skinny word

The Real History of Rugby

2012-02-13T09:37:00.004Z

It is largely unknown to players and followers of the modern game rugby, that in the very early days it started off purely as a contest for forwards in opposition in line-outs, scrums, rucks and mauls.

This pitted eight men of statuesque physique, of supreme fitness and superior intelligence in packs against one another.

In those days, the winner was the pack that had gained most set pieces. The debasement of the game began when backs were introduced. This occurred because a major problem was where to locate the next scrum or line-out. Selecting positions on the ground for these had become a constant source of friction and even violence.

The problem was resolved through a stratagem of employing forward rejects, men of small stature and limited intelligence, to select positions on the field from where, when in receipt of the ball they could be guaranteed to drop it in a random pattern but usually, as far
from the last set piece as possible. Initially these additional players were entirely unorganised but with the passing of time they adopted positions.

For instance, the half-back (also known as the scrum-half). He was usually the smallest and least intelligent of the backs whose role was simply to accept the ball and pass it on. He could easily (given his general size) have been called a quarter forward or a ball monkey but then tolerance and compassion are the keys to forward play and the present inoffensive description was decided upon.

The fly-half plays next to the half-back and his role is essentially the same except that, when pressured he usually panics and kicks the ball. Normally, he is somewhat taller and slightly better built than the scrum-half and hence his name. One-eighth less and he would have been a half-back, three-eighths more and he might well have qualified to become a forward.

The centres were opportunists who had no specific role to play but who were attracted to the game by the glamour associated with forward packs. After repeated supplication to the forwards for a role in the game they would be told to get out in the middle and wait for the ball. Thus, when asked where they played, they would reply "in the centre". And they remain to this day, opportunists and scroungers, men so accustomed to making excuses for bad hands and errant play that most become lawyers or real estate agents.

You may ask, why wingers? The answer is simple. Originally these were players who had very little ability and were the lowest in the backline pecking order. They were placed far from the ball and given the generally poor handling by the inside backs, were rarely given the opportunity to even touch the ball. This is basically why, through a process of natural selection, they became very fast runners and developed the ability to evade tackles.

But to get back to the name. The fact that they got so little ball led to the incessant flow of complaints from them and the eventual apt description "whingers". Naturally, in the modern game, the name has been adapted to become more acceptable.

Lastly, the full-back. This was the position given to the worst handler, the person least able to accept or pass the ball, someone who was always in the way.. the name arose because, infuriated by the poor play invariably demonstrated by that person, the call would come "send that fool back" and he would be relegated to the rear of the field.

So there you have it. The fact is that if a side does not have eight men of statuesque physique, of supreme fitness and superior intelligence then they might as well play soccer.

Irish Marathon runner tests positive for EPO

2012-01-16T13:06:00.002Z

Very honest and interesting insight into what drives an athlete to take performance-enhancing drugs, worth a read...

Click here for the Irish Times article.

Gatlands' Kids

2011-10-07T00:00:00.003+01:00

Lots will be more qualified than me to judge this world cup. So far I have only watched the Irish matches, the Calcutta cup clash and the All Blacks v France. Tonight I checked out some of the Welsh highlights - where has Gatland found these kids? I saw and heard about this George North for the first time, oh my god. Reading up about this teenager and all the records he has broken, 2 tries against the Springboks on their debut, who the hell does that. Man I am scared.

Paddy Power has Ireland 10/1, Wales & France 16/1 and do England deserve to be 9/1?

It's time, even Canada, Fiji and Samoa have been to Quarter finals, we need to break free of that group. First we have to get past the kids (ok average age is 26) in our 5th quarter final and be the last of the original 5 nations to get to a world cup semi final.

Why O'Gara needs to start

2011-09-28T11:21:00.001+01:00

They say Jonathan Sexton is a big game player, but the reality is he hasn't produced a big performance since the Heineken Cup final (and that was only for 40 minutes). The word is that he's kicking well in practice, but he doesn't seem comfortable under any sort of match pressure, even with relatively straightforward penalty kicks. Take for example the badly missed (and meaningless) conversion near the end of the Russia game. 5 from 13 says it all. O'Gara is 10 from 12. Which of the two is better at passing, or running, or tackling is incidental (and subjective) - there's so little in it to really matter (Quade Cooper "can't tackle", so he drops back to full back when Australia are defending). You can't argue with the stats. Start the player who will get points on the board early, and worry about tries later. Missing those kicks means forcing the game, spreading the ball wide, offloading in the tackle, penalty kicks to touch etc. This will only lead to mistakes, turnovers and growing frustration. It boils down to: with which outhalf are you more likely to close out the game? Every match is a cup final from here, Kidney simply has to pick the form players, in all positions. Therefore the only decision is whether to play Sexton at 12 from the start, or use him as impact (cover for 10 and 12) off the bench. And if they both start - which I'd say is highly unlikely - it should be clear from the start that O'Gara takes all kicks at goal, all penalty kicks to touch and all restarts. Mallet baiting us on the stronger Italian front row shows he wants to drag us into an ugly arm wrestle, but I think we'll beat the Italians reasonably comfortably. Assuming Kidney does the right thing and starts O'Gara.

Rugby WC - starting when????

2011-08-17T21:39:00.001+01:00

Just had a look at the schedule for the Rugby WC and realised that the tournament isn’t really starting until second week in October (at the quarter final stage). At a push, there are 5 southern hemisphere teams and 6 northern teams in the shake up for the quarter finals. So there are 40 pool games to eliminate 3 teams with realistic chances of qualifying. OK, we’ll all have a look at Ireland v Australia, but really the only interest in the pool stages is to see whether teams qualify as winners or runners up in their group.

What’s the deal with 20 teams? Totally agree there should be opportunities for ‘weaker nations’ – but bulking up the tournament for the sake of it – and allowing 4 extra teams take a hammering in every game is going to do nothing to promote the game. 4 extra teams – 16 ‘dead rubbers’ – hardly a compelling spectacle. 16 teams (max) would allow the best 5/6 ‘weaker nations’ qualify on merit and perhaps cause an occasional upset (possibly look at Fiji for automatic spot given their record).

Given the physical nature of the game, and the fact teams will need 5/6 days recovery this is adding weeks onto the tournament. This is definitely not ideal preparation for the competitive teams with realistic chances of progressing, and of no interest for neutral spectators (except perhaps can NZ beat the 70 point handicap they will have over Japan and Canada).

It’s also interesting to note that the only teams that have to play on 4 days rest are Tonga, Canada, Scotland, Georgia, Romania, USA (twice), Namibia (twice) and Samoa. So, the draw obviously ensures that the weakest teams have the disadvantage of playing on limited rest – making it more difficult for them to cause an upset.

Suppose it means less 6am mornings during September – and a feast of competitive games over 2 weeks in October.

TriAthlone 2011

2011-08-06T02:19:00.002+01:00

Down in Trizone getting gels, I heard you could pre-register and drop your bike off the night before the race. Living in Athlone this was clearly the best option. They had a big marquee setup for registration in the corner of the huge tarmacked open space in the military barracks, a lot of the rest of the space was laid out with long metal hangers, like in a cloak room except lower. Spread around the racks were hundreds of pre-reg bikes hanging from their saddles. Coming up to the registration desks it was very much like it was assumed you knew what was going on. Someone looked at my printout and said go and talk to the next table, there they asked me if I had registered, I said I don't know, the table over there said to come here. Moving between the tables I collected a sealed brown envelope, a separate Velcro strap, then it was onto the goodie bag and t-shirt. Also, they had they last few 2010 shirts remaining and I was even able to pick a small one up for my 4 year old, she's mad about her jersey! As I was leaving I was stopped and had an interesting chat about drugs, learning that lemsip max (which includes sudafedrin) is on the baned drugs list and that different drugs in different countries have different ingredients, so the vicks spray is fine in Europe but in the states it contains drugs on the banned list. Thanks for the chat she said, would you like a hat or water bottle. I left in my black Athlete cap to find my spot on the racks and hang up my saddle, I was #368. Plenty of people had left plastic crates of their gear under their bike, I guess the plastic crate protected the gear from rain.

Back home I went through the registration information, they had made a point of saying that all the info you needed was in the athlete info pack. #368 meant I was in the 3rd wave setting of at 3.20, each wave going in 10 minutes staggers with the Olympic tri waves first. The guide said my race pack will include my race number which was to be worn on the back for the bike and the front for the run. Opening the brown envelope I was dismayed to find 1 race number. I texted Kevin, who said in all the many tris he had done he had always got 2 race numbers. It was 10pm, I did not want any pre race drama tomorrow. There was no contact number in the pack, checking on the website I sent an email and a tweet. I got a return email soon enough saying I should only have one number. Another email asking about switching the number in transition between front and back, no, seemingly one had to get a race belt. How was one supposed to know I asked, it was assumed people knew something about the sport. Hey I checked with an experienced tri athlete first, smart ass. It was past midnight and I needed to get to sleep. I put in the ear plugs and didn't have a problem dropping off.

This was the 6th year of the tri, I think it's billed as Ireland's biggest and last year it included the European championship. This years race time had been moved to mid afternoon as Athlone traders had complained about roads being closed. Coming back to the house after buying some lucozade sport I met my neighbour for the first time. Back in my day they gave one lucozade when you were sick he says. Was I sick? No I was feeling good and ready as I ever would be.

I rang Trizone and they assured me their shop at transition would have loads of race belts. The athlete pack talked about special parking, it turned out it was in the town centre shopping centre underground car park, 3 notes for the day. Why do underground car parks always have height restrictions, my bike was pre-registered but it would be a pain later as my bike rack was on the roof. Going up the centre escalator others were bringing bikes with them, Saturday shoppers were cracking on, I started to feel the buzz.

At my bike station, the tarmacked court was packed, I was glad I had pre registered. There were no queues picking up my race belt. I opened my brown envelope and started to stick my race number onto my seat post and top of my lid. I laid out my gear in order like Kev had said and copied others who had the helmet and glasses on the handlebars. It was time for the pre race talk, it was confirmed what I had learned from Trizone the previous day, because the Shannon's current was above regulation the alternative swim start would be used, this meant 1200m downstream and 300m upstream. The alternative start meant walking down the riverpath. Kevin had said sometimes they move bags from the swim start back to transition, I wondered if this was what the extra bag stickers with my race number were for. Lads around who seemed to know said no. I had brought some Lidl flip flops for this possibility not fancying walking in bare feet. Before leaving transition I got talking with a lad and I walked down with him and his mate. His mate had done his first tri last year and had done 6 since, themselves and another mate competed together for a little trophy they passed between them.

Each wave wore alternate red or white hat colours, we were red, it was time for our wave to walk down. We were towards the back talking and by the time we got down it was nearly time to go. I tied my t-shirt around the flip flops and threw them by the wall and waded in. The sound went and we were off, I never thought to start my stop watch. I knew my goggle would be a problem, my left eye always leaks no matter what goggles I try, I have a theory now that it's because my left eye is set lower than the right one. I was at the side, which was no harm, if I had more time I would have waded more towards the middle and it would have been busier. I swallowed some Shannon water unexpectedly, my left eye goggle was full of water, I kept going and I consciously had to fight panic. Then I settled and told myself suck it and swim, I cracked on. There was a couple swimmers near enough. I tried to get into the rhythm, sighting was still hard for me and I did not have the sight/breathing in one stroke mastered by any means.

I looked up and the bridge was gone, what was going on, I quickly realised I had somehow done a 180 and was going the wrong way! The big orange floats were on the right, some boats on the left with the Radisson behind, the bridge was closer. I came around the big float at the turn, not really knowing where I was, but this brought me close to the side and I could hear people up on the street. After a while I brought my head up again and remain ever thankful to a lad who shouted down, keep going, you don't have far to go. I came out of the water staggering on the carpet like a drunk, literally, there were lots of people around. I had finished the swim, done with my left eye shut in a goggle full of water. I tried to start running up the carpet covered slipway. There was a woman at the side asking me to pick up her hat which had fallen, I stopped, took a step back, picked it up and tossed it in the air, expecting her to catch it. I think it went over her head, I heard laughter as I ran on.

Crossing the road and into the barracks, still on the carpet, I left the crowds behind, wobbles gone, I continued jogging to my bike, unzipping the suit as I ran and bringing it down to my waste. Race numbers 0-500 were Olynmpic distance I had gathered and the bike racks where all situated right by where the entrance came into the courtyard. I got to my station and using Kevin's bold child method for getting out of the wetsuit was handy enough. I had left a GU energy gel by my top and started sucking it down as I finished changing. I got my helmet on and clipped and started running with my bike, following others. Soon there was a mount line visible and I could get on my bike. It felt brilliant to be on the bike, the weather was perfect and people were dotted along the road as I rode the familiar route I had been commuting to work on out towards the house. I kept an eye on my average speed on the bike computer, wondering if I somehow could keep it near 30. I was out by our estate pretty quickly l and I could see the girls waiting, I knew then that they would not see me running as the roads were closed and the could not get in. It was amazing to see them, Christine held Cadhla and Malie sat on the wall on her own at the other side of the T waving a flag. I'll never forget the sight, I love you Malie, I shouted as I hammered on. Keeping the speed going my eggs ached, but that was ok, I did not mind it and was happy enough. I got the bottle of energy drink into me quickly as advised and kept supping away on the water not waiting until I felt thirsty. I sucked down another gel. I kept turning those pedals, the route was flat and there was not much head wind. There were groups of people in 1s,2s,3s, etc, at the end of converging lanes and outside houses at intervals along the way. All clapped for me, I was the only one passing at that time, I could see a couple of riders in the distance and no one was passing me. Getting clapped was fantastic, I was thanking them for it, smiles and a bit of banter on occasion.

A couple of Sprint guys passing me now, some really motoring, I didn't mind, the legs were screaming but I was enjoying this ride. The route just stopped and turned around the cone with the old Galway road continuing on. I was puzzled, one of the officials had told me the night before that they had shortened the cycle course to 38.5 because of some reluctance over the guards or insurance to cover the additional distance, from here that made no sense. Coming back in with a wee bit of wind behind was fast for stretches, long straight road though, hard to keep it maxed. But I knew now I had a shot at averaging over 30 and I was trying not to be too psyched. Hitting the dismount line at the end of the 40k, or 38.5 rather, as I jogged back to transition I recognised a voice, it was Bernie, whose house we had rented off in Kippinstown the previous year, she was just in from the swim. We had a little chat as we ran.

At my station I plopped on the ground, just changing my shoes and flipping the race number. As I ran out I remembered to start my stopwatch and then came around the wrong side of the gate and an adjudicator had to get me to come back and go through the gates so the sensors would read my chip which was still velcroed to my ankle. From here I would have to do 4 laps, my legs could hardly move. I had been warned about this initial jelly feeling and there was nothing I could do as I barely jogged above walking pace. Once exiting the barracks the route followed along Grace road by the Shannon before turning over Rice bridge and doing a loop down Church street. This section of road before the Prince of Wales hotel was narrow creating a nice atmosphere for running as there was a lot of spectators out cheering. At times it seemed I was hardly running at all but I could not go any faster, back in the barracks I glanced at my watch and the lap had taken me 15 minutes or so. Once back over the bridge the course turned down by the castle and around by Sean's bar and then up that hill on Bastion street. Would I really be able to run up that 4 times. Each time around by Sean's I tried to be my strongest of the lap and take the hill at a decent clip. Each time once I got to the top and turned onto Pearse street I could hardly move.

Coming around over the bridge a 3rd time the church clock bell rang and I became aware of the actually time for the first time. It was 6 o'clock, I knew I had started at 3.20, this meant I had a chance to go under 3 hours, what the hell was going on? Looking at my watch I knew I would not manage that though. This was the leg I had done the least training for and it was showing now, I was taking over 6min per km. Coming into the last lap I was psyched and tried to take in the crowd and vibe, coming into the finishing carpeted section I sprinted to the end. It was over. I sat close to the finish for a good 5 or 10 minutes drinking an energy drink they gave me. Then I got up and walked around the running course for a bit, loving the feeling, high on having finished and realising that this is why people kept coming back for more.

Walking out towards transition I met the girls walking in. Christine had not seen all the signs saying the roads would be closed and I had never told her so they were just getting in now. I jogged down to the swim start as a warm down and found by flip flops and shirt. Heading into get my bike, I bumped into the lads I had talked to before the swim, coming out. They had done their fastest times, I think, with the downstream swim, everyone had. Check your phone they said you should have all your times on it now. One of the lads said well done, you are a tri-athlete now! Collecting my bike and checking my phone I saw:

Tom Corcoran, Time: 3:06:27

Swim: 0:36:39
T1: 3:42
Bike: 1:17:52
T2: 2:30
Run: 1:05:46

My aim was to finish and not come last, I came 369th in the Olympic with 9 finishing after me, plus all the Did not finish (DNF) and disqualifieds (DSQ). In the 40-44 category I was 68th of the 69 finishers with 6 DNF and 1 DSQ, the winner of this category came home in 2.32.13.

Interactive results

P.S. In my Colorado days a T2 was this great breakfast sandwich we would order and a local deli would deliver. In this context T1 & T2 refer to the transitions times between swim/bike and bike/run.

Triathlon preparations

2011-07-06T21:15:00.008+01:00

The triathlon debuted at the Olympic games in Sydney. I had just finished a year in New Zealand and was on the way home, but first a 2 week stint in Sydney for the Olympics. Via the web I managed to rent a room in a killer apartment with two Australian girls overlooking the marathon course in Paramatta, the complex even had a hottub. There was this mad deal where people with foreign passports could buy tickets for events every morning from consignments of tickets returned from abroad. It was nuts, the queues were not that big. I used to make a judgement call and sometimes pick up tickets for the parents of one of the girls in the apartment.

Myself and McG went to about 20 Olympic events. Each night I would spend about an hour detailing what I saw and cataloguing the results on my laptop which I had been given when I left my job in Colorado 2 years previous. Within 6 months the laptop was stolen by a professional train gang on my first day moving to Amsterdam. I had wiped a CDRW of an old backup the night before I left to make space and never managed to do a new backup, so all my diligent chronologiciling was lost. A painful lesson. The triathlon was one of the first events and we did not need a ticket, it was a gorgeous day for the men's event which Canadian Simon Whitfield in a time of 1:48:24.

Simon Whitfield wins gold

The first triathlon took place in 1974 in California. The event itself, like say athletics, does not equate to distance but comes in many forms and many names. There is the long distance, iron man or full (3.86k swim, 180k bike, 42.2k run), the middle distance or half (Ironman) and the Olympic or standard (1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run), among others. People new to the sport usually start with a Sprint (half Olympic) and Athlone also offered a Tri which was a Sprint with only a 200m swim. Since I first heard about the Sport, Triathlon has always meant Olympic distance to me. When applying for 3rd level education coming out of secondary (high school) in Ireland one fills out a CAO form with 10 ordered choices of courses in various institutions. Depending on the points obtained in the final leaving certificate examination you get offered a place or not. When I was applying there was only one thing I wanted to do and the points were relatively low so I filled out one course on the CAO form. Now I was doing a triathlon, there was only one for me, I registered on line and paid the 54 euro. Separately one had to pay 15 euros for a 1 day licence to be able to compete (email evidence shown here).

On the Monday of race week, I cycled the 20k round trip to work, went for a 8k jog at lunch and went for a 1k swim that night in the pool. My plan was to go running on Tuesday at lunch time, do an Aquathon (750m swim, 4.2k run) on Wednesday night and then rest up for the race. Normally I rely on the internet for research but I did not look at it in my triathlon preparations, I turned instead to friends who had done tris and multi sport events. McG had advised not doing anything the week before a race but conceded he had in the past and not regretted it. I had a series of great advice emails with Kev on Tuesday morning and coming out of that I decided to pull up my training and not do the lunch time run or the Aquathon the following evening.

The lads were all talking gels. I never had tried one before but it seemed the way forward. The main advice was never try anything in a race you had not in training. I paid another visit to the trizone store to look at the gels, I bought 2 different ones and went for a light 20 minute jog Thursday morning to test them. I downed the first gel at home and it tasted nasty but I didn't have a reaction jogging. Down at the end of the lane I sucked down the GU chocolate gel, it was like chocolate mouse, grand. No bother with the jog. I picked up a handful of those at lunch, the instructions said max 4 a day, each gave 20g of carbs. McGs advice was to tape some gels to the bike, sounds good. Talking to Kev he mentioned storing them in a tri pouch which goes on the cross bar. I had picked up one when I bought the bike having seen one of the club riders with one on my first ride with them. Not knowing the proper use I had been using it to carry a spare tube and my alien tool set. The tri-pouch is for the gels and energy bars, the tube and tools go in the pouch under the saddle, right on. I dredged though my bike crate and found the saddle pouch I had bought for Christine's bike but never fitted, it went on like a glove.

For the Coosan charity swim I got a loan of a 2XU tri wet suit from Trizone. It felt fantastic in the water. In the shop the lad demoed to me that it used rudder band technology so that as one turned and stretched in the water the other side of the suit was acting like a rudder. But they cost 250 euros and there were no deals on eBay. Andy M, who recently completed the 70.3 in England with 6k climbing on the bike and 1200m climbing on the run, advised to just use the gear I had for the first triathlon. In trizone I was looking at tri-suits as well, one piece jobs you wore under the suit which encompassed bike shorts, they started at 90 notes. One of the lads in there echoed Andy M and said not to spend money on gear for the first tri but use what you had/borrowed. I decided I would use the wetsuit I had and go topless underneath with bike shorts on.

Having decided to skip the Aquathon I needed to practise getting out of the wet suit, the first transition. Kev, gave some gems of advice here.

Get the arms out, pull down on the legs to start getting it off, and then...and this is the funny part....you kinda take it off like a bold kid getting undressed...put one foot on the free leg part of the other leg down near your toes, and then pull against that with the free leg - this frees about one foot of leg at a time, and alternate from leg to leg. It kinda looks silly, but its the quickest way. The suit wont/shouldn't rip. If you are down there with your hands you are going about it the slow way!

