This is great writing
And so to the big bout. The first round saw both men engage in a series of awkward grips that made them resemble a couple of movers trying to shift a wardrobe through a tricky doorway. The second consisted of Khabib lying on top of McGregor who stared blankly into the distance like someone enduring an underwhelming sexual experience for the sake of the money. It’s the classic Vegas expression.
Ireland has reached a new journalistic low if this fella is the top sporting dog
Paul Howard hasn’t penned a sports article in over a decade, and is still the top dog.
Is it really, though? I wonder. Those four sentences could be significantly improved without altering a scintilla of their imagery and meaning.
There are, by definition, two fighters involved. So “two men” and “a couple of movers” become redundant expressions – all the more so if you use “two men” earlier in the same sentence. The third sentence is grammatically incorrect because it is short a clause-initiating comma.
There are notable glitches in stylistic terms. Having same verb forms proximate in the one sentence (as per “engage” and “resemble” in this passage’s second sentence) makes for syntaxical stodge. Equally, the fourth sentence’s ‘punchiness’ is out of kilter, tonally, with the governing note established by the third sentence, which broaches a mood of jadedness and ennui. Sentence transition should not create a mood of energy when semantic emphasis moots a mood of lassitude. Punchiness doth not blankness convey.
Another stylistic point, subtle to some: repetition is probably the most difficult challenge at sentence level. Certain repetitions are inevitable. Therefore you should flense unrequired repetition, thereby earning latitude on this front down the line.
Item: this passage’s third sentence contains four uses of the definite article. Such needless repetition has a flattening effect – an effect exacerbated by the fourth sentence’s immediate use of the definite article. Why write “for the sake of the money” rather than ‘for sake of the money’? If possible, you should always delete a definite or an indefinite article, as per writing ‘underwhelming sexual experience’ instead of “an underwhelming sexual experience”.
Then again, certain types of repetition are a resource. One phrase, “The second consisted”, can be improved in this vein. Choosing “The second round consisted” (chiming off “The first round saw”) would prepare the way for semantic emphasis on blankness and mere endurance. Great writing performs a seamless fit between micro and macro, form and sense.
Would that passage not be far better recast? As follows:
And so to the big bout. The first round saw these fighters engage in a series of awkward grips that resembled movers trying to shift a wardrobe through a tricky doorway. The second round consisted of Khabib lying on top of McGregor, who stared blankly into the distance like someone enduring, with a classic Vegas expression, underwhelming sexual experience for sake of the money.
It’s lunchime…! I never drink whisky before 10pm. Tastings excepted, of course.
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Eamonn Sweeney: ‘From bus-gate to ref errors - repeated excuses show a refusal to accept failure’
Talking point
Eamonn Sweeney
If Irish rugby told the truth about 2019 its world would fall apart. Because the IRFU’s entire commercial and promotional strategy is based on the idea that its teams are world-class units, its players world-class athletes and its coaching staff world-class in their various fields.
The preparation of the teams is portrayed as the acme of excellence, setting an example for all other sports in physical, mental and perhaps even moral terms.
Irish rugby provides a template for not just sporting success but for achievement in business and everyday life. So the story goes.
The events of 2019, culminating in Saturday’s sorry shambles, indicate that the slightly vainglorious claims made on Irish rugby’s behalf just might not be entirely true.
The idols we’ve been instructed to worship don’t just have feet of clay. It’s entirely made of muck.
But the IRFU’s world view does not admit such a possibility. So it’s extremely unlikely that there will be any admission to the fans who travelled or those who stayed at home that the team were poorly prepared and about as a close to world-class as Thomond Park is to Tokyo.
What we’ll get instead are excuses. Nobody does excuses like Irish rugby and this year has been an annus mirabilis for them.
It was obvious from the start of the Six Nations that the team had gone badly off the boil and were cruising for a World Cup bruising.
Instead solace was sought in suggestions that the management were holding back special world-beating plays for the big tournament and that Ireland’s underwhelming form probably indicated a plan to peak at the finals.
Specific games had specific excuses. When Ireland were outclassed and hammered by Wales, a narrative of refereeing perfidy was deployed. If Wales hadn’t kicked all those penalties Ireland might have won.
The team had apparently displayed a massive improvement since the defeat by England. In Joe We Trust was repeated as though it were a powerful mantra rather than an empty slogan.
The record trouncing by England was excused because that Ireland were apparently engaged in some kind of special training which made it easy for the opposition to run past, around and right through them.
Surely there could be no excuse for defeat by lowly Japan? Once the smoke had settled, Joe Schmidt revealed that the authorities admitted the referee made three wrong decisions. This suggestion that we’d been robbed was eagerly seized upon.
Debilitating
Schmidt had form in this area. Two years ago he’d banged on about the debilitating effects of the Irish team bus being eight minutes late to Murrayfield when we lost to Scotland. An Irish manager in any other sport would have been laughed at for this kind of thing. Instead, it was treated as further illustrating rugby’s special commitment to excellence. Fine margins and all that.
The other big justification for the Shizuoka debacle was that Japan were actually a brilliant team. They’d really trouble South Africa. But they didn’t.
