:00
to nullify her influence on the game because
1:09:02
she can be a big influence for Canada when she's on
1:09:04
form as she is for Chelsea. We're
1:09:07
certainly not going to go man to man or woman
1:09:10
to woman, so to speak, you know, in a game. But
1:09:12
obviously you just have to be wary and,
1:09:15
you know, try to nullify that threat that she has of
1:09:17
that creativity because she definitely can make
1:09:19
Canada tick. They're
1:09:20
not as quick maybe on the counter attack. Some
1:09:23
people suggest that Canada as Australia perhaps
1:09:25
were, but they still have attacking threats.
1:09:28
I guess the Irish wingbacks were pinned in a lot
1:09:31
against
1:09:32
the Australians and didn't have much room. You'd hope that
1:09:34
maybe that'll
1:09:35
be slightly different given the Canadians are
1:09:37
a bit more laboured.
1:09:39
Yeah, they are and they're an older team
1:09:41
as well probably, but they're definitely not as, you
1:09:43
know, not as direct and
1:09:45
they don't use the wing play as much as the
1:09:48
Australians do. So,
1:09:50
you know, from our point of view, I'd like to see our wingbacks
1:09:53
impose ourselves on it and give them something
1:09:55
to think about. And as you say, don't get
1:09:57
pinned in so much for all of the game. of
1:10:00
course, it's going to be times and they're going to have to be deep.
1:10:03
But I think, you know, let's give Canada something to think
1:10:05
about and let's take the game to them
1:10:08
at moments, you know, choose our moments. We
1:10:11
can't
1:10:11
do it, of course, for 90 minutes and
1:10:13
we'd be silly to try because
1:10:15
they are a very, very good team. But yeah,
1:10:19
I think I definitely think
1:10:21
there's there's a result in this one for us tomorrow
1:10:23
that has to be or we're going home effectively.
1:10:26
You know, we have to get something. We definitely
1:10:28
can't lose the game.
1:10:29
Even a draw will keep us in it, but we definitely
1:10:31
can't afford to lose this game. There
1:10:34
is a world in which we do to to
1:10:36
know draws in our next two games and assume
1:10:39
that Australia beats the other teams by
1:10:41
two goals. And we go through without having scored.
1:10:44
That was Gavin Comiskey who's pointing that out today. It
1:10:46
could be similar to vaguely
1:10:48
similar to Italian 90. We'd
1:10:50
probably take it at this stage, but I think we can be we can be
1:10:52
a bit more ambitious, can't we? Like there's no
1:10:54
reason to fear anything that's left in the in the tournament
1:10:57
from what we've seen so far.
1:10:59
Yeah, no, I agree. And when you look at some of the
1:11:01
performances we put in against better teams
1:11:04
in the last year, you know, it shows that
1:11:06
we have it in our locker to do it. I mean, look at the
1:11:08
two games against USA. We didn't
1:11:10
fear them. There was nothing at stake. There was nothing to
1:11:12
lose. It was their only friendly
1:11:14
games. But we were
1:11:16
so good in those games, especially that first game.
1:11:19
Like we totally outplayed them in the first half. And again,
1:11:21
we've talked about it on this this program
1:11:24
because they're really a top top team. They
1:11:26
found a way to win. I think the in the
1:11:28
first game wasn't
1:11:29
a speculative
1:11:31
cross or something from one of the wings came in
1:11:33
and the loot at Courtney Brosnan. You
1:11:36
know, and then there was a penalty as well. So and
1:11:39
we actually scored a goal. We were lucky that was just
1:11:41
allowed. So the performance we put in against
1:11:43
them, the performance we put in against Australia
1:11:45
at home and the friendly against Sweden
1:11:47
away when we took the game to them against Norway
1:11:50
or Finland away when we had to
1:11:52
win or wanted to win to
1:11:53
put our marker down in the qualifying group.
1:11:56
And it just shows that we actually
1:11:58
can play.
1:11:59
We want to so that's what I'm saying,
1:12:02
you know, let's look and try
1:12:04
to do that. And I'd love to see us try to
1:12:06
do that for periods in the game. Let's
1:12:09
give the Canadians something to worry about. And then I'd
1:12:11
hear it's also because we
1:12:13
really have some good players and some good footballers,
1:12:16
you know, who can create and can
1:12:18
show the best of themselves if
1:12:21
that's the style of play that we're
1:12:23
going to use. You'd hope that's the legacy of the
1:12:25
tournament, that actually they take
1:12:27
incredible confidence about the fact that they're
1:12:29
mixing it in a World Cup. Top 32 teams
1:12:32
in the world and they don't look in any way out of place.
1:12:35
No, they don't. And you mentioned
1:12:37
at the beginning there, I think they've probably
1:12:39
lost now in New Zealand,
1:12:41
were 1-0 down to the Philippines.
1:12:43
And there's been some really tight results
1:12:45
like Haiti really pulled up to England. They
1:12:47
were very, very lucky to get out of that game with the win. Twice
1:12:51
taken penalty they needed. France couldn't
1:12:54
beat, who
1:12:56
were France playing? I can't remember now. They
1:12:58
couldn't. Pardon me. Jamaica?
1:13:01
Jamaica, that's right. Yeah. And you had
1:13:03
Bunny Shaw up front who caused them huge
1:13:06
amount of trouble. And there's been some
1:13:08
some games, some some matches like that that
1:13:10
have been really, really close and the top teams have found
1:13:12
it difficult to get the breakthrough or to
1:13:15
win. So the gap is definitely closing. And
1:13:17
I know we often talk
1:13:18
about rankings and teams ranked 50,
1:13:20
their teams ranked 20. Even
1:13:23
the team ranked 50 might be there by virtue of not
1:13:25
having played games, you
1:13:26
know. But in actual fact, they're
1:13:29
probably better than their actual ranking
1:13:31
in their own confederation. So
1:13:33
the gap is definitely closing. We don't look
1:13:35
a bit out of place.
1:13:37
Let's hope now this the legacy really is the
1:13:39
start that we now know how to qualify
1:13:41
for major tournaments. We've got over that hump and
1:13:44
that we can continue to do so
1:13:45
in the in the coming years. That's the thing as well.
1:13:47
So like we don't really have much to do. We
1:13:49
don't have a lot of fear against the Canadians. They are Olympic
1:13:52
champions by by rights. But this column was saying
1:13:54
earlier, like some of the stats are in Canada. Wouldn't
1:13:57
feel you full of fear. So they haven't
1:13:59
scored more than one.
1:13:59
once against the European team in the last 13 games
1:14:02
or meetings. They've only won one of the last six that was
1:14:04
a game against Brazil in February. So, I
1:14:07
mean, there are causes for optimism
1:14:09
here, you'd imagine, for Ireland.
1:14:11
No, absolutely. In Canada, there are definitely a team you can
1:14:13
get at. Of course, they're one of the top teams. They're
1:14:16
still not in that league, the USA, the Germany,
1:14:18
the
1:14:18
France, as I told them, that
1:14:20
they will find ways to win. Japan, I've
1:14:23
mentioned the fans in Japan all along, they've been very
1:14:25
impressive
1:14:26
in their win. They dispatched
1:14:28
down and they really, really well. They scored five goals.
1:14:30
So, they're not in that league. Of course, they're a very
1:14:33
good team. They've qualified for lots
1:14:35
of World Cups. Well, we can certainly get
1:14:37
at them. I remember when I was coach,
1:14:39
we played Canada in the Cypress Cup, going
1:14:42
back whatever 2015, 2016, and
1:14:45
they were similarly a top team
1:14:47
then. And we were even less ranked
1:14:50
and probably very few professional players in the squad
1:14:52
at the time. And it was one of the playoff games
1:14:54
for maybe seventh or eighth or fifth and sixth,
1:14:56
actually, I think it was in the tournament. We came
1:14:59
so close to beating them because we had no fear of them. And
1:15:01
it took their manager at the time with Megan
1:15:03
Campbell taking her long throws. It took the
1:15:05
manager at the time to try and block
1:15:08
her in his dugout, in his technical
1:15:10
area when she was taking
1:15:11
the throw-ins, because we were really
1:15:13
hurting them so much. And we took the lead in that game
1:15:16
actually and we unluckily lost to one, but
1:15:18
we hadn't got any fear. So,
1:15:20
I really feel we don't have fear against
1:15:23
the Canadians that we can get a result
1:15:24
out of them. In terms
1:15:26
of the legacy, right, there's
1:15:28
watch parties in Daily Mail Park and there's
1:15:31
hundreds of kids going. And I know from the
1:15:34
WhatsApp groups of my kids football that
1:15:36
there's been a surge in interest.
1:15:38
You'd hope that
1:15:41
we've learned some lessons from 40 years ago, 30
1:15:43
years ago, when we qualified for Italian 90 and there
1:15:45
was literally no legacy. There was no improvement
1:15:47
in facilities. The surge of numbers,
1:15:50
it's definitely the bit where the playing
1:15:52
numbers surged, but we didn't quite
1:15:54
cement that with an upswing
1:15:56
in domestic fortunes. It
1:15:58
feels a little bit like we're...
