Winning the World Cup!
THEY say sport is a game of fine lines, of tight margins, of feet and inches. (Think the Al Pacino rant in ‘Any Given Sunday’). Victory or defeat can come down to good or bad calls, interpretations, luck, split second decisions, last-second heroics. Plans, preparations and predictions can come to successful fruition, or go up in a puff of smoke.
It’s a harem-scarem, heart-attack ,unpredictable rollercoaster, and sure that’s why we love it. Just look at the recent All-Ireland Hurling Championship! A whirlpool lottery. We didn’t know from one Sunday to the next what the next 35 minutes of play might throw at us. Opinions, gut-feelings and statistics were made a nonsense out of. And still, when all came to all, it was arguably just decided by a single puck of a ball. Fantastic! Not taking from Limerick, but any one of the last four could have their name on the Liam MacCarthy this year. They were all prepared.
Preparation. Brings to mind that old adage so often attached to Roy Keane. ‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.’ Tis true, of course. We’ve been on the podium at world level in the past few weeks. Even atop it. The ladies hockey team, and the wonderful rowers from Skibbereen. Lord knows we can get there, and Lord knows these individuals worked their socks off and left no single stone uncovered.
But when will we win a really big one? When will we see the country grind to a three-day halt and celebrate like released-from-our-desertbondage maniacs? When will we ever again witness that collective celebratory mood that money couldn’t buy? A modern day Roma ’90 for the new generation with an actual trophy at the end of it? Will we ever? I am convinced, dear reader, that there remains one final unturned stone. One tiny little tweek that might get us over the line. Bear with me for a moment.
I won’t hex them, Lord knows the media do every four years, but maybe, just maybe, our rugby team might get their hands on the Webb Ellis trophy in Japan next year. This will be a superbly prepared squad of fiercely talented warriors. Men who will not shirk. From anything! Game plans, tactics, conditioning, drills, power, courage and abilities. All will be in place. They will emerge as a daunting prospect for any opposition. But allow me to introduce to you the ‘X’ factor. Forgive me for fast-forwarding, but whether the opposition in that final be the square-jawed Saxons of England, or the might of the New Zealand All Blacks, I wager we can more than counter any song about Her Majesty or any bloody Haka with one small adjustment. Danny Boy. Put a team of 15-plus men in green shirts on a rugby pitch, have them lift the rafters with Danny Boy as their anthem, and I swear we’d beat the devil himself! Who could live with us? We’d go through concrete. I’m starting a lobby group to replace Ireland’s bloody Call with Danny Boy. A song for all Ireland, for an all Ireland team. Mail me if you’re on board!
Danny Boy may well have been written by an English man, it may well have associations as an anthem of Ulster, but what of it, it’s as green as grass. It is a song about the rallying call to arms of a young, brave man, and the wishes for a better time upon his return. What could be more apt? Why not make it ours, officially, on the sporting fields? The hair on our collective necks would be high as a hedge!
Written by Fred Weatherly in 1910 and set to a traditional tune, it has been recorded by over 40 artists worldwide. Everyone from Bing Crosby to Johnny Cash, from Celtic Woman to Elvis. It’s simply beautiful and stirring. It could be our ‘oomph’, when the dial needs to go to eleven!
Oh Danny boy the pipes the pipes are calling From glen to glen and down the mountain side The summer’s gone and all the flowers dying ‘Tis you ‘tis you must go and I must bide
But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow ‘Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow Oh Danny boy oh Danny boy I love you so