Balancing rugby’s need with Páirc life
It now appears that another country has entered the lists — French sports newspaper Midi Olympique reported a few days ago week that France would bid for the same tournament.
Given the French press’s legendary closeness to the rugby establishment — exhibit A, L’Equipe’s disgracing of themselves with scurrilous smearing of Ronan O’Gara — then one would be inclined to take this report as an unofficial press release on behalf of the FFR.
That recent controversy over the €30 million Government grant to redevelop the Cork stadium seems to have subsided somewhat, with the likes of Páraic Duffy suggesting last week that the matter would be resolved.
Timing, as with everything in life, is crucial. The decision on which country is to host the tournament of 2023 is due for announcement in 2017, which is when Páirc Ui Chaoimh is due to be finished, and by which time, presumably, the full amount of Government funding will have been drawn down.
However, anyone naive enough to believe the decision to be announced in 2017 will also be made that calendar year should wake up and smell the coffee; the clock is already ticking on all those countries jockeying for the prize, and notice taken of any hiccups that occur along the way.
Whether or not the IRFU bid is eventually successful, it will need to have a significant presence in Cork, as one of the (unofficial) criteria for large-scale sports events such as a Rugby World Cup is the need for a variety of locations in the host country.
Over-concentrating on Dublin would come against such a bid, and given the anti-Belfast sentiments currently being spread by the Game of Thrones cast about the stern iron town far to the north, Cork will be crucial to any successful bid.
And central to Cork’s importance is Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
In December, the IRFU estimated the cost of putting together the proposal alone would top €1.5m, and only last week it advertised for experts to help it in the bidding process. Those consultants will cost between €700,000 and €1.1m, it’s estimated (the IRFU will seek both a bid adviser/coordination and management services provider to assist it in “technical aspects of the bid process and production of bid documentation”; dust off your CV if that’s up your alley).
While it might seem a delicious irony to some if those advisers and providers eventually find that helping to shepherd through the refurbishment of a GAA stadium is part of their duties, it also appears that it’ll be absolutely necessary.
One very interesting part of this equation remains the Government’s dual, related commitments — to the World Cup bid, having announced it through then-Sport Minister Leo Varadkar, and to funding Páirc Uí Chaoimh — and in particular the necessity for the former to proceed quickly to facilitate the latter.
A depressing lack of equality
There is an unspoken but well-supported protocol in this game whereby errors and mishaps which occur in other outlets tend not to be held up to ridicule.
This has a clear and logical rationale behind it: the people in glass houses explanation. Your embarrassing faux pas becomes my exquisitely painful error, often within 24 hours of each other. But the tweet from a national newspaper last Saturday night was a bit rich.
A photograph of the Bray Wanderers FC physio, with accompanying laddish caption comparing her with a female Chelsea staff member, was posted, and the surprise at its casual sexism was soon overtaken by anger and disappointment.
It was removed when a stream of critical responses appeared but unsurprisingly, a few Cro-Magnon observers then emerged, criticising ‘feminists’ for lacking a sense of humour and for... being unattractive, which rather proves the whole point, but even so.
It’s depressing that this should be an issue in 2015. Of course it is. The phalanx of arguments about commenting on a woman’s appearance — or on the appearance of a qualified professional, to be more precise — is almost too broad to be enumerated here individually.
Probably the only remotely helpful thing about said tweet is that it was textbook sexism as opposed to the more insidious or condescending kind. You needn’t consult Everyday Sexism by Laura Bates to recognise it’s inappropriate.
However, if it needs reiteration, consider the likes of Katie Taylor, the Irish women’s rugby team, the Cork ladies football team. These are high-achieving athletes. Successful sportspeople. They don’t get the ‘nudge-nudge’ treatment and if it occurred, the reaction would be as swift and negative as it was on Saturday night.
With all the talk about equality at the moment as the marriage referendum approaches, a little more equality of esteem in this area wouldn’t go astray.
Dave’s passion ran deep
My condolences to the family of the late Dave Billings, with whom I had little enough contact.
However, there was an occasion on which I shared my thoughts on some aspects of the GAA in third level colleges, and Dave wasn’t slow about ringing up to share his thoughts on my thoughts.
It was pleasant enough, and once we got chatting it was clear the passion ran deep, which those who knew him better have been saying for the last few days.
I said I’d touch base with him the next time I was in Dublin; I’m sorry now I never got the chance.
Jaded from more Jedi high jinks
Wearing my cultural cap last week, I saw the traditional sharp intake of breath with a new Star Wars trailer being leaked, released, or inflicted upon us, depending on your fondness for manipulation by a vast corporation.
The only interesting thing about this movie franchise now is how its marketing juggernaut resembles the all-powerful Empire which seeks to crush the plucky freedom fighters, but even that sliver of contradiction is overshadowed by the drooling over the latest instalment, which is either the 900th in the sequence or just feels it’s like the 900th .
Better news on the book front for this particular observer, though, with the opening of the Time Traveller’s Bookshop in Cork, near Lancaster Quay.
I ventured in the other day and while they don’t have any sports books by yours truly (black mark), any establishment with a rare edition of Guerrilla Days in Ireland by Tom Barry gets my thumbs up.
