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Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Munster spirit should be bottled
By Tommie Kenoy
Great occasions in sport sometimes come unbidden, something that makes them much sweeter and all the more memorable.
So it was with Munster’s heroic performance against the All Blacks.
For long periods it seemed as if the impossible was about to happen, that a second string provincial team would repeat the historic events of 1978. By a whisper it didn’t happen but in no way did that take away from the magnificence of the performance.
This wasn’t about skill or tactics or a carefully mapped gameplan. This was about heart, a neversaydie spirit and pure pride in the Munster shirt. If only it could be bottled and distributed amongst all the rugby, soccer, Gaelic and hurling panels on this island. We’d pack the stadiums for every event and watch fearsome battles amongst fearless warriors playing from the heart for the parish and the jersey. Sadly it doesn’t happen that way but then, perhaps, that helps makes occasions like Munster versus the All-Blacks so very special.
Munster started by breaking the mould. Some teams stare down the AllBlacks during the haka, others ignore them but Munster did something different. They did their own haka.
Then they threw themselves at their visiting stars like a team of raging bulls. More than that we saw leadership from the likes of Peter Stringer and Mick O’Driscoll, both of whom have moved down Kidney’s pecking order. Perhaps it’s time for a rethink Declan?
This Munster team were more than gallant losers. In reality they were winners everywhere but on the scoreboard, as was an occasion that mixed drama, theatre, pure raw entertainment and spontaneity, the latter best demonstrated when the Kiwis came back to applaud the Munster crowd.
Munster’s team of gallant warriors can move on knowing they have done themselves, sport and Munster rugby proud. Ireland is proud of you lads now, any chance we could transfer their play from the heart raging bull pride into the national team?
Shameful treatment of O’Mahony
The treatment of Aiden O’Mahony over a drugs test was shameful.
There is no way that an amateur player suffering from asthma and using legitimate treatment should have received a temporary suspension before even a hearing of the accusation took place. It’s worse than shameful. It’s disgraceful and probably unconstitutional.
Where did the legal right of presumed innocent until proven guilty go to?
I suffered from asthma until I was 21 and know all about what it’s like to have your lungs bursting and your chest wheezing as you burst a gut in training or in a match at a time when there were no inhalers. We used Vic in a tub of steaming water.
Aiden O’Mahony has been treated like a drugs’ cheat, something that he unquestionably is not. His name has been slurred, his reputation damaged and he has to go through a procedure akin to a suspected criminal. He will now be remembered as the first GAA player to fail a drugs test unbelievable!
Indeed the very inclusion of Salbutamol on the performance enhancing list is highly questionable. Many top medics believe that it makes no contribution to improving performance, apart that is from relieving the asthma sufferer of the chest bursting effects of his complaint.
The upshot of all this is that the drugs law appears to deem it an offence for an amateur player to have asthma and treat it with a legitimate substance that in all probability does not enhance performance.
Remember also that the person who took the sample and those back in the lab who analysed the test are all paid officers, as are many of the people around the team, physiotherapists, physical trainers and doctors.
The GAA was right, probably ahead of its time, in buying into the anti-doping code. Perhaps now, however, it’s time to look for a few more derogations.
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