It's a Vision Thing

It was mentioned last week - by some members of the mongrel pack that huddle at the side of Malahide United's pitch for gristly morsels of quotes from the Republic of Ireland manager - that Stephen Staunton seemed in relatively "good form".

Some speculated that it was due to the bludgeoning being dished out on Eddie O'Sullivan, that the erstwhile paragon of Irish international managerial excellence was now occupying the stocks to which Staunton was usually bound. That line sounds glib, but, by the infantile standards of Staunton's usual public justifications, nonetheless believeable.

More likely, however, is that the manager was enjoying the hubris of suddenly-realised invulnerability. The trip to central Europe had been characterised by similar - if not quite as disastrous - incompetencies to the Cyprus fiasco of 11 months previously, yet the support of Staunton's employers for their manager rang out more loudly than the clamour for his removal.

The same selectorial eccentricities, further erroneous substitutions and a continuing overwhelming lack of sense of purpose were evident.

This is not to suggest that the players' commitment to the cause was lacking in any way; one of the redeeming features of Staunton's management is the undoubted efforts his players continue to provide. But no-one questioned the commitment of the soldiers at the Somme as they were ordered towards their doom, neither does anyone credit their commanders for it.

The fact that a dismal return from the pivotal qualification matches resulted in voluminous backing from the FAI must surely have emboldened Staunton thereafter, perhaps explaining then his levity of mood last week.

Nothing that happened on Saturday will have damaged or abetted the manager. The attitude of the players was once again excellent; the performance of Joey O'Brien another success for the blooding policy of this campaign.

But that sense of purposeless is highlighted at home more than anywhere. The understrength Germans' general comfort with proceedings pinpoints the sad demise of the Irish international team. No matter how low we think we are, in these days when we are constantly reminded to redefine our expectations, no international side, especially one denuded of most of their best players, should expect to sleepwalk their way through an international in Dublin.

The lack of a vision for his team is something which our manager should now be eliminating. The fact that Andy Reid has gone from pariah to the central hub of the team in the space of two games demontrates the haphazard nature of Staunton's stewardship. The tossing in of Andy Keogh on the right wing another random, surreal whim of a selection.

By this stage we should expect - whatever the other flaws - to have a notion of how Staunton's Ireland would ideally line-up and play. That we don't is the fundamental problem with this ramshackle, irrational operation.

I Can Picture It Now...

One of keys to success, so they who know about these things claim, is to visualise it. That way, when it comes to the moment of truth, when your mettle is tested, it will feel like you have already done it before.

Being open of heart and generous of nature (just ask my servants) I have always longed for Steve Staunton to be a success as Ireland manager. Not just because, having the word "Eireannach" on my passport, it's expected; nor because of the long and dutiful service the lanky southpaw gave his country as a player.

Mainly, it was just so the poor wretch would not have to endure any longer the full, double-barrelled barrage of this nation's Industry of Ridicule, be they the amateur bar-room satirists of the general public and the (ahem) internet blogging community, or the professional firing squad of the media.

Such has been the torrent of denigration that Stan has endured (not all of it due to his 'interesting' team selections and 'minimalist' press conferences), it would not require Our Lady of Lourdes to wish for some mercy for the chap.

But back to the visualisation thing. In rooting for the guy, during those short interludes when his reign has been characterised by relative calm, I have often tried to picture success for the Louthman in the Ireland job. I have tried to visulaise Stan the Conquering Hero, striding onto the Croke Park turf - in Churchillian style, if you will - to take the acclaim after defeating Germany next month.

Or Stan the Master Tactician, who earns a respectful nod from Karel Bruckner, having just outwitted the grey Gandalf of European football in tonight's contest in Prague.

"A well deserved victory, Stephen, playing Richard Dunne up front - I had no idea. Alex Ferguson, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Capello and I are going for a Staropramen after the game, interested?"

"Ah no thanks Karel, I'd like to be with my boys."

Or Stan On The Late Late, spinning yarns to Pat about Mick Byrne's antics, recounting funny tales of the trip to the finals in Austria and Switzerland, holding the audience rapt, until Bono and Larry Mullen come in to present him with, I don't know, a saxaphone or something (I'm speculating on Stan having a rich cultural life, unbeknownst to his persecutors in the outside world).

But....I'm struggling. All I can see is Stan the Sacked, Stan the Bitter, Stan Blaming the Media, Stan the Newspaper Column Aimed At Taking Potshots At His Successor. I can see all them dancing in my brain like the results of a particularly bad acid trip. Stan the Success? He seems to have gone the way of Michael O'Leary the Humble, or Beckham the Publicity Shy.

I just hope Stan's better at this visualisation lark than I am.

Hell Hath No Fury

Yesterday the normally stagnant waters in which the minnows of the Gaelic football swim were rendered all choppy by the 'transfer' of Thomas Walsh, star midfielder with Leinster strugglers Carlow, to near neighbours Wicklow. That the latter county's manager is Mick O'Dwyer, the legendary former Kerry boss, but also a serial snaffler of players from other counties in his subsequent jobs, has led to all sorts of conspiracy talk within Carlow.