1:16:00
at least thinking about how
1:16:03
to maximize an
1:16:05
improvement in returns from the government and
1:16:07
from facilities at the moment. What's
1:16:10
your sense about somebody who kind of understands this whole
1:16:13
thing and has seen first hand for the last
1:16:15
while, how
1:16:17
difficult it has been to get the game going. What
1:16:20
do you hope is coming next? How well do you
1:16:22
think we're doing or are prepared for it? Well,
1:16:25
you can see the surge there already with these watch
1:16:27
parties and everything on social media
1:16:30
and just the following the team has now. And
1:16:33
the fact that clubs are saying that
1:16:34
they're inundated now, girls wanting to join
1:16:37
traditional what we would call
1:16:39
male clubs, male
1:16:41
dominated or just traditional male
1:16:44
clubs are now catering for girls
1:16:46
where they wouldn't have before. I
1:16:48
certainly know it's still an issue around the country
1:16:51
facilities and in many clubs
1:16:54
around the country at grassroots level, the
1:16:56
girls team is still left to last on the
1:16:58
weekend to get access to the pitch. Or the girls
1:17:00
match might be
1:17:01
the first one cancelled if there's
1:17:03
an issue with weather and
1:17:05
they might play the boys games off first. So you
1:17:08
would certainly like to see that, you know,
1:17:10
that type of thing not happen
1:17:12
and that more equality now in
1:17:14
every club that the girls are just as important
1:17:16
as the boys.
1:17:17
And the importance goes
1:17:19
according to the level of the team, whether that's the
1:17:22
women's team are playing in the National League, they
1:17:24
get more preference over the boys team is maybe playing
1:17:26
in a Junior League or
1:17:26
whatever. But
1:17:29
yeah, I think I think we definitely are in
1:17:31
a better position to cater
1:17:33
for the numbers. Now I would like to think I'd like to
1:17:35
hope we are.
1:17:36
And I've always spoken
1:17:38
then about that legacy. I'd really like to see our
1:17:41
National League
1:17:42
go professional at some point.
1:17:44
Now we're a bit off that. I think we've just
1:17:46
gone semi professional this year. But
1:17:48
I think we need to be careful there too. You know, I
1:17:50
think it should be quality over quantity. There's no
1:17:53
point having 12,
1:17:54
14 teams in a National League or 12, 14 teams
1:17:57
in underage National Leagues.
1:17:59
those big results because you look at the WSL
1:18:02
in England, I think, but if they got eight or 10 teams
1:18:04
at the moment, it's taken them
1:18:05
like 12 years to get up to that level
1:18:08
or that number. So it's not about
1:18:10
just opening it up to anyone that wants to come
1:18:12
in or that can achieve global licensing. I think we
1:18:14
need to be looking at quality, especially
1:18:17
as most of our best players at the moment, our national team,
1:18:19
they're all playing abroad. So,
1:18:20
you know, do we have that depth there?
1:18:22
We want to create a really, really
1:18:25
strong competitive league. So
1:18:27
I think we need to be looking more
1:18:29
about the quality over quantity there,
1:18:31
hopefully then a couple of years down the line, we're
1:18:33
looking at a more professional league. Last question for
1:18:35
you on this. And what
1:18:37
didn't mean to bring this up today, but just the,
1:18:40
I do wonder if there's a room for some centralized
1:18:42
contracts
1:18:43
for players.
1:18:45
And I know it's very difficult for so what
1:18:48
club benefits? Is it the club with all the money? Is it
1:18:50
the club with the rich owner? You know, how do you work
1:18:52
that out? It's very difficult. And does every
1:18:54
does everybody have to get one like, back
1:18:56
in the days of the basketball where everybody had an American, it's like,
1:18:59
everybody's allowed one centrally contracted player, but
1:19:01
it would allow the FBI to have control
1:19:04
of the players and make sure that they were full time
1:19:06
and every club has one
1:19:07
who maybe is
1:19:09
a part time player and a part time football administrator
1:19:11
or coach or something. I think we just need to be a little bit
1:19:13
creative about how we get there.
1:19:15
Yeah, no, absolutely. And these are ideas that
1:19:18
you know, I would have put forward many years ago, because
1:19:20
I saw it happening in other countries, and it was working. And
1:19:22
it was probably before there was professional leagues,
1:19:24
to be fair.
1:19:25
I know they did
1:19:27
in Holland initially, when their National League started
1:19:29
up for up first gone
1:19:32
way back. And I think Vera would have been
1:19:34
very much involved at the at the time,
1:19:36
they literally placed the players in their own
1:19:38
centralised contracts with the FAA. And they
1:19:40
placed the players say you didn't know he
1:19:42
didn't have 10 at one
1:19:43
club. And that's something that
1:19:45
unfortunately, we've seen happen in Ireland
1:19:48
over the last number of years, you've, and
1:19:49
particularly at our underage. We've
1:19:52
seen I know Dave Connell gets frustrated he often
1:19:54
sees some this before the introduction of the
1:19:56
under 19 league you'd have some of the players
1:19:58
from the underage squad who are really.
1:19:59
really good enough to be playing at the top level, sitting
1:20:02
on the bench,
1:20:02
not getting game time. And that doesn't
1:20:04
do anything for their own career or for
1:20:06
the national teams. So it's something
1:20:09
potentially to look at. In Holland, it's
1:20:11
definitely easier to do because it definitely is a smaller country
1:20:13
and travel to and from. Players can
1:20:15
still live at home and travel to wherever
1:20:17
they're playing. Whereas if you have a player from
1:20:20
Donegal and you're placing
1:20:21
her on a team in Dublin or in Cork, which
1:20:23
is still living or going to college in Donegal, that's
1:20:26
probably a little more difficult. But I agree
1:20:28
with you, we do need to be a little bit more creative and
1:20:30
try to bring the competitiveness of that
1:20:33
league up and look at trying to do that
1:20:35
rather than just trying to make it bigger. Yeah.
1:20:38
And look, if there was a transfer fee to come, then that would go
1:20:40
to the FAI. That might help to pay for it over the years. So there's
1:20:43
definitely, if there's a will, there's a way. Sue, great stuff.
1:20:45
Thanks so much for joining us as ever.
1:20:47
All right, guys, take care. See you around and give us our thoughts
1:20:49
ahead of the game tomorrow. It's 8.50.
1:20:53
Call them a line of this. Call them on, how are you?
1:20:56
Morning, lads. How's it going? What is going on? Well,
1:20:58
really good game at the Women's World Cup this morning and a
1:21:00
big result for the Philippines because they secured a
1:21:02
famous victory. They beat the New Zealand
1:21:04
by a goal to nil. Serena Bolden with
1:21:07
the goal there for the winners. New
1:21:09
Zealand had a couple of chances in the second half as
1:21:11
well. They had a goal disallowed, but it didn't quite happen for
1:21:13
them today after their great win in the first
1:21:15
round of fixtures in Group A. So the other game in that group
1:21:17
between Norway and Switzerland kicks off now and
1:21:20
the next few minutes at 9 o'clock. So Norway, who
1:21:22
are the highest ranked team in that group,
1:21:24
actually have no points now ahead of that game. The
1:21:26
other three teams all have three. Earlier
1:21:28
today, overnight, Colombia, after
1:21:31
winning start in Group H, they were two nil winners over
1:21:33
Korea Republic in that encounter.
1:21:35
So that's the action at the Women's World Cup
1:21:38
today. Good news for Ireland overnight in swimming
1:21:40
because Daniel Wiffen has qualified for the Paris
1:21:43
Olympics. He clocked a new Irish record time of
1:21:45
seven minutes, 43.81 seconds.
1:21:47
That was in the 800 meters freestyle heats at
1:21:50
the World Championships in Japan. And that's enough to
1:21:52
secure his place in the games and passage through
1:21:54
to the final of that event tomorrow. And later today, Mona
1:21:56
McSharry back in the pool for the final of
1:21:59
the 100 meters. That's said to take place
1:22:01
around about lunchtime Irish time some
1:22:03
injury news for the Kerry ladies footballer
1:22:05
Sheer for all shade their captain has been ruled
1:22:07
out for the rest of the season She suffered an ACL
1:22:09
injury in training over the weekend Kerry playing
1:22:12
male in the all-arland Semifinal this
1:22:14
Saturday that game is at Semple Stadium in Thurlis and
1:22:16
the Irish women's cricketers in action in their women's
1:22:19
one day International against Australia today their
1:22:21
scheduled match on Sunday was abandoned due to the terrible
1:22:24
weather over the weekend I played you to get underway this morning
1:22:26
at 1045 and thankfully the weather looks a little
1:22:28
bit better
1:22:29
Christine Sinclair for Canada right
1:22:32
her stats international level. So she's 40. She's
1:22:34
played in six World Cups made her debut for
1:22:36
Canada at 16
1:22:38
She's got 324 appearances for Canada
1:22:41
and she scored 190 goals. It's not bad is it that's
1:22:43
scandalous And
1:22:45
I think she's in line to become the first player
1:22:47
to score at six World Cups, but she missed the penalty.