I set up my station in the garden as kev had told me, bath towel spread out to stand on, gear lined up in the order you are to put on, starting from the feet. The lad in trizone had told me about iBungee stretch laces, replacing the normal laces with elastic ones so you would not have to fiddle tying. Some people used the same shoes for cycling and running, others, trizone told me, had the cycling shoes pre-clipped to the pedals with elastics back to wheel nuts holding them level. I decided to but the bungee laces on both my cycling and running shoes and to tape the Velcro straps on the cycling shoes out of the way under the shoe. I set the flip rolling and ran to my station, unzipping the wet suit as I ran. Getting it off as Kev describes was brilliant, the natural way to do it. I still needed to help it off around my ankles with my hands but it was dead handy. No need to dry oneself you'll be dry on the bike in ten or fifteen anyway. Except the feet, have a hand towel beside the shoes for that, I used a small chammie I have. From talking to everyone most people seemed to bike/run without socks. I was concerned about blisters and taking on board the creed not to try anything new on race day that you had not practised, I was going with socks. I had them sitting ready on the shoes, pre-rolled so I could just stick in my toes and unroll the sock onto my foot. Helmet was last, you don't want to put that on before your top says Kev, he had learnt that from experience. For the second transition, bike to run, the sensible thing was just to change the shoes for me, keep going in the bike top.

I was concerned about sighting in the water, i.e. checking the direction you were going in. At the swimming lessons Charlie had suggested to sight every 6 strokes. I found it very awkward having completed the breathing to then turn the head back the opposite way to sight. I never copped it to sight first until Andy M and Kev explained it to me over email. Andy M likes to breath every stroke, because if he breathes every strokes he gets hypoxic. By breathing every stroke he can sight by simply turning his head forward with just his eyes above the water, one can miss a breathing stroke without too much impact. Kev said sighting in a river is easier that pure open water because you take plenty of sneaky sights to the side on every stroke and if you are maintaining your distance from the bank you are probably going straight. The efficiency trick is not to raise your head and body too much out of the water when sighting as this will create a big drag. With this little glimpse you may well not see your target, but ignore it and carry on. Try again on the next stroke.

It was time for lists, I needed to find my waterproof watch which I had for yonks but rarely used, where was the small plastic jogging bottle with a slot in the middle you could grip. The lads were advising 2 bottles on the bike, one water, one isotonic. I needed to find another drink cage, maybe take one off my mountain bike. Kev said all these gels and drinks are meant to supply you with salts (electrolytes). Apparently your muscles won't work without the electrolytes in there, and with all that sweating you will be losing a lot of salt - making replenishment mandatory. Kev said he believe it leads to crampsville when they run out. Buy Lucozade Sport, was added to my list.

I had my wheels trued only a few week before but going back into my estate on the Saturday run I went over a wee manhole than I knew had buckled the front wheel slightly. The bik4work scheme purchased through Halfords included a 1 year service plan where one only pays for parts. The way Boardman does it only mechanics who have had specific Boardman training to work on their bikes in Halfords shops. I rang the Longford shop and Shaney was working Thursday, finishing up at 6, he was happy to do a tune. I made it up at 10 to 6 and he was dead sound, going over and beyond polishing the bike for it's maiden race. Talking to one of the lads up there who was getting out 3 times a week now, he was averaging 25kph, I would be happy with that in fairness.

Alien

I was squeezing in the pasta meals in the evenings, eating bread, carbo loading like the lads said. I was drinking water not beer. I was getting to bed by 23.30 latest, early for me, plenty of rest they said.

Sounds like you're taking this event pretty seriously, said Andy M after my endless email questions. Hmmmm, I guess I was.

BIKE: A wet training ride

2011-07-05T23:09:00.004+01:00

It was the weekend before TriAthlone and Martin & Nessa were home from London to Dublin, where Nessa was throwing a surprise 40th for her bro John. They were making the most of being home and inviting a few of their mates too. It was to be our second night out together since Cadhla was born. But Saturday night in Dublin meant no Sunday morning training ride in Athlone, I'd have to squeeze one in on Saturday morning. First we had to leave early for a family months mind mass. It was a brutal morning and I put on the gortex overshoes over the hiking waterproof pants. One of my least favourite things to do is to get wet, except of course in more temperate climates.

8.15 out of the house and with the rain belting I turned out the top of the road onto the bike course, the old Galway road passing our new estate leading westward and usually into the prevailing. I looked at the odometer on my handlebars, finally I knew that the changing speed was toggling between average and current and it was not malfunctioning. I had downloaded the manual at work the other day and managed to get 5 minutes to read it, the original jumbled somewhere in the massively unorganised, just moving in and sorting out office at home. Manuals, one of the necessities of my life. I thought about the reverso that I carried in my climbing bag and taken out the last couple of climbing trips, never knowing how to use the simple device and mentally checking to read the manual when I got home but never doing. Now I knew how this worked and had even reset the wheel size that morning.

Petzl Reverso

I figured I needed to be back at the house at 10 since we needed to leave by 11, maybe I could cycle out 15k and then turn around. I cycled along into the driving rain and started for the first time to break down the race the following weekend. Averaging 30kph meant doing 40k in 1hour and 20minutes, no way, any of my commuting training rides, 10k each way on the same bike, were averaging in the 22k range. Averaging 25k meant 5k every 12 min, so that's 94 minutes, if I could do that it would be ok, I reckoned. My thought process in the rain gradually came to the conclusion that I should try and see how long it would take me to do 40k this morning.

The road was quiet with not much on it, Duffys Discount and storage was coming up, almost exactly 10k from the house. I had got to know the proprietor Joe recently. We were due to move house Easter weekend and the day before we were meant to get the keys the landlord pulled out, though I had signed a contract and paid 600 euros a month before. He decided we would be too difficult tenants since we wanted the ash removed from the fireplace, the gook cleaned in the over and the dried powder cleaned off the washing machine darwer. With no time to find a place we found this storage option and rented 2 rooms from Joe for a month as well as his van and 2 sons who helped us move the stuff to storage. Was that only 3 months ago, damn it had been a mad time.

The rain pelted on and I said sure I'll go another 5 and then turn and have it at my back. McG said it didn't matter if it was blowing on the way out in relation to your average speed as you you would gain it on the way back in, tell that to my legs! It was not long before I was passing the top of our estate again. I took the next left out towards Glendeer pet farm, my first time up that road since I had jogged up that night and had my hubcap adventure. I passed the road towards the megalithic tomb and there the pet farm was, a relatively nondescript building pulled back from the road, with room for coaches to pull in. I turned around and reversed my route. Passing the top of my estate again, I was on 38k and just over 1 hour and 40 minutes. Could I average 30kph for a 1km up the road and back to get me home for 1hr 45.

100m up from my estate entrance the back tyre went flat. First puncture on the new bike. Damn, I had not put on those Ultra Gator Skin tyres I had been advised to upgrade to and did a deal for when I got the bike. I had my tyre levers and spare tube and changed it in under 5 minutes, imagining myself getting one in the race. Flipping the bike back over I realised that the weight of the bike on the cycle computer had pressed the 2 buttons together and reset the device. Time to get home.

Conor Niland at Wimbledon

2011-06-21T16:26:00.004+01:00

Picture on the front page of the Irish Times now - he won a point anyway! Presume he's a Crescent lad? I remember his sister Gina who also played tennis at a high level.

Interview here.

BIKE: Cushion for a pushin

2011-06-20T22:13:00.002+01:00

I bought my first mountain bike in 1992 when I lived on Dublin's Northside. I bought it via buy and sell, who have since taken there eye of the ball and been passed by donedeal, but then they were the source for buying second hand goods. This American guy was going back to the states and was selling his Specialized RockHopper mountain bike. This was the first of three Specialized bikes I would buy in different continents, all used, all with many stories to tell. The sport was in its infancy and I there was nothing going on in Dublin I knew about and though I had an email address this was pre surfing. My first mountain bike proper ride was out along the Grand canal toe path and I did come back covered in mud! Since then I have stuck with American mountain bikes, moving to Marin and Sante Cruz after Specialized.

Now I found myself on a Boardman, an English made road bike, it was Sunday morning and I had come down to the Regional Sports Centre for the 10am ride. My 4 year old had insisted on breakfast in bed for fathers day and was sous chef for some strawberry and chocolate pancakes. No wonder I was rushing and came in 5 minutes after without any food and with no speedo or phone. I asked the congregated cyclists about the C group, if they had already gone. Don't think they'll turn up, most of them were in the Burren yesterday. I vaguely recalled some emails I had not taken in. I quickly applied some oil to my slight;y squeaky chain and said right I'll try and hang with ye lot for a while.

We headed off out the Galway road, passing the turn off to our new gaff. At least their was not a full on head wind like the last time I decided to go with the Bs. The pace was fast, probably just as well my speedo was not working / I needed to read the manual again. There was about 12 of us, one of the lads said had I been watching the golf. He had not found a stream and watched it the night before via text updates on a web site. I told him about myp2p.eu. All the rest of the help came in the other direction. One of the lads was talking about taking the first turn for Shannonbridge but when no one took it he didn't either. He was talking about not wanting to be shot as he was going for a swim at 6. All of a sudden I was a couple of bike lengths off the back and I could see it happening again but I dug and got back. We got to the roundabout on the outskirts of Ballinasloe I think and veered left for Shannonbridge. The lads were keeping an eye on me now, Kieran had seen what happened and told me not to go up front and keep in on the left. Every so often he got me to jump into the middle of the group.

It was a straight stretch and climbed a little, all of a sudden I had a hand on my back and was slingshot back to the group. We were riding over a bridge, was I in Portumna, no Shannonbridge of course. When we got on the other end of the short street through town I sank a little when I saw them turning down the road to Clonmacnoise, 8k there and then a savage straight long undulating road to Athlone, which I remembered only too well from my solo ride on it when I was dropped. I tried not to think about that section and kept cranking.

We were on the long section now and Dave was slingshotting me up the hills. He asked if I had brought any food and when I said no he gave me a snickers bar, when i said I can't take your food he said he had two. Another rider was getting a little similar help too. I took another swig out of my bottle, seeing the fading print of University Bicycles Boulder. I bought my 2nd Specialized in Boulder Recyclers which I still have. The headset is 1" wide and non standard for a modern fork now but still a handy bike to knock around on the beach or whatever. The mountain bike parks in Colorado were my first exposure to mountain biking proper and where I fell in love with the sport and the bike/climb-ski/board cycle that kept me there 5 years. One of the lads dropped his pump, the group slowed a little bit and he was back on in not so long. My water bottle was quarter full and not fitting the holder well, I noticed it hanging and straightened it, before long it fell. I braked. Dave said lower your gears and keep spinning, higher cadence rests the heart [muscles], lower cadence rests the lungs. Dave went back for the bottle.

Dave was back and handed me the bottle, I shoved into a back jersey it pocket not wanting it to fall again, and was cycling to fast to have time to figure anything else out. Four of us, I think, were trying to ger back to the group, not that I really knew that was what we were doing. Dave gave me a fresh bottle, it might have only been diluted orange but it had more of a kick that water. We were 150m back maybe and after a number of slingshots, we tightened up and pulled in to the group again. Damn, I never knew that could ne done like that. Now were were passing Ballnahowna and Kieran was giving me a few pushes up now. I readjusted my water bottle to the middle back pocket and that became the target for the next shoves. Dave said I've heard of a cushion for a push'in but that's brilliant.

We were on a longish hill with a couple of false summit and now Dave was pushing me up rather than slingshotting. I realised I didn't have much left. We got to the Moate road and turned towards Athlone and went onto the bypass for 2 exits. It's single lane at the minute, with roadworks going on upgrading it to motorway standard, though it will remain a dual carriageway as there are too many exits to get motorway status. I found something and lead our group of three along, having just lost touch of the rest in the last 10 minutes, still they were only up the road.

Getting back to the centre I saw one of the lads heading inside and rode up to him to check the stats. 67km, average speed 30.6 kph. I could not believe it. The lads were saying to come out with them regularly now, that they all have taken help in the past and that's what they do, they are a club. Seemingly it was a fast B group as that speed is normally 26kph. There was this guy up front a few others were calling Schlech who kept us turning hard. Hmmmm, maybe I could do the 40k in the tri at a good clip if I was riding in a group...there won't be any slingshots though!

SWIM: Coosan Charity Swim 2011

2011-06-16T21:30:00.002+01:00

I have been toying with doing a triathlon for years. Without seeing the big picture I started my swimming preparations while living in Amsterdam in 2001. I started going swimming with my mate Colin when he got back from India - I had been sub letting his apartment near De Pipj for 4 months. We would cycle down to the pool and he would lap swim. Talking to Christine she advised to do 600m (24 lengths) each time and that's how it began.

Some times I would get very regular, e.g. when I worked in Hampshire in 06/07, I got in to a routine of going down to the centre 3 times a week at lunchtime with Ben, he worked out in the gym, I would swim 1km. I was always pressed to make the arranged meet time afterwards, not least because there frequently was this retired teacher there who I would talk sports with between lengths.

My mother had shown me a book, "Total Immersion" which she has borrowed from my brother. I read a little bit of it on visits home and learned about breathing and alternating the side you breath on every 3 strokes. I struggled with front crawl and the breathing having to mix in, my escape route, breaststroke, when my nasal congestion finally jammed my breathing, i.e. mental panic kicked in. But these regular swimming periods were bursty and everywhere I lived I asked if there was anyone I could get lessons of as I wanted to flip turn, but I could never find anyone.

Then I was made redundant. 6 months were spent setting up on my own and struggling to investigate a business idea with Enterprise Ireland money and finally a brilliant buzz of 5 weeks Java programming with a start-up with an out of the blue get out of jail job offer in Athlone in the in-tray. The very tough decision was made and we moved to Athlone in the Irish midlands, the midlands were I was born and spent the first 5 years.

I knew Athlone had a Triathlon and it turned out last year as well as the normal Triathlon it hosted the European championship and we watched some of the top triathletes in the world competing. Like many in this town I began thinking why not me. I started swimming a little bit in the Regional sport centre and after a few visits made my usual enquiries about lessons. Ah yeah, improved lane swimming lessons on a Thursday night at 9.15, starting in the autumn, give us your mobile and we'll text you. And they did. First night up I naively said I wanted to learn the flip turn. Turns out there is an awful lot to learn first and the flip turn has not come up since. It's all about the drills, breaking down the stroke where you do a drill to exaggerate one of the techniques so you improve it. Such as 3/4 catch up, where you hold alternate hands over the water for a second before breaking the water. The end result being that as a result you stretch longer in the water while you are holding and your stroke count per length goes down. I thought learning to drum, where you must drop one of the 4 limbs and keep the other 3 going the same as hard, but swimming technique is another level.

That's me in the balaclava

I had heard the Coosan Charity swim mentioned and it was coming up on Tuesday 7 June, the night of my swimming lessons at that time. Christine normally has pilates at that time and getting a baby sitter was problematic but Christine needed a rest after the mini marathon and so it was on. I had called into trizone, the triathlon shop in athlone for the first time the previous week and the lad told me they would have a stand at the event and would be letting out 25 suits for free.

I had bought my first suit the previous summer in a surf shop in Tramore. I had seen on the web that the Waterford Triathlon club met every Monday night at 6.30 at Councillors beach in Dunmore East and do a sea swim. One Monday I showed up and followed them in, it was a swim across the inlet and it was choppy, there was a jet sky flying in and out, it was s bit nuts. But the swim was ok. I came back one other night and followed them on a 1200m triangle course, they waited at each triangle point for the last swimmers to come in, I'd be last. But it was cool, the duck was broken. I showed the lad at the stand by wetsuit and he said it was more for windsurfing and then showed me a tri suit, really slick and providing no resistance in the water. They retail or €250 he says, I left my laser card with him which I would get back on return of the suit.

There were 4 distances, 200m, 750, 1500 and 3000, the last 3 departing at the same time and being 1, 2 and 4 laps respectively. I had a triathlon in mind and the sprint distance did not really interest me but the coosan charity site said the 1500 was an elite swim and "swimmers for this distance will be confined to people with previous experience of this type of swim". I started queueing up and noticed that there were different tables for each distance and no one seemed to be asking questions. I moved to the 1500m line and signed up, figuring I could also drop out after a lap. The 200m finished and it was time to get into the water with the other 3 starting together. Mindful of ice cream headaches I get from cold waves I wanted to wear my wet suit hood and pulled my Coosan charity swim red hat on over it, they were colour coordinated for the 3 distances.

Not fancying the jostling or whatever at the start I stayed at the back and was one of the last to get going. I had trouble with my goggles initially with the left eye leaking and I turned on my back a couple of times to try and sort it out. Damn these suits were great, I felt confident in the water. I kept going and mixed in a far bit of breaststroke with the goggle not ideal but blanking that. I tried to look up every few strokes doing crawl but found it hard to hold a line and kept drifting right and off line. After a while I became conscious of another red hat ahead, when I did crawl I would gain on him and we met at one of the triangle points. Coming around the first lap I felt strong but was not swimming hard at all just taking it handy and seeing how it went. The 2nd lap and last triangle leg especially was tiring enough and one of the kayakers had to shout at me as I was swimming of course on the last leg. Coming in though I felt if I had to do it I could have got around another lap. An indication perhaps that I had not given it all. Coming out of the water someone told me to tell that lad my number, he said 44.11 back to me, I was like, really? I had no concept of the time but was taken by surprise not expecting that, having being timed for the first time in the pool for 750m at 19 min 52 sec in April.

2011 1500m Results

BIKE: A tale of two burgers

2011-06-13T22:44:00.002+01:00

Winter 2000 in the southern hemisphere I found myself on the ferry to the South Island, with Bret, a good friend from my life in Colorado where I had spent nearly 5 years before going back to Ireland to take advantage of the boom as an IT contractor. I stayed 182 days and moved to New Zealand, where I had alternated periods of contracting with travel/outdoor play. In my stay to date I had done some travelling, coded utilities for a financial investment company in Wellington, spent 6 weeks climbing every day all around both islands and just come from a 6 week Delphi gig in Sydney. Now it was time for a snow boarding season. A group of my friends with roots in the States, England, Australia and Ireland were all spending some time snow boarding at treblecone in Wanaka, better known as TC. There were a number of anchor tenants and we had bought season passes, others were coming to stay for shorter periods.

It was the night of the Euro 2000 final between Italy and France. Bret is a soccer fan and actually wore my shirt after I left my co-ed team in Boulder, The Other United. So we were both keen to see the match. Driving into Christchurch after the ferry I knew what to expect, having crashed in a local climbing house for a few nights back in February when Martin and I night mountain biked in bottle forest and climbed up at Castle Rock. Christchurch is the South Islands biggest town, but it's dead quiet at night. With the match not starting until the wee hours our only option was to rent a motel room with satellite TV. But first food, we could not find an open "fush" and chippers so our only option was Burger King, we came back to watch the soccer with double bacon cheese burgers. Little did I know that it would be 11 years before I had beef again and that would be a burger too.

I was a recreational mountain biker stuck in the midland with a bit of a drive to any decent trails. Other mountain biker friends were taking to the road to mix it up as well and after training for a trip to Wales in 07 by going to a weekly spinning session and a weekend mountain bike ride I had finally realised that one needs to get the road miles in to be bike fit. The bike to work scheme and an incredible deal in Halfords for a carbon frame bike turned out to be the obvious no brainer.

The day after I picked up my bike on 5 March I went for my first ride on a road bike in 25 years was with a local club who go out for rides on Sunday mornings. My second time out I gave the B group a try. About 15 minutes into the ride going into a head wind out the Tuam road I was dropped from the peloton. I was talking to a couple of lads at the back and after a while realised I could not talk and keep cycling into this wind at 26 k/ph. It happened exactly like I have seen it on TV so many times, I could not stay with them and gradually dropped off and they were gone :-( I ended up doing a 55K loop myself, man the road from Shannonbridge to Athlone must be among the straightest in Ireland! I kept going every week and had a run of doing 40-60k 8 out of 9 weekends.

Having missed a bunch of weekend rides with life ramping up I heard at swimming that the group I had been doing the Sunday rides with, the C-specials were planning a Thursday night ride, meeting at the usual recreational centre at 6. I was still sore after the adventure run the night before, but the day was an absolute cracker and the girls were of visiting til about 8, perfect time for a 40K ride. Conscious I had no supplies, I asked a couple of riders if they had a spar banana but no. It was a brilliant evening to be out and the plan was to do 2 laps of a hill the lads call piss-off hill around Mount Temple. I had been up it once before but did not remember how it broke down really. I hung at the back and when I recognised the top was closer than I thought I pushed a bit for the top, well behind a handful of others. It was just a superb evening to be out on the bike, heading around the country roads, talking to Gerry, I was saying I think the best way to get up to the top was to stick with Sarah all the way. Gerry said go at your own pace not to worry.

I was in the mood for notching it up and bayed by Gerry's words I jumped off front, eased into a drop and took it up a gear but steady. I did not look back. I had in my head that at the end of a long stretch of road there was a right turn that lead onto piss-off hill. I was sipping a bit from my single bottle missing my mountain biking camelbak. When I got to the part of the road, that from a distance I thought was where the turn was located, I realised it wasn't the turn. And indeed it would not be a right turn anyway as we were coming at it from a different direction this time, having come in from Athlone the first time! There my powers of deduction stopped. Looking back for the first time since I popped off maybe 10 minutes previous there was of course no one else to be seen. I took the right turn anyway, there was a brown sign for some cross but the road petered out in a farmyard after climbing up a little. I had no water now but did not think about that.

