Rugby Smugby

We were 18-12 down with five minutes to play and on the attack. A converted try would put us ahead and better still leave Australia little time to come back at us. I was on the edge of my seat and so were the thousands of Irish fans around me.

Aine and Sinead sat directly behind and I had the pleasure of listening to the dull tones of their midland accent for most of the game. My accent recognition software has taken a bit of a battering since I came here, but I'd still put these girls within 12 miles of Clara, County Offaly. This was despite the fact that Sinead was wearing a fetching badge attached to her figure hugging Ireland Rugby Jersey (when did theystart making Rugby Shirts for women by the way) that said "I'm notIrish, but kiss me anyway".

Like me, Aine and Sinead were perched on the edge of their seats asBrian O'Driscoll intercepted a stray Australian pass and took off forthe corner. "It's coming, it's coming" Aine screamed and she edged forward on her seat. Then she was up and whooping. Unfortunately, it was not to celebrate a try but to take part in the Mexican wave that was just tsumaning it's way past our section of the Telstra Dome.

As the wave passed, Aine and Sinead sat back and followed its progress around the stadium. "It's dying" one of them whispered with a voice so sad you'd think she was talking about family members. Ireland were camped on the Australian try line at the time but Aine and Sinead didn't seem to notice. They were there for the occasion, an opportunity to take some pictures to add to their face book profile and the on-line album that would record their backpacking year out. Or maybe they heard that a Mexican wave contest was in town.

The reasons people go to Rugby matches are multitude, although watching Rugby seems well down the list. By the length of the queue at the bar, I'd say drinking is important and fancy dress is also becoming an important part of Irish days out, if the amount of leprechaun outfits is anything to go by.

I come to this issue with the missionary zeal of a recent convert. I came to Rugby late. The first game I went to was on November 2nd, 1991 at Twickenham. England were playing Australia for the William Webb Ellis trophy, or the World Cup as the Tabloids liked to call it.

I like to think that I started at the top, although my memories of the day aren't so noble. The rugby was pretty awful and the weather wasn't much better. I also felt guilty about the seven empty seats to my left, particularly when there wasn't another empty seat in the house. My ex-girlfriend had procured eleven tickets from her power broking father.We trawled through our friends and acquaintances and could only find two other people who were interested in going.

It's hard to believe now, but in the days before pay per view satellite TV, Rugby wasn't that popular. I worked in the Finance Department of a large Insurance Company and despite the fact that we had 42 thoroughly middle class Accountants, none of them wanted to go. Although the fact that we decided not to offer tickets to English people may have accounted for some of that number. And that's what I feel guilty about.

It would have been so much better to have seven English people sitting in those seats, if only so that I could take piss out of them when Australia won.

Like all new converts, I threw myself into the game with the enthusiasm of a ten year old. I schooled myself on the rules and personalities of Rugby, followed the annual parlour game of regulation changes and read all the analysis the media had to offer. And what does all this knowledge do for me? It allows me to be a smug bastard at Rugby matches and to sit in a minority of one.

Nobody understands Rugby. They don't know how forwards are supposed to bind in scrums, what constitutes a forward pass or how many points you get for a successful penalty goal. The scoreboard operator inMelbourne had this problem, which just goes to prove what an alien sport Rugby is in this City.

So I find myself in perfect isolation, screaming at the injustice of refereeing decisions or imploring our front row forwards to get off their backsides and push. This means that Rugby is a totally unhappy experience for me because Ireland aren't very good. I've watched them twice in eight days in two different countries, which almost qualifies me to be middle class. I just have to perfect my accent and develop a loathing for people on social welfare and I'm in. The highlight of both matches was a burger I got before the game in Wellington which put fastfood to shame and the halftime entertainment in Melbourne which consisted of two men racing each other around cones in what looked like12 feet tall inflated condoms.

The Rugby itself was a battle of eager amateurism against bored professionalism and on both weekends the boredom won. So I tucked away my Ireland Jersey on Sunday morning, resigned to the fact that sport is a cruel mistress. But like all good mistresses, sport teases you and then tempts you back with the promise of future redemption. So I settled down in front of the TV on Sunday to watch Carlton take on Collingwood in the AFL in a mood of hope rather than expectation.

Beating Collingwood is up there in my sporting priorities with Dundalk beating Drogheda, Wexford beating Kilkenny, Arsenal beating Man United and Ireland beating anyone in the top eight in Rugby. Carlton won by 30 points and my hero Setanta O’Hailpin had a fantastic match. The mistress of sport has once more tempted me into her bed. How long before I die between the jaws of lust again?