1:22:49
Yes last week Hopefully she doesn't do it tomorrow. Yeah,
1:22:52
so Let's see, but
1:22:54
they weren't overly impressive in their first game. So no,
1:22:57
there's plenty of potential for a result. Hopefully tomorrow
1:22:59
Yeah, hopefully they're in crisis and we can somehow
1:23:01
benefit from it or else it's like oh they
1:23:04
were just getting you
1:23:05
know They've decided now now come on. Yeah,
1:23:07
yeah together. We've got a record breaker here a lot
1:23:10
of the games have been quite tight I know yesterday there was a couple
1:23:12
of one-sided matches But
1:23:13
by and large a lot of the games have been quite tight
1:23:15
and there hasn't been a whole lot between the teams even
1:23:18
Allowing for some of the gaps in the rankings between
1:23:20
some of the sides Which hopefully will give
1:23:22
Ireland a little bit of hope going into that match tomorrow Well, if you look
1:23:24
to the England Haiti game beforehand, you're like this is gonna
1:23:26
be six seven eight nil Yeah, but like Jamaica
1:23:29
France the same little evil. Yeah, so
1:23:31
it's maybe it's gonna be one of those tournaments where you're
1:23:33
just gonna have A lot of surprise results although
1:23:35
I guess in the men's work up as well you had Saudi Arabia
1:23:38
beat Argentina and the groups and We
1:23:40
know what happened then so, you know teams Maybe
1:23:42
just need
1:23:43
one wake-up call in the group stage and then take
1:23:45
off from there. Hopefully that's not the sake with Canada But
1:23:49
the case with Canada rather. Yeah, it's
1:23:51
but it's a big game tomorrow I think the there's
1:23:54
a huge amount of interest in the Irish team I think and tomorrow's
1:23:56
kickoff time at one o'clock isn't at Irish time which should
1:23:58
lend itself to another really big
1:23:59
television audience and you know watch parties
1:24:02
and stuff and people watching in offices around the country and I
1:24:04
think there is a fair degree of hype around the
1:24:06
team now which is great and that'll only be heightened
1:24:09
if they can get a result tomorrow.
1:24:11
Rumours of Miliana Martinez
1:24:14
transferred to Inter Milan? Inter,
1:24:16
right. Oh no, of course. There have
1:24:19
been rumours that it was Spurs, that it was Chelsea,
1:24:21
that it was PSG. No, I never quite
1:24:23
thought,
1:24:24
is it going to go to France
1:24:26
to live in, you know, I haven't done the whole
1:24:28
thing with Chelsea to the French and like, you know.
1:24:31
Surely not. Most shit-housery against
1:24:33
him. And maybe that's it, maybe he would go and it would be like
1:24:36
the exact right thing for
1:24:38
his career to be like, ah look, I'm actually, I'm
1:24:40
a good guy. They love him then. Yeah, maybe he
1:24:42
won't move anywhere. You know, obviously, the Prusians,
1:24:44
the PSG fans wouldn't, the rest of the country would hate
1:24:46
him and that'll be perfect.
1:24:48
Yeah, you've got to take a lot of the transfer stuff
1:24:50
with a pinch of salt, don't you, because like Spurs are
1:24:52
interested in Mbappe apparently and
1:24:55
you know this sort of stuff. Like
1:24:57
the Mbappe stuff, I know you're channin' through it and it's
1:24:59
just, it's just borderline
1:25:02
disgusting really, the only involved, when you
1:25:04
think, I think the Guardian's reporting that he could
1:25:06
be on 700 million a year when
1:25:08
you consider commercial arrangements and
1:25:10
image rights and all the rest of that, which
1:25:12
is just astronomical stuff. I
1:25:15
guess I can imagine, that was my point earlier, like obviously
1:25:17
now I will make the adult
1:25:18
decision knowing what I know about Saudi
1:25:20
Arabia not to watch that football,
1:25:22
but I think as a kid, if
1:25:25
Mbappe was one of my favourite players, I would be walking
1:25:27
around in an Al Hallal jersey with
1:25:28
Mbappe on the back and maybe nobody
1:25:31
might. Your parents would have had to fight for you. Yeah.
1:25:33
But they mightn't have thought of, you know, some players might
1:25:36
think of it. You don't think? I
1:25:38
trusted they would have, but I mean, there
1:25:40
are parents out there that maybe aren't just, I
1:25:42
don't know. Were there loads of parents
1:25:45
buying Springbok jerseys during apartheid
1:25:47
for their kids? I don't think there were. No.
1:25:51
I think sport has changed a little bit in that people
1:25:53
tend to follow players now rather than teens, don't
1:25:55
they? Which might change it a little
1:25:57
bit, but
1:25:58
yeah, I can see Al Hallal. penetrating
1:26:00
the has has has Cristiano
1:26:03
already because he's the ultimate example of that right
1:26:05
where his football no longer merited
1:26:08
him being supported and they're paying him is
1:26:11
that 120 million a year is that all
1:26:13
he's getting now
1:26:14
he's getting 170 million years I thought he's getting
1:26:16
yeah anyway look where does
1:26:18
it all land tunnels yeah call
1:26:21
good stuff thanks lads it's 8 56 here
1:26:23
on o t b a m this morning make sure you check out the lunchtime
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get it after the break allen quillen in studio
1:26:40
o
1:26:40
t b a m the
1:26:42
sports breakfast show from off
1:26:44
the ball right it's
1:26:46
a 57 allen quillen is with us allen good morning to you morning
1:26:48
lads how are you homework for the off season a little
1:26:50
bit yeah so we asked you for
1:26:53
are the rules you have to be on the field here
1:26:55
or just yeah okay so you were on the field for these
1:26:57
are your five favorite tries
1:26:59
five most important tries ones that probably stand
1:27:01
out um how did you pick them so
1:27:06
you had to be able to watch him to mind first well
1:27:09
I was in the squad for yeah with the one in
1:27:11
berto I picked one from there
1:27:13
woody had picked uh john hayes's try against
1:27:15
salusan berto I picked roger's
1:27:17
try there because it was an incredible team try um
1:27:21
the ones that came to mind really um
1:27:25
my international career was kind of heavily
1:27:28
disrupted obviously from 2003 with
1:27:32
my shoulder injury at the world cup
1:27:35
um kind of fought got my way back into
1:27:37
the squad
1:27:38
um and
1:27:41
then I had my knee injury in all six so I had a kind
1:27:43
of a period there where it was a very successful period
1:27:45
for Ireland winning triple crowns and championships
1:27:48
um up and kind of got back in
1:27:51
all six or seven for that world
1:27:53
cup and France didn't play there so um
1:27:56
and then back I kind of got back in again
1:27:58
in in 08 and a bit of on
1:27:59
So I was in and out of the squad a
1:28:02
fair bit and some of that was injuries.
1:28:04
I think Woody said in fairness, he was very complimentary
1:28:07
of what he said about me as a player and
1:28:09
it kind of made me think, God yeah,
1:28:12
if I was kind of more
1:28:15
calmer, controlled
1:28:19
and probably not as hard on myself,
1:28:21
I probably could have got the best out of myself because
1:28:24
from a talent point of view, I was, I
1:28:26
probably had what was required to
1:28:28
be, play consistently at that level. So
1:28:31
there's, we didn't plan to talk about
1:28:33
this, but that's a realisation
1:28:35
that a lot of people don't come to, right? Yeah. Wayne
1:28:38
Rooney has had a similar kind of like, oh,
1:28:40
he needs the anger, otherwise he won't be, but actually
1:28:42
that's nonsense. You didn't need to play. I don't
1:28:45
even think it was completely the anger because that kind
1:28:47
of perception is with me a little
1:28:49
bit
1:28:49
because I would
1:28:52
have liked to think that bit of fury and stuff
1:28:54
helps me for sure. But you can control that
1:28:57
now. Yeah, but I think there's a lot of self-doubt and
1:28:59
self-belief stuff as well, which can affect
1:29:02
do you feel comfortable? I always said this before
1:29:04
that when I went into Ireland squads, particularly
1:29:07
in the earlier days, I didn't feel, God, I
1:29:10
doubted myself. And I didn't, like
1:29:12
I remember even the France game in 2000 and
1:29:15
in one in Dublin, it's my first
1:29:18
start in the Six Nations. It's kind
1:29:20
of a dream come true. I was there
1:29:22
as a kid watching matches. Did they win 9-8? Did
1:29:24
we miss a kick in their last few minutes? No, we won 22-15. Oh,
1:29:26
okay, we win, okay. I had one
1:29:29
I picked one, Rick was Troy, yeah, where
1:29:31
he scores in the corner. There's a bit of controversy
1:29:33
about the grounding and all that. But
1:29:37
I even look back at that game yesterday and I think I
1:29:39
was kind of standoffish. I was nervous
1:29:41
about making a mistake. So a little
1:29:43
bit of that was the mindset of being
1:29:46
afraid to
1:29:46
make mistakes. Obviously,
1:29:50
there's another element to that as well about
1:29:53
not looking after myself.
1:29:55
Not off the field, but not understanding
1:29:58
the level of consistency you need.
1:29:59
to have around your training. Because
1:30:03
I always trained pretty hard, but probably inconsistently.
1:30:05
I never went down to the fitness session and didn't try
1:30:07
hard. I always kind of pushed myself to the limit,
1:30:10
but I probably, just
1:30:12
to get myself in the best shape, and I think
1:30:14
that was in 03, where I kind
1:30:17
of, I'm 28, 29, and I'm thinking, it's
1:30:20
late, but at least I'm here now. Everyone's
1:30:22
fitting available for that World Cup. I was in great
1:30:24
shape, really good condition. I was so
1:30:27
much quicker than I realized
1:30:29
I could be.