Back at the main road there was a left turn not making quiet a crossroads, which I took. This started to climb a bit and I started to feel the no fuel on board since lunch time business. It was not long before I had completely bonked. Having had a couple of sort of out of body experiences climbing before it was a feeling I remembered. I passed a house gate and saw a lad, puling out of the pedals I spread eagled the bike over to where this lad was welding something. I turned around and inside the gate there was a huge artic truck parked, The window was rolled down and there was a little boy in the passenger seat. I noticed a hat on the ground under the window and he said my hat fell. I turned back to the man and said do you have an outside tap where I can fill my bottle please. He said no bother, turned off the welder and took the bottle off me to fill. I said thanks I could not see straight. I did not think to ask where I was. Trying to not drain the bottle, knowing I should conserve, I only drank 2/3 of it, I had to.

A while later, finally there was someone out, a lad working in the garden. I asked him where I was. Left at the turn will take you back down the hill to Athlone via Moydrum industrial estate. Right, will....and if you go up that road over there....and there's anther handy hill around that way. I was a little less confused that before I asked him. I cycled on and turned left, it seemed the fastest way home. As I sped down what I think now must have been piss off hill I started thinking that the route back to the car park went by fox's garage and I needed to stop there. I thought Athlone was mean to be close. Shortly afterwards I started thinking that Fox's also housed a supermac. It was not long after that I started thinking about a burger, a real burger.

It was a long road and finally the wee hill up to the service station. Parking the bike outside the door I went straight to the fridges and grabbed a bottle of lucozade sport which I necked straight. I went over to the supermac counter, looked at the menu and ordered a smokey bacon burger meal. Over to the chocolate and which one do you pick when you need the chocolate, it was no contest. I grabbed a dairymilk and got in line for the till. A minute later I was handing the girl my empty bottle and wrapper and asking her if she would mind disposing of them. As I waited at the supermacs counter I said to the lad whose face I knew from an occasional veggie burger, believe it or not this will be my first beef in 11 years.

Slumping in the fading sun outside, the burger was enjoyable, more satisfying that the 3 Christmas dinners I have had as my only meet in those 11 years. The fries were nasty, a quick duck back into the shop for ketchup little help. How do you celebrate your first beef in over a decade, clearly one then orders a 99, which I scoffed walking down the hill before rolling back to the car park at 20.45.

RUN: fishing for hubcaps

2011-06-10T00:52:00.001+01:00

The other night I was reminded you don't have to venture too far from home to have an adventure. I had been doing my weekly swimming lessons and weekly bike ride and then around Easter time, life kicked in, multiple house moves and funerals and sick kids and long work days and all of a sudden the Athlone triathlon was only weeks away and Christine was asking was I doing it or what. She was talking about going for a run last Wednesday night and when she decided not to go I said well I better get my first run since last August in Kerry.

Christine had been doing some training for the mini marathon and recommended a lane beside us which was 1km long and suggested doing a couple of up and downs. I headed out, not sure what I was thing but something along the lines of if I can't run 10k tonight then I might as well forget about the tri. Across the road there was a little footpath disappearing in the trees I had noticed in driving past, where did it go. It just joined the turn which has the sign for the pet farm which Christine said is down a ways. Sure I'll head up there. I just had got a replacement phone from insurance after the other giving up the ghost, I had loaded up endomondo on it the night before and set it in motion. I didn't have headphones but heard the generated voice tell me as I ran up and down the small hills, lap time 5.37, time 11.09. At 3km my lap time was up to 6.19, then I saw a right turn with a brown sign indicating a megalithic tomb and took the small lane. I'll go to 4km, then do the lane near home when I get back. Lap time 6.12, more like it son.

Then I saw the motorway, the M6, a bridge ahead of me crossed it. Sure I'll just go to the to of the bridge and then turn. At the top of the bridge the gravel road the far side of the motorway which went of into the distance up the hill parallel to the motorway came more into focus. I had seen this driving the M6 back from mountain biking in Portumna and wondered where it went. The big blue sign indicated exit 13, which our new place was off, was 2km away. Could I do a loop? Always more preferable. Going up the hill there were a few gates and it was clear a farmer had done a deal with the government land purchasers. But down the hill I could see the gravel track coming to an end at a gate. It did not make sense to reverse now.

I climbed the gate and skirted around the large field pulling away from the motorway. 5 or 6 horses 200m ahead moved around nervously and seconds later as I lightly jogged the uneven ground took off at pace. The fence turned back towards the motorway and there were the horses again ahead and off the took once more. This time the fence turned again and it soon became obvious why, there was a stream, not big but not jumpable. I followed it towards the motorway, not possible to jog now. I noticed one of those big pipes near the edge of the motorway mound. If I crossed over that fence and jumped that small bit of water I cold cross over the pipe and then be over the stream. Once there it made sense to climb another fence and continue on the compulsory purchase land. I was still a good 30m from the motorway. How come they bought such a wide tract, there could be a great jogging/cycling trail put in here. I half jogged along the top of the mound, skipping right as the bush thickened, down to the right was a little stream, after, the bank climbed up to meet the motorway.

The vegetation carried me down to the stream bank and there it was, sticking out of the water, clear as day to me, a shinny VW hub cap which I knew instantly would match my car. Not something I would typically know, but I had replaced a few in the last couple of years so knew the look of them. I got my toe wet before dropping to my belly and stretching into the water to retrieve my prize. Back jogging along I had this image of myself driving along and seeing a guy dressed in running gear with #28 on the back carrying a hub cap and wanting to complete the picture for the driver as I heard a car approaching I lifted the hub cap over my head in triumph. Yes, I had come back to the scene and retrieved my hub cap.

I started to see a motorway bridge ahead and then I ran into it a full on river. I followed to the right and there was a track on both sides under the motorway. A perfect place for someone without a house to camp out, but it was not a city. A killer place for a party/rave, but someone would drown, the paths were only 2m wide. Under and over to the other side, for a microsecond I thought about wading/swimming and then I saw it 100 off to the right, a railway bridge. No turning back now.

A little tributary went off to the left, muddy sides to jump across but not too bad. Bushes and trees covered the other side in the slope up to the track, I couldn't see a way. I cut back on myself a bit and scrambled up though some tress and it was possible to pull up onto the track. Track stretched straight in both directions. Lap time 15.43. I still had light and figured I better not stay on the track too long, not exactly legal right. I crossed the bridge quick enough and it stretched off, The fence on ether side was high now and not scalable. If a train came there was enough room to hang down to the side but they would definitely see me and call it in. I kept jogging trying to pace with the sleepers. A while later, the high fence was ending by some trees up to the right. I saw house tops to the left but went right to the gap. I squeezed through and saw a little gravel road down below. I started to go left and then heard some traffic to the right and saw a truck off to the distance. I changed direction and was somewhat surprised when I popped out and the roundabout 500m from my new estate. 8km lap time kicked in. I passed the little lane near the house barely over walking pace and the thought of running up and down that was a non event. Christine listened to my story and said did I know anything about training!

Glendalough Revisited

2011-04-19T19:35:00.015+01:00

The Glendalough WAR course: 9km Spink run around the Upper Lake (575m. ascent); 15km bike ride on the road, to Lough Dan (165m. ascent); a short run to the lake followed by a 2km kayak, then back on the bike to reverse the previous leg. Slight course change was a shortened return bike leg and an extra 3.5km run from Laragh back to Glendalough. Easy. Right?

The buildup: This time I focussed on the running, and started out about 8 weeks ago. Working up to running up 3 Rock/Fairy Castle 4 or 5 times on a course comparable to the race run. Virtually no bike training, just the odd detour up the hills on the commute home, and one trip up Kippure (route here) for a nice climb the week before. No kayak training whatsoever. I drove down in Wanda the night before and parked up in the Glendalough carpark, saving a few hours kip in the morning. Every little helps.

The usual high carb nosh-up the next morning. Jelly babies for breakfast with no guilt. Weather was perfect: fine, a some cloud, not too warm and not a breath of wind.

The run: Pre-race nervous anticipation, and unfortunately no-one to share the build-up with - all 3 FINEOS mates had bailed out during the week :(. I watched the big guns return from the Spink run in about 45 minutes, how do they do it? With no-one in particular to race against, I had a few strategies to beat last year's time and make it interesting. First of these was to get into the lead group in the run, and avoid the traffic jams when the race hits the narrow steps up Spink. 9:15am was race start, there were about 170 in my 'wave' and I was one of the first off. Some people were walking minutes later - long day ahead for them. Stepped it out, steady does it. In the top 5-6 up the top of the first set of steps, a huge group snaking back. Flat now for a bit, then more climbing. This second climb was fairly hellish, trying to take in the views to distract (see pic below, just putting on a brave face for the photographer!). The descent is extremely tricky, and was passed by a few 'mountain goats' here, but managed to stay on my feet. Naively thought I'd have legs to catch them on the flat, but even the miner's track back to the start was a slog. I somehow managed to trip and skin my knee on the easiest part of the run - no pain (feeling it now though).

Clocked in 58:20 (was 1:02:39). V. chuffed to beat the hour. Estimated I was in the top 15 in my group.

I also knew I could save minutes on the transition - I was literally one of the slowest last year, faffing around with change of shoes, food, drink. Amateur!

Transition 1:27 (was 3:33).

The bike: Sped off through Laragh and on towards Roundwood. Powerbar on board - another race tactic, it was attached to the crossbar with masking tape, worked a treat. My race drink was homemade - orange barley, water, sea salt and sugar. Powerade my hole. But would it keep the cramp away later? Picking off others now with ease (I think they were in the group who left 15 mins before) and in turn passed by one or two others before I reached Lough Dan.

Bike leg 40:03 (was 38:13, but this year we had to run 400m before clocking in).

Kayak: Nothing like a cold, wet arse to put manners on you. Hooked up with another lad who arrived at the lake at the same time. He took charge, sat behind and got us around double-quick time. No drama, but could feel inner thigh muscles starting to twitch - memories of last year.

Kayak leg 14:54 (was 23:09).

Took the time to take on fluids and do some leg stretches knowing the bike climb to come - I cramped on this last year. Flew up this time, happy days. Raced back to Laragh with 2 other lads, we must have passed each other 10 times!

Bike leg 30:29 (was 35:11, but 3km shorter than last year).

Final run:

Transition to the run was less than a minute. Then the sting in the tail. 3.5km, but winding and undulating. Managed to pass 2 more lads as I slogged along. VERY happy to reach the finish line. Even happier I wasn't doing the longer race. Some lads who'd started 1:15 before me and done the full WAR passed me on that final run. Mindboggling stuff.

Final run 18:26.

Full course 2:44:29. I did it in 2:42:43 last year, but that extra run versus bike translates to about 12 minutes quicker, so obviously very chuffed with that. Figured I was in the top 15-20 of my group of 170 (I subsequently discovered I was 12th in the intermediates), but there was another 'wave' who started later - I guess these were the experts, as my final placing was 44 of around 280. Interestingly, while only 200 did the short race last year and 500 did the full one - this year, more did the short course and the standard was seriously higher. The winning time was even faster than Andy's winning time last year, despite the extra leg. Other useless stat: finished 6/38 in the over 40's. And more importantly, only beaten by two women (I know, two too many).

High and Low

2010-12-19T12:44:00.007Z

View from 3 rock towards Sugar Loaf

The Featherbed is a boggy, mountainous wasteland - less than 20k from Dublin, but a world away. It is surely one of the most wild and desolate places around, maybe even in the country - not a house, a tree or even a sheep in sight. It's also a great road bike route - an hour's gentle climb along the Military Road (eventually leading to the Sally Gap, unpassable these last few weeks) brings you to the top nearly 500m above sea level. And this is where I headed to yesterday afternoon, a dusting of snow outside, and wondering how far I'd make it, or if I'd be able to complete the loop over the top and back via Glencullen.

Not surprisingly, there weren't many people about (I saw one car all day). Roads were dicey, just needed to take it handy, but nothing too serious. Leaving the trees behind, opening out into a frozen and beautiful plateau, with higher mountains rising above. Dropping down now towards Glencree, the road worsening and I knew the smaller back roads to Glencullen would be even icier. Better to turn back, and climb over the top again.

Bitterly, seriously, unbelievably cold - not a day to be taking chances. While taking off my jacket to get a few extra layers on, sweat had incredibly frozen inside (a first). Thermometer is showing about 4 below. Time for balaclava with the descent ahead. For some reason I'd only brought 'ordinary' winter gloves, and not my ski gloves. I paid the price on the journey home - no exaggeration to say I wasn't far off frostbite by the time I was back off the hills.

This is surely the harshest winter I've spent anywhere, and that includes two winters in NZ's South Island. Spiky ice tyres on the bike, schools closed, snowed in at home - all the norm now in the last month, and three years in a row. Climate change is here, and I think we'll be getting used to these conditions from now on.

But yesterday was a wonderful spin on the bike - up in a place where you could die in the extreme temperatures, I felt very alive up there alone, and in the deafening silence of the mountains.

Postscript: No camera yesterday, but here are a few pics of some recent hiking, biking and boarding adventures in the snow:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davemcg/sets/72157625551711992

On the Military Road - "This is a road through the Wicklow Mountains, which is still in use for mainly tourist traffic, built at the beginning of the 19th Century to open up the mountains to the English Military to assist them in putting down the insurgents who were the remnant of the 1798 uprising". More here.

Young man's game mate

2010-12-07T23:05:00.003Z

So Jimmy White and Stephen Hendry met in the first round of the 2010 UK championship, finishing yesterday. It was Jimmy's first time qualifying for the event in 4 years and the first time the pair met in a ranking event in 7 years. Hendry trotted out the old reliable before the match, saying of Jimmy, "He is probably the best player not to have won the world championship." Jimmy has beaten Hendry twice at the world championship though never when it counted, loosing the final to him 4 times in the early 90s.

Still, Jimmy was crowned world champion last month...yes you read that right, he won the first world seniors championship, beating Steve Davis in the final. Alex Higgins, RIP, was due to play the tournament. An over 40s event, it was the first World Seniors Championship for 19 years. Peter Ebdon, 40, was knocked out in the first round. Disappointingly, Hendry, 41, declined the invitation to play the tournament.

But back to the UK championship. Jimmy had a 8-7 lead in the first to 9 and incredibly the pair went on to have only their 5th ever final frame decider. Jimmy said afterwards, "I was 8-7 up, but there was so many mistakes you haven't got enough tape to go through it, and there was a bit of vintage Hendry at the end."

Looking back, it's been an interesting 12 experimental months for snooker. Last December there was the did it really happen six-red world championship in Killarney. The experiments continued, especially after Bary Hearn took control of World snooker this summer, and we saw Power snooker, not sure what that's about...

And in that time we have an Australian world champion. To cement his year, Neil Roberston beat Ronnie O'Sullivan to win the world open in September and become world number 1. Still, Graeme Dott was the player of the world championship this year, Dott needed to get to the final to stay in the top 16 and amazingly he made his 3rd final - if he had won he would have joined a select club to have won it more than once - but just ran our of steam in the end. It's a young man's game in fairness and to remind us of that, Jimmy white, now ranked 64 in the world at 48 years of age concluded, "I tried to get focused but I didn't play well at all and I'm really disappointed because I've done a lot of qualifying to get here. I was so pumped up for it but just couldn't produce the goods."

Why we will lose

2010-11-20T16:37:00.004Z

Two reasons...

First - Kidney has picked a team to lose. It is a team picked to defend not attack, to keep the margin of defeat down. A team picked on reputation over form. A predictable team. A winning team would have players picked in each position on form, yet Mike Ross, Leo Cullen, Bob Casey, Keith Earls aren't even on the bench. Why not try a Stringer-Sexton combination? Why not Fitzgerald at full back (when was the last time you saw Kearney pass to a team-mate outside his 22?)? Why not Toner to target the NZ lineout, their only 'weakness'?

Second - confidence and mindset. They just don't have the belief to win. You can face down the haka all you want, but you have to follow up in the early collisions. They will lose because, like me, they are afraid and have already lost in their minds.

But I will still watch in hope...,

A legend retires

2010-11-08T13:22:00.003Z

I am in shock, Haile Gebrselassie, the greatest distance runner of all-time, has announced his retirement.

I had the privilege of seeing him edge out Paul Tergat in a sprint finish to win his 2nd straight 10,000 Olympic gold in Sydney. Myself and Dave were far up in the stands but I will never forget the sight of that unbelievable sprint finish. Gebrselassie only lost 3 times to Tergat in 25 races.

2000 Sydney, Olympic 10,000m final

"I did not expect Tergat to attack then," says Gebrselassie. "Usually he goes from about two kilometres out, but that day he waited and waited until the last 200m.

"When he went past me on the home straight, I thought he had won the gold. I thought that was it.

"But I decided I had to try to just track him to the finish line to make it as hard as possible for him. I did not think I could win."

"Tergat did everything he could," says Haile. "He was simply unlucky that it was not his day. I wish that they could have given out two gold medals that day."

"But it was so special to win like that, in that fashion in an Olympic final. I will never forget it."

Source: BBC

I saw him make his marathon debut in London in 2002 when he finished 3rd to Khannouchi. This injury has caught him my surprise I think, he still believed he could take 1 minute of his marathon word record of 2hr 3 min 59 seconds.

Retirement press conference

Buy Tommie Smith's gold medal

2010-10-29T00:54:00.000+01:00

Fancy buying Tommie Smith's 1968 Olympic gold medal? The auction begins 4 Nov, reserve is $250,000.

Glenmalure Lungbuster

2010-09-26T18:12:00.036+01:00

Glenmalure WAR - 25th Sept 2010.

The 2nd Wicklow Adventure Race: 10km mountain run; 22km road bike; ?? obstacle course (kayak leg cancelled).

Ready (?)

Glenmalure is the next valley south from Glendalough, but a world away. This is the real heart of Wicklow away from the tourist hoards. It is also the gateway to Lugnaquilla, the highest mountain in Ireland outside Kerry.

The Glendalough WAR would be hard to top, but the omens were good - another spectacular day dawned after an atrocious week of weather. Andy had decided to enter the longer race this time - therefore an earlier start - having won the 'easy one' last time. I was sticking to my comfort zone. I saw him finish his run as I was getting ready - looked like 50 minutes was a good time to aim for. An hour later I was off and running with 180 others, fueled up with bananas, porridge, jelly babies, energy bars and gels.

Run profile

As always, the elevation not the distance is the key statistic and this run was relentless - straight up from the off, a 310m climb to 475m - it started steep and just got steeper. We were soon strung out all over the mountain, like the sheep who looked on with bewilderment. It was a real lungbuster but I dug in and reckoned I was in the top 25 - 3o over the summit. No break even on the downhill, had to keep the concentration and focus on those ahead. Back to transition at 55 mins, v. happy to break the hour. Change of shoes, helmet on, another gel & some water on board and I was up on the bike.

Bike profile

Although this was a road stage, there was a gravelly off-road section too, so my cyclo-cross bike was perfect for this leg. There were plenty competing on mountain bikes who would find the climbing tough, while the road bikes wouldn't be able for the gravel. To quote the race website "this cycle stage will bring you over one of the most iconic climbs in Ireland: the Shay Elliott Climb". To find out more about Shay Elliott, the first irishman to wear the Tour De France yellow jersey click here - worth a read.

Recovering from the run I started to pick off a few front-runners, including the lad who'd set the course the night before - I suppose he was knackered. I was feeling pretty good and really going for it - lesson learned from the Glendalough race, and leaving nothing behind this time!

By the time I summitted, I'd passed maybe twelve riders or so. Taking time to absorb the fantastic views around, I settled in for the big descent back into the valley. I'd purposely left my bike computer at home, as I knew it would be a distraction - so I'll never know how fast I went here, but it was probably as quick as I've ever travelled on two wheels. What a buzz! Only a few kms. back to the finish area. But one more sting in the tail.

The obstacle course was a 'river run'. They'd mentioned at the race briefing that life-jackets were mandatory and they weren't joking. The river was a glacial-cold stream and chest deep. Straight in, heart nearly stopped and the whole body felt like it was going to cramp! Legged it the couple of hundred metres downstream, no way I was going to let anyone pass me now. Struggled out, and then just for good measure, four hay bale obstacles - and over the finish line.

Andy over the last hurdle

My time was 2:01 - far exceeding expectations, and really chuffed to finish 16th - my best finish in any race. I didn't have long to wait for Andy who came home 13th in the long race, beating 4 hours - fantastic effort. After the post-mortem and a spot of the laid-on lunch, Andy, Jill and Billie came back to ours for a curry n beers. A nice way to end a great day.

All smiles at the finish

Nothing like a day out in the mountains like this to make you appreciate a healthy pair of lungs - and while gasping for air on the climbs, I was comforted by the thought that the Cystic Fibrosis Association were going to benefit - MyCharity website here. €1,100 collected so far, and counting. Many thanks to all who've donated.

Over and out.

P.S. A few shots added from the race website...

The Lost Sheep Half Iron Triathlon 2010

2010-09-13T17:52:00.005+01:00

September 11th 2010, Kenmare.

1900m swim, 83km cycle, 21km run.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so the story is told here :

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53733988@N06/sets/72157624821809221/

To add a few details, the day started nice and early with the alarm going off at 4:55 in the Kinsale Bay Hotel. Fellow entrant, roommate for the night, and sometime Sunday morning cycling buddy Redmond Burke was ready to go with his "HTFU Triathlon Club" T-Shirt. Slogan - "If your eyes aren't stinging, you can keep going" (or something like that). The pints had been flowing and the craic was good at the Fine Gael convention in the hotel, so Redmond didn't get much sleep listening to the hoors. I slept a bit better -ready to devour the porridge laid on by the hotel at 5 - really nice of them. The 30 or so triathletes who stayed over were all bleary eyed and tracksuit clad down in the restaurant, while the last of the bleary eyed Fine Gael crew stumbled their way to bed.

