"If your Under-10 team defended as badly as that you'd kick their ass," said Pat Spillane, as only Pat Spillane could, at the end of Tyrone's defeat by Down in yesterday's Ulster football semi-final. "They made mistakes you wouldn't see in a juvenile match," groaned Colm O'Rourke. By now, (a) you couldn't help but feel some sympathy for Tyrone's beleaguered backs and (b) you wished RTE would find some pundits who'd retire from fence-sitting and speak their minds.
But if Pat and Colm had watched a little 10-minute gem, entitled The Worst Jewish Football Team in the World, on BBC2 on Tuesday, Tyrone's backs mightn't have got half the tongue-lashing they received from the pair yesterday. Because compared to the defensive frailties of Broughton Park's Under-13 B team, Tyrone looked positively water-tight at the back.
"They just tread over us. They just, like, get past us. They just pass it while we're busy standing there or sitting down, or whatever, and all of a sudden you're just about to save a goal and . . . it's a goal. Before you can say the word `goal' it is a goal."
No, that wasn't Tyrone goalkeeper Finbarr McConnell explaining what went wrong at Casement Park, it was one of the Broughton Park players trying to account for the 106 goals his team had conceded in 10 games. The all-Jewish team lost one game by a 23-0 score-line, but we weren't told if their conquerors were Roman Catholic and if they were wracked with guilt afterwards for inflicting such an inhumane thrashing on their opponents.
"We're going to win today, aren't we," asked Broughton Park's enthusiastic, but long-suffering, manager at the end of a stirring pep-talk before a game. The players whooped and cheered and nodded defiantly, then looked into the camera and chuckled, like they'd heard the funniest knock-knock joke ever. They didn't win, of course, but they had a laugh. And, after all, it's the taking part that matters, isn't it?
Not according to former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan. "In other countries if you can't reach the top you have to find another profession," he said, in an interview on Channel 4's Cricket Roadshow on Saturday, when he gave his diagnosis of English county cricket's ills. The most serious of these, he reckoned, was the all-too-many "no-hopers" who litter the county scene, players "who will never play for England and who are destroying competitiveness in the game". Their very existence, he argued, goes "against the ethos of sport, which is pure competitiveness and striving for excellence". (Mmm. Is it?).
One can only hope that pre-season training caused Broughton Park to miss Imran's interview, because it would have left them gutted. We know what he means, of course: tune in to any English county cricket game on Sky Sports and you'll probably spot a few spinners and wicketkeepers who are long since past 40 and have as much hope of playing for England as the Broughton Park goalkeeper has of lining out for AC Milan next season.
"You have to decide," Imran continued, "whether county cricket is there to provide employment for cricketers or to provide players for England." There's the rub. Pity it can't be for both, because sport can be such an uplifting experience, one that can even have a miraculous effect on a broken body. Look at James McCartan yesterday.
Down's injured forward began the game at Casement Park hobbling up and down the sidelines on crutches. By the time Down were assured of their place in the Ulster final he was carrying his crutches under his arm and walking up and down the sidelines with a strut. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Water to wine, how are ya?
And there was yet another miracle at Silverstone: David Coulthard not only finished the British Grand Prix, he won it too. And, like the Scot, Murray Walker was motoring nicely over the weekend (Saturday's qualifying session? "It's looking as though we're going to get a replica of the Canadian Grand Prix grid, except the other way 'round"). So too were the RTE team, who produced a superb in-depth feature on Jordan on Saturday.
(Not so sure, though, about the Dad's Army ad for the British Grand Prix which ran all week on RTE. "Who do you think you are kidding Mr Frentzen?" And Peter Collins dressed up in battle fatigue? Peter looked very nearly as embarrassed as the viewers). Off form, though, was a section of the crowd at Silverstone who earned Murray's wrath yesterday when they, incredibly, "stood up, clapped and cheered" when Michael Schumacher crashed at almost 130 miles per hour. Cretins, every one of them.
Back to Croke Park for the Leinster hurling final. Okay, stating that DJ Carey is a half-decent hurler is as daring as saying Sergio Garcia has a future in golf, but God, there's magic in them there hands. On TnaG's Sportiris last week Carey gave a master-class on the art of striking a sliotar. Naturally, he made it look easy, but, funny, when you tried to imitate his wrist movement in the back garden you ended up needing the local fire brigade's cutting equipment to remove the hurley from your right ear-hole.
Carey's also a half decent golfer, but we've yet to see Garcia strike a sliotar with a sand-wedge. For now, though, he might stick to golf, because he seems to be getting the hang of it. "Sigh," said Peter Alliss on more than one occasion in the course of the young Spaniard's first round 62 at Loch Lomond last week.
Between Garcia's many birdies on Wednesday, Alliss spotted a young chap snoozing, topless, in the rough. The sun was, clearly, burning his top half to a cinder and Alliss worried about what state his body might be in later that evening.
"One cure for sunburn is to be rubbed down with raw tomatoes, which can be rather nice," he claimed. "Another is to have a hot bath with Jif." I thought he meant the stuff you use to clean your bath, but, on reflection, he probably meant the little plastic squeezy lemon thing. He should have made it clear, because trying to remove slices of raw tomato from sun-burnt skin soaked in bath cleanser is very, very, very painful. Trust me.