1:30:29
Hence, I scored a try, and
1:30:32
I had the pace to go off
1:30:34
that. So yeah, of course, it brings
1:30:36
back some kind of, God, I wish I had, you know,
1:30:38
I have 27 caps. Most of the lads I played
1:30:41
were 70, 80, 100 caps or more. I
1:30:44
guess my question was, do you think
1:30:47
that there'd be a role if he's somewhere in rugby
1:30:49
to have those conversations with people? I
1:30:52
don't know. What I would
1:30:54
try and say to younger people is,
1:30:58
the younger players particularly,
1:30:59
is to express
1:31:03
the pressure and talk to people who've
1:31:05
maybe, you know, been there, done that. Some
1:31:07
people are more natural. Like, I always looked at
1:31:09
Axel across the dress room and went, God,
1:31:12
I wish I was like Axel. He was just,
1:31:16
do your job type mentality, and
1:31:18
you know, like, you
1:31:20
even hear Woody in the podcast talking about
1:31:23
when we got drawn against Toulouse in 2000
1:31:25
in that semifinal in Bordeaux, which is
1:31:28
kind of unthinkable stuff. God,
1:31:31
that's a disaster mentally. Yeah,
1:31:33
sure, that's us done. We get to semifinal,
1:31:35
and it'll be a great trip to France, but
1:31:38
Axel was the one who said, well, we'll just have to go and beat
1:31:41
him. He had that kind of just
1:31:44
calm mentality, and he would have been
1:31:46
my under 20s captain in Shannon when I went into
1:31:48
Shannon first. I remember going, God,
1:31:51
I want to be like him. I want to be calm
1:31:53
and controlled, and look, he had
1:31:55
Eddie Halvy and myself on either side of
1:31:57
him in a back row, which you could say was
1:31:59
incredible. talented back row and we
1:32:02
ended up playing for Munster for a period of time together.
1:32:04
We dominated with Shannon in the All-Ireland
1:32:06
League for a number of years
1:32:09
and
1:32:11
you know he was kind of in between me and Eddie kind
1:32:13
of keeping us calm and kind of
1:32:15
giving us a bit of rope to go and play and just
1:32:17
make an incredible linebreaker do something special
1:32:20
but it was just most parts of
1:32:22
his game were were nailed
1:32:24
on if you know what I mean so yeah
1:32:27
like for sure if I could if I
1:32:29
could just share that
1:32:31
it would any would anyone playing sport
1:32:33
you want to try and be in a state
1:32:36
that you're kind of not
1:32:38
over an animated or over
1:32:41
anxious yeah because anxiety brings
1:32:44
tension and but you still you still need to
1:32:46
access the fury and
1:32:48
you still need to access that but just have a
1:32:52
means of controlling it and releasing it when for sure
1:32:54
and the game is change all sport has changed
1:32:56
so much more nowadays because them everybody
1:32:59
has sports psychologists
1:33:01
and people to help them and coaches
1:33:04
are on
1:33:05
much more understanding of
1:33:07
the type of person you have not everybody's the
1:33:10
same you know Declan kidney would have been really good
1:33:12
I think in in a kind
1:33:14
of a positive turnaround for me after 2000
1:33:17
because I
1:33:18
probably was at that stage where I took things
1:33:20
for granted and I expected because I
1:33:22
was talented that I would just get picked
1:33:24
on teams and that happened
1:33:27
a bit up to that point but you
1:33:29
know I played the six pool games
1:33:31
in in 1990 thousands and
1:33:33
there's a break then from January to April
1:33:37
my form wasn't great with Shannon
1:33:40
well that was scrutinized
1:33:43
heavily back then we would have all went back and played
1:33:45
with our clubs and you know
1:33:47
I get to April and I'm
1:33:49
I'm dropped for the start of the quarter final against that
1:33:51
Francine Tomon Park and I couldn't
1:33:53
really see why who came in here
1:33:55
Eddie Helvie came in and you know Eddie Eddie was
1:33:58
unbelievably talented so what
1:33:59
Dave Wallace, Eddie Halvie and Axel
1:34:02
played in the background, I was on the bench and
1:34:04
that was my first big kind of
1:34:06
blow and of course
1:34:08
I didn't see the fault in myself. I
1:34:11
kind of had a bit of bitterness with Declan
1:34:13
and you know I was on the, I came off the bench
1:34:15
in the quarterfinal, didn't come off the bench in
1:34:17
Bordeaux or didn't come off the bench in the final against
1:34:19
Northampton. Ended up sitting down with Declan Kidney
1:34:21
that summer kind
1:34:24
of opening up about the way I feel and how
1:34:26
you know that anxiety and stuff like
1:34:28
that and also being honest and saying look I need
1:34:30
to get more consistent in my training, my
1:34:32
attitude and my mentality and
1:34:35
we got on like a house on fire and he helped
1:34:37
me so much. So my point
1:34:38
here is you know obviously the coach has to look
1:34:40
at not everybody with the same, in the
1:34:43
same view. Some people do have
1:34:45
a little bit more stress and pressure and
1:34:47
it's about getting the best out of them but I would say in
1:34:50
the modern sport everybody has
1:34:52
that ability now and somebody to talk to or somebody
1:34:55
to kind of, who can see the players
1:34:57
and go and have a chat with them and say well Joe
1:34:59
Bloggs is a little bit more anxious, we
1:35:02
need to keep him calm and really
1:35:05
kind of focus on your strengths. So
1:35:07
one of the things I would have probably didn't understand
1:35:09
is I always tried to focus on my weaknesses.
1:35:12
Yeah.
1:35:12
And I forgot what I was good at and so
1:35:15
many times players, people, Woody was
1:35:17
one who got, he kind of pushed
1:35:19
me to be on a tour in 2002 to New Zealand. He
1:35:22
was always telling me
1:35:25
get the ball in your hands and just run, do
1:35:27
something because you can pass, you can
1:35:29
offload, whereas you know I taught
1:35:32
God when I get up to the yard and set up I can't
1:35:34
make a mistake here. So I was much more comfortable
1:35:37
a lot with Munster and
1:35:39
certainly for young people it's about you know figuring
1:35:42
that out and asking people who have
1:35:44
the experiences and times are
1:35:47
totally different nowadays. Every, you
1:35:49
know even
1:35:50
the approaches from coaches, how to deal
1:35:52
with players even in amateur
1:35:55
sports right across the board is
1:35:58
very good nowadays I think.
1:35:59
Yeah, I know the point you're making
1:36:02
about in the professional environment. There's definitely
1:36:04
way more access to
1:36:07
Proper sports psychology and performance coaching
1:36:09
but it's even kind of earlier. It's like the 13 to 15
1:36:13
year old you probably and how do you
1:36:15
give it someone who's lacking that little
1:36:17
bit of confidence or ability
1:36:19
to take the bull by the horns and Run
1:36:22
up that wing in a soccer match and take on these
1:36:24
men because he's really quick It's quite
1:36:26
skillful and he's brilliant across
1:36:28
in the ball How do you make him believe
1:36:30
that if he's kind of nervous about
1:36:33
taking on his man because he may he
1:36:35
thinks if I give The ball away here, you know
1:36:37
How do you tell a kid like that?
1:36:40
Just have a crack and the next if you look
1:36:42
if he takes if the defender takes the ball off you Do
1:36:44
it again and again and eventually you know
1:36:47
One of these runs that you make is
1:36:49
gonna lead to a goal and it's the bigger picture
1:36:51
It's just about breaking it down into small pieces
1:36:53
like that I think which so
1:36:56
the point there about kids is coaches
1:36:58
now can see a little bit their
1:37:00
eyes are more open to One
1:37:02
or two guys who have the potential and the
1:37:04
ability How do I give them confidence
1:37:07
and
1:37:07
make him believe that it is okay to make
1:37:09
a mistake? I taught mistakes or
1:37:11
what you're going to be judged by after the performance
1:37:14
a lot when I was younger Well,
1:37:15
they probably were yeah, I know
1:37:18
has changed a lot but but yeah But
1:37:20
you know what if you focus on all the mistakes you're
1:37:22
gonna make what you
1:37:24
know You look at a nine and a ten
1:37:26
now a scrum half and an out half and a rugby match They're
1:37:28
gonna handle about 70 or 80 times in the game
1:37:32
Are those 70 or 80 times they're gonna touch
1:37:34
the ball gonna be brilliant moments. They're not
1:37:36
there's gonna be three or four mistakes
1:37:39
in there And if we if you forget about the
1:37:41
other 70 good moments where they deliver
1:37:43
and kicked well You know, so it's about
1:37:45
focusing on the positives and just getting it. I'm not saying
1:37:47
that I was it was all negative God, I
1:37:49
look back at some of the monster matches and even some of
1:37:51
these tries and I was like, wow Is
1:37:54
that me in the field? I was
1:37:56
actually playing brilliant here and I was looked
1:37:58
like I was grabbed
1:37:59
in the bowl by the horns. We should
1:38:02
talk about this one then. So the first one is Ron LaGara
1:38:04
versus Toulouse in 2000. This
1:38:06
is in Bordeaux and it's a semi-final of
1:38:09
the
1:38:09
Heining Cup. Is that right? Yeah,
1:38:11
that's the semi-final when, you know, and
1:38:13
Woody spoke about the John Hayes
1:38:15
try, which was an incredible try. And this was a
1:38:17
kind of against the odds kind of performance.
