Apocalypse now and all the time

TEDDY HOLLAND was in Limerick last Sunday, running the rule over the Shannonsiders’ football team as they took on Louth in the National Football League.

Any other season it would look a shrewd move, sizing up the championship opponents early in spring, filing away a weakness or a liability for use on the hard grounds of summer. Par for the course for any new manager, eager to learn.

In the context of 2008... well, as a scene it looks ripe with symbolism at first glance — the lone appointee, marooned in his seat up in the stands and shut out from the proper habitat of the manager: the sideline.