Four years ago after Argentina stuffed us in the quarter-finals it was suggested that the Pumas might be the second-best team in the world. They got slaughtered in the semis by Australia.
Irish rugby is adept at getting the excuses in beforehand. When it seemed likely we’d be meeting South Africa in this year’s quarter-finals, a photo of the Springboks, topless and suspiciously ripped, did the round of rugby fan Twitter. See what we’re up against? Nod, nod, wink, wink. How could you beat those boys?
This new-found interest in Springbok musculature disappeared when the All Blacks became our last-eight opponents. It was time to bring up New Zealand’s appalling disregard for the offside laws and their poaching of players from the South Seas nations. And their love of high tackling which provided the opportunity to rehash the 2016 game in Dublin, another one Ireland didn’t really lose because the opposition cheated.
Sometimes the excuses are delivered from the high moral ground.
Witness the ludicrous palaver after Billy Vunipola liked a homophobic tweet by Israel Folau and tried to explain his position (as opposed to Bundee Aki whose ‘like’ apparently occurred by mistake).
We flogged the life out of this one, the implication being that Saracens’ victories over Munster and Leinster were morally tainted. We’d prefer to lose than have a guy like that on one of our teams, so we would.
The rugby team have benefited from media sycophancy Irish soccer managers must envy. Just a week ago the win over Samoa was declared to be comprehensive redemption for the defeat by Japan.
Ireland’s form in 2019 pointed to just one denouement on Saturday yet all week there were predictions that Joe Schmidt would relish underdog status, ignoring the fact that this resulted from a series of c**p Irish performances.
When all the excuses have been exhausted, the last resort of the IRFU et al is to say we should move on and not dwell on things.
Which would be admirable were it not that nobody dwells on things quite like the acolytes of Irish rugby. Didn’t they make a bloody documentary about winning one game against the All Blacks, for God’s sake?
Montages
After all the ‘Game of Thrones’ type build-up to the finals, all the montages, all the JFK quotes, all the moody black-and-white shots, all the Team Of Us and all the Rugby Country, is ‘nothing to see here folks’ the best they can do? Really?
When you see the sang-froid with which the IRFU greet defeat you can understand how once upon a time a bunch of rugby-loving guys persuaded themselves and others that everything would work out fine with the Irish economy.
“We go again,” they probably said. Look where that got us.
The IRFU should come clean about the catastrophic nature of 2019. But they won’t.
They can’t handle the truth. It’s not good for business.
A great read on a monday morning
It’s great to see there are more journos apart from just Ewan brave enough to declare that the emperor has no clothes
Ooooooffffftttttttt x 10
In fairness that Ruaidhri O’Connor chap doesn’t hold back his criticism of the team in today’s Indo also. I think he is keen to be seen as not being one of the journo’s who goes easy on the team in general. Many players score “1” in his ratings list. Joe got a “1” also.
Good article Sweeney is very entertaining. But they are getting a lot of criticism now so not entirely true. And does the soccer team not fully warrant criticism?
I don’t think I’ve seen or heard any rugby correspondents give the performance on Sat a pass. A lot of commentary too commenting that the year was a disaster. I don’t think a definitive comment on that could be given until a QF performance and the team and management had credit in the bank that allowed a certain level of trust or optimism. I think the fact that it’s not a whole new management team will put them under a lot of pressure straight away too into next year.
That is true. I think most genuine rugby journo’s have been very critical.
It the more floating non sports people that tend to go softer. Like Tubridy this morning. Or Marian Finucane I can imagine cc @Sidney. Basically all of those who preach to the house wives of Ireland daily. B1lly Keane also goes easy on them today
Comments on social media are hilarious. You’ll NEVER EVER see a female from the general public slate the team in any way. It is endless pile of “so proud” and “still our heros” 
. Vodafone have done a fine job in fairness this way.
Fair comment, but I think you’d find that in most sports.
What I’m a bit more interested is some of the pieces by rugby journalists over the next couple of weeks wondering where do we go from here.
David Corkery pulls no punches in Echo column
Exactly.
The rugby morketing is a phenomenon. Unheard of in ireland. For years connacht were a joke, a few hundred a game attending but the marketing was relentless, signage on all roads into galway, flags up, continuous public appearances by players and it eventually seeped in and they now have thousands of season ticket holders in a small city an lowly populated province.
We never stood a chance. The All Blacks were just too good for us, in every single position. We tried our best and that is all you can ask of any team.
Joe Schmidt had plans to tweak our style. That much I know for sure. But there were no opportunities to practise a new way of playing the game or even to tweak the old way. Most of our top players suffered medium- and long-term injuries. Some carried injuries from the Samoan game.
The fact is too much is asked of our top players. We do not have the strength in depth to survive this workload, year on year.
Joe knew Ireland were up against it. We got the worst draw possible. He said as much.
By the way, Sexton was hit late, as usual. The referee deemed the All Black couldn’t stop his run. The All Blacks’ brake pads are always worn when it comes to pulling up in front of out- halves.
Sweeney to be fair to him has been calling out the bullshit surrounding rugby for a long time but there has been plenty of criticism for this side in the mainstream media. They’ve certainly gotten a lot braver in the last 12 months.
The lads in the commentary Saturday morning called out the coaches failures on numerous occasions.