1:38:21
Nobody expected a
1:38:23
victory here. As I said, Toulouse
1:38:26
were an
1:38:28
incredible squad. We
1:38:30
were on the back of obviously a brilliant,
1:38:33
a brilliant position of beating
1:38:36
Sarah since twice in the pool stages.
1:38:40
It was just a phenomenal team score.
1:38:43
I
1:38:43
think it was a scrum outside the Munster 22.
1:38:48
The ball was
1:38:50
much
1:38:51
past the Mikey Mullins, a little switch
1:38:53
with Jason Holland. John Kelly
1:38:56
comes in off the wing with his another
1:38:58
switch. He gets
1:39:00
tackled and he's back around the 10-yard line, pops
1:39:02
it to Axel. He makes a break. Then
1:39:05
Munster come back on the left hand side to
1:39:08
Anthony Horgan makes a break. And
1:39:10
then it's back in field. And, you know, someone
1:39:12
who was
1:39:14
incredible for Munster back then was Dominic Crotty.
1:39:17
He had played for Ireland when he was quite young. He
1:39:19
was full back in this team. He
1:39:22
handled the ball a number of times in
1:39:24
all those phases. And he
1:39:26
makes that unbelievable
1:39:28
pace. He run onto the ball
1:39:30
near the end. It's half tackle and pops
1:39:33
it up to Rogge and it's a try under the post. It's
1:39:35
a phenomenal score. If people look back and watch
1:39:37
it, the team score. Yeah, it is.
1:39:40
And the one thing that kind of jumped out at me is Toulouse
1:39:43
never got to the point where they could
1:39:45
get their defensive line set if you watch it. And,
1:39:49
you know,
1:39:50
Rogge's ability to run onto the ball
1:39:53
was superb and he's
1:39:55
timing and then being able
1:39:57
to deliver passes and stuff like that.
1:39:59
you know, if you look back at the backline that Mike
1:40:03
Mullins was against somebody probably
1:40:05
a bit like me in the sense that Mikey
1:40:07
lacked a bit of confidence at times but
1:40:10
when you gave him that confidence
1:40:12
and ability, you know, he was brilliant
1:40:14
for Munster he was part
1:40:18
of the reason why we came back over in Saracens
1:40:20
and Vicarage Road that season and
1:40:22
turned around a big deficit at half time to win
1:40:24
that game, he was just superb but
1:40:27
that for me was a try that just
1:40:29
comes to mind straight away, you know John
1:40:32
Hayes' try was similar, John is on the ground,
1:40:34
Woody picked that one you know, Woody's
1:40:36
incredible run up the touchline and
1:40:39
Keith Wood and John Langford were phenomenal for Munster
1:40:42
that year Same game Same game, yeah, Woody
1:40:44
makes the charge up for John Hayes'
1:40:46
try up the wing, pulled his calf but,
1:40:50
you know, both Langford and Woody were they
1:40:52
brought us to a different level and that was kind
1:40:54
of a very significant period
1:40:56
of time for that whole group about moving
1:40:59
on to the next level and understanding
1:41:01
professionalism and what was required and stuff
1:41:03
and they were really central to that, Woody and John
1:41:05
Langford Because obviously Keith Wood was
1:41:07
just coming back from Harlequins for
1:41:10
that one year Yeah, for one year, yeah, and he
1:41:12
was brilliant and I think we
1:41:14
started to believe in ourselves and you
1:41:16
know, like I said, the axial comment
1:41:18
of we would just have to go and beat him and
1:41:22
it was one that stands out for a lot of people,
1:41:24
you know, in particularly
1:41:26
the Munster supporters as well who went to Bordeaux
1:41:29
Obviously there was heartache in the final but, you
1:41:31
know,
1:41:32
watch that try back it's a sensational
1:41:34
score He scored 21 points, Rog, in that game
1:41:37
Yeah, he's kicking was brilliant as well He's unbelievable,
1:41:39
he's 23 years of age but already a leader in the team
1:41:41
Yeah, Jason Holland as well Yeah
1:41:43
What a player, you know, again, looking
1:41:45
back at some of these games Someone who
1:41:47
came over playing club rugby with Middleton got
1:41:50
called in in 1990,000 season
1:41:53
for World Cup warm-up against Ireland
1:41:56
in Cork because we
1:41:58
couldn't find any players and he went down
1:41:59
to be absolutely brilliant for Munster.
1:42:03
Some game. It was just a phenomenal
1:42:05
game and it was one that it was
1:42:08
kind of baffling in the end. The
1:42:10
rugby that was there and like if you look at the stars
1:42:13
that they had and even
1:42:15
their physique a little bit
1:42:17
towards maybe us, they're
1:42:20
bigger, stronger, more athletic looking.
1:42:23
But I think we were getting to it. Well, obviously, it was a lot
1:42:25
of fight and passion, but
1:42:28
that Munster team was fit, getting
1:42:30
fitter, getting stronger,
1:42:33
becoming a bit more skillful. So
1:42:35
I think it was a real important crossroads for that group.
1:42:38
That whole season, you know, because that's on
1:42:40
the back of, as I said, being to Vicarage
1:42:42
Road, getting an incredible win over again Saracens,
1:42:45
beating the Saracens at home. You
1:42:49
know, what a year it was. It ended up in disappointment
1:42:51
in Northampton and in Twickenham in the final,
1:42:54
but that was an incredible score from Raj. Yeah,
1:42:56
but the journey that the team is
1:42:58
on at the end of that game, that's my first
1:43:01
recollection ever of hearing the
1:43:03
Fields of Athens-Rae at a rugby match is when the Munster
1:43:05
fans sing after the game in Twickenham and
1:43:07
it is lament for something that's lost, but it's also a celebration
1:43:09
of the fact that you're like the second
1:43:11
best team in Europe, slash maybe the best. But I
1:43:14
don't know, just it was a moment in Munster's
1:43:16
history where it's the birth of something really,
1:43:19
really important. The style to play is also something.
1:43:22
Yeah, it's starting to improve, yeah, and it's different. It
1:43:24
isn't all about just kicking it, but when you've
1:43:26
two young half-backs like Peter Stringer and
1:43:28
Raj and, you know,
1:43:31
really good attacking centre in Mikey
1:43:34
Mullins and... But you were all passing the ball.
1:43:37
Yeah, footballers as well, people who are trying to
1:43:39
keep the ball alive as well and not just kind of run straight
1:43:41
at people. So it's
1:43:44
definitely a start of something really positive.
1:43:47
Let's talk about the next one is Draco versus
1:43:49
France in 01.
1:43:51
So this is the game in Dublin you were talking about. Yeah,
1:43:55
you could pick, look, I
1:43:57
was trying to go back in an Orion Games that I was
1:43:59
involved in. and pick out other
1:44:01
thrice. But this this one jumps
1:44:04
out because it was my first start in Dublin, as I said,
1:44:06
and I was probably shaking
1:44:09
like a leaf. And when the anthems
1:44:11
are happening and you're looking up at the crowd, but I
1:44:13
just I don't know, a trick. Drico
1:44:15
obviously got the three tries the year before in
1:44:17
Paris. This
1:44:20
game is the first time in 40
1:44:22
years that Ireland back to back
1:44:24
wins against
1:44:26
France.
1:44:27
It's a really big kind
1:44:29
of moment. Again, there's probably
1:44:31
a bit of expectation that France
1:44:34
win this game like they've done for the previous 10,
1:44:36
12 years. I think there was Ireland
1:44:39
hadn't beaten France in Dublin. They use the Howard's.
1:44:42
Yeah, well, the ones in Dublin are a bit tighter.
1:44:44
The ones in Paris are were around
1:44:46
that time where, you know,
1:44:48
the year before, obviously, that trend was booked.
1:44:51
Ninety eight, I think it was very close
1:44:53
as well under Warren Gatland. But
1:44:57
this
1:44:58
I just
1:44:59
again, looking back in it, I remember at the
1:45:01
time thinking, God, Brian Driscoll
1:45:03
is just phenomenal.
1:45:04
Like he was making line breaks and stepping
1:45:07
people in this game and going clear,
1:45:10
if you like, right up to
1:45:12
that point. He
1:45:14
too clean line breaks or two or three clean
1:45:16
line breaks in that game up to that point. And
1:45:19
I just remember the try was
1:45:22
again, it was inside our half and
1:45:25
it was a scrum with field, Ireland
1:45:27
go left. Rob Henderson makes
1:45:29
a bit of a show and go charge. Gets
1:45:32
through Olivia Marnier
1:45:34
offloads to David Wallace. And again, you know, Wally
1:45:36
is this incredible ball
1:45:38
carrier and this has this acceleration
1:45:42
and ability defend and he offloads a little
1:45:44
inside pass to Drico. And then it's
1:45:46
just pace. Wally's pass is almost
1:45:48
invisible. Yeah, it is. You're on the replay.
