Hurling - as seen by the non-Irish!

BaZmO*

This is the Lonely Planets description of Hurling!

Hurling isn't what the Irish do when they've had too much Guinness (well,
not always). It's actually a mad kind of aerial hockey invented to make
the English feel embarrassed about tiggy-touchwood soccer. If you haven't
had the twisted pleasure of seeing this example of
man's inhumanity to man, head to the Emerald Isle - but keep your head
down. This 15-century-old activity pulls no punches. A hurling match is
perhaps the fastest spectator sport in the world (with only ice hockey
matching it for up-close frenzy).From a distance it resembles a
roaming pack-fight between men with thin pale legs and names like Liam and
Sean. At ground level it's much more frightening, a kind of 15-a-side
escape from the asylum. Hurling is rapid, breakneck and rambunctious. The
game moves too fast for the novice to understand anything but the most
basic rules, but you can start by imagining an egg-and-spoon race with a
pack of enormous angry stick-wielding roosters charging the leader. The aim
is to hurtle a pellet-hard ball called a sliotar into goals using a stick
with a paddle at its end (hurley). The players balance the sliotar on their
hurley and then run, hit or bounce it forward, sometimes with all limbs
attached. It's when the ball falls loose into a pack that the bravery (or
stupidity) of the combatants becomes clear. The running game becomes like a
stationery game of no-rules hockey as players run in swinging their hurleys
in the manner of a lumberjack on speed. Whacks to the shins are common, as
is the occasional broken hand as some poor soul actually tries to pick the
sliotar up out of this chaos. The best place to see hurling is the
atmospheric Croke Park in Dublin. Its home of the GAA - hurling's governing
body - and the scene of high-attendance finals matches.

GAA Quotes

1. "I love Cork so much that if I caught one of their hurlers in bed with
my missus, I'd tiptoe downstairs and make him a cup of tea"- Joe
Lynch, actor


2. "We've won one All-Ireland in a row" --
Wexford Fan in 1996.

3. "The toughest match I ever heard off was the 1935 All-Ireland
Semi-Final. After 6 minutes, the ball ricocheted off a post and went into
the stand. The pulling continued relentlessly and it was 22 minutes before
any of the players noticed the ball was missing" - Michael Smith.

4. "Sylvie Linnane would start a riot in a graveyard" --
Tipp fan

5. "I'm not giving away any secrets like that to Tipperary. If I had my
way, I wouldn't even tell them the time of the throw-in" -
Ger Loughnane.

6. "He's like Lazarus; but Lazarus didn't have such a sweet right boot" -
Micheal O' Muircheartaigh on Colin Corkery.

7. "Whenever a team loses, there's always a row at half time but when they
win, it's an inspirational speech" --
John O' Mahony.

8. "There are 2 things in Ireland that would drive you to drink. GAA
referees would drive you to drink, and the price of drink would drive you
to drink" -- Sligo Fan after 2002 Connacht
final.

9. "The wheel fell off my mobile home" --
Offaly's Eugene McGee explains why he was late for training.

10. 'We're taking this match awful seriously. We're training three times a
week now, and some of the boys are off the beer since Tuesday'-
Offaly hurler quote in the week before a Leinster hurling final vs.
Kilkenny

11. 'Ger Loughnane was fair, he treated us all the same during
training

---

like dogs' - anonymous Clare hurler

12. 'Any chance of an autograph? Its for the wife....she really hates you'
- Tipp fan to Ger Loughnane

13. 'You can't win derbies with donkeys' -
Babs Keating before Tipp played Cork in 1990

14. 'Babs Keating 'resigned' as coach because of illness and fatigue. The
players were sick and tired of him' - Offaly fan in 1998

15. 'And as for you. You're not even good enough to play for this shower
of useless no-hopers' - Former Clare mentor to one of his subs after a heavy defeat

16. 'They have a forward line that couldn't punch holes in a paper bag' -
Pat Spillane on the Cavan footballt eam

17. 'Colin Corkery is deceptive. He is slower than he looks' -
Kerry fan

18. 'Life isn't all beer and football...some of us haven't
touched a football in months' - Kerry player during league
campaign 1980s

Flukey

The best one was a description of hurling being a cross between hockey and murder!

halenger

Great stuff... I love to watch hurling myself. Playing is best left to the people with death wishes. :P

Flukey

At its best it is a magnificent game. I've been with people at matches that had never seen it before. Even bad games, although they would not know they were bad, would impress them. They would never have seen anything like it before. They need the rules explained a bit, but even without knowing exactly what is going on, they are totally engrossed in watching it.