I was in Oswestry once. A little town - I’d say around about 15k inhabitants just inside the Welsh border. Good bit smaller than Ennis. Their junior soccer team TNS last night smashed the best Irish soccer team 4-0. Bohemians of course are only in existence thanks to ACC neteuring Liam Carroll but last night as good as finishes them as a full time outfit. Another club on the well trodden road to bankruptcy as the potential money spinning tie with Anderlecht is swept away.
It kind of brought me thinking - is Irish sport at all time low at present
No doubt inter county GAA is at a pretty low ebb at the moment, the club game as good as dead at adult level as the players have no games and probably 5 competitive ish inter county hurling teams - how many Gaelic ones 3? The standard is muck aswell. KK are going backwards and still hockeying all before them, Kerry retreating at a rate of knots but still favourite to win All Ireland.
In rugger - Ireland have lost to two of the 4 decent sides in rugger by record margins last year . Thankfully retreated now to the position of a joke team in a joke sport.
We have no good darts player
The LOI has always been a joke but there were posturings that things were improving. Last night’s loss confirms those posturings were laughable in the extreme.
Our international soccer team once again failed to qualify for an international tournament.
Cant think of any other sports at present. No doubt we are shit at them anyway. Amatuer boxing actually we are decent at that.
My very popular recent thread confirmed unequivocally that some of the above mentioned are not a sport; e.g. darts, golf, rugby football.
However, if you’re to take the populist* view and accept some of these hobbies as sports then we punch above our weight in golf, amateur boxing and horse racing.
We’re quite rubbish overall on an international level though in fairness. I don’t know if it’s a combination of poor funding and organisation, the high levels playing the indigenous gaelic games or what. Is there anything we could carve out a niche in like say a shitty Scandinavian country will win loads of gold medals in winter sports or whatever?
That said, it goes back to the point that Olympic activities are by and large not sports anyway.
I’m guessing that I’ve used ‘populist’ in the right context above.
They both consider themselves British. That is enough for me anyway. The Good Friday Agreement enables those residents of Northern Ireland to declare themselves Irish if they so wish - Darron Gibson etc but these guys dont want to which is their right.
Darts is a sport and a great one. Some cracking finals recently - The power taylor v Barney or Mickey Adams v some cunt I cant recall. They were epic. The odd simpleton Paddy usually loses in the first round.
Anyway lets not get bogged down in the minor details. Why is the country producing such mediocrity in sports? Is the quality of coaching to blame?
Darts is a sport and a great one. Some cracking finals recently - The power taylor v Barney or Mickey Adams v some cunt I cant recall. They were epic. The odd simpleton Paddy usually loses in the first round.
Darts is not a sport.
Anyway lets not get bogged down in the minor details. Why is the country producing such mediocrity in sports? Is the quality of coaching to blame?
We also had a thread here on what sports could be considered truely global, which would obviously be the best way to measure ourselves against other nations and there weren’t too many of them. Beyond soccer and athletics there isn’t much else that is played in the majority of the worlds countries.
horse racing :lol: horses arent people FFS - how do we punch above our weight in horse racing - how many Irish trained horses have won the Melbourne Cup, breeders cup, arc etc - We win our share of British and Irish events
Coaching is a good point, coaching in ireland is below standard, particular in soccer. GAA has made massive strides in recent years but there is still a need to flush out some of the old timers trying to make a few bob off their playing days.
The boxing lads have created an excellent template for their sport and how to high perform, but considering our population i think we do very well at Athletics as well.
