SPORT: some respite for Irish rugby team this weekend

After Ireland have played three weekends in a row at the Rugby World Cup, there is some respite.

We don’t mean from the games themselves, even if the bruising encounter with South Africa was perfectly timed in terms of recovery. We mean the debate about the deeper meaning of a song that has been adopted, first by the supporters of Munster, and now the Ireland fans in general – ‘Zombie’, by the Cranberries.

For rugby, we often defer to the Three Red Kings social media account, run by the estimable Tom Savage. He made the point last weekend that ‘Zombie’ was first played in a mainstream rugby setting at Thomond Park during half-time against Castres in December, 2021.”

Given that the loss of Dolores O’Riordan is still felt in her native city, it is unsurprising that it took hold - the band’s song ‘Dreams’ is also played after every win for the county’s hurlers in Croke Park.

Zombie

In the same way that ‘Fields of Athenry’ gained a new life with the Munster fanbase and then received the ‘international call-up’, as it were, ‘Zombie’ has become part of the hymnsheet for Ireland games. Never was that seen – or heard, rather – more clearly than last Saturday night in Stade de France.

But, because the modern world is the way it is, no way could the singing of a song be merely seen as a communal experience to celebrate a huge achievement. Instead, those who have lamented the increasing occurrence of the “Ooh aah, up the ‘Ra” chant from the Wolfe Tones’ Celtic Symphony have been quick to celebrate the anti-war sentiment of ‘Zombie’, with the equal and opposite reaction that you would expect.

Once upon a time, fans at the old Lansdowne Road could be relied upon to give ‘Molly Malone’ an airing or two during a Five Nations Championship match. To the best of our knowledge, it was never the cause of a national debate around the integrity of ‘ladies of the night’ – or fishmongery. An international match brings together people from everywhere – an easily sung, well-known song is always likelier to have a larger choir and the deeper meaning of the lyrics is not near the top of the list of reasons for singing any particular ditty.

We can at least console ourselves with this – bad news always sells and the fact that there is such a discourse around the use of a song is proof that things are going well on the pitch.

Outcry

In another code of football, Arsenal used to have a tradition where the players all wore short-sleeved shirts or else all wore long sleeves, with no mixing of sets. In 2013, when French midfielder Mathieu Flamini took a scissors to his long-sleeved top, there was a hysterical outcry – at the time, Arsenal were top of the league and there was nothing else to get worked up about.

A few years later, the sleeve tradition had been all but dismissed as other players ignored it, but its passing went unnoticed as the Gunners were by then in what had become a series of crises in the latter stages of Arsène Wenger’s management.

Andy Farrell has taken Ireland to the top of the world rankings and they beat the reigning world champions in what was a tense, absorbing, attritional game of rugby – but one, it should be noted, with no yellow card shown or head-to-head collisions. There is no debate needed around team selection or playing style and even the usual canard about ‘project players’ seems to have been rested for a while.

If some tiresome back and forth about a song is the price to pay for that, we’ll take it.

Recently, an email dropped into the inbox headed with the important-sounding words: “Joint Media Release by Steering Group on Integration of Gaelic Games Associations” (their excessive capitalisation, not ours).

Results

Was it, we wondered, news of a real breakthrough in the task of merging the GAA, Camogie Association and LGFA – a task seemingly so difficult that former President Mary McAleese had to be drafted in to chair the steering group?

No, it was in fact the results of a poll commissioned by the committee. “The largest ever membership response to a sports survey in Ireland has given a clear vote of confidence to the path towards integration by the three Gaelic Games Associations,” the statement began. Nine out of ten members want it to happen and seven out of ten believe it “will be very positive”.

Encouraging figures, certainly, but to our mind, it simply begs the question – why hasn’t it happened yet?

While this process – which a less-kind commentator might describe as ‘glacial’ – is ongoing, the same issues keep arising with regard to the treatment of women who want to play camogie and ladies’ football.

Last weekend, Meath club Ratoath were scheduled to play a ladies’ football game at 8pm on Friday night, with a camogie match scheduled for 11.45am on Saturday morning. That is roughly 14 hours between one game finishing and the other starting, with a night’s sleep supposed to be included in between, too.

Shake it off

Ratoath lost in the football but the dual players did manage to shake off their disappointment and help the camogie side to a win on Saturday. Ratoath’s female players were put in a similar situation last weekend — and this despite the respective county boards in Meath giving assurances in early August that such clashes would be avoided.

There is no doubt that those working towards integration are seeking to do as good as job as they can, but something like this feels a bit like the international climate-change gatherings — who in their right mind is against progress being made? When everybody professes to want improvement, it shouldn’t take so long to come about.