It's in the Irish character to support the country at any sport we might play and especially if we play it at a high level- like rugby. How many other sports do we play where we have a chance of winning a World Cup for instance? - And yes I know at the moment it's an outside chance but it's a far more realistic ambition than winning anything at international level in soccer. As a northern kid rugby was always for me a game played by the 'other sort' . It seems now as if it's a pastime that transcends boundaries to some extent. And that can't be a bad thing. And here leave the two Prods alone for the Amhrán na bhFiann thing.That's just churlish and ridiculous.
I love GAA and I'm not that fussed on rugby but if Ireland were playing England in the rugby world cup final on All-Ireland day (and Armagh weren't playing) I would need to be in two places at once (actually two TVs would do).

Pimlico (Armagh) - Posts: 1 - 07/02/2011 19:18:02    862600

MesAmis
County: Dublin
Posts: 2628

862293 Rugby is like hurling. Very strong in some areas but completely non-existant in other areas.

Like the curate's egg

dhorse (Laois) - Posts: 11374 - 07/02/2011 19:26:17    862610

seanie_boy
County: Tyrone
Posts: 1219

862508 I see your wumming about over here too dhorse.

i take it shea is one of your agents.

Isn't there a grand stretch in the evenings.

dhorse (Laois) - Posts: 11374 - 07/02/2011 19:27:32    862613

Marlon_JD
County: Tipperary


your mixing up our what national game is with what is most popular. I don't know the figures so I cannot comment on which is most popular.

wise_guy (Tyrone) - Posts: 1584 - 07/02/2011 19:31:57    862618

whats all this crying about people calm the hormones down and think logical for a minute
this is rugby country is an add trying to aggrevate people from other sports nine times out of ten if an organisation have to try this it means there not in a great place themselves and this is true they completly got there autumn series games wrong as the staium was half empty for the matches and clearly they struggled past italy at the weekend which shows seriously going backwards.there strong hold in ireland was limerick city that is the only county were rugby is number1 and with there exit from the heineken cup before the knockout stages you will now see a drop in attendance there also.
the fact im making is the gaa has a poor marketing startegy up untill dublins spring series idea but it has not needed to print itself on every advertisement board to get people through the gates it still pulls in the largest attendances for its major competition while rugby has come on a crest of a wave its decline started in autumn and if they lose against france this week you will see continued drop

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 07/02/2011 19:32:10    862620

id be interested to see any data on the participation of sports on the island of ireland. especially if one was done in the past and if any comparisons could be made. personally i think that despite a great recent surge by rugby especially in terms with marketing and selling their brands, that the GAA is still far ahead. rugby and soccer too are very sporadic whilst the GAA is endemic. i think the international scene for rugby has always been big, especially 5/6 nations, world cups and the big test games. but what new is the huge club scene element, especially munsters trials in the heineken cup and leinster and ulster winning it too. this has brought a new element to rugby in ireland and in terms of irish sport their is a huge floating population of people who are attracted to the best gig in town. now, on a national level the GAA only accounts for a particular section of the calender and nearly always has done, and its here we see the huge floating population being attracted to its games..the dublin footballers for example, cork and kerry are examples too. my point is that this floating attendance probably attends soccer and rugby as much as GAA games, due mainly to the fact that they are the same people and its pretty obvious that throughout winter and spring the biggest events are outside GAA. id say the rugby probably offers more all year round big events in ireland at the moment due to club and international success and in those terms can possibly claim the idea of having an advantage over the GAA. there is also a "keeping up with the jones" element thats talked about in rugby but im not convinced that it matters, as we all know the GAA has it own. but in terms of participation id say the GAA is still out in front. and considerably too.

seany16 (Dublin) - Posts: 1663 - 07/02/2011 19:33:30    862623

shea
County: Kerry
Posts: 106

862099
What a ridiculous statement, Gaa players are pretty much the same as any old joe soap,A Farmer or a postman people can relate to them,Munster rugby came across a remarkable bunch of players the last 10 years the likes of Hayes and Quinlan,O Gara and Flannery people can relate to them,but now who can converse with Luke Fitzgearld,Rob Kearney,Dricco and Heaslip,see the average Joe dont drink in Lillies every Saturday night,date Models and have there head stuck up there "you know what""they are pretty much like every politican in this country,out of touch with the common man. As for Rory Best and Trimble who time and time again disrespect Amhrán na bhFiann. As for This is Rugby Country..this rugby country dont have a national anthem or national flag

haha let me guess who this guy supports how 1sided is it that all the munster guys are lovely lads and the rest are to blame haha
limerick people tell me o gara is ignorant bloke that he want bother to sign anything for kids while stringer is the complete oppisite he always signs for kids.
also u mentioned flannery being someone people can relate to so most people own 5or 6 pubs in there own city like he does i doubt it

hill16no1man (Dublin) - Posts: 12665 - 07/02/2011 19:47:37    862644

Re Ireland being Rugby Country

I was reading a few weeks back on the statistics for support for the sports played in Ireland. 1 Gaelic Football 33% Hurling 29%, Soccer 22 % Rugby 16%. They didnt say whether Camogie, Ladies Football or Handball were included

8596 (Armagh) - Posts: 30 - 07/02/2011 19:57:23    862669

Listen chief i dont support Munster id gladly see any of the 3 irish provinces do well,and if Ireland were playing tiddly winks id support them,i cheered on the steelers in the super bowl coz there owners are Irish,look in a later post i said i include the likes of shane horgan and byrne in that as it sounded a bit pro munster,im not im pro me just ha ha,oh and my friend from up north PCplunkett my replies to you have seemed to go missing ..ask admin

shea (Kerry) - Posts: 409 - 07/02/2011 20:03:00    862683

Maybe if they did not play that stupid anthem at....GAA games they would attract more people?

