Wearing Green and Ignoring Ireland
Broken record warning. So it’s almost the time of the year when everybody is Irish. But not quite yet. Which means that again there are not enough people in the metro area interested enough in Ireland playing on Saturday, March 10, for any pub to show it live.
Rugby. The Six Nations championship. Ireland are playing Scotland at Murrayfield as they attempt to win the Triple Crown for the third time in four years. Once upon a time a fierce number of people would get terribly excited and emotional about such things. The Triple Crown is when you beat the other three ‘home’ nations out of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
It would be on early in the morning KC time. 7:30am if you fancy following text updates live on the BBC or chancing your arm trying to watch it online via SopCast. Oh yeah, or going the legitimate online route and paying Setanta for their webcast.
Failing all that you can watch Ireland play Scotland, in delayed coverage at 6pm on Monday in The Gaf at Romanelli on Wornall.
And then move the clock forward a week. Saturday, 17th March, 2007. St Patrick’s Day. Everybody is Irish I’m told. At 7:30am Kansas City time, Ireland will be playing Italy in possibly a game to decide if, for the first time since 1985, they win the premier international rugby union tournament in the Northern Hemisphere.
On a day everybody is Irish, and most will be going to pubs, will anybody in KC be watching? Or will there just be ironic cheers in parties when announcements are made to people wearing more green than the Irish fans in Rome?
See More of this Stuff:
• When Ireland played England
• When Ireland played Wales
• When the All-Ireland Gaelic Football Final was shown in KC
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Well, it came and it went.
Ireland won the Triple Crown and nobody cheered. Do you remember in 82 and 85? They nearly declared a national holiday. But these days, everybody expects them to take the Triple Crown, for God’s sake. These days, we’re pissed off we didn’t make the Grand Slam, and everybody is waiting for next weekend to see how the Championship plays out, now that England have beaten France.
After that, it’s the Heineken Cup, which everybody expects Munster to win again (including me, heading for Llanelli at the end of the month, woo hoo!!). And when that’s over, we have the World Cup, which Ireland will definitely win because these days we’re better than the All Blacks.
I hope somebody told the All Blacks.
And how do you think next weekend will pan out Bock? It’s certainly all very intriguing.
Maybe all that talk of a Grand Slam before the thing even started - which was insane in my view - kinda diluted reactions to anything less.
But maybe now that there really is six nations competing the victory over the three older friends isn’t that important anymore? Seems weird though.