Have you recently walked with Kings, and not lost the common touch? Have you filled the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth or distance run? Do you ascribe Rudyard Kipling's 'If' to sport very often? If so, you might be one of our heroes of the weekend. We have also portrayed a few villains for balance. Read on...
Heroes
Philly McMahon
McMahon was among our villains last week for getting a black card with his first involvement against Mayo, but the Dublin defender gave a very fine interview on the Late Late show last Friday. McMahon spoke about the death of his brother and eloquently put forward his argument in favour of the decriminalising of drugs.
It is a shame the tone of the rest of the show was ill-befitting of McMahon's interview. Whilst McMahon kept his head, all around him were losing theirs.
It was a Valentine's Day special, which meant the show will be viewed in the future as a kind of drunken archive of what the end of the world would look like if it were wrought upon Ireland.
You can watch McMahon's interview here.
Dylan Hartley
The abyssal depths of Dylan Hartley's sheer bastard-ry appear to be limitless. A career spent being suspended for transgressions as varied as biting and ref-baiting has been rewarded with the England captaincy. Before the tournament, many questioned whether Hartley would be a changed man with the captaincy thrust upon him. Judging by this attempted ruck clearance, he hasn't changed a whole lot. There is a perverse heroism in Hartley's refusal to change:
https://youtu.be/vzu7NmpHhw4
While England conceded a penalty Hartley was not carded and, thus far, has not been cited. You have to admire a man sticking so staunchly to his character. This is a man who meets triumph and disaster and treats those two imposters all the same: by smashing them.
Paul Durcan
Donegal 'keeper Paul Durcan has taken the road less travelled and has worn its surface down to dust. Durcan joined Ballyboden St. Enda's this year having grown tired of travelling between Dublin and Donegal for training. Having won the county championship this year, Durcan then moved to work as a Quantity Surveyor in Qatar, and has continued to commute for Ballyboden's games in the Club Championship.This is a man evidently who can wait and not be tired by waiting around departure gates.
In Saturday's Irish Times, Durcan told Malachy Clerkin that he has lost count of the amount fo flights he has taken between Ireland and the Middle East in pursuit of silverware.It is remarkable commitment that will not abate just yet: Ballyboden will play Castlebar Mitchells in the All Ireland Club final in Croke Park on St Patrick's Day, following the semi-final win against Clonmel on Saturday.
The Spirit of Entrepreneurship
Daniel Sturridge is back from injury and is scoring goals for Liverpool once again. During his latest spell on the sidelines, Sturridge has turned his attention to the world of business. Sturridge is making one heap of well, some, of his winnings and in true 'Transition Year Mini-Company' form, has begun to sell some hats.
Sturridge celebrated his return to form for Liverpool against Aston Villa with his usual 'wiggly arms' dance, and after the game, added this fairly bald marketing ploy to the post-game Instagram post:
A worthy effort by Sturridge, if only for the one reason that he has taught this writer to spell entrepreneurship.
Villains
Jores Okore
Whereas your Becketts, your Joyces and your Eliots are feted for their portrayal of the utter futility of human life, Jores Okore and Aston Villa continue to toil in obscurity, despite their precise reduction of the beautiful game to a yawning, soporific and stultifying arena of nothingness.
Okore is a dithering emblem of the fall of the once-mighty institution of Aston Villa. Watching Villa against Liverpool yesterday was a little voyeuristic, it was like intruding on a scene of public mourning on a mass scale. So bad were Villa, we felt a little dirty having watched it. Okore gets the headline here but it could have been any of the uninterested jokers playing in maroon.
We flirted with the idea of going with Joleon Lescott who refused to breathe a word about the loss by tweeting a picture of an expensive car following the embarrassment against Liverpool. However, he later tweeted that he had accidentally sat on his phone causing that car to be sent, rather than say, an image of a Nissan Micra. This is a perfectly legitimate excuse and as a result, exculpates him from guilt here.
It is perversely impressive that Villa have managed to field eleven players so abhorrently unsuited for top-level football: a scouting team capable of managing to find eleven duds shows a consistency of both vision and execution that will surely be rewarded with a higher profile job in the future.
Jaco Peyper
The referee between Ireland and France was the marvellously named Jaco Peyper, who failed to card Yoann Maestri for his late hit on Johnny Sexton despite him being in front of it and the fact that the TMO was available to him.
There were technology issues - with touch judge Nigel Owens unable to hear the TMO - but Peyper failed to card Maestri despite the awarding of a penalty for the incident. You would hope that Peyper won't give way to hating, as Peyper is none too popular in Ireland this afternoon. He is not solely to blame for the miserable Irish defeat, but he certainly didn't cover himself in glory.
Headline writers
This weekend had lots of scope for some good headline writing, particularly given the fact that Ireland were hoisted by a referee called Jaco Peyper. The best we saw was in The Herald, which decried 'Peyper View Costs Irish Dear', which is excellent. There were few good puns elsewhere, we didn't see 'Peyper As-Salt-ed Irish Championship Hopes' anywhere.
Elsewhere, Watford signed a player called Isaac Success from Granada, and we didn't see a single 'Watford Buy Success' title along with an 'Isaac Likes His Newtown' sub-heading. Perhaps the last part there is slightly contrived, so we can make allowance for any doubting on that.
Claudio Ranieri
No, Claudio, no! Don't do anything which can put you in here!
Sadly, the Tinkerman returned at the Emirates. Leicester's success thus far has been founded on Ranieri curbing his enthusiasm for rotating his squad: he has used just 22 players in the League this season, the lowest in the division. Following Danny Simpson's red card, Ranieri substituted Riyad Mahrez for defender Marcin Wasilewski.
If Leicester harboured any hopes of hitting Arsenal on the counter-attack, Mahrez was crucial in linking with Jamie Vardy and keeping hold of the ball. Instead, Mahrez was subbed, and Shinji Okazaki remained up front with Vardy.
Ranieri then took Okazaki off a few moments later, for Demerai Gray. The results left Vardy hopelessly isolated up front, as Leicester retreated to their own penalty area. They almost clung on, before the brainless actions of Wasilewski in the final, unforgiving minute. It could have been more comfortable had Mahrez remained on, however.
