Heineken Cup Final 2012 = This is my 1999!

On the Saturday in question back in 1999 as Harry Williams prepared his Ulster players to take on Colomiers in their biggest game ever, I was getting ready for work!

Around me my family were sitting down getting comfortable to watch the game. I had friends and club mates at Lansdowne Road cheering on the White Knights. As for me, I had to make do with walking into my local Tesco store to work my normal Saturday evening shift. That afternoon I would have given anything to be at Landowne Rd to cheer on Ulster, even to have stayed at home and watched the game with my family would have been brilliant but I had no such luck.

Since then I have had the been lucky enough to watch Ulster in some fantastic games and also be present at some big results in the Heineken Cup (first win on English soil against Bath jumps to mind). The thing is, nothing can match the only game I wanted to be at. Everybody remembers where they where when Ulster won their first European Cup, their local rugby club, bar or even lucky enough to have been on the South Terrace at Lansdowne Road, unfortunately I was working on the chilled aisle of my local Tesco!

After going over all this above I am not actually going to be able to make it to Twickenham for the final (even though it is less than 8 miles away) but I am going to do something else that I really wanted to do that Saturday afternoon 13 years ago. I am going to sit down with a few beers in-front of the TV and take in every single second of what happens in the game and the build up to it.

Do not get me wrong, I love going to live matches and if circumstances were different I would be at this final. But then there is the other side of watching a big match, the one that only a TV can bring you and that is the close up coverage of every angle of the game. Sometimes I want to be able to talk in detail about a scrum going down, a missed tackle or a world class try being scored without saying "I couldn't really see it right from where I was sitting" and only the TV coverage can bring you that.

Over the past 13 years since the 99 final was broadcast, coverage of rugby from around the world has improved more than 1000% and with that breakdown of the game and what happens during it. We can see within a few seconds of a try being scored for example just how it was scored, the lines players ran etc. to make it happen and sometimes, that is better than being there.

On 19th May at 17:00 I will be perched on the edge of my sofa for what will be the most exciting 80 minutes I will experienced as a rugby fan. It was great to watch Ireland win the Grand Slam in 2009 surrounded by friends at my local rugby club back in Ireland but there is something a little but extra special to be able to watch your provenance/team in the biggest club competition in the rugby world!

On the 19th May NOTHING will stop me watching my "1999 European Cup Final"!

International Rugby

When I last wrote a Blog I was still in New Zealand enjoying what I can only describe as the best World Cup to have ever been played out! I will never forget my time in there, I watched top class rugby, met some interesting people and had a fantastic time seeing what the people and the country of New Zealand had to offer!

Since I have got back I have only had the chance to see one match and that was the Leicester Ulster match at Welford Rd in the Heineken Cup, it was a nice weekend away but the result did not go Ulsters way unfortunately. I suppose we cannot win them all.

This Blog is not about the domestic leagues, European competitions or club rugby per-say but about International rugby and it's effect on the Northern Hemisphere season.

I read the following article yesterday and felt pretty annoyed: http://www.espnscrum.com/premiership-2011-12/rugby/story/157226.html. The reason behind this is that I believe playing Internationals during the  normal season when the clubs are still playing in their leagues is one more thing that sets rugby apart from some other sports, like soccer.

Since I can remember the 6 Nations and the Autumn Internationals have been to me an intricate part of the season. Those teams which have more International players than others have their squad's stretched allowing for fringe players to come in and experience the action at 1st XV level and maybe even give the coach a bit of a nightmare when the regular starting player returns. For the teams with fewer Internationals it is a chance to go up against the bigger teams and maybe get the vital win that they need to stay up. In the days before professionalism it was a chance for International teams to meet and bound, players who would normally be spread out across the country back together, with the introduction of professionalism and regular training weekends for International squads this is no longer a big issue but it also means there should be even less complaining about International players being away from their clubs.

With squad sizes now on average around 35/40 players there are more than enough players to cover when International players are away, even taking into account a bad run of luck with injuries clubs do have other teams 2nd XV etc. that they can call from.

In short I cannot see any reason why a club chairman should come out and criticise what has been the "norm" now for a long time. I can understand his frustration in the way that a normal business owner would not like 5/6 of his best employees all disappearing for over a month together but we need to remember that at the heart of it rugby is a sport with a long tradition behind it and not just a vehicle in which to make money.

The Southern Hemisphere has gone around it differently but look at the problems that cause's when complaints about the Super Rugby season starting to soon and being played is extremely warm conditions and then in a World Cup year the Tri-Nations (now The Rugby Championship) is changed and fixtures dropped. We have none of this in the NH

I am all for embracing new technologies and new ways to improve a sport but when it comes to changing something which I see as institutional then leave it alone! It is part of the sports heritage!