PENNY-PINCHING GAA, (and the huge untapped potential).

Posted on by May 23, 2017

I have pointed out in the past, for the benefit of non-Irish readers, that the vast majority of our youth in Ireland play Gaelic Games, as in gaelic football or hurling, (there is also handball and camogie for the girls). 

A small but growing minority play soccer or rugby. Of the hundreds of thousands of young boys who begin training for the gaelic season each year across all the age groups, very few make it to the top. The Gaelic Athletic Association, (GAA), which runs the show maintains its independence and its amateur status. The players in the last eight teams every year in both hurling and football train every bit as hard as professional soccer and rugby players but they do not get paid for it. There is no financial incentive for any fit young bloke to play either gaelic game.

Indeed, Moms and Dads all over the land fork out hard earned money on club kits, boots, training shoes, tracksuits, hurling sticks and kit bags and after doing all of that, they drive junior to and from training twice a week in the depths of winter and to and from a game every weekend. Nobody moans about that because it is only good parenting. The story is similar with the junior soccer and rugby players as well of course.

But by the time junior turns eighteen though, things change drastically. The best of the GAA boys have the same levels of fitness and skill as their soccer and rugby playing brothers and an equal commitment to sporting success. But the governing bodies of the sports have their own agendas and deal with their ranks differently when they reach manhood.

The Football Association of Ireland, (the FAI), and the Irish Rugby Football Union, (the IRFU), offer professional contracts to the cream of the crop. The GAA however, wants their cream to get a job and fund themselves while still offering 100% commitment to their team. For every one lad choosing either soccer or rugby, there will be twenty opting for the GAA. Our finest and brightest athletes are amateurs and yet we can qualify for Soccer World Cups and be ranked third in the world of rugby. 

How is this possible? I went to a rugby playing school as a boy and it was one of only two in Cork. Every other school, and there were loads of them, played gaelic games exclusively. The rugby schools fed players into the three clubs here, Dolphin, Constitution and Highfield. For inter-provincial games, the Munster clubs fed the players for a Munster team and then the Irish selectors choose a team from the four provinces, (which was then regularly beaten). But the decision to turn pro changed everything and the IRFU made a fantastic job of it when they got the chance. 

By funneling all the money into the four professional provincial teams, (Munster, Leinster, Connaught and Ulster), they ensured the players there had no money worries and had the best of training facilities available to them. It took a few years but then great players began to emerge and Ireland as a result, had a credible team for once. Paul O'Connell, Ronan O'Gara, and many more came out of that first experiment in Munster. 

A few weeks back I got into a row with an aging GAA bloke when I referred to the number of rugby players today who began their sporting lives with the GAA. Brian O'Driscoll, Simon Zebo, Darren Sweetnam, Rob Kearney, Robbie Henshaw, Tommy Bowe, Thomas O'Leary, Mick Galway, Shane 'Shaggy' Horgan, Geordan Murphy and even Sean Cronin, all played gaelic games before turning to rugby. The hand eye co-ordination coupled with a natural ability to catch and hold a ball are basics in either code of gaelic games. So the guys above brought skill and fitness to rugby and apart from learning new rules and becoming acquainted with the egg-shaped ball, the transition was easy. But the question is, why did they switch and that's why I got into the row with yer man?

To make it as far as an All-Ireland semi final is truly a credit to any player. To win an All-Ireland medal you have to be a great sportsman with infinite commitment. I believe the young Brian O'Driscoll probably hoped one day to run onto Croke Park to play in a final. The problem though is that it's extremely hard for the GAA players to put in the effort needed and still build a working career and earn a living. As they are maturing into great players, they are of an age where they are in serious relationships and considering marriage and that, as we all know, is all about money. They may want dearly to continue their sporting careers to become they best they can be, but reality often intervenes.

