PRESENT TENSE:A FEW THOUGHTS came to my head as I cradled it in my hands at the All Blacks game at Croke Park last weekend, writes SHANE HEGARTY
It occurred to me that if my seat had been one of those leather vibrating massage chairs, then it might have gone halfway to justifying the IRFU's outrageous €80 ticket price.
I was despondent at the thought that we could end up looking back at the supposed golden age of Irish rugby as one during which the national team won nothing of any real value.
And, not for the first time, I was taken aback by the size of the players on the pitch. If you watch footage of internationals from about 15 years ago your first thought is to wonder why the ball-boys are going hammer and tongs at each other. Then you realise that they're simply the pre-makeover versions of the rugby players we see today: before they entered into a regime that involves bench-pressing twice their own body weight while simultaneously eating three times their body weight in pasta.
Leading players are extraordinarily big now, and it's led to a game of bone-shuddering physicality. What is the trajectory for this physical development? Is there a point at which full-time players, with even the greatest nutritionists and coaches, simply won't get any bigger, or will they keep going to freakish levels, until each team eventually consists of 15 men who make Jonah Lomu - the template of the modern player - look about as muscular as ET?
You can see how much pressure this is putting on young men who want to play rugby. At almost every level, the need for bulk is great. For those with ambitions to get anywhere near even the bottom rung of the professional game - and money is paid out even at lower league clubs - the standards being set by those at the very top are intimidating ones. Even at underage levels, there are huge physical demands on players and an early reliance on weight-training regimes.
This has to be at least one factor in an obsessional gym culture that is growing among some young men in this country. Competitive instinct and ambition is natural, but in the locker rooms and at weight machines you'll hear teenagers drone on and on about what mass-building supplements they're taking, what flavour, what brand, what effects they have. The best known, creatine, has little solid research on its long-term effects but a great many of its users are taking it under the guidance of their friends or whatever information they can get on the internet. However, it's the attitude it breeds that might be the most corrosive thing of all. Increasingly, there are teachers, coaches, academics and doctors talking about the unhealthy obsession some young men have with their body image. That, anecdotally, there is an increase in eating disorders among young men, meaning that peer pressure and heightened physical ideals are leading to a trend that until recently would have been associated with young women but which is steadily crossing the gender divide. Added to that is the worry that such a culture could lead to a blurring of the lines about what is acceptable and what is not; between the legal and illegal aids.
THE POSITIVE DRUG TEST OF KERRY footballer Aidan O'Mahony has attracted much comment and a degree of sympathy for the player, but whatever the outcome it serves as a reminder than when it comes to our team sports, Ireland has somehow avoided the drug scandals of American football, baseball and (in Italy at least) soccer. Meanwhile, recent seizures suggest that there is significant problem in Irish bodybuilding.
There is certainly enough concern that the report of the Task Force on Sudden Cardiac Death mentioned steroid use as a potential danger in that issue, and it presented US studies to illustrate the increasing use of them among high school students in that country at least.
In rugby, there is rigorous testing of professional players, whose dietary regimes are strictly controlled. lt would mean that if rugby, globally, has developed in a relatively clean way, then it is almost unique among sports that rely on bulk.
Still, there is clearly a disquieting culture bubbling away among sections of young men despite the efforts of the IRFU and many rugby playing schools.
The difficulty is that there is no other team sport in Ireland that combines strength, speed, intense competition from an early age, social pressure for success, and a parallel culture of taking supplements. These are dangerous conditions to create and then hope to keep a lid on it. It could be possible to do that at the top level, but it's hard not to fear that there might yet be a few casualties buried further down.