1:45:50
You have to go back and go. But it's John Strickland's anticipation
1:45:53
to kind of track the ball
1:45:55
as well. And and obviously it gets to
1:45:57
the corner and there's
1:45:59
big debate. Is he grounded as a pundit now
1:46:01
you can say? Well I think if you look back at it now and
1:46:03
you know the
1:46:05
downward pressure, fingertips stuff and
1:46:07
we see some of these tries that are scrutinized
1:46:10
for a long time and funnily enough I couldn't
1:46:12
remember at the time there was a TMO,
1:46:15
Brian Kamsel, an English TMO was
1:46:19
looked at that try and it took him three minutes
1:46:21
so there's a big kind of break, three minutes is a long
1:46:24
time now for somebody to look him back in a try
1:46:26
over and over and over again he gave the try
1:46:28
because I think he felt those fingertip
1:46:30
pressure on it. I watched it 10
1:46:33
times there and I can't tell if you... We were saying that... Yeah
1:46:35
even watching it back it's hard to judge it,
1:46:38
I think there is a bit of fingertip
1:46:40
pressure there that that's why he gave him and
1:46:42
it's kind of given the benefit of the touch here. Well I was going to say
1:46:45
we were saying at the weekend, Owen
1:46:46
Cody has the amazing dribble
1:46:49
where it's Keon Lynch who he sends to
1:46:52
the shops with the dummy and
1:46:54
I think the referee gave him a free because it was so good. Yeah yeah yeah.
1:46:57
Sorry that's... I think he gets a little
1:46:59
bit of fingertips here but look there's so many tries
1:47:01
you could pick for
1:47:04
for for Drico.
1:47:05
I just think this the anticipation,
1:47:07
the pace and the ability as he was
1:47:10
getting tackled by Christophe Lamazan
1:47:12
into touch,
1:47:15
it
1:47:15
was brilliant. Did an incredibly strong side
1:47:18
when you think of Bernard... Philip
1:47:20
Bernat-Sal, Pelus, Galtier,
1:47:23
Serge Bettsen, Christophe Domici...
1:47:25
We've been... Dominicci... We've been having
1:47:27
this conversation... Olivia Manier. This conversation
1:47:30
is bubbled up about the most of the
1:47:32
best Irish rugby player, the greatest Irish rugby player
1:47:35
of all time and I would argue that
1:47:37
without
1:47:38
this period of time that
1:47:41
we wouldn't have had Johnny Sexton winning European
1:47:43
Cups without Audrisco emerging that
1:47:46
like the hat-trick in Paris. Well
1:47:48
it was about belief and confidence and actually
1:47:50
thinking as Irish people you can go and win these games
1:47:53
so certainly the three tries, the Drico scores
1:47:55
in Paris and it's just kind of like you're
1:47:57
in 20 years of age and you're...
1:47:58
This is just
1:48:00
normal then for other people coming
1:48:03
through that you've something to look at
1:48:05
and a reference point to say well
1:48:07
This Irish team or this team has done it and
1:48:10
it's a little bit like the province is going to France
1:48:12
for the first time Winning a certain thing because
1:48:14
we I remember that really well when we played one
1:48:16
of our goals in 97-98 was to win
1:48:19
for the first time in France
1:48:21
So Munster in the previous year or two had been to
1:48:24
France in European games and been like
1:48:26
40-50 points So it's
1:48:28
not about keeping the score down. It's actually saying
1:48:30
we actually want to win there So we go to Colombia
1:48:33
and win for the first time in France I think it was
1:48:36
97-98 and then you go well the next
1:48:38
step is okay You're against
1:48:40
to lose or you against be rich or you against
1:48:42
that fran say can you go and beat them? so
1:48:44
it's it's a process and certainly,
1:48:47
that's a very very valid point that
1:48:50
you know, maybe
1:48:51
the
1:48:52
The foundations were doped for
1:48:54
yeah, you know that platform we're splitting hairs
1:48:57
obviously and yeah It's a very it's
1:48:59
an interesting debate doesn't really matter in the grand scheme
1:49:01
of things But I do feel like there's you have to give
1:49:03
extra kudos to the founding fathers
1:49:05
of the whole thing And so
1:49:08
the next one is Peter Stringer. You've got the assist for this
1:49:10
one. Yeah, I got an assist I was trying
1:49:12
I wasn't trying to put my own tries in and again
1:49:15
I'd like to say I could easily put Woody's
1:49:17
try against Sarah since in there
1:49:19
in 2000 in Tomin Park It's
1:49:21
the one where they score up the field
1:49:23
in 77th minute and
1:49:26
it looks like the crowd is silent and
1:49:29
we're
1:49:30
Not gonna beat Sarah since here Saracen's
1:49:32
are gonna win the game here in Tomin Park
1:49:35
Gala kind of pulled us together and literally says
1:49:37
we're going up the field. We're gonna score I
1:49:40
can't really remember what happened. We got a penalty. We
1:49:42
kicked down into the corner I think
1:49:45
we won the ball back from the kickoff got a penalty kicks
1:49:47
into the corner ball is drawn
1:49:49
to the back of the line out and
1:49:52
Mall is pulled on and Woody just kind
1:49:54
of accelerates this pick and go and scores Rog
1:49:56
kicks the penalty we win by a point. So you
1:49:59
talk about
1:49:59
significant moments, that
1:50:02
try by Woody and again Saracens
1:50:04
and Tom and Prach could easily pick that in there but
1:50:07
you know Peter Stringer's try, this
1:50:10
was in the back of
1:50:12
the miracle match against Gloucester
1:50:16
where we had to do this insane
1:50:20
situation against Gloucester to beat him
1:50:22
by X number of points, we end up winning
1:50:24
33-6 and we get into the quarter finals
1:50:27
and our reward is a trip to Welford Road
1:50:29
against the champions who had not beaten us in
1:50:32
the millennium stadium the year before. The
1:50:34
hand of Neil Bach. Yeah
1:50:37
and we're thinking God that's some reward isn't
1:50:39
it for qualifying
1:50:42
but we lost two pool games in that
1:50:44
year, we lost against Peppermint on the way,
1:50:46
round one against Gloucester we're beating
1:50:49
35-16 and that was a bit of an eye
1:50:51
opener, they were the English champions at Gloucester,
1:50:54
Starr started the team, Trevor
1:50:56
Woodman, Phil Vickery, Andy Gomorsel,
1:50:58
Tina
1:51:00
Delport, James
1:51:03
Simpson Daniel, all these guys were big names
1:51:06
and we went to Gloucester
1:51:08
and got
1:51:11
walloped in round one, so we
1:51:13
didn't start the competition well, round
1:51:16
two we'd be prepping at home
1:51:18
then we backed back games against Via Dana
1:51:20
and the Italian team we beat them well,
1:51:23
round five we got to Peppermint on we're beating again
1:51:25
so we're completely on the back foot, we lost
1:51:27
two games
1:51:31
which is risky,
1:51:34
back then there were six rounds and Gloucester
1:51:38
had been unbeaten, I
1:51:41
think they would last in Peppermint on so
1:51:43
we had to beat them by X amount of points, we didn't know any
1:51:45
of that stuff it's kind of famous but we
1:51:47
go to Welford Road, we'll go back to that one in a minute
1:51:49
because John Kelly scores that try I picked
1:51:52
that one, Peter
1:51:54
Stringer's try yeah for me not
1:51:57
because I had an assist at the end but I just
1:51:59
thought I'd just jumps out at me that that
1:52:01
was a very really special day.
1:52:04
There's certain games over the years that we could
1:52:06
pick out and all the lads,
1:52:09
the monster team in that year would pick certain ones.
1:52:11
There was a few ones on Saturday nights in Castas
1:52:15
were seen to be a regular occurrence.
1:52:17
They were ones, they're in my memory. But
1:52:20
this try, because
1:52:21
it was against a really powerful
1:52:24
strong Leicester side, they
1:52:27
went on. A lot of these fellas were winning a World Cup
1:52:29
a number of months later. You know,
1:52:31
they'd kneel back, Martin
1:52:34
Curry, Ben Kay, Johnson, Austin
1:52:37
Healy, Tom Tierney actually,
1:52:39
was scrum half that day
1:52:42
for Leicester, Jordan
1:52:45
Morphy was playing Lee Unlie, Tim Stimson, all
1:52:47
these guys, very
1:52:49
strong side and they don't lose them well for
1:52:51
Road. So again, the mentality
1:52:54
that you mentioned there was
1:52:56
pretty strong. We give ourselves
1:52:58
a really good chance there. We knew we
1:53:00
had to find a performance
1:53:03
and crazily enough, I think it's
1:53:06
3-0
1:53:07
at half time to monster. You
1:53:10
know, you're not really, you're thinking you're going to have
1:53:12
an open game here and a
1:53:14
lot of scoring. So we're winning 3-0. Then
1:53:16
we go 6-0 in the 56 minutes. And then they score
1:53:20
a try, I think after that, Steve
1:53:23
Bootes. And unfortunately he's
1:53:25
passed away as well.
1:53:26
Three people have played
1:53:28
that day, Steve Bootes, Tom Tierney
1:53:31
and Anthony Foley.
1:53:32
And all from heart
1:53:34
disease, which is incredible to think that there's three
1:53:37
people on the field that are not around anymore. Steve
1:53:40
Bootes scored a try and they go 7-6. Then Raj
1:53:42
gets a try and
1:53:45
I think our reaction, our performance and our intensity
1:53:48
that day was phenomenal. So
1:53:50
we're winning 13-7 and we've
1:53:53
a scrum
1:53:54
in our half and Raj
1:53:57
is going to win. makes
1:54:00
a little bit of a break and gets tackled but
1:54:02
pops the ball up to Rob Henderson and the tackle.
1:54:05
Yeah. And then he in turn...
