Fan's prayers aren't answered after pilgrimage from Tbilisi

TV VIEW:FROM THOMOND Park to the Meydan racecourse it was a cosmopolitan kind of a weekend, RTÉ's Daire O'Brien telling us that on his way to the Munster v Leinster game – in Limerick, not Dubai – he'd met an American women who'd travelled from Tbilisi in Georgia in a Munster jersey for the contest.

That’s what you call commitment. According to the interweb the distance between Tbilisi and Limerick is 2,575 miles (or, in new money, 4143.18kms), but that’s as the crow flies – and which aeroplane ever took the route of a crow? Her only consolation, really, on such an interminable trip was that Gavin Henson wasn’t on board.

Donal Lenihan and Brent Pope were enormously impressed by her devotion, but not so much the Hook man, whose expression read: “Is she out of her bloody miiiiiiiind?”

Alas, her trip was in vain in terms of the result at least, Leinster prevailing in a contest that was, in truth, a touch less than exhilarating.

A more profitable journey (distance: 3,498 miles/5,628kms) is the one Monterosso has taken through his life, from finishing nowhere on his debut in Wolverhampton three years ago to winning the $10 million Dubai World Cup on Saturday. That’s what you call good going.

A global event it was too, TG4 welcoming us to Raschursa Meydan i Dubai, but there was divil a word of Gaeilge from our commentary team, not even from Jim McGrath.

You sensed, though, that McGrath was on the verge of delivering some fruity language when he watched the winning jockey, Mickael Barzalona, stand up in his stirrupy things and celebrate his victory a fair old bit before the winning post.

“He’s going to have to stop doing this, it’s absolutely silly, one day it’s going to end in disaster,” said Jim, sounding as disappointed as ourselves that Mickael didn’t land on his backside while Capponi sailed by, a bit like John Treacy did to Steve Ovett that time.

The bigger disappointment, though, was that Chantal Sutherland, the first woman jockey to ride in the richest of all horse races, didn’t fare too well, finishing second last on a track that appeared to be covered in coal dust.

Mind you, when, during her pre-race chat, she seemed to be seeking some divine intervention to help her win the prize, you couldn’t but help feel that wasn’t right at all. “GOD” spelt her necklace. Ah now. Surely God should be left out of things like horse racing? Mad stuff.

“He’s amazing, I have his initials here,” she added, pointing to the necklace.

Initials? Ah, Game on Dude? Her horse! Well, GOD gave it his best shot but no one was a match for Monterosso, owned, like runner-up Capponi, by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

Himself and his family, according to Forbes, are worth $89.5 billion, so his evident excitement wasn’t really, you’d have to assume, a whole lot about the money. He might even have given the $10 million as a tip to the ice cream seller on the way out.

Over in Newcastle yesterday, though, it was a little bit about the loot, the Geordies serenading their one-time beloved Andy Carroll with “what a waste of money” most times he fell over his feet. A warm welcome home, then.

But he wasn’t the only target of the Toon Army’s ire, Jose Enrique (ex-Newcastle), Craig Bellamy (ex-Newcastle), Jordan Henderson (ex-Sunderland) and Stewart Downing (ex-Middlesbrough and Sunderland) all having their every touch lustily booed too, each of them as popular with the home crowd as the household charge is with ourselves.

By the end of the encounter the natives looked thoroughly exhausted from all the booing, almost as weary as the Liverpool players as they trudged off the pitch. Luis Suarez, though, probably enjoyed his afternoon, for once not the primary target of, well, terrace opprobrium.

“He cheats, he dives, he hates the Jackson Five, Suarez, Suarez,” has been the kinder of the tunes he’s been treated to of late.

It could be worse. He could play for Aston Villa. “It’s Desmond Tutu!!!!,” Phil Thompson had howled on Sky Sport’s Soccer Saturday, to which you could only reply: “What?”

But then he explained that Villa had just made it 2-2 against Chelsea, so we were sorted. But then they conceded Tu more goals. Even Fernando Torres scored, so there’s hope for Andy.