Down at transition zone in the pitch dark at 6 was a bit surreal, and the usual last minute job before a triathlon is of course a trip to the toilets, so, that too was bit surreal as the portaloos were pitch dark and smelly!

Anyhow, all last minute tweaking done, off on a walk to the pier to get this thing going. With impeccable timing, Redmond and I arrived at the start line just about last, and AFTER all the important announcements were finished. Probably some warning about tides....but we were to find that out for ourselves.....

The swim was commonly referred to afterwards by my fellow competitors as "brutal". The organisers changed the swim course twice in the last couple of days before the event, with some worry about tides.....turned out they were right to worry.

Theres a bridge over a narrow point in the bay in Kenmare, with a lough on one side and the open sea on the other. We had to swim under this into the lough, and by the time we were doing that, the tide was coming out. Seeing as the whole lough wanted to empty out under the narrow bridge, the current seems to get pretty strong. I didn't notice the problem really at first....I just kept on swimming towards the bridge and periodically thought the bridge should be a lot closer by now, but sure, it must be an illusion of some kind.

When under the bridge, I looked up, admired the brickwork, took 6 or 8 more strokes, looked up, nothing much had changed, 8 more strokes, looked up...now damn...theres definitely something wrong here! I decided a quick spurt was in order or I just might be here all day!

That worked grand and I swam away, not really aware of the time and enjoying the swim as the morning sunshine broke though.

I had expected a time of 40 min or less for the 1900m, but when I saw 54 mins on the clock when I got out I thought I must have been dire! All the bikes will be gone! No...plenty of bikes! Everyone else having just as much trouble. In fact there were a number of people fished out who couldnt get through the bridge at all!

Out of 300 entrants, my swim time was 66th, which I'm very very happy with!

22 didn't finish the swim. Bummer!...Conor Harty tells me he heard of some people getting outta Kinsale straight after the swim and not even bothering to collect the bike. Must've been annoyed!

In transition zone I took a leisurely 5 minutes to get through. I was kinda thinking, "its a long day, whats the rush?". Having dried between my toes and donned socks, shoes, gloves, jersey, stuffed with gels, bananas and a Turkish Delight, off I went.

The plan was to conserve energy for the run, so I took it easy on the bike. I hadn't done enough training for this event (who had?), so getting a final result of DNF (Did not Finish) was a real possibility. Losing patience with this strategy after 5 minutes on the bike, I took off past half a dozen slower riders, over some recently resurfaced (in best County Council manner) road. The back wheel went flat....drat! It took 11 minutes to get back on the road, so any remaining thoughts of overcooking the bike were forgottem....lets just finish this thing!

The bike route was superb. One smallish climb 200m before Laragh. The descent down this was brilliant and I went past lots of riders with my super aerodynamic riding position and my quality wheels....and my light usage of the brake levers! Good fun!

Then the Healy Pass. Approx 300m. Not really a tough climb, especially with fresh legs, but its got a nasty little kick right at the end. The descent is full of switchbacks, and the first or second of these nearly caught me out. that put manners on me - which was just as well, because there were about a dozen more to go and a couple of riders were squatting on the roadside looking forlorn. Hopefully only punctures, but I wouldnt rule out the odd spill.

Into Adrigoole, then back up the coast towards Glengariff. This road is wide and smooth and straight. After a long long drag, we started a descent where the bike just took off. Suddenly I was doing a land speed record on a bike of 73kph! Never went over 60 before! Fantastic! No feeling of danger either because of the quality and straightness of the road.

Tried to eat an energy bar after this but in my carefulness not to drop even the corner of the wrapper as litter, I dropped the whole thing! Thankfully, the previously mentioned Turkish Delight had also been stashed away - just in case - and well, this was the case! A water bottle was taken on at the water station in Glengariff, but no "sports" lid, so another delicate operation pouring from bottle into bidon - no accidents this time.

Then off up the other climb - the Caha pass. Same height as Healy,pass, but spread over 9km rather than 6, so no pain here either! Maybe a bit more pain would have helped my finishing time, but .... why?!?!?!

The tunnel at the top is a cool way to finish a climb, and the descent was alright. A lot of poor quality surfaces though on the lower slopes, so care had to be taken. The last few kms into Kenmare were slghtly downhill, but into a headwind, so not as easy as I had been looking forward to.

My bike time was 3:13, (219th) and considering the puncture, I'm pretty happy with that. Avg speed not counting the stop was just over 27kmph. Bike position was 219th, so no worry was caused to the front of the field by me!

Right, get rid of bike, helment, grab the 330ml Fruit Shoot bottle (blackcurrent) stolen from the kitchen cupboard and off we go. I took a High-5 Energy Gel at the start and at every water station (also 2 on the bike), and that seemed to do the job and never turned my stomach.

I had a good chat with Jason from Mayo for a good few kms, helped pass the time. I was feeling pretty good and eventually drifted off in front of him. The course was an out and back. I think I emptied the tank after about 8k. The turnaround point just seemed to take forever to get to. Thinking when I turned that my new pal Jason would be miles behind, him and about 6 others were right behind me! They didn't take long to go past me so I was slowing all the time!

I just kept thinking that I may never do this again, and I wasnt actually feeling all that bad, so you've just got to keep going. For some reason the deal with myself was that I wouldn't stop during the run, which I managed to do. However, I noticed a few people stopping...then I'd pass them, then they'd start again and go past me and turn eventually into a small dot in the distance. It struck me that maybe my tactic wasn't foolproof.

With the out and back course you get to see all the competitors at one stage or another. Nice (but depressing!) to see the leaders tearing down the last few km as I started the course. You appreciate what a different level these guys are on! When I was about half way back, a couple of guys approached and I thought these are the backmarkers....no!....2 fit guys went belting past on their warm down! Jeeez!

Anyway, I made it to the funish line eventually, and that was that!
Run time was 1:02 out and 1:05 back for 2:07 total which was a rank of 218.

Overall time of 6 hours, 21 minutes, 12 seconds to finish just off the podium in 182nd.

The winner Bryan Keane only needed 4:06:25, which was an amazing 23 minutes ahead of Eric Wolfe in 2nd place with 4:29:31.

Buddy Redmond is training for the marathon so a 21km run should be no sweat to him. Unfortunately, the gels and power bars he took on the bike went down very badly and his stomach was in bits for the run. He couldnt really "run" - but he did endure it and completed the course so fair play! He was in foul humour (by his standards!) at the end.

Not much left to do but return to the hotel for use of their health club - just what the tired and sore body needed!

A great day. Might never do it again, but at least I've done it once!

David Rudisha 800m world record

2010-08-29T21:04:00.003+01:00

Kenyan David Rudisha tonight in Italy broke the 800m world record he set on August 22nd 2010 in Berlin.
Here's a link to the Berlin record....aus Deutsch! ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_of87fPA6fg&feature=player_embedded#at=42

And well lets see if this embeddeed HTML works :

The Only Race in Town

2010-07-07T13:53:00.011+01:00

The race: NPS (National Points Series) Round 7, organised by MAD (Mountainbiking Association of Dublin), on my home patch, Three Rock. Fast new trails were promised, expectations were high. However, the omens weren't good. A training spin two days before the race ended with a broken chain and my inability to find the course trails. It hadn't rained in four weeks, then bucketed down the night before and the morning of the race. Not good.

Malcolm (Richenda's older brother) and I headed up to Glencullen on Sunday morning to register and warm-up. This was the final round of the NPS, with overall positions at stake - but the only race in town was McG and Malcolm's head-to-head - he'd beaten me in both previous encounters, despite being a road-biker and only occasional MTB'er. But he was back on the rollies, out of shape and I had a good shot.

The broken chain on my hardtail meant I had to race my 'full-susser', aka The Beast - this machine was not built for speed, let alone to race. It weighs about 15 kgs and is quite possibly indestructible. In addition, I was having last minute 'issues' with my rear derailleur - too late to tamper with it in case I made things worse, balls. So I was to spend the entire race adjusting the cable tension on the gear lever as I rode, aware that another chain break was surely imminent if I put too much weight on.

High noon, and the race was off - we had entered the Sport category - 'only' 2 laps of a 6.2 km course - how hard could it be? The Elites were to later complete 5 laps - it's just another level. There were also Masters and Veterans categories. Depressingly, we are now officially Vets. Got off to an OK start, making good ground on the fire-road, climbing before dropping down a chute into the trees and some lovely singletrack to negotiate. In the next few minutes I would lose my bike computer (and 5 or 6 places finding it); crash on a tight bend - a spectacular 'endo', cracking shins, knees and shoulder, adrenaline pumping so I barely noticed; a short stop to adjust crooked saddle, post-crash. In all this time, Malcolm and I passed each other a number of times - this was going to be close.

Settling into a better groove now, and onto the big climb of the day, up to the Three Rock masts - just grinding it out, sun baking down, sweat pouring. Saw Malcolm sit down on the side of the track, assuming he had a 'mechanical'. He tells me he has crashed and burned. Surely winding me up? 'Eat my dust, dude'. From the top, a fantastic traverse on singletrack, getting steeper and a lovely drop back onto the fire-road - rockier now, white-knuckle. Back into the trees for a short loop to the start/finish line. Half-way.

The second lap was relatively uneventful - I finally found the legs, knew what was to come and started to actually enjoy the spin. But where was Malcolm? I knew he could catch me anytime so kept the pace up, no complacency here! On the final run-in now, some lad is right on my tail - WTF, is he trying to draught me on the steepest part of the circuit? Bloody kids. He clipped my handlebar sneaking down the inside, and I was on my arse again. Goddamn you! Only a couple of hundred metres to go, so I legged it after him. In the meantime, some other lad was gunning for me now - Malcolm? No. Onto the final drag, finish line in sight, he is all-out so it's a sprint finish with the crowd roaring - beat him by inches, oh joy. And that was it, race over, a great feeling.

I clocked 32 minutes or so per lap, for a 19th placing of maybe 50 entrants. The Elites would later be riding closer to 20 minute laps, and doing so five times. I should have placed higher really, and probably would have on my hardtail. I also wonder if I'd prefer a time-trial type event - these mass starts are just carnage, and it's almost impossible to overtake on singletrack for obvious reasons. XC is seriously tough - and I suspect I just don't have the balls-out mindset for this type of racing.

It turns out Malcolm had indeed 'bonked' on the first lap and was a DNF. This quote from the man himself surely proves ours is a rivalry of Nadal-Federer proportions: "Still sore over yesterday. I think it boils down to the fact that while I've been doing a reasonable amount of 65% efforts, I'd forgotten what 80%+ felt like and blew. So I'm slowly forgiving myself. But you rode well and can certainly count this as a pelt".

Less importantly, Joe McCall - who I mentioned in my previous Cyclo-Cross post - finished a close 2nd in the Elite race to wrap up the overall NPS prize. The winner on the day was Peter Buggle who I've met a few times up at the Blue Light. I would observe that he seems to like his Bulmers, and is 48 years old. Legend.

Ring of Kerry 2010

2010-07-05T12:26:00.003+01:00

Got to Killarney after 7:00 pm on Friday and met up with the Tarrant clan aunt, uncle and cousins. James, the uncle, and Naomi, a cousin, were both signed up for the race. We toddled downtown to sign in and came back to assemble Naomi’s bike. She had just got a new one through the Bike to Work scheme. It will be fine for knocking around Dublin, but if I can remark that her bike lock seemed to weigh more than my bike, my heart sank for her there and then (She eventually finished at 7:15 on Saturday evening – all Steve Redgrave, but without the medas).

We three bikers went for a drink down town and watched Ghana throw it away. Kerry hospitality and gab meant that bed was a moving target. Poor enough night’s sleep despite being tired but woke to good, but very breezy weather.

Rolled out of the driveway at 8 o’clock and zeroed the clock at the Towers Hotel, we didn’t bother with the official start at the racecourse. We picked up James’ brother Billy at Fossa and pedalled on. I planned on taking it easy to Killorglin, but took it easier than planned to chat to Naomi. Passed a few tandems at that point but by then had already seen three unfortunates fixing punctures. I went off on my own from there and put the head down.

Coming out of Killorglin I wheelsucked a train of about 15 headed by the Oriel Cycling Club. The wind had picked up and was probably only 30 degrees off a full head wind. At this point the road rolls up and down quite a bit but it was all fairly relaxed at 27/28 kmh. Glenbeigh came sooner than expected and spectacular scenery followed. Out of Glenbeigh and feeling good I dragged upwards hugging the coast to Kells with great views of the Dingle peninsula. I had a good 20 minutes chatting to a work neighbour, but dropped him (Jaysus, you’d swear I was good at this cycling lark, stop laughing now) on the last 2km uphill before the gradual descent into Cahirciveen.

The full fury of the wind spoiled what should have been a blast into Cahirciveen. By now the scale of the event was becoming apparent as the road was clogged with cars being held up by bunches of riders that were hanging on for the first major break in the day. Speed was down to 10 to 12 kmh as I idled into the feed station with 66.5km done. Colaiste Na Scheilige was packed solid but a great break. I had thought about carrying on without stopping but I am glad I didn’t. Hunger knock would have ruined the rest of the day.

After food and water-bottle replenishment, things became more serious on the way to Waterville. I had my worst near miss ever on a steep down hill as a bottle fell off a bike in front of me and bounced just clear of my front wheel. Great crowd support in Waterville but Coomakista had me nervous. Map My Ride had been carefully studied so I knew where to pace myself for the 7 km of this climb. Scenery was staggeringly beautiful and there were plenty of glances over my right shoulder to admire Waterville Bay. The climb was dragged out rather than feeling steep, with great views of what lay ahead once I got around some of the corners. It was cool to see a procession of bright dots marking the road ahead, all moving steadily.

Coomakista topped out with 88km on the clock. I didn’t stop for the view and descended for the guts of 5km with most of it over 50 kmh. One of the best things about an event if this scale is that the roads are all but closed with plenty of scope to corner and maintain speed. A rattle had me worried and I spotted that the state of road had loosened a waterbottle holder so a quick stop was in order. After that it was a lumpy cruise to through Caherdaniel and Castlecove followed by one short, nasty dig at 7% which preceded a fast drop into Sneem with 115.4 km done

I didn’t eat much in Sneem, and with 60km or so to go, I was itching to get back on the bike. A lumpy ride of 27km to Kenmare started to sort out riders as the pace seemed to be dropping. By now many bodies were cramping onto bikes and some facial expressions seemed to be ushering in Halloween. I had a short break in Kenmare and chatted to a local who was putting his bike into a van. As a native, he had started in Kenmare at 6:15 so he was finished. He encouraged me that Moll’s Gap would be fine and that the distances were marked from 5km outwards.

Leaving for Moll’s Gap I had 142 km on the clock. I set off to Moll’s Gap with enthusiasm for the early part of it but it did get tougher. It is an easier climb than Woodcock Hill from the Moyross side but after 5.5 hr plus at that stage it was hard. Shortly after setting off I felt the early stages of a cramp in my left hamstring but I minded it for a few minutes and it faded away.

Like Coomakista, the road scales the side of a hill so there are great views of the progress of the climb. Unlike Coomakista, plenty of people were stopping to walk and get back on again. Naturally, this being Kerry, the cuter ones seemed to be feigning minor bike trouble or imaginary phone conversations to buy respectability. I went around the bend at the top of the Gap and stood on the pedals while a bus was waived off. After that it was helter skelter most of the way to Ladies View with one concerned motorcycle Garda waving at cyclists to slow down. Beyond Ladies View was the only bad part of the day as I was held up for ages behind a rented car that couldn’t find the courage to pass a slow cyclist ahead of it. Shamefully, I was at my xenophobic best on her back bumper.

I had tried not to set a target for the day, but 7 hrs of pedalling time was fixed in my mind. In Kenmare I felt it was on as I had 1 hr 22 mins left to do 33km. After Muckross I spotted the finish line and saw 6:59:20 on the clock.

I finished with 7:02 – that will bring me back for next year. In truth, I’ll be back anyway. It was a great day out and Kerry hospitality at its best. The organisation from marshalling, to food, to medical support was really top class.

I would like extend a big Thank You to Kevin McGrath, Redmond Burke and Declan O’Dalaigh who came along for some of the mad, long preparation rides in recent weeks. It can’t be easy to get up at 6:30 for 4 to 5 hrs in the saddle, when getting up an hour later for a saner distance would be an easier option. Cheer’s lads.

What is Cyclo-Cross?

2010-06-29T08:48:00.005+01:00

Cyclo-Cross (CX) has been around for over a century, but is still relatively unknown in this part of the world - here's a good description in Wikipedia. As I mentioned in my earlier WAR post, I borrowed a CX bike for that event - it's a true hybrid, a racing bike which is robust enough to be used off-road. It also seemed like a perfect commuting bike, so I've since bought a Specialized Tricross on the 'bike-to-work' scheme. It makes a huge difference, especially on the climb home.

I've also tried it from the house to the top of 3 Rock, a savage climb at the best of times, and have beaten the 30 minute barrier which was impossible (for me anyway) on a mountain-bike. Within reason, it's been possible to do many of the off-road tracks in the Dublin Mountains - but there is a threshold of steepness and 'rockiness' beyond which you need a mountain-bike - the CX just doesn't have the required traction, braking power or comfort which fat tyres, disc-brakes and a suspension provide.

Some of you may have heard of Robin Seymour who "has dominated Mountain biking and cyclo-cross in Ireland and has been Irish Mountain bike champion 14 times consecutively between 1993 and 2007 and 15 times the Irish cyclo-cross champion. Between 1991 and 2008, Seymour was beaten only twice in the Irish cyclo-cross championships...".

As it happens, the current national CX champion is Joe McCall who's a neighbour of mine - I've chatted with him before and met him when heading out for a spin last night. He modestly mentioned that he's leading the Elite NPS (National Points Series) in mountain-biking - round 7 this weekend on 3 Rock and a couple of us are planning to enter. On CX, he told me he reckons "it's the toughest sport in the world, great craic!". I'll have my excuses ready if he offers to take me out for a pedal sometime.

Here's an interview with Joe after he won the Nationals, worth a read:

After yesterdays victory in St. Anne's Park in Dublin we caught up with the new cyclocross national champion to ask him a few quick questions.

mtbireland: Well it's been a long time coming Joe but how do you feel now that you're National Cyclocross Champion?

Joe: Thank God that’s over, that’s how I feel! It is great being a national champ. It’s a niche discipline in a niche sport, but its still good to win.

mtbireland: I have to ask about the age thing, at 37 years young do you think it's age is an issue in cross?

Joe: Sure it is. Age is an issue now in everything I do, biking, getting out of bed, etc. Everything is just a little bit more tiring.

mtbireland: Coming into the race how confident were you feeling?

Joe: Very confident. You have to be confident in cross. Its so friggin hard that you cant have any doubt. I considered myself the favorite and rode the race that way.

mtbireland: Were the cross champs a specific target for you?

Joe: Absolutely. Time is limited these days and training for cross is not too time consuming.

mtbireland: What has your preparation been like the past few months?

Joe: Prep was ok. I’m not living the life of a pro, day to day things are all in there.

mtbireland: What about specific cross training?

Joe: Yeah, that’s where this year was different. I did Robins Tuesday night training and Marks ghetto cross races at the weekend. Also, riding in and out was work was great, every light, every corner was a sprinting opportunity.

mtbireland: About the race? Did you have any specific tactics on the day?

Joe: Fla’ ou’.

mtbireland: How do you think the absence of Robin, Roger and Conor affected things?

Joe: It made the race easier for me, that’s for sure. After the 3rd lap I was able to back off and maintain the gap. I would have preferred if the guys were riding, I think I had the form to be very competitive. I would have still rode the race for the win.

mtbireland: Cross has gained a lot more interest in this country in the past few years, why do you think that is?

Joe: Because people are finally seeing that its actually the best sport in the world. No other cycling disciplines are you so out of control for so long. If you rode like that in XC or DH, you would be in hospital. I was sideways everywhere for 1 hour!

mtbireland: You did your first cross champs in 1991 and finished 3rd. How has the sport changed?

Joe: Better bikes, better riders, INFINITLY better courses.

mtbireland: Stilly question but for the 2010/2011 season will you be back to defend your title?

Joe: Defo, should be up north next year so hopefully I’ll get to ride against Roger, Conor, Lewis, Glenn etc.

The 3 Wise Men

2010-06-25T15:14:00.003+01:00

On a brighter note, I haven't even been able to read to the bottom of this - it's just too funny: RTE Panel Gems.

100km M3 Cycle

2010-06-04T22:40:00.005+01:00

Three weeks ago at my cousin's wedding, my uncle Padraic insisted that I join him on the M3 cycle - 100k on the new, yet to be opened motorway through the heart of Meath. Used to cycle with him 20 years ago, when the whole country was in a Stephen Roche / Sean Kelly frenzy. Haven't been on a bike since, but it was a memorial race for my brother in law Paul Healion who won a stage in the Rás last year but died tragically in a car accident last August - so where do I sign?

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/obituaries/2009/0822/1224253079404.html

Borrowed a bike from a tri-athlete friend who also sorted me with all essential gear - clip in shoes, padded shorts, jacket, leggings and even cycling socks.

Reasonably fit with Bootcamp over the past couple of months - but event specific training consisted of 20km on Tuesday - out the coast road but cramped on the way back 'cos the saddle was too high. Wednesday cycled through town and up to Blue Light to meet McG and the lads for a few pints. 40km wasn't ideal prep but all the experts are saying that I should be resting before the race anyway!

Incredible sight at the start line - over 1700 cyclists taking part - over 800 of those doing the 100km. Took the concious, informed decision to ditch my uncle (sorry Padraic!) - he was hanging back and cycling with some punters doing the shorter leisure and family cycles. No way, only hope I have is getting into a big group and doing as little works as possible. Stuck on the wheel of a friend for the first 10km, then he ditched me for a faster pace. Jumped into a group of 14 which was a mix of serious cyclists and punters in GAA gersets who were out for the day. Worked well at times, with the obvious exception of a Galway gersey who was like a wrecking ball in the group - swaying from side to side and varying his pace constantly. F$%king leisure cyclists!

