All credit to Caerphilly
The good little 'un does occasionally have his day, if you take the case of Welsh side Caerphilly. They will contest the Parker Cup Shield final against Castres in the Madjeski Stadium on Sunday, May 25th - the curtain-raiser to the Parker Pen Challenge Cup final between Wasps and Bath.
Caerphilly are pretty much as close as you'll come among the European teams to an amateur side. Their annual budget is about £300,000, from the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU). The director of rugby at the club, former Wales centre Mark Ring, has done an excellent job getting them in with a chance of winning silverware.
Castres' annual budget would be close to a5million so this game is very much a case of the have and have-nots.
Mixed fortunes for Irish
Speaking of the Parker Pen Challenge Cup, it was a day of mixed feelings for a couple of Irish players at the Recreation Ground on Saturday. Bath squeezed into the final at the expense of Saracens by virtue of a try by Tom Voyce five minutes into injury time and Ollie Barkley's touchline conversion.
It tied the overall scores over the two legs but Bath went through by virtue of having scored six tries to Saracens' five over the two matches. Irish centre Kevin Maggs gave the scoring pass for one of Bath's tries, while Darragh O'Mahony scored for Saracens but ended up losing out.
Plane mad
Toulouse airport had never seen the likes and judging by Saturday night's fiasco will be hoping there'll never be a repeat. In excess of 30 charters from Ireland landed on the Saturday alone for the Toulouse-Munster game. While everyone got to see the match, the return journey proved as much a nightmare as the final result.
Even the Munster team found leaving Toulouse a bit of a problem. Their flight was delayed three hours 55 minutes, taking off closer to 1.0 a.m. than the originally scheduled departure slot of 9.30 p.m. This meant the flight did not get back into Cork until 2.45 a.m. and for the smattering of Dublin-based journalists on board, this meant getting home at 6.30 a.m.
Referees book Hook
It seems that august body the Association of Referees Leinster Branch (ARLB) are afraid of nothing, not even a tongue-lashing from George Hook. The newspaper columnist and television pundit was a guest at their Centenary Dinner, held in the Berkeley Court hotel last Friday night.
The guest list for the dinner included Don Crowley, the president of the IRFU, Ham Lambert, the first Irishman to receive a cap as a player and a referee, and Alain Rolland, who emulated him, along with former international referees Kevin Kelleher, Dave Burnett, John West and Owen Doyle.
Representatives from the Ulster Referees' Association such as Steven Hilditch and Brian Sterling made the journey to Dublin, as did Alan Hosie from the Scottish Rugby Union.
Obviously, this column is not sufficiently venerable to warrant an invitation.
Raffle time
In terms of value for money these days in rugby, Shannon's ticket offer is hard to beat. The Limerick club are organising a raffle - sponsored by Shelbourne Development/Cratloe Wood - that will allow the winner and a partner to visit Australia during the 2003 Rugby World Cup and follow Ireland down under in the company of Mick Galwey and Gaillimh's Army.
The 21-day (18 nights) trip will run from Thursday, October 23rd to Wednesday, November 12th and takes in Ireland's group games against Argentina and Australia plus the quarter-final in Melbourne. While in Australia the tour will visit Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.
Your prize will also include a visit to Bangkok, where you will overnight on the outward and return journey. The tour will also allow you the chance to attend the world-famous Melbourne Cup and the International Rules game between Australia and Ireland on Friday, October 31st.
All you have to do to be in with a chance of winning the limited draw is to fork out a measly a20 - outstanding value. All enquiries should be made to Jack Keane at Shannon rugby club.
Bradley the front-runner
It seems Ireland Under-21 coach and former international Michael Bradley is set to be appointed as coach to Connacht, succeeding Steph Nel, thus confirming a story in The Irish Times last week.
Nel is to return to South Africa and Bradley is the front runner for the Connacht position. If he does decide to take the job it will be a tough proposition, given the impending departure of several players.
Congrats
Congratulations, or in the case of the result, commiserations to Peter Conneely, who won tickets to yesterday's Heineken European Cup semi-final between Leinster and Perpignan at Lansdowne Road. He correctly identified that the motif that adorns Brian O'Driscoll's boots when he plays for Leinster is a small harp. When playing for Ireland it is the shamrock.
Rugby speak
"It's amazing how rugby can change in a week. It's normally been positive but this was so negative. Both teams, Leinster and Munster, and indeed the national side, did so much to raise the profile of rugby once again and to have it end like this is just dreadful, so disappointing."
- Victor Costello tries to sum up his feelings after Leinster's European Cup semi-final defeat at Lansdowne Road yesterday.
