Super Sunday: Wales v Ireland
Normally at this time of the year I am besieged with suggestions as to where I can watch Ireland in the Six Nations rugby yokeymabob. But not this year.
Odd really for this is quite an Irish year. Ireland are favourites, and they play at Croke Park, the home of the Gaelic Games, for the first time.
Today, Ireland begin their campaign in Cardiff against Wales. Ireland are not only favourites for the game, they are favourites for the championship. In fact to many people, they are expected to win the Grand Slam, to beat the other five - for the first time in fifty-odd years when the competition didn’t have six nations. Even if you’re deservedly favourites, that strikes me as, well, mad.
The Gaf doesn’t open on a Sunday, so you can’t watch it there. And WJMcBride’s Irish Pub in KCK no longer maintains a website as it moves into wind-down mode.
Even if Ireland lose against Wales, the fact that their next game is that first rugby international in Croke Park - against France - keeps this championship boiling away. And even if Ireland lose that aswell people will still be salivating at the next game - because it’is against England. At Croke Park. In the evening.
Last night in Gaelic Football Tyrone and Dublin played the first game under the floodlights at Croke Park. A league game. Over 81,000 in attendance. It seems unreal to me as I think of the times I’ve watched Dublin play in league games at Croker with crowds of less than 10,000.
And all this gets added into the pot for what will be truly fascinating when an Irish team plays rugby in front of 80,000 disoriented southsiders. I can’t believe they’re all going to drink on Dorset Street.
In the Kansas City Star yesterday I read that 250,000 people in the metro area claim to be Irish. The number of people in KC who will try to watch Ireland play rugby today is probably around the 25 mark. And I suspect most of them are English. Because Jonny’s back.
Last time Wilkinson had played for England before yesterday was when he won them the World Cup final in 2003. In Kansas City I watched that game at three or four in the morning in the home of an Englishman with a bunch of English men and a couple of American groupies. Since then Jonny has missed all 30 international games, and played only minutes in months, yet walks onto Twiickenham yesterday to score 27 points, even if five were for a try that wasn’t.
But tell me, is KC’s lack of interest in Irish rugby really because today in America there is something else going on - several hours later in the day?
Here’s a few minutes of Ireland scoring tries in the twelve months building up to the 2007 Six Nations:
Wales v Ireland starts at 9am Kansas City time. If you have broadband you can watch it live on Setanta for $9.99
UPDATE: Result - Wales 9 Ireland 19
See Also:
• Irish Lose: O Dear, O-dear O-dear O-dear
• Ireland v Argentina: Meeting Maradona
• Is Kansas City more Irish than the Cayman Islands?
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Just wondering, Eolaí, why doesn’t The Gaf open on Sundays? As you know yourself, if a pub didn’t open here there’d be lads marching up and down outside waving “Down with this sort of thing” and “Careful now” placards.
On last night’s match I reckon there were only 10,000 there to see the game.
2,000 to see the Saw Doctors.
2,000 to see the Dublin Gospel Choir.
7,000 to see the miracle of floodlights.
And 60,678 because the tickets were, for the one and only time, dirt cheap.
Primal, a couple of other pubs have done the not-opening-on-Sunday lark here. In short it’s because there isn’t really a pub culture here at all - or at least it’s very different from home, or even from the East Coast.
Here, a pub is a bar, and frequent drinking in them is indulged by frat kids, and misfits. You don’t get the across the ages social mix that you do in Ireland. Most social drinking is done in domestic situations. It is possible to drink regularly in bars and not be frowned upon if those bars are really expensive restaurants themed on Irish pubs.
So then the food becomes more important than anything else in there. And Sunday isn’t a big day for the family to go out and get drunk, so they tend to stay at home and do so, or go to a house party. Especially if somebody is showing Father Ted.
The first time I went to Croke Park was in the 1970s when the GAA came to our school and offered us tickets for 10p. Even back then that was very cheap. Every year in Kansas City the Wizards (soccer) give away tickets for free for one game in an attempt to break their attendance record. Typically they attract about 30,000 for the game - a nice sized crowd though it looks very sad in a stadium with a capacity of 80,000. Free or dirt cheap, if the people don’t want to go, you won’t get them there. I’d a been one of the 7,000 last night. I love a good miracle.
So what is going on with McBrides in Village West?
We used to enjoy going out there for the music and food. It has really gone downhill quickly.
The games are available to watch on Setanta at WJ McBride’s in KCK.
Live or Delayed MAtt?