There were times last Saturday morning when the team Brent Pope branded ‘the best in the world’ last autumn (after beating a disinterested South Africa) looked a lot like one of the worst as New Zealand threatened to run up a cricket score.
At one stage in the second half Sky’s Mark Robson offered the reassuring confirmation, “You are not in the middle of a nightmare, this really is happening.” Thanks, I know it was early but most of those watching realised they were wide awake and wondering why the hell they pay through the nose for this stuff.
And you know who’s to blame for it all? That Eamonn Ryan fella, that’s who, putting those free-to-air ideas in people’s heads (or whatever Jamie Heaslip calls those things on people’s shoulders). Sure tis obvious there’s nothing but good to be said about selling the rights to satellite, without whom we probably wouldn’t be sending burnt-out players to the other end of the world to get beat out the gate by rugby superpowers in peak condition. But it’s all money in the jar, and that’s good for Irish rugby, don’t ya know.
