Will Andy Farrell get the adoration Jack Charlton got?

I am not a rugby person, I'm a GAA person, but I can spot horsehit. What would the comparable figures for URC and National league be on TG4 be for example? 2022 NFL final between Mayo and Kerry had 228k viewers, and 2021 rugby game between Leinster and Munster had 229k.

Niche

Seen it before, very good. Point is 90 percent of players through the granny, residence rule in rugby,, soccer are here for the money and to play sport at the highest level. I can't see the problem with it myself once it improves the team but some posters think CJ stander, bundee aki, are as Irish as bacon and cabbage. They are here for the money simples

This thread has gone to ****! 🤣

Op can we just do a poll?

its this or work 🤣

if you take the Leinster v Munster match over Christmas the number are normally higher as you have a captive audience. The URC viewing numbers over the season are increasing which is the main point.

the numbers playing rugby at all levels is increasing, it will also massively increase if Ireland can get to a semi or final.

Rubbish, every Irish players playing professional soccer in the UK for a few years are all English now and CJ stander is Irish because he lived here for a few years ? I lived in the UK for 10 years and don't consider myself British . Roy Keane has lived in England all his professional life is he English ?. Typically rugby shite talking the high ground of who's more Irish , laughable stuff

In the Munster v Leinster semi final match, which was important game the numbers tell a different story.

Also Munster seem to get higher viewers than other provinces, strange for a sport that we keep getting told is Dublin and D4 only

https://www.munsterrugby.ie/2023/07/10/munster-are-most-watched-side-in-urc/#:~:text=Munster's%20semi%2Dfinal%20win%20against,audience%20of%20the%20entire%20season.

Is it always necessary to twist an argument to suit your point? No one said CJ Stander is Irish because he lived here. But once resident for an extended period of time here and being fully committed to jersey, why could he not represent Ireland when folks who have no link at all to the country other than a grandparent can?

And this argument is a distraction because it is been presented as being much of the team when it is actually only 3 players. And the requirements are now 5 years residency, same as to become a citizen. Are you suggesting naturalised citizens should not be allow to represent the country?

I don't think your argument is portraying the narrative you think it does. The counties involved in the gaelic football match are of course just just two; Mayo and Kerry. Whereas, the counties involved in the rugby game are theoretically 18.

In the gaelic football match you have a captive audience from their support base of Mayo and Kerry of: 280k

In the rugby match you have a captive audience from their support base of Munster and Leinster of: 4M

So despite the captive audience being 142 times bigger for the rugby match it had exactly the same as the TV audience for the football. The fact that the audience numbers are more or less the same says it all about the lack of interest beyond the national team.

A rugby game between Leinster and Munster in the URC is probably about the third teir of Irish rugby, it's behind internationals and European cup games in the pecking order.

A GAA football league final is much further down on the GAA pecking order, behind All Ireland finals, semifinals, quarter finals, Munster hurling championship provincial final, Munster hurling championship round robin games, provincial football finals.

So as I keep saying, rugby support is not deep, after you get past the high profile games the numbers fall off a cliff.

Actually, and this is something I posted here a few years ago, the first Munster v Leinster URC game back after stadiums were allowed full capacity post COVID failed to sell out Thomond Park.

Meanwhile, there were 8,000 at a McGrath Cup game,a pre season competition, in Killarney around the same time.

Rugby is niche.

No we didn't.

Well we won, otherwise we wouldn't have played Italy in the Q/F.

Your research is up your hole.

There were only six Irish born players in the entire Italia 90 squad, plus two who were born in England but returned to Ireland as infants and grew up speaking with Irish accents.

The six "natives" were Packie Bonner, Stan Staunton, Kevin Moran, Ronnie Whelan, Niall Quinn and Frank Stapleton. The two who returned early were Paul McGrath and David O'Leary. So even if you include those two as being more "Irish" than the remaining 14 it is still only 8 out of 22 or 36%

Compared to the rugby squad for this world cup, only 8 out of the 33 were born outside Ireland. That makes the "native" contingent a whopping 76%.

Who are the eight "blow ins" on the Irish squad? Well, two were born in the USA ( Jeremy Loughman and Joe McCarthy) but, like McGrath and O'Leary, moved to Ireland as children and grew up here. Three more were born in Australia (Hansen, Bealham) or South Africa (Herring) and all are qualified to play for Ireland instantly on ancestral grounds.

The remaining three are all New Zealanders (Gibson-Park, Lowe and Aki) who availed of the residency qualification of the time whereby someone who lived and played in a country for three years could play for that country regardless of ancestry provided they hadn't already played at international level for anyone else. They came over here with no guarantee that they would make the national side in three years time. After all, what's to prevent another wunderkind like O'Driscoll or Van Der Flier emerging from the schools system while they're waiting for the alchemy of the naturalisation process to work its magic?

And remember that all eight live and play here. They contribute to Irish rugby, helping to create a professional sporting culture at home from which the next generation can take inspiration and participate, all the while supported every week by willing paying customers in four provinces. They are the sporting equivalent of today's educated young people who travel the globe in pursuit of their own excellence in any number of professional fields. They all seem to be thoroughly good guys and yet they have to put up with the sneers of digital-era peasants whose emotional and financial energies are devoted to shoring up the ugliest of sporting institutions namely the sports-washing, money grabbing, tax-dodging, globalised brand identities for hire that are England's major soccer clubs, controlled by the most corrupt ruthless spiv agents and lionised by the whores in tabloid media.

I'll take Bundee Aki and his infectious smile, utter professionalism and devotion to his team mates over any Lamborghini-driving English-born yob who deigns to play for "Eire" because his granny might have come from Cork and anyway, ain't no way he's making it to the English team if he's a stalwart for Hull, Preston, Rotherham etc You know, the sort of club that a true Irish soccer fan would turn their nose up at.

The FAI is one of the most corrupt organisations in Ireland, my local soccer club(kids play) get nothing from them yet every year we get slapped with a FAI membership fee. The only reason the club has anything is fundraising in the area or government grants the local county councillor got

It the same group of corrupt gang at the top filling their pockets as it was with Delaney, when they want to show the FAI of the future it’s just one huge grant for the tax payer to pay, which will go nowhere but the same corrupt gang at the top and not flow into the game

The advice for a young player who is anyway decent is to run to England and that’s coming from the FaI

Just look at the policy from the IRFU, they want to keep every young player in Ireland and in the system to make Ireland stronger and stronger. The money given to them is flowing down to grassroots rugby, along with fundraising and grants.

The FAI is laughing at you. Which country in the World has a soccer body who has no interest in investing into their own league.

In reality the FAI and should be shut down, every person at a senior level fired and started again, an organisation which includes the North of Ireland and build a proper league for young Irish players.

Yawn, the rugby players are better than the soccer players, the soccer players are better than the rugby players. My garden is huge !