The professional rugby lad and his professional soccer cousin has no such worries. He can concentrate on his chosen sport while still buying a home, paying the bills and even saving. That is why we are internationally credible in rugby and even considered in soccer. Speaking of soccer, Shane Long, Denis Irwin and the lanky Niall Quinn all began playing GAA first, and they are just the ones I know about off the top of my head. The GAA though is the largest and wealthiest sporting body in Ireland and I irked yer man by saying they were too mean to pay their best players, (it got very heated after that!). 

Over the years, Ireland has produced some pretty good cyclists, a couple of Olympic class rowers, some handy 1500m runners and even some great rally drivers, (and F1 too), but in a GAA dominated country, these people were just freaks. Even our title winning boxers also played GAA. I cannot believe that only the very best turn pro and I suggest there are potentially thousands of powerful, fit and driven young blokes in every corner of Ireland who could be great if they were paid to do one thing well every day. The IRFU has a smattering of them now playing rugby full-time and it's no mistake that they beat the mighty All-Blacks recently. 

Years ago I watched the All-Blacks humiliate Ireland in Landsdowne Road and the bloke beside at the bar said after the game, "Give them all black pansies hurling sticks and let them turn out against Kilkenny at Croke Park and we'll see who's laughing at half-time." He was right of course because hurling is a faster more skillful game and Kilkenny have been, for long. the single best proponents of the game. But that's the problem too! We have an unbelievable national game in hurling but we are the only nation on the planet playing it. There are no international hurling games, no European Cup, no World Cup of hurling. It's faster than ice hockey and ten times as skillful and the world knows shag all about it. Then the very best hurlers don't get a penny for putting their bodies on the line week in week out. When their careers end its' 'adios' and thanks for the memories.

We are a sports crazy country and even though we are very small in the grand scheme of things, we have that certain something, an attitude or a spirit, I don't know exactly. What I do know is, if the GAA paid their best players to play rugby for five years, Ireland would be the undisputed rugby world champions. The untapped talent is really that good.

DIRTY PICTURES CONCEALED

Posted on by May 18, 2017

Those horrible nasty tobacco companies are at it again. In a cynical wheeze to beat the plain packaging law later this year, guess what they've done? 

According to the Sunday Times, "JTI has an ‘electrifying’ tin for its Mayfair cigarettes." Apparently, they are offering cigarettes for sale in durable branded tins, just days before plain-packaging rules come into force. Although I haven't seen them myself, it seems that JTI is offering Benson & Hedges, Mayfair and Camel cigarettes in limited-edition tins. The Mayfair and Benson & Hedges tins follow the branding of a normal packet, while the Camel cigarettes come in a multicoloured design. It sounds like an interesting idea to me.

The usual sources are up in arms though. That old bluffer Dr. James Reilly is calling the move, “hugely cynical” and that's coming from a man without a single cynical bone in his body. Dr. Donal Buggy, head of advocacy at the Irish Cancer Society, said the tins were “just another smokescreen from the tobacco industry” and that they would fail to reverse the trend of falling smoking rates in Ireland. He's right of course about flashy packaging having no effect on smoking trends just as the ugly packaging won't either.

But if JTI are feeling all smug this morning believing they have come up with something new, Forest Ireland had news for them. Attractive cigarette cases have been available for some time now and yours truly even took two samples on TV a couple of years ago to show to smoking viewers. They are handy, cheap and durable and if you find the medical pornography on the box from the shop disgusting, these plastic boxes hide it. You have a choice of colours and styles but the website offers an easy template where you can copy and paste any image to be screen-printed onto your personal cigarette case. A picture of your loved one perhaps or of your favorite sport's star? You might prefer something soothing like a mountain scene or maybe there are some crafty smokers out there who'll find the original design from the box their preferred cigarettes came in and have that printed instead. The cases are €5.00 each with an additional €1.50 for the design of your choice.

Another website called, "Made in China," offers cases made out of plastic, metal, leather or aluminium. The boxes can be flip-top, flip sideways, or open in two haves in a presentation style. Material colours and designs can be plain, floral, marble, metallic, graphics, library designs or customised to your own taste. Some have a side pocket for a lighter and they will even provide lighters and even e-cig holders if you like. Prices are low and shipping is fast. 