patrique (Antrim) - Posts: 13709 - 07/02/2011 20:07:22    862690

patrique
County: Antrim
Posts: 11582

862690 Maybe if they did not play that stupid anthem at....GAA games they would attract more people?

attendances would increase if they stopped showing games on TV, it would also help with the Obesity problem, as they dragged themselves away from the feeder for a couple of hours

dhorse (Laois) - Posts: 11374 - 07/02/2011 20:11:37    862699

its not up here any way

banterladhi (Donegal) - Posts: 502 - 07/02/2011 20:56:22    862763

'Tis the season, the time of year that has ye all arguing about this. There's been no real mainstream GAA since the All Ireland Series ended last year

In that time, we've had the Magners League moved onto RTE, the Autumn Internationals have taken place, the Heineken Cup has gone through the entire pool stages & now the 6 Nations Tournament has started - with all of that comes all the publicity, advertising etc

There's been no GAA to compete with that (aside from O Byrne, McKenna Cups etc - hardly high profile competitions), but 'This is Rugby Country' will soon be crowded out by all the GAA stuff 'A county will rise etc etc', Lucozade Sport featuring GAA players etc and then you'll all wonder how this debate started in the first place

There's no harm in the level of interest that has risen so much in Rugby ever since it became professional, it's a good thing at the end of the day, but let's face it, it will never outdo GAA, not in either sport, even though certain football fans on this forum, moronic narrow minded fools that they are, who seem to think hurling should be abolished just because their county is useless at it

But wait and see, come the closing stages of the league and the closer the championship, a lot more people will follow the hurling than the Rugby, that number will be outdone again by people following the football - there's something a bit more special watching players in an amateur sport playing purely for the colors while Rugby players home grown and bought from clubs in other nations play for money, the romance of our sports will prevail there

No harm in liking both anyway, as I do, so Wexford for Leinster & Leinster for the Heineken Cup!

gigoer (Wexford) - Posts: 1998 - 07/02/2011 21:09:09    862786

I hope not. If this is the case then its a disgrace. Ireland is unique in that it has the biggest amateur sports in the world and these are also the two most skillful sports in the world, whereas on a rugby pitch 8 out of the 15 players would be deemed obese by their local GP's, and the other 7 cant run fairly fast in a straight line. Terrible game, if the 6 nations weekend viewing was anything to go by anyway.

deep__freeze (Fermanagh) - Posts: 33 - 07/02/2011 21:25:58    862822

The answer to the question is no. This is GAA country for the most part anyway. Biggest gates, most participants, greatest stadium in Europe. Best all round grounds. Need I say more. However there is room for more than one/two or whatever number of GAA codes there are. Soccer and particularly Rugby will always be followed here. I would say that well over 90% of GAA stalwards also follow the other codes. I do anyway. Was delighted with O'Gara's drop goal on Saturday and hope they put one over on the French. Many of our players, indeed probably most, also play Rugby or Soccer at some level. It's time for any residual bigotry to stop and that is aimed at both sides of the now nearly extinct divide.

The real Árd Rí (Meath) - Posts: 990 - 07/02/2011 21:30:36    862827

07/02/2011 21:25:58
deep__freeze
County: Fermanagh
Posts: 29

862822
I hope not. If this is the case then its a disgrace. Ireland is unique in that it has the biggest amateur sports in the world and these are also the two most skillful sports in the world, whereas on a rugby pitch 8 out of the 15 players would be deemed obese by their local GP's, and the other 7 cant run fairly fast in a straight line




Ah ha, someone even older than me. The 1960s were great eh?

It must be about 15 years since you saw a top class rugby game. No obese people now, super fit athletes, even the ones that weigh 20 stone.

They might even give some of the Rugby league sides a game now.

patrique (Antrim) - Posts: 13709 - 07/02/2011 21:31:43    862831

The 'huge surge' in support for rubgy in Ireland is just a mirage. Its only because the people who run and present ad agencies, national tv and radio stations all hail from rugby playing schools. That wretched club of ol school tie boys. How many times has unimportant rugby news superseded gaa news on rte sport? However, Rugby's annoying bark is louder than its bite, thank God. A minority sport that belongs to belongs to an influential minority unfortunately.

JimmyK (Dublin) - Posts: 240 - 08/02/2011 19:11:34    863460

of course rugby is the national game- both home games in the 6 nations sold out in 2 mins- says it all

liathroidboy (Mayo) - Posts: 4921 - 08/02/2011 21:45:45    863626

not while rugby is only played in certain schools and have no interest in promoting the game in working class areas(certainly in Dublin) it will continue to be the 4th most popular game in the country behind football,hurling and soccer

b.mullins (Dublin) - Posts: 1413 - 08/02/2011 21:57:13    863641

Rugby is not our "national game". Declan Lynch in the Sunday Indo has been banging on for years that the English Premier League is our "national game", just because lots of Irish people follow Manu, Liverpool, etc. from a barstool I dont get his arguments and I dont believe rugby is ever going to replace hurling & football in Irish peoples affections. I agree that Rugby makes a lot of noise (mainly from the sports goys in RTE) but it dosn't have the deep roots it has in Wales or NZ. But the GAA needs to get its ass in gear and do more promotion just to keep ahead - the Dublin Spring series is a good start. The GAA is at its best when it needs to fight - just like after Italia 1990 when it seemed that soccer was the only gig in town (funny, RTE were the cheerleaders for that too)

jos33 (Dublin) - Posts: 243 - 09/02/2011 09:24:14    863668