Group from Dundrum CC got annoyed and hit the front - I jumped in behind while at the same time thinking that it might end in tears if I kept up their pace. Alternative? Sit in behind Mr. Galway - no way - go for it. Fantastic feeling - two abreast - draughting and taking turns at the front - feeling good. Loved this back in the day. Great banter and chat - enjoyed telling one girl that I started training on Tuesday - she nearly fell off the bike laughing.

Into the wind on the way out, so looking forward to turing around. 45k and still no sign of the leaders coming back on the other side of the motorway. Surely we can't be that close to them. 46, 47, wtf? They must be taking a different route back? Then they tear by - incredible speed. How are we so close? 49, 50k, no sign of anyone turning or the feed station at half way - 51, 52K this explains how we were so 'close' to the leaders. Nearing 53k and getting pissed off - every km we travel we have to travel back. Long, steep hill and the station at the top - f$%k.

Meet Padraic at the station and head back with him - jump in behind a group of 12 and we're flying - consistently over the 40km speed limit for construction traffic. Past Kells, Navan, Dunshaughlin and a puncture means we're down to a group of 4 - another and it's just 2 of us. I have to apologise that I can't stop to help for fear that I won't be able to start again!

Kms fly by and we see the finish line at the toll booth. Wave of emotion hits me - had been firmly concentrating on my time and wheel in front of me - but crossing the line I realise that it was irrelevant - it was all for Paul. Say 'G'luk' to my companion and cycle around on my own for a few minutes - picked up the certificate that would usually find the nearest bin - definitely not this time.

For the record, excluding the half way break my time was 3 hours 50 minutes - about 40 minutes faster than my target and a very credible 18 mph average. Now it's just to convince McG and Padraic that it's a once off and I won't be eating Dave's dirt on a mountain bike at Ticknock :-)

Tennis streak may never be repeated

2010-06-02T23:27:00.004+01:00

So we have no classic Nadal v Federer final to look forward to at the French open this year.

Robin Soderling, whom Roger Federer beat in the French Open final last year in straight sets, beat Federer in the quarters this year in 4 sets. Soderling earned his first victory in 13 matches with Federer and when he was #1 too. Last year Rafael Nadal was #1 and Soderling beat him in the fourth-round at the French Open. The world #5 has some serious scalps under his belt. If Nadal wins his 5th French title he will reclaim the #1 spot.

Federer's loss ended his mind boggling streak of semifinals appearances in majors at
23, the 2004 Wimbledon to the 2010 Australian Open. The second best streak is 10, Ivan Lendl, 1985 US Open-1988 Australian Open.

If Soderling goes on to win his next two matches, Federer’s streak of 24 majors with either a win or a loss to the eventual champ also will remain intact.

Federer still holds the record for consecutive Grand Slam quarterfinals, with 24. Putting this unreal consistence in context the second longest active streak is Novak Djokovic’s four quarters in a row. Federer keeps putting himself in contention - Jack Nicklaus won 18 majors but he finished second 19 times.

Source Wall Street Journal

Perfect game ni-ni-ni 19, ni-19, 19

2010-05-12T00:20:00.003+01:00

Dallas Braden threw the 19th perfect game in major league history on Sunday 9th May at Oakland Coliseum, with the A's beating the hottest team in baseball, Tampa Bay.

Story MLB.com

Nenagh Sprint Triathlon 2010

2010-04-23T17:24:00.006+01:00

Just thought I may as well share my thoughts on last Saturday's event....North Tipp Sprint

750m swim, 20k cycle, 5k run...about 250 competitors....I came 81st!...king of mediocrity!

All good...a thoroughly enjoyable day. Good crowd, good weather, very well organised..

Very happy with the swim.....I experienced a little delay near the end when I caught up with the pack in my lane. I went past 1 or 2 eventually, but they were swimming at a consistent speed one after the other, so understandably, people were reluctant to let me pass, cos I guess they were already swimming on the toes of the person in front of them.

All my fault for not putting in a quick enough estimated time.....lesson learned. Having said all that, the delay didnt actually bother me in the slightest, cos overall I may have slowed down 10-20 seconds, but seeing as I got a bit more rest, that was energy saved for the bike!

Bike : Really enjoyed myself here, mainly because I was on my brand new bike - first ever racing bike - and I'd only picked it up from the shop 2 days earlier. Its a Willier Lavarede, by the way.

Run : Did an old man's shuffle for the first 2K or so...I just didnt have the energy to get going....however, those around me seemed to be going at a similar speed, so I guess it was acceptable! After this, found plenty of energy and did a good pacy last half of the run, even finishing with a good canter.

Time was 1:17 which I was happy with. No particular target...which is a bit unusual for me in a race...I've usually got some number fixated in my brain which I'm determined to beat!

Comparing to last year, the swim was 750m rather than 500m, but, adding 50% to last year's time, shows I made a 60 second improvement this year which I'm delighted with! Bike : 3.5 mins faster but 1K shorter, and on a more hilly course, both days slightly breezy...I guess thats an improvement. Run : 30 seconds slower on the same course! Hmm...now thats not so good. I think my slow start was where I lost it!
Transitions were faster...actually saved 30 seconds.....

I was in a hurry to get out of there as I wanted to meet the mammy for lunch for her birthday, so didnt stick around for post-race chat and cake...usually an integral part of the day!

Looking forward to Nenagh 2011 already!

Glorious Glendalough

2010-04-18T20:13:00.021+01:00

The Race

This was WAR - Wicklow Adventure Race. The venue was Glendalough, and amazingly the first adventure race set in Wicklow. The SPORT version (which around 200 people entered) comprised a 9km run around the Upper Lake (575m. ascent); 15km bike ride on the road, to Lough Dan (165m. ascent); a short run to the lake followed by a 2 km. kayak, then back on the bike to reverse the 2nd leg and back to the start-finish line. If that was too easy (and for 400+ people, it was...) then you pretty much double up the run and cycle legs on a longer route.

This was an individual race, unlike CLEC - Conor, Cormac & Andy all signed up after little persuasion. Unfortunately, Conor had to pull out with a calf (muscle, that is) injury, and although Tony replaced him, he too pulled out sick in the days before. The jinx also struck Cormac, and he roped in his mate Conor Wall who I'd pedalled with a few times, including a Wicklow Way epic.

The Training

Race day was 17th April and the training began in earnest 5 weeks ago. I'm not a runner, so this was always going be my focus. In fact I hadn't run since CLEC in July 2008. A couple of runs on the flat to ease into it, then three mountain runs each a bit longer than last, culminating last Wednesday with a local run up Fairy Castle which I'd usually do on my bike. One hour to do much the same type of length and elevation as the race. Calves hurt.

With 100km per week commuting on the bike I figured a few longer spins and I'd be grand. Borrowed a cyclo-cross bike, basically a souped-up road bike used to race off-road. A 2 hour loop from home down to Wicklow was 20 minutes faster on this bike than on my mountain bike. Result.

Sprained an ankle in 5-a-side two weeks before the race which didn't help but with a bit of strapping on the day I figured I'd be fine.

The Night Before

Serious amount of packing assuming the worst weather, and some mandatory gear such as first-aid kit, whistle, survival blanket etc. (seriously). Registration and bike drop off was the night before in the Glendalough Hotel and I drove down in Wanda, first overnight trip of the year. All the kit had to be presented at check-in, and they rolled out some lad to put the fear of God in us: "You're on your own up there"; "It'll take us an hour to get to ye"; and my personal favourite "You can die of hypothermia up there this time of year, you know...". OK, message received & understood.

Hooked up with Conor Wall and Andy, everyone pretending of course they'd put in pretty much no training. Andy showed my how to hold the handlebars of a road bike - better late than never. It was a beautiful evening, Glendalough was looking magnificent - it really is a special place and I'd never been there this late and so quiet before.

The lads headed home, but I parked up in an empty Visitor Centre carpark for the night. They'd blocked up the entrance, so it looked like a quiet night and no doughnuts outside the van from the local hoons. Final prep for the morning, some reading and I was asleep before 11. Nice feeling of nervous anticipation of the next day.

The Morning

A great night's sleep once I nodded off and was awake with the birds at 6am. Next thing I know my phone is ringing - Andy's arrived in Laragh - and it is already 7:30. Oh f*ck. Race start is 9:15 and I need to get some fuel into me. The night had been cold and it was still frosty, another beautiful clear day, blue sky - perfect. Breakfast: muesli, yoghurt, fruit, bagel + peanut butter, energy bar, litre of water & cawfee. Ready for anything now. Met Andy who headed off to race start ahead of me, and then walked up to the start with Conor. Getting close - who's idea was this anyway?

The Goal
Finishing in one piece is always a goal for me. Realistically I thought that 3:15 was an achievable time, and would have been delighted with less than 3:00. Broken down, a run under 1:15, a bike leg of 1:30 would give me a good shot at this.

The Run

First impressions, this was a serious setup - 700 or so entrants, so a lot of organisation needed. 700 bikes racked up for a start, that's probably a half-million euros worth of kit. A lot of fit people knocking about too - in both senses of the word. Nuff said.

9:15 and eighty or so of the Intermediate Sports entrants are off and running, climbing up the Wicklow Way, and then onto the steps to get onto Spink, too steep to run for most, just a steady step-step-step. Feeling good, and getting the impression that many people had trained for the distance, but not the elevation. Passed 15-20 people on the ascent, and in 30 minutes had topped out. Very warm up here now - so much for the survival blanket I was carrying.

Allowing myself time to take in the views, it's one of the most spectacular places in the country and always so easy to get away from the tourist hoards below by hiking up here to the Spink. Down now on boardwalk, crossed the Glendalough River to the old Miners' Village and onto much rougher ground - big boulders, very rocky. This was the hardest part of the day for me, with one ankle strapped and the other one twisted now on the descent. Passed a good few more runners, probably from an earlier start group (or 'wave') judging by their pace. Was only passed by 2 or 3 I'd say. Finished the run at 1:02 or so, very happy with that.

The Bike and Kayak

Change of shoes, some power-gel, chocolate and first water on board since the start - much needed - up on the bike and away. Through Laragh and Roundwood, climbing gently all the time, knocking off more punters along the way, passed by only one on the way to Lough Dan. Conor was somewhere behind, and I hadn't seen Andy at all during the start, presumably ahead. Dropped the bike, short run to the lake, and found a partner for the double-kayak. He was from Newry, in his first race. We got around in 20 minutes or so - average enough. Wet feet and ar*se now, back on the bike and a big climb to get back on the main road. 3 hours is looking very do-able now, so eased off a bit, taking it in and enjoying it.

Aroused from my day-dreaming by someone roaring my name from behind, WTF? Conor, back from the dead and flying. He reckoned he had chipped away and taken out about 55 racers, so I had to lift the pace to stay with him - he faded on the climbs, giving me a chance. But it was going to be close. 5km to go, so we made a pact to cross the line together (!). Someone might have died otherwise. We picked off a few more, really gunning, in fact Conor reckons he took his 60th "customer" just before the finish. He was cramping up now, so I waited for him on the run over the line, and we "dibbed" together. Finishing in 2:42, wow.

Andy (& Jill n Billie) there to greet us. He was looking fresh... having finished 20 minutes earlier - in fact he thought he might have been 3rd, holy f*ck!!! A scorching day now, and we enjoyed the next hour chatting, getting some sun, food and drink laid on.

The Post Mortem

Andy missed the awards ceremony, which was a bit of a pity because it turns out he actually won the Sport event!!! It seems everyone around when he finished knew this, except for him. Conor and I were most pleased with 25th (out of 200) - final breakdown by category still unknown.

Massive respect to Andy for winning - not beating him was a blow of course, but knowing he beat everyone else too softens it somewhat. And huge kudos to Conor too, an incredible effort to knock off 60 racers and a very respectable placing, with only 2 weeks notice before the race.

The best organised race I've ever entered, certainly the most fun, the most amazing setting, and my best finish by a long way. The same lads are organising another similar race in Glenmalure in September next, they've set the bar high.

Drove home to the girls to spend a sunny afternoon hanging out at a neighbourhood BBQ. A perfect day.

Saints March In ... Munster March On.

2010-04-12T10:12:00.004+01:00

Started the day with a cycle and made sure to include Thomond Park on the route. Went past it at 9:30 on Saturday morning and knew that a day to be spent dying, wondering would unfold. By mid-afternoon, I was drained.
The ticket for lower East stand also had me drained - dehydrated is the correct term. I've been at games where the dark gloom has chilled visiting side with a big reputation, the stadium could't have been more welcoming for visitors on Saturday. Sunday's sore head had as much to do with bright sunshine as dark stout.
What came to pass from 5:30 onwards was hard to credit. The way the game flowed lessened the tension and the big start was everything. Each of the tries contained passages of play that stand up there with anything Munster have created in the last five years, passes from Earls and O'Gara for the first two, firm scrummaging and excellent running and passing by O'Leary for the latter pair.
O'Gara reshaped the soccer maxim that you can't score if you don't have the ball and hammered home the point that you are more likley to score if you are playing somewhere other than your own half. Even in the dark shadows of the West Stand, it was possible to pick put Chris Ashton's pink boots losing the races to his touchline, beaten each of three times by O'Gara's spiralling punts.
For too long this season Munster have played as if they must hold onto the ball at all costs. In this match they offered Northampton the ball regularly, confident that they would win it back and availing of the opportunites prsented to inflict physical damage in the contact zones.
Fear drove the players and the 23,000 red-clad fans in the ground that evening, it was a great occasion. Obituaries, mine included, are now in the bin, replaced by a view that Biarritz can be taken and anything can happen in a final. Munster for Paris.

Good Friday Awaits

2010-03-29T09:41:00.003+01:00

Went to TP on Friday night to see half the Scottish Team play half the Irish Team. Overall a good win and a good performance by Munster.

Clearly the Scots' resources are thinner than ours. Glasgow brought back almost all their internationals from the win over Ireland but clearly they were very tired. Parks kicked well but O'Gara (one opening penalty miss aside) matched him, including a superb touchline conversion to make the game safe. The famed Killer Bees were good but not at the level that they showed at Croke Park.

One slightly worrying note was the scrum. Franno made the point that Kaplan seemed to have decided to police the Irish scrum very closely against the Scots and penalised Irreland unduly. Friday night was similar with Munster being lectured to constantly - and penalised readily. Glasgow went to town on this and caused even more disruption with scrums being reset and free-kicks awarded. The slow hand claps in the second half from the knowledgable, but increasingly impolite, attendance told it all. It was very disappointing to hear jeering (no matter if by a small few) of Parks at penalty kicks.

JDV was pure class,and Mafi will be hard to drop, but Earls is needed at 13. I see an outside chance that Warwick will be dropped to play Earls at FB; Warwick's confidence level looks very low and his kicking to touch was hopeless.

Our back row played well, they forced some excellent turnovers in the second half and even though two of them were replaced, continuity was not a problem. Unfortunately for Glasgow, and this is where their resources are thin, they struggled to integrate their subs as effectively as Munster.

Leinster await, let's hope its a good friday for us.

Where Ireland are at

2010-03-21T18:31:00.003Z

I had some texts with Colin in Christchurch after the last Irish match in the Six Nations, which Scotland won 23-20, thanks to a man of the match performance from Aussie Dan Parks.

Too be fair, that's about where Ireland are. An ok team that the likes of Scotland can take on a good day with a shit ref.

We'll see how they fair down here in June, we'll know where we are at then.

Ireland Triple crown hopefuls

2010-03-12T22:15:00.007Z

Ireland can pass Scotland this year at the foot of the all-time triple crown ladder, if they win their 11th Triple crown. Wales have won 19 and England 23. It would be Ireland's 5th triple crown in 7 years. Didn't we have an awful record before the Naughties.

Go David Gillick!

2010-03-12T21:56:00.005Z

David Gillick, 26, has qualified for the World Indoor world championship final tomorrow in Quatar.

Gillick equalled his PB of 45.52 in his heat, the second fastest time in the world this year, so is in great form. He has done well indoors in the past, winning the European Indoor Championship in 2005 and 2007 before failing in the tree-peat when he fell at last year's European Indoors.

He finished sixth in the (outdoor) 400m at the World Championships in Berlin last summer. His outdoor PB is 44.77 which he also set last summer.

Men's 400 Metres Final Sunday 14 March 2010 15:05

Blue Sky Friday

2010-03-10T20:31:00.023Z

For the record: Friday 5th March - Dave rode from his house, up the Wicklow Way to "Fairy Castle", and home via Three Rock. Ride time: 1h 28m; distance 18km; ascent 436m.

This is a spin I've done variants of upwards of 50 times I would guess. A bit of a climb on the road gets me into Kilmashogue Forest and it's all off-road from there. I'll let the photos do the talking.

Welcome to Kilmashogue - timecheck 12:59 - beating the magical 13m barrier.

Sun through the beech trees - nice

Stackstown Golf Club - which we boarded through last Jan. Resisted temptation to ride through it today

This is the mess Coillte leave behind when they clear-fell

Still plenty of snow about in shaded parts

Opening out now, nice views across the Dublin Mountains and the city below

"Fairy Castle" and cairn - summit is 536m. Timecheck 52m. Snack time...

Kippure, the highest point in Dublin (757m) and the famous RTE transmitters on top

The track ahead, with view down to Dublin Bay and Howth in the distance

Just to prove I was there...

View back up from Three Rock masts

No mountain-biking. Hmmm. The start of the Boneshaker track. Starts out easy enough...

...and gets pretty gnarly

Self-portrait, and home for the clean-up.

Over and out - pedal on dudes.

Jimmy hoping to get back to Sheffield

2010-02-25T23:00:00.001Z

Jimmy White is currently practising in preparation for qualifying for the world championship, next week he'll have to win 3 matches to get to Sheffield for the first time in 4 years.

Jimmy has freely admitted that he was not a model professional and liked to have a good time to much and relied on his natural talent. Speaking on Newstalk on 23rd February he said that "he was putting his heart and soul" into getting back to Sheffield and "giving it 100%". He said that his time in the jungle had given him time to think and Barry Hearn was reinvigorating the sport he loved.

Jimmy got a wild card to the Masters at Wembley in January 2010, but he was a bit "ring rusty" and lost badly in the first round - however last year he was in his best form for years. Jimmy won the Sangsom 6-red World Grand Prix in Bangkok Thailand in July 2009, his first title since 2004. Only O'Sullivan was not in Thailand, "Thank God" said Jimmy! In the Paul Hunter Classic (formerly the German Open) in August 2009 he lost to Shaun Murphy in the final. Two months later on 18 October White reached the final of the World Series of Snooker in Prague, his fourth final of the season. He won his 2nd title of the season defeating Graeme Dott 5-3.

Plenty of former world champions, such as Ken Doherty, Graeme Dott, John Parrot and Steve Davis are also trying to qualify for Sheffield - the qualifiers run from February 26 to March 9, they are all fighting for one of 16 coveted places in the Crucible line up. Jimmy plays his first match at the English Institute of Sport – Sheffield on Wednesday March 3 against Patrick Wallace or Mark Boyle, and would then have to beat Ken Doherty and Joe Swail to get to the televised stages in April.

Tom Watson master of the wind

2010-02-24T23:00:00.002Z

Tom Watson, 60, has won 8 majors, including 5 (British) Open championships in a 9 year span between 1975-1983. Last summer he _nearly_ completed one of the greatest ever feats in sport when he came 2nd in the British Open at Turnberry. He needed a par on the last hole to win but his second shot went over the green.

Tom Watson showed his mastery of windy conditions once more last week in Dubai, he tied the best score of the week, 68, in coming 8th in the Dubai Desert Classic. Rory McIlroy, 21, came 6th.

Miller Time

2010-02-23T16:43:00.006Z

In Turino Norwegian Kjetil-Andre-Aamodt became the first downhill skier to win 7 Olympic medals spanning 4 games, including 4 golds. He won 3 medals in LilleHammer in 1994, a feat also achieved by Jean-Claude Killy (1968), and Toni Sailer (1956). In Vancouver 2010, American Bode Miller has joined that club, having won 3 medals in the 3 Alpine ski events completed so far, a bronze (Downhill), silver (Super G) and Gold in the toughest event, the Super-combined, which combines a downhill run followed by a slalom course. He and Kjetil-Andre-Aamodt are the only two men who have won medals in four different disciplines and Miller could have the single games record on his own with one more medal in the two events left to run.

Miller now has 5 Olympic medals having won 2 silvers at Salt Lake city. In Turino he was leading the Super-G after the downhill (only 7th in Vancouver) but straddled a gate in the slalom. In Miller's 13 years career he has won the overall World Cup title twice, won four World Championships, and 32 World Cup victories.

It'll be worth watching Bode Miller tonight in the giant slalom, he won silver in this event eight years ago in Salt Lake City.

Eurosport:

Tuesday 23 feb - Giant Slalom
17:30 GMT - First Run
21:00 GMT - Second run

Saturday 27 Feb - Slalom
18:00 GMT - First Run
21:45 GMT - Second run

2010-02-19T17:17:00.003Z

Just one to watch out for tomorrow afternoon, if caught in front of the telly, no rugby, fed up of winter olympics?

BBC are showing the Indoor Grand Prix from Birmingham where Bekele is going for a 3000m world record....

BBC's commentary will be focused on the local lad - Mo Farah.

Kevin Myers Rugby critic

2010-02-19T15:09:00.008Z

I had been hearing a little about Kevin Myers article about the Ireland v France rugby match on Newstalkbut had not read it until I was pointed to Ronan O'Gara's letter of response today.

