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Rory’s crash course

Rory’s crash course

It’s fair to say that this column hasn’t been Rory McIlroy’s staunchest supporter since his emergence as golf’s next great white hope after landing the leading amateur prize in the 2007 British Open – finding it hard to warm to his anointed Sullivan Upper School status. A few months after claiming the silver medal...
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Language barrier

Language barrier

Wayne Rooney has been spitting out the f-word with abandon for years. He’s not the only one, of course, but how many times has he been seen mouthing expletives at a referee or an assistant and not a dickey bird. On Sky’s ‘Sunday Supplement’ red-top journalist Shaun Custis proposed that Rooney be made put a million...
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Up Waterford, Down Dungarvan?

Up Waterford, Down Dungarvan?

Initially thinking it was an April Fool, I was alerted to a recent polemic from ‘Phoenix’ in the Waterford News & Star which saw him all a flutter over countless perceived injustices perpetrated against the city, and then take a few swipes this way. Presumably referring to this column’s suggestion a couple of...
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Hardy boyos

Hardy boyos

I heard plenty about Andy Fleming growing up. Mick Hayes was a family friend and farmed a few fields across from us in Butlerstown. So stories about his colleagues on the Waterford team that won the 1948 All-Ireland often came up in conversation while bringing in bales and having the tae afterwards. In The...
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House for white elephants

House for white elephants

Telecommunications tycoon, media magnate and Moriarty Tribunal arch-critic, Denis O’Brien has his finger in more pies than Mr Kipling’s tasters. The billionaire businessman appears into his sport, and is shelling out half of whatever it costs to keep Trap in the style to which he’s become accustomed. Michael Lowry is...
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Not so pretty vacant

Not so pretty vacant

The FAI may be breathing a sigh of relief to be guaranteed €40m from 2014-18 under the new Uefa centralisation TV deal, but it needs to get its ticket pricing policy right asap. The sight of tens of thousands of empty seats at the Aviva Stadium for a qualifier wasn’t exactly what FAI chief executive John Delaney –...
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Ireland Rule KO

Ireland Rule KO

reland Rule KO Saturday’s farcical defeat in Cardiff pretty much summed up Ireland’s Six Nations season so far. Everything that could go wrong probably will, with the possibility of a Martin Johnson-managed England winning the Grand Slam in Dublin on Saturday an appalling Aviva vista. Though given the...
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Look no further than Fraher Field?

Look no further than Fraher Field?

With hiring out Nowlan Park for Munster championship fixtures still on the Waterford GAA Board’s fundraising agenda — even if its sheer divisiveness suggests to me it won’t happen, no matter how the sums add up — one wonders whether there might be a solution on our actual doorstep. County Secretary Timmy O’Keeffe,...
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Slim and none

Slim and none

The phrase “more money than sense” could well have been invented for soccer in the 21st century. Manchester City’s Kolo Toure claims he failed a drug test because he took some of his wife’s diet pills. The fattest thing about the Ivory Coast defender is his salary, which makes one wonder why he couldn’t afford his...
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The bould Bull

The bould Bull

John O’Donoghue gave the game away in yet another ungracious farewell speech as he lost his seat in Kerry at the weekend. ‘The Bull’, suffering the same fate as a slew of Fianna Fáilers, spoke from the podium of the “irony” in being defeated in the very hall — a “magnificent” place, naturally — “I helped to build”; a...
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RSC rap

RSC rap

Word (up) has it that music megastar 50 Cent – aka Curtis James Jackson III (no relation to John of Kilrossanty) – may play Waterford this summer. The RSC, which is owned by the City Council, is earmarked for a massive July gig, with swooner crooner Bruno Mars also rumoured to be lined up. Whatever about hip hop, the...
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