Gracious Kidney gives growler Cowen a lesson in real leadership

Can you imagine Cowen responding to Kenny or Gilmore with the dignity Kidney employed to dispense with Gatland’s barbs? Kidney refused to be riled and didn’t lose focus. Cowen regularly shouts and snarls when under pressure and fails to think clearly as a result

THINKING it might be a bit facetious and trite — as well as a touch obvious — I wasn’t going to draw comparisons between our rugby team and our Government, or the former’s head coach Declan Kidney and Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

Sport and politics are so obviously different — and clearly running the country is far more important, no matter how seriously we take our sport — that such comparisons could be odious. However, the more I thought of the reasons why I shouldn’t, the more I thought there might be some limited benefit in drawing analogies between the respective management of resources. So here goes.