Things that didn't float our boat in 2008

Things that Jumpthefence added to its black book…
1 Ongoing GAA problems
The Cork strikes. The Paul Galvin affair. The Justin McCarthy ousting in Waterford. The doping controversy. The Cork strikes again. Sure it’s nice to have something to talk about in the pub but there seems to be stuff happening every year now where nobody comes out with any dignity or class and the ordinary fan is just getting bored. Everybody loses a bit of themselves with the problems in Cork. Kerry didn’t do themselves any favours with the reaction to Galvin’s ban. The GAA themselves didn’t come up smelling of roses in any of the mishaps. Back to the on-field stuff next year maybe?

2 Irish rugby team
If Munster won hearts and minds and plaudits, Ireland’s rugby side continued the doomy spiral of the World Cup performances with an awful Six Nations and a dispiriting Autumn series (even with new manager Declan Kidney installed). There was something naturally gloomy about the camp in the final days of Eddie O’Sullivan and defeats to France, Wales and England were deserved and horribly predictable. Kidney came in to some fanfare but New Zealand made boys of us and the Argentina win was so ugly it felt like defeat.

3 Arsenal
Started the year top of the Premier League amid proclamations of Wenger’s genius at putting together the best young players in the history of the game. Just didn’t have enough steel, winning mentality and experience to see out big games or the season (the 4-0 defeat to Utd in the cup hugely deflated their aura, late collapses from winning positions at Chelsea, Utd and Liverpool (Champs Lge) summed up their problems). End the year with question marks over hanging onto fourth spot, having lost two captains and valid wonderings as to the judgement of their manager in thinking these youngsters were up to it.

4 Cristiano Ronaldo
Oh man oh man, how can anyone be so damned good yet so damned annoying? Jumpthefence actually feels sorry for him at times as he does tend to get kicked, fouled and taken out of games far more than most footballers. But the increasing ego that questions every tackle made as an offense, the petulance, the strutting, the arrogance, the self-perception that he’s now bigger than Man Utd, make one the world’s top players extremely unlikable. And that’s a shame, cos it alters the ordinary punters’ sense of how good he is.

5 Domestic football
Though the paranoia and bitterness that pervades the domestic game can make it hard to root for at times, nobody wants to see season after season dominated by clubs going down the swanny or stories of debts and administrations being more popular than feelgood stories. Cork City almost went under. Pretty much every other club around had some form of difficulties. All due to overreaching, misplaced ambition and just never being able to connect with the wider public. An awful pity, but every step forward of the past five years seems to be followed by two backwards.

6 The misplaced hypes and hopes
Hey, it’ll happen anyway and everywhere but Jumpthefence finds a terrible disparity at times between those who receive our cheers/ jeers and those who deserve them. Giovanni Trapattoni does a pretty good job early days yet gets abuse for not fielding an average-to-good prem lge player while Bernard Dunne beats a couple of no-hopers and continually gets peddled as a fighting machine. We talk up a rugby team that’s struggling to get into the top eight in the world while laughing at and dismissing individuals who’re fighting massive odds for not winning Olympic medals. Some perspective needs to be found at times. We won’t be holding breath.

Things we learnt

Jumpthefence may have overindulged in some activities for various reasons over the weekend, but here’s what learnings were made clearer over the last few days of sporting activity…

1 Liverpool are passing up their chance to pull away in the league
Okay, it may well be that all the top sides are dropping a few more points than expected in the last few weeks. It may well be that the Pool are still top of the league by a point heading towards Christmas. It may well be that Chelsea don’t look anywhere like as invincible as people would have you believe, Arsenal are as likely to crumble under pressure as revel in it and Man Utd’s attack still isn’t gelling with Berbatov, Ronaldo, Tevez and Rooney not quite clicking into gear as a force. But United have played away to Aston Villa, Man City and Spurs in the last month. Liverpool were at home to Fulham, West Ham and Hull over the same period. Yet United actually gained two points over those six games. It’s hard to escape the notion that Rafa Benitez’s men have missed their best chance to make a statement and pull 5/6 points clear at the top and the main reason is they’re simply not good enough. (We’ll get back to Robbie Keane’s increasing outsider’s role soon here.)

2 Munster are Munster, Leinster are Leinster
For all Eamonn Sweeney’s thoughts in the Sindo yesterday, and I agree with him largely in that the chastising of Leinster as some kind of rich man’s pastime while Munster are paraded as the working man’s team is complete tosh, there’s no getting away from the difference in mentality between the two sides. It seems no matter the personnel or ability, there’s a large gap in how they approach games. Munster grind wins as naturally as FAS execs blow money. Leinster, on the other hand, keep living up to their windy reputation. Swap the sides around over the weekend for a minute – there’s no way Munster would have let a game in Castres slip away and I couldn’t see Leinster pulling that Clermont game from the fire when under the cosh. I may weep occasionally when I see Munster wins being lauded as some kind of miracle and I grit my teeth at the overhyping that accompanies every single act from the crowd at Thomond but I won’t begrudge that there’s something special in their make-up.

3 Crossmaglen are some club
Ulster football mightn’t be everyone’s cup of tea and truth is, it’s damn ugly on the eye a hell of a lot of the time. Handpass, tackle, turnover, handpass, handpass, tackle, foul, and so on tends to be the pattern of things. It’s not free-flowing stuff and yesterday’s Ulster final replay between Crossmaglen and Ballinderry was no different, with hit after monstrous hit going in and frequent foul and illegal stuff happening on and off the ball. Yet that’s just why you have to admire a side that continue to come back for more year after year. They’ve won 13 Armagh titles in a row and now they’ve negotiated through three Ulsters in a row, despite having to constantly see off sides from the toughest province of the lot. Oisin McConville is remarkably still inspiring them, as are the McEntees and of course the Kernans are the energy and pace of the team. Note to footballing connoisseurs: don’t tune into their All-Ireland semi with Drom-Broadford expecting a classic.
Other things we liked this weekend:
Eamonn Sweeney again on the crazy money pumped towards horses in Ireland
The Guardian on the two big European clashes over the weekend - El Classico of Barca-Real and the Juve-Milan match-up in Italy