While I would tend to agree with Myers about the insanity of Jerry Flannery's tackle the rest of his piece - which includes such quotes as

"Ireland did not want to win, and Declan Kidney did not choose a team that could win. His selection of Ronan O'Gara said as much."

"...but the Irish team that lost in France really was representing Ireland."

- could only be taken seriously in the context of a school debate.

Shaun White legend at 23

2010-02-18T11:49:00.003Z

Shaun White, 23, successfully defended his Olympic gold medal from 2006 in Turin in the Men's Half-pipe at Vancouver. This adds to his winter X Games Gold medal count of 9.

With the gold medal already in his pocket he broke the record for the biggest ever half-pipe score with 48.4/50 with his second run, pulling out the brand new Tomahawk to finish.

White spent a week in December at the private halfpipe Red Bull built him in the San Juan Mountains in rural Colorado perfecting a variety of new tricks, including the Tomahawk - which he invented, perfected and nicknamed - two front flips and 3½ twists (double McTwist 1260).

“It’s groundbreaking,” said Mike Jankowski, the head halfpipe coach for the United States. “He’s the first one to try it and the first one to do it. No one else has attempted it. No one else feels comfortable or confident or safe at this time. Now, he’s the leader of the pack. He’s basically setting the road map for snowboarding right now.” [Yahoo Sports]

"It's impossible to beat Shaun unless he falls," said silver medallist Peetu Piioroinen of Finland.

The judging was a little inconsistent I thought with American Lago getting bronze though his team mate Louie Vito, who finished 5th, threw down a much more technical impressive run.

Paris Post-mortem

2010-02-15T16:03:00.005Z

I called a French win (by 4), but that doesn't make it any easier to swallow and I certainly wasn't expecting capitulation on that scale. France would probably have beaten anyone in the world on that form.

As I said to Tom in a txt after the game: A good wake up call. How they respond will tell a lot. A game of inches (Kidney said the same, after I wrote the txt - all the cliches...); mistakes punished and cruel bounces.

Healy somewhat unlucky (to be spotted, that is) but fully deserved to be binned. Flannery very lucky to stay on (does anyone know what exactly he was trying to do?) - he would have been shown the door had Healy not already been off. Both critical turning points. Our much-vaunted defense: 4 tries conceded I think all last season (six nations), and 4 already in first 2 matches.

Italy have done us a big favour - exposed England's limitations, without beating them which would have made them a dangerous beast in Twickers. The two week break to this match is much-needed on our part.

Certainly not the end of an era or anything like it, but time to really think about what this means for our World Cup ambitions. Let's cut to the chase: we don't have the strength to cope with losses of talented players such as Kearney & Luke Fitzgerald. Will John Hayes be on the flight to NZ next year? Our scrum creaks again, yet he continues to win caps and we have a huge dependency on him. No more honest player, but the doubt remains what to do at tighthead. Paddy Wallace, just not good enough, sorry - never rated him. He is a good provincial player, that's it.

So, time to bring in O'Brien, Court, O'Loughlin, Ronan, Sexton et al in the games ahead with an eye on the World Cup. We have never beaten a tri-nations team, or England or France, in a World Cup. We need to do so in the 2011 pool game to get an "easy" quarter-final and a potential semi-final. Or else beat one in a tough quarter to get to that semi. That to me is the extent of our ambitions. I'm sure Kidney thinks we have the potential to win a World Cup and will instill that belief in his squad - but to beat those teams I just mentioned not once, but THREE times in a few weeks is beyond us. It's just dreamland even for this golden generation.

France v Ireland

2010-02-12T15:16:00.008Z

Let's start with a few predictions: France 25 - 19 Ireland

For starters, the opposites in this match are amazing. We have a weak scrum, no such problems for them. We have excellent half-backs, their pair are nothing special. Our centres are slippery steppers, Jauzion and Basteraud are hybrids, they bash and step, but the more skillful player is at 12, not 13.

I think both sets of backs are equally good so it is down to the forwards. We have an excellent lineout, but on his day Harinorduquy is a one man wrecking ball on the opposition throw, cast your mind back to HEC final 2006, he pressurized Munster's lineout all day. My major fear is that the French physicality will last 80 minutes and they will knock us out in the last 15.

The one team to totally outfox them recently was New Zealand, they walloped them by going around them as much as possible. That's a high risk strategy for an Irish side.

Our X-factor is on the sidelines, Kidney is a better coach and he may make better decisions in reading and changing the game if it is close going into the last quarter.

What do ye think?

Conor

Reply from McG

man, this is one is to hard to call - if pushed to it, i think we will lose. and i wouldn't even rule out a draw.

Reply from Garbhán

If Sean O'Brien (Tullow Community College) makes his way onto the pitch in Paris this weekend, he will become the first rugby player from a vocational school
to represent Ireland in the 6 Nations Championship.....

"We had reached the day when we could endure neither our vices nor their remedies"

Titus Levy

Reply from McG

not sure if that's good or bad ;) but it's certainly v. interesting....

Reply from Conor

Excellent stat. Dunno if the GAA will be pleased ….

Irish Winter Olympics team

2010-02-12T11:38:00.005Z

Good news - Irish bobsleigh team allowed to compete in Winter Olympics - this would have been a travesty.

See article here.

Reply from Kev:

Jaysus dave - it makes absolutely no odds. Its a joke us having a bobsleigh team. We are not and never will be a winter olympics nation.

It's a waste of time focussing resources in that area.

Kevin.

Reply from Tom:

Right let's revamp all sport competitions, take the world cup back to 12 teams, or less, we only want those who can win in it.

WTF mcdaid?

we have a lad in the slalom who is world class, shane o'connor (see here).

Alpine slalom skier Shane O'Connor in action on the slopes

Tom

Reply from Conor:

The McDaid doctrine decrees that all competitions are to exclude teams who cannot win.

Still on Tom's soccer theme, let's look forward to next season's Premiership which will feature Man Ure vs Chelski: 19 games at Old Trafford and 19 games at the Bridge

Conor

Reply from Kev:

you guys are living in cloud cuckoo land - its a question of where the money should be spent in sport - its all well and good to have romantic sporting notions about participation and the olympic spirit but do think irish rugby would have got where it has today if it had focussed resources as much on the 7's game as on the 15 man game, no, or do you think UK track cycling would be leading the world if they focussed on road and track, no. A country, and especially a small country, needs to focus resources on select sporting areas to which they are well suited.

kevin

Reply from Conor:

Fair points Kevin and well made.

I do think it is good that we have some representation at the Winter Olympics.

On the subject of resources, it is hard to get it right. We still send sailing teams to the summer games because we won a medal in 1980.

For all the investment in rowing, we have won nothing. Our track and field performance is abysmal. Boxing is a success story. Our rugby resources have been very well managed and paid off over the past 10 years, although we were a shambles for the first 3 yrs of professionalism.

Rugby is ruthless and funding is targeted at kids at a very young age, it is killing the GAA.

Conor

Reply from McG:

"our track and field performance is abysmal" - somewhat harsh, look at the improvements made in sprinting in recent years. european and world indoor medals, world champs finalists. surely the investment has paid off here. 4th place in olympic finals for rowers (though ultimately disappointing, i concede). boxing a big success story with great coaching. why shouldn't we have a rugby 7's team competing at a top level - tom and i were at the 7's tournaments in wellington, watching teams like portugal, uruguay, kenya out there - we were noticable by our absence.

our bobsleighers are ranked 19 in the world. they have surely earned the right to compete in the winter olympics, against all the odds - sure, they won't win medals (though remember clifton wrottesley? he missed out on a bronze in the skeleton by 1/100th of a second in 2002...) - maybe they have the same ambition i do when i enter the odd race - finish in one piece, and don't come last. and i doubt they received much (if any) funding along the way. they are going to vancouver despite rather than because of OCI support.

i'll be switching on for the winter olympics. sounds like some of you won't be bothering. your loss :)

DAVE

Reply from Kev:

ah dave, we all love sport and i am as interested in the winter olympics as much as anyone but I cant help thinking that this country needs to spend money in select areas to produce some real sporting superstars to drive a national interest in sport and recreation for the good of everyone's health. A women's bobsleigh team finishing 11th or a slalom skier 9th wont change the habits of the overweight 7 and 8 year old girls I see at the school every day.

And if you think Ireland's olympic performance is even approaching what we should be achieving, check out the genesis report commissioned by OCI (see here).

Kevin

Reply from Dave:

re. the habits of overweight kids. interesting point kev - but perhaps irish kids watching the winter olympics in the weeks ahead might think about taking up a new sport? maybe even some of the kids who saw andy, ken and i boarding in the hills last month might do the same. we certainly got a good few whoops from anyone we saw. 10 years ago while i was "learning to board" (read: being stretchered off NZ ski fields...) snowboarding wasn't an olympic sport. changing tack here, nor was mountain biking. we now have irish bikers competing at the top level, and it will only get better - mountain biking will continue to explode in this country, it's only just started - it is the new surfing.

did you know we have a female downhill biker who is a european champion?
i see more and more young kids out in the hills every weekend. so that's one way habits are changing. and look at the number of people entering triathlons, multisport/adventure races now - it's a revelation (albeit in an older generation). in our day, the only options were the big team sports - computer games and TV aside, i'd suggest we in a better place now?

DAVE

Drew Brees flawless

2010-02-08T22:37:00.005Z

The New Orleans Saints won their first Superbowl defeating the Indianapolis Colts 31-17 in Super Bowl XLIV yesterday. Quarter back Drew Brees tied a Super Bowl record with 32 successful pass completions to win the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award (MVP).

Brees finished the regular season with a completion percentage of 70.62 which established a new NFL record. Also, in 2008, Brees threw for 5,069 yards, finishing 15 yards short of the NFL record of the single season set by Dan Marino in 1984.

Saints coach, Sean Payton, called an onside kick at the start of the 2nd half which was recovered, this along with Payton Manning's interception in the 4th quarter were the two turning points of the game.

Was the onside kick a roll of the dice? Well, since the 2000 season, more than 500 onside kicks have been attempted by NFL teams. Nearly half took place in the fourth quarter and the kicking team was able to recover the ball less than 15 per cent of the time. However, when the tactic has been used in the first three-quarters the success ratio approaches 60 per cent.

Super Bowl XLIV had a US television audience of 106.5 million topping that of 1983’s final episode of M*A*S*H to become the most-watched programme in US history.

Ref: Wikipedia Irish Times - America at Large

New Chairman of the Boards

2010-02-01T22:56:00.006Z

Kenyanian Bernard Lagat (35) won the Wanamaker Mile, for a record eighth time, at the Millrose Games in Madison Square Garden in New York on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010.

He was previously tied with the former chairman of the boards, Irish legend, Eamonn CoghlanSource, who won it 7 times ('77, '79-'81, '83, '85 and '87).

Other Irish runners to have won the Wanamaker are Ronnie Delaney ('56-'59), Marcus O'Sullivan ('86, '88-'90, and '92) and Niall Bruton ('94 and '96).

Source: MSNBC

It's Murray Time

2010-01-29T11:12:00.004Z

Andy Murray will face Roger Federer in Sunday's Australian Open final. The match-up is a repeat of the 2008 US Open final, Murray's only previous grand-slam final appearance, which Federer won in straight sets.

The match will be Federer's eighth successive grand slam final, the 18th of the last 19, and the 22nd of his career.

Murray has a winning record against Federer, with victories in six of their 10 meetings, Federer, however, has won their last two matches.

Murray has been having a great tournament and is buzzing. It might just be his time.

Guardian

Sorensen wins Australian Open first round match

2010-01-19T10:01:00.006Z

Louk Sorensen, world #284, claimed the first Irish grand slam win in the open era, beating Chinese-Taipei’s 101-ranked Yen-Hsun Lu 6-4 3-6, 6-2, 6-1 at the Australian Open overnight. Lu defeated Argentina’s former Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian in last year’s Australian Open.

Matt Doyle reached the last 16 of the US Open in 1982, he was American-born and though he played Davis Cup for Ireland, he played the grand-slam events under an American flag.

Sorensen says "My father is 100% Irish and my mother is 50% German and 50% Austrian." - the name is Norwegian. His parents live in Dublin and he grew up in Germany. He lives in Stuttgart, training and playing in the German tennis league's (Bundesliga) third division, which earns him enough money to travel around the Challenger Tour.

Guardian

Irish male qualified for Grand slam

2010-01-18T00:27:00.003Z

Louk Sorensen, 25, qualified for the first round of the upcoming Australian Open. He is the first Irish person to qualify for a grand slam tennis tournament since Matt Doyle in 1985.

Last competitive full house for Jimmy?

2010-01-11T11:24:00.004Z

Early January means the Masters at Wembley and not being a train ride away is something I really miss about not living in London anymore.

Jimmy White, 47, now ranked 56th, played the Masters on Sunday as a wild card invite, to a a packed house of 1,368. He lost 6-2 to the world No16, Mark King.

Guardian

Déjà Vu

2010-01-10T20:31:00.007Z

So much for once-in-a-lifetime. You know the drill by now - the snow dumps on the Dublin Mountains, and I have an insatiable urge to hike up there and come down strapped into a snowboard. This time I had Ken & Andy for company - they didn't need any persuasion. The road from home to Kilmashogue Lane was clear, so less hiking to start off. Also less snow and easier to walk up, so we got higher - "Fairy Castle" / Two Rock was the destination - about 550m. Lots of hikers around, one lunatic on a bike, and plenty of curious looks. The views down to Wicklow were amazing - Djouce, Maulin, Kippure all shining white in the distance. Great Sugar Loaf looked like the Matterhorn.

Very cold & blowy up top. Coffee, and a nip of Jameson from Ken's hip flask was timely. We came down from here in fresh powder, so good we hiked up and did it twice more. Heavenly. Then onto a very narrow, windy part - concentration was high here, but good fun. Andy & I were troubled by a snappy poodle who'd not seen this mode of transport before. Next up, a nice long, easy forest track (piste?) to get to the bottom. Fast and fun. Plenty of comments and photos from onlookers/spectators - hopefully starting a trend.

Finally, we trespassed onto Stackstown Golf Club (Padraig Harrington's home turf) which was just begging to be ridden, a real novelty. Back up the forest and we were able to ride back literally to the car. Home for some tea and the last of the Xmas cake, yummmm. How am I supposed to work tomorrow after a day like that?

P.S. To be honest, I was getting a bit tired of the endless cold and snow in the last few days. But now as a bit of a thaw sets in, I think I'll miss it when it's gone. The snow forecast for today didn't materialise, so that might be it. Hope you're all surviving the conditions wherever you are.

Who can match O’Driscoll in the noughties?

2010-01-07T10:39:00.005Z

Brian O’Driscoll was named by Rugby World magazine as the player of the noughties and on their team of the decade.

Hard to disagree with this choice after O’Driscoll's consistency over the decade even though he never won the IRB player of the year. The consensus in the rugby world seems to be that O’Driscoll's only other contender would be Richie McCaw, who won the IRB award twice in the decade.

Least us not forget that Keith Wood was named the inaugural IRB player of the year in 2001.

Ballinastoe Bruiser

2009-12-27T21:10:00.005Z

With most folks out of town for the holidays, there was only one other eejit up for a post-Xmas spin to Ballinastoe in Co. Wicklow. It's the only MTB park in Leinster, and I hadn't been in months. Malcolm - Richenda's brother - is a roadie by trade, but not too shabby on the knobblies either. We knew it was going to be cold, so it was balaclavas, ski gloves and layers on at the car park, as a quick snow flurry came through. By coincidence, Richenda's father Roger and other brother, and their crew - the 'Green Monks' - came upon us as we were gearing up and headed off up the track. Hopefully we'd catch up and give them a scare later - the cheek of them, hiking in a mountain-bike park.

So off we went, and weren't 50m. in when I noticed Malcolm and bike on the ground. Not unusual, but was surprised how quickly he'd come off, even for him. Was in mid-chuckle when my bike spun 90 degrees and I was off quicker than I knew what was happening. Half stood up, but the feet went from under me and I was down again, this time flat on my front and cracking my cheekbone off the ground. By now I'd noticed the 1/2 inch layer of sheet ice across the track. Aaaaahhh. Treacherous and completely unridable. This was going to be the shortest spin in history. Back to the car?

We decided to have a go at the single-track instead, that is to try the route in reverse. It was OK to start, then more and more icy patches, not snow which would have been fine. The higher we went the more Malcolm was compelled to get to the top and in fairness we were getting the hang of it now and it seemed worse lower down for some reason. Lots of walkers around, not a single biker yet. Hmmm.

Got to the highest point of the day, having decided to pass on the topmost loop. But still about 600m elevation, and rode out to the viewing point at Pier Gates for great views of Luggala and Lough Tay (the Guinness family estate). Wind was howling and bitterly cold here, no hanging about now. The boardwalks up to Djouce were iced over - surely the Monks hadn't come up here? That looked like them up higher, but we couldn't be sure.

Down now for the next two trails, singletrack - in the trees was fine - no snow or ice. But out in the open, and away from the sun, it was just an ice rink. Climbing was always going to be easier in these conditions. 100% concentration needed, keep the wheels turning, easy on the brakes, no sharp turns or you lost the front wheel. Another silly spill, nice bump on the left shin. Back to the wider forest track and one last climb before the drop for the carpark. Edge to edge was glistening, but still easier to ride than walk having tried the latter.

Came across our first biker of the day, on his own - nutter. Now we were back on the original trails, in reverse so we knew what was ahead. It was straightforward enough and made it back in one piece. Bruised, battered bodies, and happy to be in one piece. 'Enjoyed' is probably too strong a word. We now watched a couple of groups heading off - most looking hopelessly ill-prepared, some even without helmets (jaysus) and watched the carnage at the same spot we'd spilled earlier, having ignored and laughed off our warnings.

Met Roger later that evening - he was the only old-timer in his crew to make it up Djouce, and having made it back down he spilled at the last hurdle literally yards from safety - where we'd creased ourselves hours before. He mentioned he'd be sleeping on one side for a week or two. A tough old boot, they don't make 'em like they used to...

Women's world champ beats Men's world champ

2009-12-16T16:44:00.003Z

The women's world snooker champion, Reanne Evans, beat the men's world snooker champion, John Higgins, 4-3, in the six ball world snooker championship in Killarney, Ireland.

Evans:

John wasn't firing on all cylinders after the week he's just had but you have to take advantage. This is one of my best ever wins. John is world champion, provisional world number one and will always be remembered as one of snooker's greatest players. I was pleased with how I finished it off. There were a lot of people watching but that helped me to play well rather than put me under pressure.

Yahoo Sports

6 Red Snooker World Championship

2009-12-06T21:50:00.007Z

The first 6 Red Snooker World Championship, created by Ken Doherty, with seemingly 13 of the world's top 16 players arriving in Killarney for the four-day event, is running from December 15 to 18, right here in Ireland.

Competition details. Eurosport are covering it on the last 2 days, Thursday and Friday.

Jimmy might finally win a world professional title! This is too good a chance to miss - anyone want to join me in Killarney on Friday December 18th?

Irish Independent article

Can McIlroy pull it out of the fire?

2009-11-21T19:45:00.005Z

Moving to a sport about as far removed from professional football in every respect. Where cheating is just about unheard of, and players are known to call penalties on themselves as a matter of course. Rory McIlroy leads the European Order of Merit going into the final tournament in Dubai, this weekend. He's had a real ding-dong battle with Lee Westwood this year, leapfrogging him to the top spot only last week. But a triple bogey finish in his 3rd round now leaves him 5 behind the "veteran" Westwood, going into the final round. It's not over, but certainly a long-shot now. It's still been an incredible season from the Co. Down man, earning over €2.5 m in 2009, having only turned pro 2 years ago. (He is 20 years younger than yours truly!). Incredibly, Harrington has only won the Order of Merit once in his career (2006). Before that, you have to go back to '89 for Ronan Rafferty's win. In between, Monty won 7 times in a row, then a 6 year gap to win it again the year before Harrington. Maybe Padraig - level with McIlroy in Dubai now - can do McIlroy a favour by reeling in Westwood, who is guaranteed the Order of Merit if he wins this tournament. The incentive to win the Race to Dubai? A cool €1m prize money to top off the season. Nice.

Irish Times report here

Ban Henry for 8 months - A logical argument

2009-11-20T11:36:00.001Z

[This was written by my brother Jonathan]

I am an amateur footballer and have played competively every season for the last 24 years. I play both gaelic football and (soccer) football. Being an amatuer means I play the game for the love of the game. To play professionally was always a dream of mine (and still is!). Nevertheless I train hard and play fair every week. I would like to take this opportunity to knock a few holes in the arguments of those who cannot or will not accept the blatent reality that Henry is a cheat, did cheat intentionally, and in the interest of football and sport in general should be banned from competitive action for at least 8 months.
First lets look at his statement and analyse its implications -
“I will be honest, it was a handball. But I’m not the ref. I played it, the ref allowed it. That’s a question you should ask him.”.
Ok, so by that logic Henry is saying it is perfectly acceptable to cheat if you feel you have a chance of getting away with it, and it is the responsibility of the officials to determine who is cheating and who is competing fairly.
Therefore fair play is optional and at the discretion of the player, while justice is ambiguous and prone to misjudgement and human error.
Are we living on the same planet?
Graeme Souness says "it wasn't intentional, we've all done it, if you've been a professional for five minutes everybodies done it"
So by that logic to move from being an amateur to a professional one must accept and indeed practice the art of cheating. This is the same man who week in and week out slates the likes of Didier Drogba for diving, yet in this instance he has shown his true colours. He believes in cheating, he considers it necessary for professional sport.
Kevin Doyle (surprisingly) says "its a natural reaction, i don't blame the player, if he's done it and got away with it fair dues to him"
Perhaps Kevin is being overly generous, he himself is the epitomy of honesty and I do not believe for a second that had he been in that position he would have done the same. However he lives in a world where cheating is clearly endemic and seems to be brainwashed into believing in the logic of Henrys argument outlined above.
Kevin Kilbane says 'its not so much Theirry Henry, its the officials, the official should have seen it"
I am often accused of swimming against the tide, well so be it, I believe that cheating is cheating, it is totally dishonest and is the total responsibility of the perpetrator and not the officials charged with refereeing the affair. Would you excuse a blatant murderer, whom everyone knew was guilty and who admitted the offence simply because his trial collapsed on a technicality, i think not?