1:54:07
Sorry, was that a surprise that you were expressing there about Ron McCarrar
1:54:09
making the break? No, but there was a perception that
1:54:12
he didn't make a break, he runs at the line
1:54:14
and found a bit of space and got leg
1:54:16
tackled but on his back kind of pops the
1:54:18
ball up because sometimes
1:54:21
people think that Rog didn't run with the ball. He was actually really
1:54:23
good at running on Getty's timing well onto
1:54:26
the ball and attacked
1:54:28
it unbelievably well,
1:54:30
pops it up to Rob Henderson who then does
1:54:33
a bit of a shimmy, passes it to Mike
1:54:35
Mullins who kind of goes on the outside
1:54:37
and gives this kind of basketball pass back on
1:54:39
the inside to me. You did well to catch it actually,
1:54:41
he throws it at you at a bit of an awkward enough height.
1:54:44
Yeah, and literally
1:54:46
I'm kind of getting rapped, I think Neil back
1:54:49
is one of them and I'm shocked that I can get
1:54:51
this little pop pass to Stringer who comes
1:54:53
on my shoulder and it was one of
1:54:55
those ones where you're,
1:54:57
wow, this is it. We had a mall
1:55:00
right at the end of that game and
1:55:03
Lester were the team who we
1:55:05
probably would have looked up to, we had a lot of similarities.
1:55:08
We had a mall at the end of that game where we moored
1:55:10
Lester about 20 yards up
1:55:12
the field and it was one of those ones where the Munster
1:55:14
fans are just singing, chanting,
1:55:17
it's incredible.
1:55:19
And that happened in Welford Road so it wasn't,
1:55:22
it was a wonderful performance, it was absolutely
1:55:25
brilliant.
1:55:26
Everybody was on it that day
1:55:28
and that try from Stringer kind of summed it up
1:55:30
at the end so it was one that stood out for me and
1:55:32
it was really special.
1:55:35
Great shot at Peter Classy at the end of the
1:55:37
crowd kind of going mad and showing
1:55:39
that emotion. Had he retired? Yeah,
1:55:41
he retired the year before and
1:55:44
so it was a really special day but
1:55:47
obviously you don't win trophies
1:55:49
and we went to Toulouse then the semi-final, we were
1:55:51
beating 13-12
1:55:54
and it was the home final in Dublin so we were
1:55:56
whiskers away from being in
1:55:58
a final and
1:56:01
Lenstra actually, funnily enough, were on the other side
1:56:04
and they lost to Perpignan in Dublin,
1:56:06
which I think they lost 22-15 or
1:56:08
21-17 or something like that to Perpignan in
1:56:12
the other semi-final in Dublin
1:56:14
and it ended up being two French teams in Dublin with
1:56:16
a small crowd and Toulouse won it. 21-14 in the end. Toulouse
1:56:19
beat you by a point in the semi. Toulouse
1:56:21
beat us by a point in Toulouse, yeah, 13-12. Again,
1:56:24
a couple of drop goals in the end that were missed,
1:56:27
Jeremy Staunton had one or two I think and
1:56:29
a very, very tight game.
1:56:33
We were a whisk
1:56:35
away from probably being in the final and
1:56:38
probably winning
1:56:41
the tournament. So
1:56:44
very close, but that was a really significant try
1:56:46
from Peter Schranhauer. You weren't wrong about Wellford
1:56:48
Road. Two teams had won there in five years, which
1:56:50
is insane to think of 4,000 Monster fans there to
1:56:53
watch it. And a very strong team and
1:56:55
the scenes at the end, we're out in the pitch and
1:56:57
all the Monster fans are kind
1:56:59
of there. So yeah, very special moments
1:57:01
and it was a great try, I think. So next
1:57:03
we have John Kelly's try versus Gloucester in the Miracle
1:57:06
match, that same season. Yeah, no glitz
1:57:08
or glamour about this. I
1:57:10
just think significance really and the importance
1:57:12
of this
1:57:13
try, again, you know,
1:57:16
the messages are starting to come onto the field about
1:57:18
what needs to happen when we kind of score
1:57:20
two tries in the first half, Mikko Driskey
1:57:23
gets one midway through the second half and then
1:57:25
we're kind of pushing for that four
1:57:27
try and suddenly the messages
1:57:29
are coming on, keep going, don't concede any points,
1:57:31
but keep pushing on. And
1:57:34
I'd say 90% of the team didn't know what the
1:57:36
score line. We had to win by 27 points
1:57:38
in the end or more. And we did that. We
1:57:41
won by 27 points. But this try at
1:57:43
the end, we
1:57:45
had a penalty.
1:57:46
Raj kicked it into the corner. Frankie
1:57:52
Sheehan throws the ball to the back of the line. So
1:57:54
we had this line up where we moved the whole backer up
1:57:56
to the front of the line out. So Jim Williams,
1:57:59
myself.
1:57:59
and Anthony Foley were at the front
1:58:03
and we moved some of our seconders
1:58:06
to the back of the line. So the ball is thrown to Dunneka at the Dunneka
1:58:08
Calenda tail, Axel peels
1:58:10
around pops at the stringer and he hits Jason
1:58:15
Holland and Mike Mullins in midfield and we set
1:58:17
up this mall
1:58:18
and we
1:58:21
kind of are driving them
1:58:23
right back towards the goal line
1:58:25
and we need this for a try and they pull
1:58:27
it down. It looks like they're turning the ball over.
1:58:31
It's a bit kamikaze because
1:58:33
this fella is coming in from all sides and all
1:58:35
angles and we
1:58:38
eventually the ball comes back out it's popped
1:58:40
up to Jeremy Staunton and he makes
1:58:42
a little dart for the line rolls it back through his legs
1:58:45
and an in-stringer sweeps it away
1:58:47
to Raj and he passed to John
1:58:49
Kelly and
1:58:51
it's unbelievable it's phenomenal. We've
1:58:53
got that for a try he kicks the conversion
1:58:56
and we had
1:58:58
those incredible scenes you know they make
1:59:00
the video about about the game but none
1:59:04
of that was really we
1:59:05
weren't really conscious of any of that it's amazing
1:59:07
when you're out in the field and to look back
1:59:10
at the old stadium and the supporters
1:59:12
and even looking back and I just I was seeing people
1:59:14
I knew and what it
1:59:16
meant to them and how exciting it was and what an atmosphere
1:59:19
it was so it was a really significant
1:59:21
try John had scored one the first half, Mosi
1:59:24
Lawlor scored one the first half but
1:59:26
that really was a
1:59:27
again a really obviously
1:59:30
a crucial try for us to put us into
1:59:32
the quarter-finals to be able to go to Alfred Rode.
1:59:34
Raj always said that he didn't know before
1:59:36
he took that kick that it
1:59:38
was so significant were you aware or
1:59:40
any idea? I think after
1:59:42
Raj kicked the ball there was a lot of mess
1:59:44
just coming on then don't concede
1:59:47
don't give away would you believe I
1:59:49
give away a penalty very shortly after
1:59:51
that outside the 22 I'm trying
1:59:54
to poach a ball from a Gloucester player I
1:59:56
penalized which
1:59:58
genuinely I think
1:59:59
I shouldn't
2:00:02
have been penalized. I should have got the penalties
2:00:04
players holding on the ground But
2:00:06
it's one of those ones where you say nowadays to people
2:00:09
just let them have it don't don't contest the
2:00:11
ball You know if you're if you're if you're winning
2:00:13
in a game, just let them have it. Just let them have
2:00:15
it My mentality
2:00:17
wasn't just let him out of here's the turnover for
2:00:20
me and I was penalized if
2:00:22
they if Gloucester had stopped and paused
2:00:25
and Actually, let
2:00:27
Mercier, Ludac, Ludac, Mercier
2:00:29
kicked the
2:00:29
ball over the bar.
2:00:31
They would have went through to the quarter-finals. We were out
2:00:34
That penalty
2:00:36
would have put them Communication wasn't great there.
2:00:38
No, and they didn't really know either So
2:00:41
Andy Garmusl gets the ball and he taps
2:00:43
and goes really quickly because they're now 33 six
2:00:46
down in the game But really if they
2:00:48
if they knew and understood themselves
2:00:51
Nobody saw this happening Shane. They
2:00:53
didn't see it. We didn't see it. I remember
2:00:55
the night before this game, you know, Mick Galway
2:00:58
wasn't starting but
2:01:00
he was the captain squad captain and
2:01:04
Obviously a great leader for us and like the
2:01:06
night before we
2:01:08
it was a case of
2:01:10
It's gonna be really difficult to beat this Gloucester team
2:01:12
at home here but we owe
2:01:14
to the fans and ourselves to get a performance
2:01:17
and it was a very emotional
2:01:19
kind of Friday night meeting and We
2:01:22
were incredibly pumped for that game.
