It’s hard not to feel a bit shiftless on a Sunday like that when you deem yourself to be worn out from hammering remote control buttons to take you from TG4’s coverage of the National League finals to Virgin Media’s broadcast of the second game of our women’s Six Nations campaign and back again.
Just when you’re feeling a touch dynamic from all this couch-bound exertion, up pops a report on the Six One News about the inaugural Dublin City Half Marathon when 12,000 competitors were given just 3½ hours to cover 21.1km. Most of us would do well do accomplish that feat in a taxi in city centre traffic, even on a Sunday.
And if they were a minute over the limit they’d be running against buses, cars and, worse, e-bikes, the roads reopened at that point with not a jot of compassion for the also-rans. It was like Dublin City was hollering “losers!”
Their reward? A T-shirt, a commemorative medal and a compostable goody bag. So at least they knew, even if they had e-bike tracks across their faces they were helping to save the planet.
No matter, it was their choice to get up at the crack of dawn, an hour lost with that clock-fiddling business, some of the rest of us getting our buzz from watching Fiona Hayes’ buzz watching Ireland annihilate Italy.
A mere year ago Italy beat Ireland in the RDS, making it two wins in a row over our bunch, prompting many an “it’s the end of the world as we know it” opinion piece on the state of the women’s game. Doomsday, like.
No one epitomised the hurt of all that more than Fiona, a woman who loves women’s rugby even more than some of us love watching sport from the couch. It was a flippin’ stake through her heart, having been a Grand Slam winner in her playing days, to see it all fall apart.
Sunday? “Wow is all I can say,” she beamed after that 54-12 triumph in Parma – 54! – Joe Molloy beseeching her to say a little more because there was still a half-hour left in the coverage.
She obliged: this was the Ireland she wanted to see, she never had any doubt about the talent, maybe just the confidence to show it.
Pre-match Eimear Considine had stressed the need for a lively start by Ireland. That she got – there weren’t even two minutes on the clock when Italy were a player down, Valeria Fedrighi yellow-carded, and Ireland were a try and a conversion up. As lively starts go that was decent.
And on the tries flowed, eight in all, Anna McGann helping herself to three, the IRFU possibly jiggin’ and reelin’ about the place in anticipation of zero opinion pieces on how they’ve banjaxed Irish women’s rugby.
“England next,” said Joe, “how much will we beat them by?”
“I’m always optimistic,” said Fiona, “but I don’t know if I’m that ...”
Her voice trailed away. The seven-in-a-row seeking England had, after all, just put 11 tries past Wales, so it was best not to big up our prospects for that tussle in Cork in a fortnight’s time.
Joe: “But we’re happy?”
Fiona: “We are. For once.”
Kerry were happy-ish too with winning the League final against Mayo, “ah sure look”, the gist of Paudie Clifford’s post-match chat with TG4, possibly the most Kerry-ish response to a triumph in the history of Kerry-ish responses to triumphs.
“Ah sure look” was kind of how Mickey Harte responded to Offaly’s Division 3 final success too, it being his fourth league triumph with a fourth county, kinda making him the Carlo Ancelotti of the GAA.
Jack Bryant’s sublimely netted score?
“Ah Jaysus, Jack’s goal,” said man of the match Keith O’Neill. “There’ll be some amount of TikToks made out of that, so there will be.”
“Follow me, I’m delicious,” Jack might say on said platform, and all of Offaly will. Whatever about the T-shirt and compostable goody bag, he’ll have a medal for his troubles. Yes, delicious.