Now lets look at FIFA and the 'Fair Play' movement
Quoting directly from the FIFA Fair Play website...
"The Fair Play Campaign was conceived largely as an indirect result of the 1986 FIFA World Cup™ in Mexico, when the handball goal by Diego Maradona stimulated the admirable reaction of the England coach, Sir Bobby Robson" and "the campaign has...the unconditional support of ...current [FIFA] President Joseph S. Blatter"
...and from the Fair Play Code...
"1. Play Fair...Playing fair earns respect, while cheating only brings shame. Remember: it is only a game. And games are pointless unless played fairly."
"3. Observe the Laws of the Game"
"5. Promote the interests of football ... Think of football's interests before your own. Think how your actions may affect the image of the game.... Encourage other people to watch and play fairly."

Henry has clearly cheated, yet he has laid the blame at the feet of the referee, he has not observed the laws of the game and he has certainly not promoted the interests of football, in fact what he has done is encourage others to cheat if necessary and deflect responsibilty onto others.

He has clearly brought the game of footbal into disrepute.

"9. Denounce those who attempt to discredit our sport ... Do not be ashamed to stand up to anybody who you are sure is trying to make others cheat or engage in other unacceptable behaviour. It is better to expose them and have them removed before they can do any damage. It is equally dishonest to go along with a dishonest act. Do not just say no. Denounce those misguided persons who are trying to spoil our sport before they can persuade somebody else to say yes."

The Fair Play Campaign has the unconditional support of President Sepp Blatter. The argument is therefore clear and unambiguous, he must impose the principles of Fair Play if he is to have any credibility, he must remove Henry from football before he can do any [more] damage'.

The length of the ban is discretionary but at the very least it must include the World Cup, after all what meaning will a few flags with Fair Play written on them have at the greatest show on Earth if the men standing behind the flag are none other than Thierry Henry and Sepp Blatter?

If Blatter does not take the necessary action then it is he who must be removed from football be fore he can do any more damage!!!

Paris, the fallout. What next?

2009-11-20T09:27:00.003Z

Do any of you really think we should be taking to the streets, and marching on Zurich, to demand a replay? There is nothing in the rulebook to say this is likely to happen - this is not Clare-Offaly in '98. Referees and linesmen make mistakes all the time, it just happens that the consequence of this particular calamity is that France are going to the World Cup, and we are not. Brian Cowen has no place getting involved - this is a populist move by him, just saying what he wants us all to hear. If anything good comes of this, there is now pressure building to introduce video analysis and the Henry incident might be the catalyst. If in addition FIFA condemned what he did, and then put their words where there mouths are by banning him for the next (say) six World Cup matches his team plays - then I think that would be a result. I am as gutted as anyone else at what happened, but let's be honest - there are plenty of other reasons to be taking to the streets in these times.

Football is a laughing stock in 2009

2009-11-19T10:43:00.009Z

Association Football is now a laughing stock to the world. It's 2009 and FIFA are not using technology like other sports.

Using video replay are: Tennis, Rugby Union, NBA Basketball, NHL Ice Hockey, MLB Baseball, Rugby League, NFL American Football, Cricket, Rodeo, NASCAR motor racing.

The NFL first started experimenting with instant replay in 1986, 23 years ago. In the world cup final in 1966, it was England 2 Germany 2 after 90 minutes. In extra time Geoff Hurst took a shot at goal and the ball hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced down, a controversial goal. It's unfathomable that 43 years later, with so many sports having very successful adopted instant replay, that soccer still has this same problem unresolved.

Henry said he told the ref. Let's set some precedent now FIFA for once, like Liam Brady says let's have a replay on French soil.

Yankees look unstoppable

2009-10-27T10:51:00.009Z

Andy Pettitte

The Yankees won the last of their 26 World series with a trepeat victory in 2000 under Joe Torre. Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner, let Tore go in 2007, going stingy on the contract package, disgraceful but typical Steinbrenner behaviour, dissing Torre's 4 world series, 10 division titles and .606 winning percentage with the Yankees over 12 seasons. Torre now manages the Dodgers and took them to this year's National league championship where they were beaten 4-1 by the current Champions, the Philadelphia Phillies, denying him a match up with the Yankees at the big show. Since the Yankees last won there have been 7 different world series winners, including incredibly both sox and the Florida Marlins.

The Yankees pitching won them the American league Championship series over the LA Angels, with A-Rod steeping up as well, batting .438 with five homers and 12 RBIs, to win his first trip to the big show. Andy Pettitte pitched into the 7th inning to clinch the league and now has the most postseason wins in the history of Major League Baseball with his 16-9 record - during the period from 1995–2009, no major league pitcher has accumulated more victories. Closer, Mariano Rivera, added to his legendary status with two saves in the series, increasing his postseason-record to 37 overall. Starting pitcher CC Sabathia, who won the Cy Young with Cleveland Indians in 2007, won the MVP with two victories. Sabathia, who has a career batting average of .300, wants to hit against former teammate, 2008 Cy Young winner Cliff Lee, in the world series.

The Yankees, who won 103 games this season (.636), have home advantage for the world series which begins on Wednesday, Oct 28. Looking through the lineup, they may just have the best team off all-time.

The sky walker

2009-10-23T09:08:00.013+01:00

I've known about Dean Potter as an unreal solo climber and one of the last standing it seems with legends dying off.

Derek Hersey, a legend in Boulder, died in 1993, getting caught in a flash rain storm soling on El Cap.

Todd Skinner died in Yosemite in 2006 when the belay loop on his harness failed.

Michael Reardon was washed away by a rogues wave in Valentia, Co. Kerry in 2007
This year one of the alltime legends, John Bachar, died soloing in California at the age of 52.

I heard about a current Channel 4 series, Daredevils this week and last night watched "Sky Walker" online, the episode on Dean Potter Slacklining - walking across a tightrope with no pole or safety line at huge heights.

Sky Walker and other episodes can be watched for another 11 days online with Channel4 on demand available to watch in Ireland.

Combined ski-wingsuit-base jumping

2009-10-18T23:32:00.003+01:00

Extreme sports: the Rise and Fall of Shane McConkey
Observer, 18 Oct 2009

Irish skateboarding

2009-10-18T23:16:00.003+01:00

Irish times article from 17 Oct 2009.

Timeline’ is an exhibition of documentary photographs about skateboarding in Ireland by Richard Gilligan. Through a mixture of portraiture, action and small everyday moments ‘Timeline’ gives an insight into life as skateboarder in Ireland from the inside out. Shot over the past 14 years, this show is a visual journey of one photographers view of life both on and off his board.

The exhibition will open Tuesday 3rd of November at PLANE/SITE Gallery on Lad Lane, Dublin 2 at 7pm and will run until Sunday the 8th of November.

Hurling county medal at 48

2009-10-18T22:32:00.001+01:00

Damien Fox (48) won an Offaly senior hurling medal with Offaly today as Tullamore claimed their first Offaly title in 45 years as they beat Kilcormac/Killoughey 2-12 to 0-11.

They beat St Ryanagh's and Birr on the path to the final.

Sunday tribune article on Damien Fox on 11 October 2009

October means one thing

2009-10-18T16:55:00.010+01:00

Baseball playoffs.

I was hooked when I saw Cecil Fielder (Big. Very big. Positively Fat. Past it. But still well able to hit the ball) hit a home run for the Yankees in the '96 playoffs on the way to taking the World Series under Joe Torre. Now Torre is managing the LA Dogers in the National League Conference finals against the current champions, Philadelphia Phillies.

More so than any team sport, this is a series of man to man confrontations where there is nowhere to hide. This is when true winners stand up and are counted and average players with good regular season stats are found out.

Yankees game 2 against LA Angels started at 1am last night in a cold, wet and windy Yankee Stadium. Great pitching duel was tied 2-2 after 9 innings to send the game into extra innings. Angels get a run in the top of the 11th - then Alex Rodriguez hits the tying run on a 0-2 count in the bottom of the 11th. No scores in the 12th, Angels fail to score in top of 13th.

Bottom of the 13th, Yankees 1 out with runners on 1st and 2nd. Easy hit to the second baseman Izturis should ensure that the both runners advance and batter will be out. However, in a moment of madness, he throws wildly to second base in hope of getting two outs - flies over the shortstop at second and Yankess bring one home. Cue massive celebrations after a marathon 5 hour 10 minute game.

Just one of the fantastic finishes we have seen in the American and National League Championships. Unpredictable, nerve-racking with key games decided both on moments of genius and schoolboy errors. Only pity is the timing of the games - I just tell myself that I'm practicing for the imminent arrival of the baby!

The sun always shines in West Cork. Eventually.

2009-09-21T13:51:00.010+01:00

We didn't head to West Cork - the Sheep's Head peninsula to be exact - for the weather. So three days in, it wasn't the biggest surprise that it had rained almost incessantly. Chilling out after Electric Picnic, and the long drive down, was all very well - but cabin fever was beginning to set in & I was nearly through my first book. Tuesday night, we went for a stroll from the house - was that the sun we saw setting?

Next morning, we awoke to glorious sunshine and blue skies. Big breakfast, made packed lunch, bikes on the car-rack and we headed towards Crookhaven to a spot we'd biked around before. The roads there are fairly quiet & it's not too hilly - Ruby adds 20kg to my load, so it's a good workout.

Up and over towards Barley Cove, beautiful beach, but not safe to swim I'm told. Richenda took this picture of cows being driven across the lagoon, a bizarre sight - particulary the crazed farmer who abandoned his car in the middle of the road - door still swinging open of course - and started chasing what we can only presume (or hope) were his own cattle.

We were getting close to Mizen Head now, but had been a couple of times - it's really just a carpark, so why not try something different? I had an OS map so picked another route. We probably didn't see another car again, good move. Half hour later through spectacular farmland -
with the obligatory crazed sheepdogs - and coastline, we came to this - Dunlough Bay.

Time for lunch.

Saw a huge seal - he came right in to check us out.

There was a slipway here - chatted to a lad who told us that this is where the huge cocaine haul happened a couple of years ago. That'll be the last time yer man puts diesel into a petrol engine.

There was a closed gate here with signs - No Camping; No Cars etc. Spoke to the farmer who had no problem with us biking on through his land. I guess farmers get a bad rap in relation to access - The Bull up at Ben Bulben comes to mind (I think he just shoots hikers) - but shure they're not ALL bad. We soon abandoned the bikes, and the pace slowed as we negotiated the trail which seemed to heading towards a well-known (to tourists anyway) castle. Up over the ridge, and there it was - right on the coast, steep cliffs behind, and in front of a lake. One of the nicest places I've been in Ireland, and not a person in sight. On a bit further, carrying Aster on my shoulders now, and keeping well away from the edges.

Stayed as long as we could, and headed back to the bikes. Knew we'd have to negotiate those sheepdogs on the return trip. I let Richenda go first, knowing that the second bike through had more chance of being chased - sure enough, she was around the corner before the dogs knew what was happening. But, they had me well lined up - very quiet they were too, always a worry. I couldn't really swing a boot at them with Ruby sitting at the back, so it was head down, and a bit of roaring (after trying Nice Doggy first) and we were through. Whew.

If you've never been to Crookhaven, it's probably the nicest village in the country. Set right in a harbour, with views to Fastnet Rock and Cape Clear on one side, and gannets diving in the bay on the other. O'Sullivans pub is on the quayside. A little beach there for the girls to play in, and we settled in for probably the nicest pint of stout I've ever had - I tried ordering a Guinness, and the landlord mumbled something about that "foreign beer". What else could I do?

A perfect day, and it wasn't over yet. I would have been happy with one of these days, but we had four more before leaving on Sunday. Jammy feckers, I know...

Philip Deignan wins a Grand tour stage

2009-09-19T23:08:00.004+01:00

Philip Deignan won the 165km 18th stage at the Vuelta a España on 17 September. He becomes only the 5th Irishman to win a stage in a Grand tour after Elliot, Roche, Kelly and Earley, 17 years since the last, in the tour in 92 by Roche.

He has a while to go before he matches Sean Kelly 16 Vuelta a España stage wins, who won his first at 23 with Deignan now 26.

Bolt repeats Olympic feat

2009-08-21T22:56:00.002+01:00

Usain Bolt repeated his Olympics feat by winning both the 100m and 200m at the World Championship in Berlin in world records times. Seemingly his motor bike crash in April affected his 200m training but not his 100m. He was still able to run it in 19.19 seconds — taking 0.11 seconds off his own World Record.

Perfect game

2009-07-29T23:09:00.003+01:00

A perfect game is when a pitcher allows no player to reach base, so they can't can't allow any hits, walks, or hit batsmen. So, by definition, a perfect game must be both a no-hitter and a shutout. 27 up, 27 down.

The feat has been achieved only 18 times in the history of major league baseball, 7 of which have happened in the 20 years I've been following the beautiful game.

On July 23, 2009, Chicago White Sox leftie pitcher Mark Buehrle pitched the 18th perfect game in major league history (his 2nd no-hitter). Amazingly it was the very first game he had worked with the catcher. He was assisted by a wall-climbing catch to record the first out in the 9th inning and rob a home run which would have ruined the perfect game.

On July 28, Buehrle followed up with another 5 2/3 innings of perfection to set the major league record for consecutive batters retired at 45.

Waterford city trails

2009-06-18T00:14:00.011+01:00

Today was Irish Bike to work day but with the torrential this morning I wendied out. Rime to put the balance right with an evening ride.

After a 4.5 hour Yugma conference with San Francisco finished at 20.30, I wanted to clear the head and taking advantage of the great long evenings, 40 minutes later I was on the bike. Trying to follow McG's example and get a weekly evening ride in, I've been linking up trails I've been walking with Malie by the river and exploring more too. After 8 minutes on the road I'm tucking down into some gorgeous singletrack through Goffs Woods by the River Suir. This only lasts 2 or 3 minutes but leads onto a tasty paved track around the King's Channel peninsula. Past the spot where I recently had a picture taken with John Gormley.

I was promoting Waterford bringing the River Suir back to the people with local election green candidate, Maria Raftis-Kennedy, and she had an opportunity to show John Gormley one thing and decided to go with the river walk trail I was promoting.

However the proposed linear river walk is blocked in a number of places by private residences, including a jetty - e.g. at the west end of Goffs woods, where I started the singletrack tonight is a fence which has been erected for some time, completely blocking the trail.

Actually the Waterford City council have included in the last few city development plans, a riverside “corridor” from the Marina Hotel out to the far reaches of Waterford Castle island. Indeed looking at the current plan it lays out an objective in section 2.4.5 “ To provide for a riverside Walk and cycleway along the southern bank of the Suir from Canada Street to Blenheim”

But I digress. Onto some more nice track through the trees leads onto the approach road for the Waterford Castle Island ferry. I wave at the captain who waves back, for the first time I am the only one on board.

A short 100m off the ferry and I am onto a perfect trail through the trees, immediately on entering the birds are in full song and it reminds me of entering the rain forests in New Zealand, no birds there just an overriding sense of peace. A short section thought the trees on the south side of the island and then up on the west for a bit before it runs out at the golf course and I turn around. Back on the mainland I pass the road I went up last Wednesday night, and ended up with a bloody knee after going over the handlebars riding blind on a short steep bit of singletrack I came across.

I tried another road and this lead me into another section of the track I had walked with Malie. I was on dirt now and passed a short steep dirt drop coming out from some trees above. I kept going 'til the trail ran out in Bleinheim and checked the computer, 10K. Coming back I saw some kids disappear at the side of the fence and turned back to try that way. It lead me to the top of the drop off. I stopped for a look. It was too steep to walk down, bugger it, I'll drop it.....should have lowered my saddle, need to move the quick release off my hard tail. It was the weirdest endo ever. My back wheel was in the air, bike pointing vertically down and my shoe came out of the pedal and as the bike momentarily stopped my toes were in the spokes of the front wheel. Then I came forward and fell on my, now in ice, knee.

The kids must have heard something and appeared shouting down are you all right? I'm grand I said, I just hurt my goolies. Damn that crossbar. A couple of minutes later I was back on the bike and noticed the break lever was pointing straight up!

Stretch in the Evenings

2009-06-17T22:22:00.003+01:00

You've just got to love these long summer evenings, and I've been trying to get out for a midweek pedal every week. So last night, left home at 9 for a quick spin. I had in mind to check out a new (walking) trail I'd spotted last time out. It was about half way through my loop, at the highest point. A new 400 m. boardwalk through the trees to an unremarkable peak called Cruagh Mountain. The walkway was built with railway sleepers, two in parallel, climbing with a step more or less on each pair of sleepers. In other words, it wasn't possible to ride up.

So a 10 minute push & lift brought me to the top. Obviously the intention was to turn around and ride it straight down again. Obviously keeping an eye out for any poor walkers who might be about, but I hadn't seen a single person since leaving the house. A couple of tricky corners, maybe a bit too fast here and there, but managed to make it down without stepping off or catapulting into the bog below. I was also counting the steps as I went - I suppose it would have been easier to do so on the way up. 110, for the record. Great buzz, have to try that again. A prime spot for some youtube moments using the new helmet headcam we brought to Wales.

Downhill all the way home now, and noticing that the air was thick with what I first thought was drizzle. But I soon realised that rain doesn't itch and that the entire forest was literally swarming with tiny flies. It was a warm, humid evening, and it seemed that every midge in the Dublin mountains had decided to hatch all at once. Thankfully, I had my Sliders to hand - yellow lenses already in place - and popped them on. In general, handy for protecting the eyes from twigs and branches when in the trees.

It's not unusual to see deer around here, usually small sikas - especially at sunset. But nearly ran over a big stag, just standing in the middle of the track - big antlers on him. A brief staring match ensued, before he thought better of messing with me and scaled a fence, bounding away. No more than a minute later, a fox ran across straight in front of me.

An eventful night in the hills. Enough reason to post a blog? Why not....

The madness must end

2009-06-16T11:12:00.009+01:00

In 1992, Sir Alex bought Keano for £3.75m from Brian Clough. Now Real Madrid have bought Ronaldo from United for £80m. Man City can buy anyone for cash and double their wages. The madness has to stop!

Federer on his own

2009-06-09T11:30:00.003+01:00

He did it!! Roger Federer won the French open. There is no doubt that Federer will win another grand slam and have the all-time record, which he now shares with Sampras (14), on his own.

Federer has collected his 14 major championships in 40 grand slam tournaments at the age of 27. Sampras beat Andre Agassi in the 2002 US Open final at 31 in his last match and 52nd grand slam.

Pete Sampras - "What he's done over the past five years has never, ever been done – and probably will never, ever happen again. Regardless if he won there or not, he goes down as the greatest ever. This just confirms it." (source : Guardian)

Federer still has records to chase. The ultimate I suspect will be the golden career slam, adding the Olympic singles title at Wimbledon in 2012. Federer will be 31 then. Agassi won his last Grand slam in Australia, when he was 32. Sampras and Connors won the US Open at 31. After that the only record remaining is to win all 4 grand slams in the same year, like Laver (63 and 69) and Budge.

With Nadal on the scene I wouldn't have thought these additional feathers in his cap possible, but with patellar tendonitis having reared it's head for Nadal, one of sports greatest rivalries might be denied it's expected ongoing culminating battles.

Nadal (seeing a specialist in Barcelona) did not watch the final. "I will send Roger my congratulations," he said. "He deserves to win it more than anybody else." (source : Guardian)

Laver, Perry, Emerson, Budge, Agassi....

2009-06-05T01:01:00.007+01:00

Perhaps the writing was on the wall. A couple of weeks ago, Federer, who hadn't won a title all year and had lost five straight matches to Rafael Nadal, including the first major of the year, the Australian Open final in January, beat Nadal on clay to win in Spain.

Last Sunday, 31 May 2009, Nadal was beaten for the very first time at the French Open by 24 year old Swede Robin Söderling, in his 32nd game there. It was the first time he was beaten in a clay court five setter after winning the previous 48. Söderling is still on course to meet Federer in the final, provided both of them win their semi finals.

All of a sudden Federer, who in last year's final with Nadal won only four games, sees his chance to become the sixth player in history to win all four grand slam events. Joining Pete Sampras on 14th grand slams is entirely secondary at this point.

Allez Roger!

Biking etc.

2009-05-26T16:31:00.004+01:00

Irish lad just came 2nd in the Tour de Catalunya... to a drugs cheat. Only 15 seconds behind.

"Earlier in the day Alejandro Valverde, who is ranked among the leading riders in the world but could not compete in the Giro because of a drugs ban, took overall victory in the Tour of Catalunya in Spain. Valverde completed the week-long course with a 15-second advantage over runner-up Daniel Martin of Ireland."

More on this and the Giro here.

Also, you may have heard that Garbhán's brother-in-law, Paul Healion, won a stage of the Milk Rás last week. He looks pretty happy crossing the line - scroll down here.

On a related topic, I came 49th of 90+ riders in a mountain-bike race a couple of weeks ago. I think I'll stick to the day job.

United: The Golden Era

2009-05-25T10:13:00.004+01:00

"Manchester United is my home. My heart is here. This is where I want to play. The boss believes in this team and so do I."

“We are part of an era that can go down in history for the way we are playing and for the trophies we are winning. The boss believes in this team and so do I. And this is where I want to be.”

“Ever since I joined United the manager has been like a father. No matter how good I become, I know he is a man who will always be able to teach me that little bit more. I don’t just respect him, I have the affection for him a child has for his father.”