There are four more such product suppliers here, here here, and here.  You may wish to compare produce and prices from all five and if you don't find the right mix among that lot then Google has pages of addresses for anyone in the market for an attractive cigarette container. If you are a retailer then off the top of my head you could browse around here or here and here to find cigarette cases in units between 500 and 5,000 for resale. 

So relax Dr. Reilly & Dr. Buggy, JTI have not found a new way around vicious attacks on innocent smokers. Cheap accessible containers to fit your twenty cigarettes inside have been around for a long time and I've spotted a few on nights out. But there is a further point to be made here. I took the time to research the origins of these new photographs of disease that will soon festoon tobacco products. It appears they originate in medical text books and are just lifted from there and slapped on your cigarette box. So these pictures are used as a visual aid when training doctors. Fair enough!

However, there is no single disease peculiar to smokers. All of the known conditions associated with smoking are also associated with not smoking. As such, each of those off-putting images, if they have a message to send, are telling you this too could be you, whether you smoke or not. It is a reminder to all of us that we could become very ill. Now I'm all for awareness but who needs to be reminded of that kind of vivid reality on a night where you are supposed to be enjoying yourself and forgetting your cares.

If for no other reason then, these alternative containers for cigarettes could become more popular, perhaps even a personal fashion statements for some. Who'd have thought it? 

 

IT’S GETTING WORSE – NO IT’S NOT

Posted on by May 17, 2017

In an earlier article entitled, "Science or Religion," I offered the view that belief in the theory of the climate changing for the worst has become so adamant and vicious as to be almost religious in nature. They even have a term, 'climate deniers,' as a designation for anybody who dares question the data behind their claims.

My own issue with the ten commandments of climate change is that they appear to based on the output of computer models rather than real world research and fact-finding. This morning the Commentator reveals that, "Despite a 20 percent increase in atmospheric CO2, and model predictions to the contrary, sea ice in the Antarctic has expanded for decades. Such observations are in direct opposition to the model-based predictions of the IPCC. This should give pause for thought about climate alarmism in general." In the context of the colder places on earth, there was an ad campaign some time ago in support of the climate change theory and it depicted a polar bear at sea, (because he had no ice to plod around on anymore), and the implication was that this mighty beast was literally drowning because we are spewing CO2 at his habitat. 

Another paper refuting this came from anthropologists who had studied polar bears on the ice for years. They reported seeing single bears swimming up to sixty miles in a single stretch, (well I did say they were mighty beasts). So a lone polar bear drowning is probably due to natural causes like old age or illness. 

But computer models of how the future will look are a dangerous premise for basing world policy. The core laws of computing haven't changed and it is still true that if you feed bullshit in one end of your PC/Mainframe today, it will still spit bullshit out the other end tomorrow. In each research project the computer researcher must decide in advance the 'parameters' to feed in before running the program. A parameter is a numerical or other measurable factor forming one of a set that defines a system or sets the conditions of its operation or a quantity whose value is selected for the particular circumstances and in relation to which other variable quantities may be expressed. The one who selects the 'values' is the person who determines what the machine will output. Change a value up or down and you get a different answer. And you can run a computer model as often as you like until it gives you the answer you want. Inflate one number, deflate another and Bob's your uncle. And because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will not submit their climate models for independent scrutiny, we cannot verify how they got the answers they claim to have gotten. They will not say what values they are using. That makes me, for one suspicious.

This is phrased better by this morning's article where they say, "For those who utilize and trust in the scientific method, forming policy (especially multi-trillion dollar policies!) on the basis of what could or might happen in the future seems imprudent." They point out that, "Given the fact that atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased by 20 percent over the past four decades, evidence of sea ice decline should be evident in the observational data if such model predictions are correct." But the opposite has been happening over the last forty years. Observers on the ice and those looking at historical satellite photos are seeing the ice cap grow year on year while the IPCC computers are telling the public that the ice is shrinking. News items on TV regularly show ice cliffs falling into the sea but what they don't add is that this happens every summer down there. Come autumn though the ice builds up again as the surrounding sea begins to freeze and when full winter hits, this intensifies. By winter's end then the area of ice is larger than the previous year. 