The Surly Dub and The Happy Culchie

I don’t know when it started. I guess it was the first Friday after one of my regular sojourns through the Southern Hemisphere. I would have met up with a few friends for some of Dublin’s finest Guinness in the small snug in the Palace Bar.

Their objective would have been to prove to the Department of Health that it wasn’t only pubescent teens that binge drank, but 30ish bankers as well. My intentions would have been to bore them with tales of sailing under crimson Tasman skies.

I don’t know when it started, but on one of those nights I’m sure that the exit strategy was hatched. The seed of my desire to move to the Antipathies was planted and it germinated in the nourishing nectar of Arthur Guinness’ finest.

My mate Baz was in on the plan early. He also felt the gravitational pull south and he also knew we needed a plan. As all of our discussions were held in pubs, I guess it’s not unusual that our plans centred on those sort of establishments.

Despite the fact that neither of us knew the first thing about it, our plan was to open a pub, Irish in character and physically situated somewhere between Sydney and Santiago.

I guess we figured that a pub was our ticket to financial security and an easy life. The fact that it would mean working till 4am most nights and would provide all the temptation we needed to become fully blown alcoholics seemed inconsequential to us. In our missionary zeal we felt it was our destiny as Irishmen abroad to run pubs and considered it a challenge to our personal pride that it would be the best damned Irish pub in the Southern Hemisphere.

We had both travelled extensively over the years and one of the things that troubled us as roving Irish ambassadors was the appalling state of Irish pubs around the world. We gave the gift of sociability to the people of the earth and seem to have forgotten that some gifts need to keep on giving.

We handed over the upkeep of Irish pubs to the corporate multinationals and get rich quick merchants and they turned them into a homogenised blob of shallowness. We Irish have long figured out that Irish pubs abroad are a double bogey. They steal from you the pleasure of enjoying a foreign experience while not quite making you feel at home either.

So Baz and I decided that we would head South and create an Irish pub that would be true to the traditions and glory of our heritage. A pub that would be simple and austere. A pub that concentrates on product and not presentation. On ambiance and not piped Pogues music. In short we wanted to do something that had never been done before. Run an Irish pub abroad that was just like an Irish pub back home.

Baz and I had pure thoughts. Each week after a few pints had loosened our imagination, we would perfect our plan. We worked through menus, music, signage, staff and all the other things required to a make a perfect public house. After a year or so, we could picture the pub in our heads. It would be called “The Surly Dub” in honour of Baz’s lineage and his pessimistic demeanour. When we did the cash-flows, we realised we needed extra revenue. So we updated our plans to include a nightclub down the back. I got the naming rights and being a cheerful country boy, I thought “The Happy Culchie” was appropriate.

Music would be banned unless it was live and we wouldn’t do food apart from toasted sandwiches and specially imported Tayto crisps and pink snacks. No Guinness posters would adorn our walls. We would have pictures of the Dowdallshill under 16 championship team of 1981 and perhaps a set list from the Lisdoonvarna festival of 1975.

There would be no road signs saying that it was 2 miles to Killarney along an unapproved B road, if for no other reason than it patently isn’t (are there any signposts left in Kerry by the way?). No copper kettles hanging from the wooden beamed rafters. No dark and pokey corners lit only by a small candle upon an empty whiskey barrel.

Corporate fascism seems to think that Irish pubs should look like sheebeens in kitchens of 19th Century peasant houses. Except for the food of course. Garlic bread and chicken nuggets weren’t common in the famine ravished kitchens of 19th Century Irish houses.

In fact Irish pubs look like the front room of a middle class family in the 1950’s on an evening when they’ve invited the neighbours around for a few drinks. Pubs should be bright and designed for conversation and not shouting. They should have Formica topped tables and odd sized stools and you should look at the walls because they are novel and not because they are covered with colourful animals being chased by Guinness workmen.

In the end, I took the easy option of a safe job in Australia and Baz wimped out. But every now and again when the smell of porter is caressing the air, my mind will wander to thoughts of the “The Surly Dub” and how much we would have charged for a pint of Harp Export. Imagine my disappointment then when I stumbled upon “The Drunken Poet” in Melbourne. It was as though its owner Siobhan had been eavesdropping on Baz and me all those years ago. Because God Damn it, she’s gone and designed exactly the pub we’d imagined. Right down to the pink snacks.

She has stolen my dream but I’m not bitter. Because I’ve finally found an Irish pub here that I’d be happy to frequent. The Guinness isn’t too bad either, which is not something I thought I’d find myself saying in this country. And maybe she has some room out the back and might be interested in a joint venture. The Happy Culchie might have a future yet.