Sources: Ronaldo in Guardian & Irish Times

John O'Shea to start in Champion's League Final

2009-05-21T12:02:00.008+01:00

"John O'Shea is an unsung hero like Denis Irwin. We used to say about Denis he was an eight out of 10 every week. But he didn't get the celebrity. John O'Shea falls into that category. Because of the injuries to Gary Neville and Wes Brown this year, he has become a permanent fixture. He takes his place in Rome because of his effort. He's ahead of everyone now."

Source: Alex Ferguson in Guardian

Champions League quarter-final 2003

Updated 26 May O'Shea the man for all seasons - James Lawton in the Irish Independent

The state of snooker 2009

2009-04-30T12:08:00.007+01:00

The four snooker semi finalists have 25 centuries between then, including 8 from Mark Allen. Can he rekindle the spirit of Dennis in '85 this weekend?

Two of the semi finalists, John Higgins and Shaun Murphy are joining Ken Doherty and Jimmy White in Killarney in 2 weeks time, on 17 May, for a World Series of Snooker event. See ye there!

John Higgins beat Mark Selby in the quarters in a replay of the 2007 final. The 13-12 result was as close as it gets. Mark Selby had 10 centuries in the tournament and is surely the best performer ever to go home before the one table setup. John Higgins comments after the match are a great summary of the state of snooker in 2009.

"I really don't know how I won. My concentration has been great, and during the match I was trying to concentrate on how many balls Mark missed. I only counted 3 or 4 during the whole match, the other times he ran out of positon through bad luck, so to beat him I'm flabbergasted because he's such a great player. It's my best win ever, definitely."

"That shows how highly I regard Mark and his performance, I'm not just saying that because it's after the match. When we had the 2 reracks, he said let's call it a draw because there shouldn't be a loser, and I said you're dead right mate. I don't know how I held myself together on that last break."

"If can't take confidence from beating Jamie Cope and Mark, I never will."

"I kept thinking why does Mark always do this against me? Only Ronnie playing great stuff has stopped him winning another Masters, and the UK when he made a 147 in the last frame. It speaks volumes that only Ronnie has been able to stop him. I could tell after the 2007 final, I said he'll come back and win this, because he's improved beyond belief over the last 2 or 3 years."

"I know I'm the oldest player left and I look it with the grey hair! I heard Ronnie saying that we're hanging on with our fingertips, and that's what myself, Ronnie and Mark Williams are doing. Stephen doesn't need to because he's got 150 grand in his pocket. We were the best players of the late 90s, and now in late 2000s we're hanging on to compete, because Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, Stephen Maguire, Mark Allen and Jamie Cope, they are the future and that's what happens, it's father time. The likes of John Parrott and Jimmy White were hanging on when we were coming through."

"I kissed my wedding ring at the end, I've seen other people jumping about and going crazy, so that's my way. My wife said me and Mark are both playing great, just carry on and hope to get to 13 first."

"Mark Allen is a breath of fresh air for the game, he's got a bit about him. Under the cosh, to beat Ronnie and Ryan, he just breezed through with no nerves. There's four left and we've all got a great chance, it should be two great semis. There's no tiredness because the semis are spread over three days. I've only played Mark once - at the (2005) Northern Ireland Trophy, and he gubbed me 4-1."

Source: World Snooker

Slam Dunk

2009-03-20T09:30:00.003Z

If they weren't motivated for tomorrow's game, they are now. Thanks for that Warren. But really, what were you thinking?

I'm expecting a tight (in score) and open (in style) game, and I think we will prevail. There will be nerves & pressure, but they've been here before - as has Kidney - and when it comes down to it, we have better players man for man, and more to play for.

Enjoy the game lads, where are ye watching it? I'll be at home, trying to explain the ELV's to Ruby and Aster (Richenda already knows them...).

P.S. I heard a clip of a BOD sketch from The Emergency which will be broadcast Sat. morning @ 11:30, worth checking out perhaps.

Ballinastoe MTB trail

2009-03-15T23:50:00.011Z

For the record: Tom 1hr 30min, McG 1 hr 16 min

Right so having been in training since mid January for the April Welsh mountain bike trip, today's spin with McG and Paul would be a measure of how buggered I really was!

Ballinastoe is Ireland's most technical Coillte MTB trail (all designed by Dafydd Davis), much more so than anything in Ballyhoura. Having being riding forest roads in Waterford, the last time I had been on anything this technical was my only other trip to Ballinastoe at the end of May 2008. I did feel the difference, one does just not need the same level of concentration on non technical ground. I'm not sure there had been any more felling since my last visit but all the chopped trees had certainly been gathered and chopped.

The trail is 13.7km long with about 9km of singletrack with one decent boardwalk - which was a lot more fun that riding slippy boardwalks in a storm.

At the western edge of the trail it's well worth the 2 minute ride over to an overview Lake Tay and a great view of Lugnaquilla. Perfect spot for a picnic too.

Right behind this stopping point I got my first view of the Djouce boardwalk. This kind of infrastructure is a great development in Irish hill walking and long may it continue.

My wrist and hands were aching at the end, McG's were grand - I'm not sure how one can compete on the hills with a man who has biked to work every day for the last 4 years or something! I'm not too unhappy with 90 minutes when 2 hours is recommended by Coillte...ok grabbing at straws here!

McG gets it off his chest

2009-03-11T20:27:00.004Z

Two bronzes in Euro indoors last weekend, and many other great performances - Ireland can compete to some degree at this level - but Worlds & Olympics seem beyond us now. Of course Mary Cullen should have had at least silver, beaten by an Ethiopian running for Turkey. Deja vu here, having already lost out on bronze in the Euro Cross Country, that time by a Kenyan running in Dutch colours. Most other sports have strict guidelines on international representation - Mafi played a sevens game for NZ - once! - and can never play for Ireland now. It's a shambles, no better than Sonia cheated out of the medals in the World Champs all those years ago....

Speaking of shambles, Gerald McCarthy finally steps down - his statement is well worth a read. It is mostly dignified & honest, with a few swipes too and parting shots - fair play. The Cork hurlers are a disgrace - really, who do they think they are? They wanted to be involved in choosing the manager, which they were. But what they really wanted was to pick the manager themselves, with no involvement from any other parties. I'm sure we'd all like to pick our boss. So then they strike, and refuse to talk to any mediator or enter any negotiations until McCarthy is ousted. I can only hope they have set Cork hurling back many years. Kilkenny will be laughing all the way to their 4th All-Ireland.

Kidney makes 4 changes - certainly some were expected, but no-one would have called these (even Harty?). Great to see him mix it up - this team is just as strong, and those coming in will be hungry and motivated to keep their places for the potential Grand Slam game in Wales. Scotland will be tough- remember the single point win 2 years ago? Out of jail that day. But they should prevail.

Sunday Spin

2009-03-08T20:01:00.012Z

Sometimes the weekend schedule only allows for a quick spin from home, and with my folks up to visit, this was one of those weekends. A sudden drop in temperature Saturday night, we'd already had some hail & sleet over breakfast, and the hills around were white. Packed & dressed accordingly, leaving the house in cold sunshine. Up the same lane I'd carried my board a few weeks ago - this time the weather was going to be even more varied. The clouds raced in bringing sleet, then hail - horizontal of course. Need I mention the wind? And just to spice things up, a few good claps of thunder. So, climbing suddenly didn't seem like such a good idea. But the upside was that with a mere 35 minutes investment, I was on top of 3 Rock. Not much hanging about here - it might have qualified as a blizzard at this stage - but enough time to appreciate the views - snow to the horizon on one side, Howth and the coast on the other. A quick snack, on with another layer, and then down the other side.

The handy thing about biking in snow is that there are wheel tracks to follow, and I decided to follow some into a trail I'd not spotted before. Nothing better than finding new trails. This one was gentle, winding through the pines, on a soft bed of needles and powder. Complete silence now, like the gliding of a board off-piste - nothing like it. Magic. From this, more tracks led to another new trail, this one much rougher and a bit of a white-knuckle ride. At the bottom, I encountered a "bombhole" with more tracks in and out. This is the kind of thing I just can't resist, and after a brief staring match, decided to go for it. These are never as hard as they look, and so it proved. A strategically placed tree was avoided - man and bike live to ride another day.

Back on the road, past the Blue Light - resisting its temptations - and rolled home. Sun shining again of course. Door to door just over the hour. Perfect.

Ireland v England

2009-02-27T22:25:00.004Z

Tom asked us to step up. I don't aspire to do a Harty, but here goes.

Ten minutes to go in Stade de France tonight, I find myself rooting for the home team. Not just because it means Wales have less (though at least a Triple Crown) to play for when we play them in Cardiff. But because France deserved to win. They were simply awesome.
So I guess that makes our win against them three weeks ago all the more impressive? Perhaps.
Marc Lievremont is a mad genius. Maybe. Their best performance of the season to date, and this without an outhalf.
France can now win the Championship. Hmmm.
Gavin Henson (did we need further proof?) is an idiot. Three minutes to go. Overlap of 2 players outside him. And he goes for glory. Chance gone. Tit.
We should beat England tomorrow, but not by much and it probably won't be pretty.
Stringer and D'Arcy unlucky not to be starting tomorrow. But they should still play key roles.
O'Gara needs to get his shit together. No better time than against the English. Ditto O'Leary, please stop kicking the ball away.
I think we will win the Grand Slam. Why? One word. Kidney.
John Hayes to score the winning try against Wales.

Enjoy the weekend lads. I'm planning an afternoon pedal, rolling into the Blue Light for 5pm or so to watch the match over a few pints. And then it's stabilisers on and downhill all the way home.

thought for the day

2009-02-27T15:09:00.002Z

Hey,

Met this bloke today, used to know at school,

We didnt say hello, cos he'd had his hair slightly permed and I'd all mine shaved off,

He was always a bit of a CLOWN,

But he did his homework, cos he knew that one day he'd be going places.

I knew I should've asked him there and then,

Was he happy, now that he'd finally GOT THERE?

He goes to bed thinking of ways to fiddle ten more pounds on his expenses.

Me?...

I go to bed thinking of all the reason why...

I AM THE GREATEST!

(Sorry to pollute a sporting blog, but I think it had to be said)

6+5 rule

2009-02-26T14:44:00.003Z

Fifa endorsed the 6+5 rule in May 2008. The 6+5 rule establishes that at the start of each match, a club must field at least six players who would be eligible for the national team of the country of the club.

There would be no limit on substitutes and no limit on the number of non-national players that clubs can sign.

Seemingly, the Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, is determined to see the 6+5 rule in place by the start of the 2012-13 season. Fifa's plans to limit the number of foreign players do not breach European Union rules, an independent report declared today.

How would Benitez and Wenger cope?

Guardian article

6N 09

2009-02-09T11:01:00.003Z

Difficult not to get carried away by Saturday night and, overall, the weekend points to a showdown with Wales. Ranking them in difficulty, Saturday's game was #2 out of the five so to get over it with a victory was a great achievement.

I only watched the 1st half of Scotland vs. Wales because the game was over by then. It was a complete mis-match and dreadful for the neutral fan. If Ireland can put more than 20 points on the board, they will beat them, regardless of how much the Scots drag it down. Italy away will be tough, but if the forwards can take the hits and break even , we will win that one.

The one match that could be a bit sticky, if we are complacent, will be England. The English pack is good but lacking form. If they come good and bring in Shaw for Borthwick they will be awkward to deal with. If they bomb in Cardiff and decide to have a back three shoot-out with us in Croke Park, it could be a bit hairy yet.

One worry from Saturday is the amount of lineout ball O'Connell called on himself. I am surprised that Donncha was not used more often and it also seems to be a comment that our back row is not too lineout friendly. Neither Heaslip nor Ferris look light enough for regular lifting. Wallace is used very rarely, even by Munster (though this could be because Quinlan is good option). Having said all that, O'Connell was immense on Saturday in taking clean ball.

Anyway, it is onwards and upwards for now.

Alpe des Trois Roches

2009-02-08T20:45:00.020Z

One week now since the Snows Came, and our garden snowman is still alive - albeit slightly deformed - and in between, there were ten commutes the like of which I've never experienced. But that's not what this post is about so I'll not bore you (ice, snow, sub-zero temperatures - you get the idea). Yesterday afternoon (Saturday), after a morning minding Ruby & Aster, I was itching to get out into the hills, this time without wheels. So with about 3 hours daylight remaining, my neighbour Adrian and I decided to head for Tibradden. A local hill, 5 minutes in the car, about 440m elevation.

Richenda had already been up 3 Rock with Adrian's wife, and I was rushing so didn't hear how they'd got on. 'Bring Gaitors' was the advice, duly noted. To cut a long story short, we hiked up and down in 2 hours, and it was magical up there, a perfect blue sky day. One foot of snow at the bottom, and - no exaggeration - 3 to 4 feet deep on top, almost impossible to take a step without sinking. This is the Dublin Mountains, I am up here a lot, and have never seen anything even close to this. We noticed that it wasn't just any old snow either - this was powder, dry, fluffy. Would it be too crazy to snowboard this?

That night, it was up to the attic and down with all the gear - bindings on, set back for powder conditions. Boots, gloves, goggles, helmet - this was like packing for a ski holiday. Next morning, it had started snowing again, but visibility looked good. Attempts to round up others were unsuccessful - lame excuses such as lack of snowboard etc. Fair enough. Into the car, happy to make it out of the estate - which is still an ice rink - without totalling the vehicle. A three minute drive, to save 30 minutes walking. Parked and strapped the board onto my rucksack. It was raining now, but I had a fair idea this would turn to snow as I climbed.

Into Kilmashogue forest, up and up, lots of people out and a few stares when they saw the board. They wanted me to pull some moves for them, but it wasn't high enough or steep enough yet. Sorry. Onwards and upwards. It was getting colder now, and wet too but it suddenly cleared and it was time to take the camera out. How else would anyone believe the amount of snow up there? 90 minutes from the car I was on top of 3 Rock, famous for the huge masts and great views of the city and Dublin Bay, across to Howth.

I saw 2 cross-country skiers, a number of mountain bikers, and lots of walkers - it was somewhat surreal. Then it got even stranger - as I was strapping on the board, I see a guy walking towards me with a... yep, snowboard. He was French, on a weekend in Dublin and had borrowed the gear from a friend. He beat me to it by about 10 seconds, so I was at best the 2nd person to board the Dublin Mountains (today, if not ever). Ah well. I followed the forest track all the way down to Ticknock, my first time on a board in 2 years, so not exactly ripping it up - sorry Tom.

Trying not to take out hikers was the big challenge. Some stared, some said Hi or Wow, others pretended to be uninterested like they see skiers and boarders up here every weekend. Got into a groove and only had to stop and push once before the car park. The buzz was only somewhat spoiled by some clown in a Fiesta trying to drive up the mountains in foot deep snow. Muppet.

45 minutes hiking to get back to the car, but spirits were good if unused leg muscles somewhat sore. Overall a big effort to pull this off, for maybe 15 minutes return - not quite ski-in-ski-out. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Once in a lifetime? Perhaps, but there may be more snow on the way so I wouldn't rule out another spin in the week ahead. I had certainly ruled out heading to the Alps for a ski holiday this season, but as someone once said - "you never know what you're gonna get".

Some photos attached for the disbelievers.

Portumna Forest Park

2009-01-27T22:04:00.012Z

For the record: Tom rode the Bonaveen and Rinmaher trails totalling 20k, with multiple photo stops, in 2.5 hours.

Having got buzzed from riding in the eye of the storm at Ballyhoura the previous weekend, Saturday was the turn of Portumna forest park.

Portumna forest park is on the North bank of Lough Derg and is only 480 hectares. What a superb job Coilte has done with these 2 trails. There is also a small beginner loop, Woodland Trail. This is a perfect place to start mountain biking. It is only 1 hour drive from UL in Limerick.

Who says bikes and hikers can't mix!

There actually is a golf course in the middle of the forest and both trails cross the car park at club entrance.

Golf course crossing

There is a wooden bridge and some small sections of boardwalk but the terrain does not need it as much as in Ballyhoura.

The previous week's storm was evident with one tree uprooted and fallen on the trail.

As the map shows both trails share the start, where they split, the natural way to go is the green Rinmaher, on a really sweet fast section. There are not really hills but it's not totally flat either.

Night biking!

Coming around a sharp corner I saw some evidence people have been night biking here with a reflector strapped to a tree. This would be the perfect location for night biking and with my new lights recommended by McG I am aiming to have my first night biking experience since Bottle Forest in Christchurch in 2000, soon.

Going south where the trails parts ways leads one towards Lough Derg and circumventing Bonaveen point - just gorgeous riding and scenery, so peaceful.

Note that according to a posted sign the toilets are closed for the Winter and early spring because of water pipe damage. Hopefully these can be fixed sooner rather than later - I had to bury my waste.

Hopefully a trip to Derroura in Galway is not in the too distant future, In the meantime with my in-laws 25 minutes drive from Portumna I plan on visiting frequently!

Munster V Sale, 16 Jan 09

2009-01-20T16:29:00.003Z

A few observations are worth mentioning.

I will always take the view that more is learned in defeat than victory. I think a good starting point for Munster's preparations would be to look at a video analysis of the Sale performance - as will be prepared by the Sale coaching staff - and realize that no team is going to play that badly or stupidly against them again this season. The Ulster game video should remain on special offer as a reminder of what less than 100% commitment gets you, and not be consigned to the archives.

Sale's approach to defending in the three quarters was a joke. They gave Munster acres of space. If you looks the pass forward pass that Earls threw, and butchered a certain try, the defence is shocking. Not only did Earl's pass land well ahead of Dowling, it also landed well
ahead of the Sale backs which shows you how far they were standing off the Munster backs. Against a team like Wasps with a blitz defence that pass wouldn't have been on at all.

Tomas O'Leary has had a great season but he has to stop stepping before passing and stop getting caught out clearing the ball from rucks.

I hope that McGahan has the confidence to back the Warwick at 15, Earls at 13 experiment. This would be tough on Tipoki but I really think injuries have put paid to his form and his season. Earls is priceless and a real threat at 13 while Warwick is ultimately a very good footballer who slots in to all of the back 5 positions. Kidney wasn't afraid to drop Stringer last season and he brought in Denis Hurley for Shaun Payne. I think McGahan has to aim to get his best players on the pitch in the back 5 positions. With players of natural talent such as Warwick, Earls and Howlett, he can do this. Barry Murphy, too, is already a victim of this policy, he is a specialist, but average, 13 who is not really Heineken standard.

Across last season and this one so far I am struck by how Munster have got into the heads of their opponents. Gloucester blew it by missing three 1st half gimme penalties. Saracens couldn't keep their cool in the last 10 mins in Coventry; and Toulouse lost it mentally in the final in Cardiff. Brock James missed a pivotal drop goal chance 6 minutes from time in December in TP when all Clermont had to do was keep the ball tight. By forcing the issue they handed Munster a chance that was taken emphatically.

Munster are not a Kilkenny, in the sense that they do not gratuitously murder weak opposition, but they are very Kilkenny-like in the business end of the season. More than any other team they seem to understand the fact that six games in a group does not allow you the luxury of losing any game - losing in the sense that you get nothing at all from the game. Therefore, they have developed the ability to go away from home and either win or get a losing bonus point. If you look at the 17 group matches since the start of the successful 05/06 campaign to now, the 1st match - when the lost 27-15 to Sale, is the only time they have failed to take at least a point from a match. Even when they lost to Leicester in January 07, they got a losing bonus point.

People may talk about strength, skill and spirit, but brains are pretty important too.

Ballyhoura Biking Brutal Battering

2009-01-19T17:11:00.006Z

For the record...

Tom, Kev McG, Conor and Trevor did the Mount Russell loop (17km) in about 2:40, including stops (scheduled and otherwise).

Andy & Dave did the Garrane loop (35km) in about 3:15, and saw at least 3 trees falling.

On balance, a successful outing, despite the Atrocious, Abysmal and Appalling conditions. Certainly not a day for first timers, let alone experienced bikers - I have never experienced anything quite like it, certainly not on a bike. It was the kind of day on which I would normally think twice about going out into the back garden. So, big respect to all for getting yourselves and your machines around in one piece. If it's any consolation, Andy & I were out there even longer, and were in genuine mortal danger when we started to see trees falling in close proximity. Actually, the extra miles we did were no harder than what the others biked and the boardwalks (which we all did) are by far the most difficult part of the trail - Kev witnessed me coming off them pretty hard last year (I'm sure he didn't laugh). So how did it come to pass that we were mountain-biking during the worst 3 hour period of weather in living memory? Tom picked the weekend, and I picked the time and day, so I guess we share the blame. I don't think I noticed the wind or rain after a while, a neat trick of disengaging my brain from my body. What about those hot showers at the end though? Heavenly.

See Ballyhoura website here.

Pics from last year (© Kev McG):

What's next for Usain Bolt

2008-12-16T11:58:00.007Z

Usain Bolt beat MJ's 12 year old record of 19.32 for the 200m in Beijing. He's now thinking about going after MJ's 400m world record of 43.18 in 2010. Currently his PB stands at 45.28. Look at his 200m progression, after the unreal Olympics he's had why not the 400m!

Stephen Ireland

2008-12-15T16:13:00.005Z

I must say that I have loved watching the very talented Stephen Ireland playing this season. Word on the street (from Tom at least) is that he might make it back into the Irish team. Would surely be great to see.
Martin

Liverpool are not a big club says Benitez

2008-12-12T12:05:00.007Z

"For me Valencia and Liverpool are similar - for them to win, the bigger clubs have to do badly,"

Guardian 12 Dec 2008

Munster V All Blacks rematch

2008-09-30T14:43:00.004+01:00

According to the Irish Independent THE IRFU have confirmed that Ireland will not release their Munster players for the province's match against New Zealand at Thomond Park on November 18.