What if we take a look back at road not taken?
Not to be outdone, Paul Rouse asked a question in a similar vein in his column in these pages: what if Michael Cusack, founder of the GAA, had stuck to rugby, his first sporting love?
Exploring counterfactuals is as rich a field in sport as it is in history, or even fiction (otherwise TV series such as SS-GB or The Man In The High Castle would never be made).
The sense of a forking path in sporting destinies is hard to resist, no matter what your affiliation.
Go back to 1991: Gordon Hamilton has just touched down for that sensational try against Australia in Lansdowne Road at the second Rugby World Cup, and his Irish teammates jog back to the halfway line, awaiting the Aussie kick-off.
What happens if they retain the ball and stick it up the jumper for the remaining couple of minutes; if they don’t concede that late, late try to Michael Lynagh?
Does Irish rugby get an adrenaline shot in the run-up to professionalism, which comes in four years later, one which helps it to hit the ground running in the pro era and to dictate terms at club and international levels at least until other countries catch up?
Go back 10 years earlier, and Ireland are playing Belgium in Brussels as they try to reach another World Cup — the soccer version this time, Spain ’82.
A draw will send Ireland through but an appalling dive by Belgium’s Eric Gerets wins a late, late free. Rene Vandereycken’s shot hits the bar, loops up and Jan Ceulemans heads home a winner: 1-0.
A strong smell surrounds the game to this day, with scents of refereeing incompetence and hints of Belgian corruption, but what if Ireland had held out?
If someone had ploughed into Ceulemans from behind and cleared the ball?
We would have had Euro ’88 or Italia ’90 six/eight years earlier, and the way the early 80s were in this country, it would have been a welcome boost to all.
Go back 20 years before that damp night in Brussels and sit in Croke Park for the All-Ireland final. Dublin v Tipperary in hurling.
Nothing in it all through, and Dublin, a point behind, with a chance to win the game with the last puck of the afternoon: a late free lands in the Tipperary goalmouth and Des Foley connects — but the ball flies the wrong side of the post.
What if Foley’s effort found the net instead? Would hurling have become the number one sport in the capital, with Tony Hanahoe and Gay O’Driscoll bringing Liam MacCarthy rather than Sam Maguire around the capital in the 70s?
How would the hurling map of Ireland look now if Dublin had opened the 60s with an All-Ireland?
Your correspondent has a fondness for such speculation because that, indeed, is how he started in this business (a reader suddenly interrupts: what if you hadn’t had your ‘what-if’ published, then? We’d never have heard of you?)
Maybe, but history is written by the winners. Everybody knows that.
Ronaldo bust at Madeira a real shocker
I stumbled across the new trailer for It, the new adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel.
That’s why I have been keeping all the lights on and have locked the doors FROM THE INSIDE since.
The trailer is a chilling few minutes of half-glimpsed horrors, unsettling anticipation, and a terrifying face frozen in a terror-inducing grimace, which meant it was an ideal preparation for a first view of the Cristiano Ronaldo bust unveiled last week at the Aeroporto da Madeira.
Mere words cannot do justice to the effect, an aesthetic I have christened The Serial Killer Contemplates Narrative Twists In I Love Lucy.
Given Ronaldo’s fondness for himself, it was surprising to read sculptor Emanuel Santos suggesting Ronaldo liked the statue, though Santos cleverly enlisted the totality of Judaeo-Christian civilisation to offer a defence of his efforts: “It is impossible to please the Greeks and Trojans. Neither did Jesus please everyone.”
Strong stand for women’s sport
Kudos to the US women’s ice hockey team, which defeated its own governing body in a stand-off recently.
The women’s team was seeking more money for players and greater marketing and development for the game, refusing to participate in the world championships unless their requests were met.
In a pretty shameful turn of events, USA Hockey tried to assemble a replacement team that would break the player strike, approaching girls in high school and players in recreational leagues.
Translation: they were literally looking for junior B players to line out for their country.
It’s refreshing to report that the governing body got nowhere. The elite players in the system were backed all the way down the line — and across the line. It’s also refreshing to see that the men’s professional player representative bodies supported them — the MLBPA (baseball), NFLPA (American football) and NBPA (basketball).
Their counterparts in male hockey? The NHLPA let it be known they might also boycott the world championships if the women’s requests were not met. Encouraging all round, or an obvious road map for other organisations when and if the time comes to support women’s sports?
Third time’s a charm for True Detective
Progress at last.
“Day saw advances, Trixie. None miraculous.”
Thus spake Al Swearengen in the greatest TV miniseries of all time, but he may be wrong about the news to hand.
Forget all pretenders. Deadwood reigns supreme, and those of us who miss its dirt-worshippers and road agents can rejoice, because its presiding genius, show-runner David Milch, will ride again shortly.
Milch was announced as a key element in the forthcoming True Detective Three.
I have not seen True Detective Two, and had to abandon True Detective One on the grounds of squeamishness, though I liked the interplay between Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in it.
The recruitment of Milch by T.D. originator Nic Pizzolato — author of Galveston, which I am reading at the moment — is a canny move.
