Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Let's have a pop at the English again

I am including some excerpts from Ronan O Gara's attack on English rugby published in the Guardian yesterday. I do so here, without reservation, bacause his comments could just as easily apply to English football, and indeed to the English in general.

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"We no longer suffer from being beaten before we even travel to England or France any more. We expect to win when we go over there. It's the same with Ireland. I've played against England six times and won four of those matches. That's not surprising to me because, between the walls of our dressing room, we always expect to beat England.

But the English public and their team have a hard time believing that. They still assume they should come out on top every time because, apparently, the natural order in rugby is that England are the greatest. It's probably down to the way they've been brought up."

I watch some Premiership rugby and I have to switch off the sound because I wonder if I'm seeing the same game. Their commentators are enthusing about the quality and excitement and I'm just like, 'Oh my God!' "Sky do an incredible job in dramatising the whole of English rugby, but the way they hype these English guys is unbelievable. I've toured with some of the players they're now saying are the best in England - and it just doesn't make sense. We all talk about the English players so this is the general opinion in Irish dressing-rooms. Some of the people they are trying to put on a pedestal just don't deserve to be there."

1 comment:

Mei said...

Spot on.

During the World Cup, the hype that surrounded the team suggested that England had some divine right to win.

It makes them losing all the more enjoyable, but the press reaction is that they were robbed in some way (and not just a mediocre team).

And what's this (currentYear-1966) years of hurt rubbish?