The reason for this as they explain is that, "Thanks to a recent paper in the Journal of Climate by Josefino Comiso and colleagues, we now know what’s driving the increase in sea-ice down there. It’s — wait for it — cooling temperatures over the ocean surrounding Antarctica." So the ice sheet is growing thanks to the oceans around it getting colder and yet the computer models from the IPCC predicted a multi-model average decrease of between 16 and 67 percent in the summer and 8 to 30 percent in the winter in the ice by the end of the century. One crowd are measuring in real time on the ground for many years while the other lot are warm and safe in their offices running computer models of what is not happening. 

Where does that leave the rest of us though? The crowd with the bigger budget are frantically concealing their data and values and assuring us all that we are doomed if we don't give them even more money. The other crowd are looking at the real world facts dispassionately and concluding that it is not true. Who are the real scientists here and who are the religious faithful?

PREPARED TO BE EXCITED IF …..

Posted on by May 16, 2017

A few years back while listening to the early morning news, they advised us that the International Space Station would be very visible over Ireland that night. 

I didn't know what to expect but as it was a clear day and a cloudless night, I did pop out into the back garden at the appointed time. Those with me joked that we might see the occupants waving out a window at us. Nothing happened for a while so the others went out to the front of the house in case it turned up there.

So I was standing alone with my back to the shed at the top of the garden when the night sky suddenly and briefly flashed and this large streak zoomed silently over my roof and was gone in one second flat. I raced out the front to the others, only to catch it disappearing over the far horizon. The sheer size and speed of it surprised me and I still remember the event.

But the International Space Station is an IFO, or identifiable flying object. What about the unidentifiable ones? When on YouTube I tend to watch documentary style material and when I begin on a theme I continue with it for a few movies. I've watched some UFO stuff recently and wondered if there could be an ounce of truth in any of it. I reasoned that there's six billion plus of us on earth and all anyone has to do anytime is look up. But of course we don't, do we? Most of us live in cities so that even on a clear night the sky is hazy. We are inside a lot at night also and UFO's don't stick out as much during the day.

Most of the UFO videos out there are sensationalist crap and not worth the trouble. But a few seem to be factual accounts of actual sightings and backed up by official data. There was one famous sighting of a UFO landing near a military base in the UK and the security detail who went to the scene actually saw and touched this craft before it lit up and fucked off, so to speak. That one gave me pause for thought. But the crop-circles and alien kidnappings were, I thought, implausible. 

Many of the UFO shows on YouTube speculate that the US Government and some others, have known about these craft for years and have actually made contact with the occupants of them. They won't tell us because we'll all freak out, is the thinking. Other schools of thought put down our modern technical advances to contact with more advanced civilizations up there and even the Discovery Channel has run programs on Ancient Aliens, which claim that now extinct civilizations had direct contact with, and influence from, UFO's. The pyramids and the knowledge and ability to build them when they did, is supposed to be circumstantial evidence of it. One program I remember even went so far as to suggest that the first human DNA was brought down on one of these UFOs and left here as an experiment. The implied conclusion is that they are back now to see how it worked out.

Based on the laws of probability, it is highly unlikely we are alone in the Universe. There are probably other forms of life out there so numerous as to suggest the place is teeming with life, (in some forms), but beyond our ability to reach right now. Doubtless, some will be less advanced and some more so, again based on the same probability. The question is though are some of the more advanced lads buzzing about up there checking us out? And if so, then why? What are they after? Are they after anything? Are their noses just at them? Do they have noses? Most importantly of all, will one of them pop down and tell what it's all about before I snuff it? 

When it's UFO's, it's all questions in the absence of facts, isn't it? I've given it some intellectual thought, debated it solidly in my mind, listed the pros and cons as I see them and on balance, I could't give a damn about UFO's. But do let know me know if you see one, won't you. I am prepared to be excited by it.