Munster rugby must not return to the parish pump politics of yore

I take grave exception to the depiction of Limerick as being an outback on the western fringes of the Munster rugby catchment area by Michael Moynihan in the Irish Examiner, (January 16).

I would suggest that he looks at a map of Munster, which he obviously has not thus far, and he would discover that far from being on the periphery, Limerick is in a far more central area than Cork and far more convenient for many areas of the province and country to reach most notably the rugby strongholds of Clare, North Tipperary, North Kerry, not to mention County Limerick.

It is also far more convenient for the many Munster supporters domiciled in Dublin being less than two hours away via the motorway.

As regards his assertion that there is no airport within the county, he seems to have conveniently forgotten about Shannon International Airport in Co. Clare, situated 15 minutes away from Limerick city.

This airport is open 24/7 and rarely, if ever, is closed due to adverse weather conditions.

And, by the way, in case he doesn’t know, Limerick also has a train station.

As regards his suggestion that Munster rugby should endeavour to come to some type of ground sharing arrangement with Cork GAA in their proposed new development, does he honestly think that Munster would fill the 45,000 capacity or would we end up like Edinburgh with the team playing to a quarter full stadium with no atmosphere?

And what of Thomond Park (capacity 26,500) and Musgrave Park (capacity 9,500) neither of which have been full this season.

I feel that Mr Moynihan is indulging in parish pump politics on the back of Ronan O’Gara’s article of Friday last which was also divisive.

This is a throwback to the old days when Limerick and Cork were the power bases of Munster rugby and deep rivalries existed.

Peter O’Dowd

Ballykeeffe

Dooradoyle

Limerick