2:01:25
It was phenomenal again Looking
2:01:29
back and kind of the the work
2:01:31
rate and the intensity the players it was it was
2:01:33
it was brilliant to see and But
2:01:36
the significance really we didn't know anything about
2:01:38
the scorelines It was talk about game plans
2:01:40
that were lost in taxis and we
2:01:43
did lost our game plan or Not
2:01:46
all news to me at the time, you know, I mean, but it was
2:01:48
a brilliant win a very special day again The
2:01:50
taxi story was untrue
2:01:53
Some someone is claiming it's true, but
2:01:55
we had no idea of any sort
2:01:57
of situation of
2:01:59
of game plans or anything like that. That
2:02:02
never filtered true to us but you know
2:02:04
it's a lovely day and a really special day and
2:02:06
we had a great night in Limerick afterwards and as
2:02:09
I said we did great win in Welford Road after
2:02:11
that and you know then the disappointment of the semi-final
2:02:14
against Toulouse. It's all part of the journey to
2:02:16
get to a point where you do eventually get over
2:02:18
the line. You haven't picked one from the first year you
2:02:20
get over the line you pick one from the second one at Dennis Lee. But again
2:02:23
I could pick Stringer's one against I love
2:02:25
the Serge Betts at the tri after Scrum where
2:02:27
Stringer goes around Serge Betts and in all six
2:02:29
and that really seals
2:02:33
well it doesn't seal the game but I think it
2:02:35
just it was a brilliant brilliant piece
2:02:37
of work from Peter Stringer to kind of dummy
2:02:40
one way and and you
2:02:42
know obviously to catch such a brilliant player Serge
2:02:44
Betts and who was a tackling
2:02:46
machine a great try that
2:02:49
game in all six. I
2:02:52
just love the fact in 2008
2:02:54
in the final against Toulouse Dennis Leamy just was
2:02:56
he
2:03:03
was a monster really you know I remember
2:03:05
Graham Henry in 2006 describing him
2:03:08
as such when
2:03:10
he played Test
2:03:12
match against New Zealand and Hamilton you know Graham
2:03:15
Henry spoke in the press conference afterwards about Dennis
2:03:17
Leamy being the best number eight in the world he was phenomenal
2:03:20
had his injuries very
2:03:22
unfortunate injuries with his knees
2:03:26
but you know we were we
2:03:28
were a different team probably in that OA game because
2:03:30
you had Doug Howlett and Matthew and Tepokie
2:03:33
as opposed to you know the
2:03:35
difference in maybe Trevor Halstead and John
2:03:37
Kelly played in the centers the two years
2:03:39
previous and no disrespect to
2:03:41
them Halstead and John Kelly were brilliant and
2:03:43
that game plan and structure
2:03:45
beating Burt and all six
2:03:48
was perfect but OA it was a little
2:03:50
bit different when you're those
2:03:52
type of players you just want to try and give them the ball
2:03:54
and we had
2:03:56
we scored
2:03:58
some brilliant tries that year with that
2:03:59
monster team. We had a really
2:04:02
hard group in the pool stages
2:04:04
with wasps and Clermont-Ferrand
2:04:07
at the time.
2:04:10
Probably nearly lost. Well,
2:04:12
the semi-final
2:04:14
in Coventry against Saracens
2:04:17
was one where we were favourite,
2:04:20
heavy favourites, and in the end we're kind of
2:04:22
lucky to get through it. They possibly
2:04:25
were claiming a penalty right at the end of the game.
2:04:27
They could have kicked and put us out, but we
2:04:29
get to the final in 08. Again, it's a
2:04:33
kind of drab affair because it's
2:04:36
fairly low scoring. Is it the start of France?
2:04:38
No, it's in Millennium Stadium against
2:04:41
Toulouse again. Yeah, it's the second time we're back
2:04:43
there in 2008 and Toulouse are 3-0 up and we get
2:04:45
down
2:04:49
close to our line and Toulouse
2:04:51
end up with a 5-metre scrum defending.
2:04:54
We
2:04:57
kind of twist the scrum around. It's reset
2:04:59
again.
2:05:02
Then Toulouse go again and I
2:05:04
think it was the scrum twist again and I tackle
2:05:07
Sean Sorby there at number 8. South African
2:05:09
kind of on the line. We get the scrum
2:05:12
and then Leamy breaks off the back of the
2:05:14
scrum and we go infield and there's a bit of picking
2:05:16
and going for for a number of minutes
2:05:18
and it was really just... It's a forwards try.
2:05:21
It's
2:05:21
a forwards try, but you know what? It's
2:05:23
a dogged, hard-working and
2:05:26
honestly I was getting a little bit of an adrenaline
2:05:28
rush watching this again
2:05:30
and I remember at the time just the atmosphere.
2:05:33
A little bit of an between you and the
2:05:35
back row. A little bit,
2:05:37
yeah. Look,
2:05:39
I think Toulouse were phenomenal and we had incredible
2:05:42
respect for them. They were basically French international
2:05:44
sides. Yeah, they were and I
2:05:46
think but we felt really... We were
2:05:48
in a good place. We
2:05:51
started picking
2:05:51
and going in the 74th minute which
2:05:53
is pretty famous. Every
2:05:56
time I meet I need a Toulouse players. Now they go
2:05:58
picking goal, picking goal.
2:05:59
big and go and it was crazy.
2:06:02
Tomás Solirí had come in for
2:06:04
Peter and played in the quarterfinal, semi-final
2:06:07
and final and he started kind of
2:06:09
off you go forwards, out in the inside
2:06:13
to lose half and we're about trying
2:06:15
to see out the game. Anyway, that's if
2:06:17
you look back in that it was crazy but I
2:06:20
just, Lemie's try there was
2:06:22
one of, it was a real statement of
2:06:25
intent, the scrum,
2:06:28
the way we kind of pushed them back in a scrum
2:06:30
because you think it was earlier days,
2:06:32
you think French scrum was going to kill us and they
2:06:34
want to try and they believe they're going to kill us. Now
2:06:37
we're at a point in 2008 from that kind of journey from 96,
2:06:39
97 onwards for some of us and
2:06:44
now we're the ones who are doing it
2:06:47
to a French scrum, you know, so it's
2:06:49
gone full circle really and
2:06:53
I just remember that try, brilliant, it was
2:06:55
a great try and it was it was scored by Dennis
2:06:57
who was just a phenomenal
2:07:00
player and we had a homegrown
2:07:02
pack, Marcus Horne, Jerry Flannery,
2:07:04
John Hayes, Doneko
2:07:06
Calla and Paulo Canel, myself,
2:07:09
Dennis and Wally
2:07:12
which was
2:07:14
pretty impressive. It was the Irish pack bar
2:07:16
me because they you know they
2:07:18
were all Simon Eastby was playing with all those guys
2:07:20
for Ireland for a period of time so
2:07:22
they were great players to have around, you know, we
2:07:25
had a great line out and Paul was
2:07:27
on his game, you know, constantly Doneko
2:07:31
worked great through the roof so it was a great team
2:07:34
and then as you say when you have Mathieu and Toboki in
2:07:36
the centre they're special players but
2:07:38
we nearly lost the semi-final but we thankfully
2:07:41
got our hands on a second trophy that day. Yeah and
2:07:43
Frank the greatness
2:07:44
of the team as well, I think a lot of people are going to be
2:07:46
going down a YouTube wormhole as a result of that.
2:07:48
Sorry there are not more Ireland tries in there but
2:07:51
I didn't play enough of Ireland games where there was really
2:07:53
significant tries in big Six Nations
2:07:56
games or big, you know,
2:07:59
test matches but.
2:07:59
There's a few there that I could have easily picked.
2:08:03
Hendo's tree tries in Rome,
2:08:05
they jump out of me. Couple
2:08:08
of tries in the World Cup, and you know, tree
2:08:10
as well, and other Six
2:08:12
Nations games. My favorite
2:08:15
try of all though, if I
2:08:17
was not, been not involved, was Mick always
2:08:19
try in 93 against England. He
2:08:22
didn't have a lot to do when you look back at it now, but
2:08:24
I remember being at that game,
2:08:27
I think it was playing
2:08:30
under 18s or under 20s with Shannon, and we went
2:08:32
up on a bus from Limerick. We
2:08:34
were in the terraces in the all lands down
2:08:36
road, and again, this
2:08:38
is star stud at English side.
2:08:42
Will Carling. Will Carling, Rob
2:08:44
Andrew, Martin Bayfield, Jason
2:08:47
Leonard,
2:08:49
your powerful, powerful English side, and
2:08:51
Gallo gets that try at the end in the corner.
2:08:54
He was with Shannon, he was someone I was kind of
2:08:56
looked up to.
2:08:59
His sister runs on the field, and that's just
2:09:02
brilliant, giving him a big hug at the end. Mick Bradley
2:09:04
makes a little half break, and pops
2:09:06
it up to Gallo. Again,
2:09:09
significant because I was there, and I remember really
2:09:12
well. Some of these tries, you could pick any that
2:09:14
the lads to come in and pick tries. It's
2:09:16
ones that kind of you,
2:09:18
you want to try and think
2:09:20
in your mind, if I was to ask you straight up, what
2:09:23
comes to mind first? So these are kind of the ones
2:09:25
that came. No, no, you did a great job, it was perfect.
2:09:27
Okay, cheers. Thank you very much. Quick
2:09:30
Vera Power update on Louise Quinn. We
2:09:32
are also a bit concerned, we think she can play.
2:09:35
We're always honest, she's going to train, and we
2:09:37
will see. I
2:09:39
think that's keeping the opposition guessing. She's playing, if she's
2:09:42
doing any training, I would
2:09:44
be amazed if she's not starting
2:09:45
that game tomorrow. OTB,
2:09:48
AM. The Sports Breakfast Show
2:09:51
from off the ball.
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