Whether Walsh was 'enticed' by the sweet-talking man from the Kingdom or not (O'Dwyer strenously denies any such allegations), the howls of antagonism from Carlow would tend to suggest that the offending player may do well to avoid the streets of his native Fenagh, the club from whom he transferred to Bray Emmets.

Transfers within the GAA remain something of a taboo subject. Strictly speaking a player can move when his living circumstances permit it, but the idea of changing club or county for personal betterment contravenes the pervading spirit of the greater good of home parish, then county.

Although the reasons for Walsh's move are not yet clear - he stated only a few days before submitting his transfer request that he would not be going anywhere - and though he apparently now lives in Wicklow, one can only assume the opportunity to profit from the O'Dwyer dividend in Wicklow had some influence on his decision.

For soccer fans, for whom the transfer system is as intrinsic a part of their game as boots and balls, the whole idea of loyalty is tantamount to an anachronism. That knowledge, however, doesn't save some moving players from the full force of a jilted fanbase.

A few weeks ago Shaun Maloney left Celtic for Aston Villa on the final day of the January transfer window, having been involved in protracted contract discussions with the Hoops for around a year. The outpouring of hostility toward the player - ostensibly making a professional decision based on a superior financial package - amongst the Celtic support was vociferous, to the point where many have withdrawn previously-held good wishes for the success of Martin O'Neill's new venture as Villa manager.

The player's perceived betrayal replicated a similar move on the part of Liam Miller to Manchester United, the downward trajectory of whose subsequent career provided a source of schadenfreude to many a Celtic supporter.

It seems that any self-respecting support must adopt bunny-boiling tendencies when faced with being spurned by a former hero. Spurs had Sol Campbell, Barcelona had Luis Figo. Of course it didn't help that the players involved moved to sworn rivals in both those cases.

The lexicon of love applies so conveniently here because depth of affection toward football player is often dangerously parallel to directed toward a relationship partner. Fans might talk about the betrayal with reference to the amount of time and money spent making a player successful, much in the way a rejected lover might talk of the emotional commitment laid waste by the sight of a short skirt or the flutter of forbidden eyelashes.

Everton supporters had the look of frumpy divorcées when Wayne Rooney jumped into the glamourous arms of Manchester United. When they first got their hands on him he was just a scruffy lad, they turned him into.....well, you get the point. Most pointedly, there was a sense of bafflement, only they seeing why their man had left the dowdy matron for the sultry debutante.

The Wicklow football team mightn't resemble a sultry debutante much, but try telling that to Thomas Walsh's jilted former county. Next time he returns to Carlow, he might even find his sports car's headlights smashed in and all his suits cut into pieces.

Sport's Greatest Losers - Part 1

You have to admire their persistence. With each new day England's intrepid band of cricketing tourists send back ever more humiliating tales of calamitous defeat. In the spirit of ill-fated English expeditions, it is surely only a matter of time before Andrew Flintoff announces to the the dressing room: "I am just going outside, and may be some time". Though given the brevity of their stints at the crease, that wouldn't be such a bad idea.

To put it all in perspective, let's bellow 'shame' at some of sport's other most pitiful losers.

Chicago Cubs 1908 - Present
Starting with the organisation that has explored the concept of losing with such painstaking detail for nearly a century now, such that, if there were a competition for the biggest losers, they would win, except that would be a paradox, thus denying them even that honour.

The last time the Cubs won the World Series was 1908, the year in which Henry Ford produced his first Model T automobile, Robert Baden Powell began the Boy Scout movement and the women's suffrage movement was in the midst of a strategy of civil disobedience. Oh, and Australia regained the Ashes with a 308 run victory over England (England did manage to win one test however).

World Series would be a fine thing - this crowd can't even get their hands on a National League title, last winning a 'pennant' in 1945, when Frank Sinatra was getting chased by bobbysoxers and it was still ok to nuke a city.

This empire of failure appointed a new high-priest of haplessness in 2003, when, a mere two outs from getting to the World Series in the NL championship game against the Florida Marlins, fan Steve Bartman attempted to catch a foul ball instead of allowing outfielder Moises Alou take the catch to get another out. The Cubs subsequently collapsed, the Marlins won the World Series, and the world returned to its axis.

Manchester United 1968-1993
Although currently being slavishly imitated by Liverpool with their take on the Crumbling Empire/Subsequent Famine trick, the Reds of Merseyside have some way to go before matching the years in the wilderness endured by United between the glorious seasons of 1966/67 and 1967/68 in which they won the league and European Cup, and their return to the pinnacle of English football in 1993/93.

United were an object lesson in the problems of succession: Matt Busby's retirement in 1969 saw a succession of manager's fail to match the achievements of the Scot's 24 years in charge. Wilf McGuinness and Frank O'Farrell were too meek, Tommy Docherty too mad, Dave Sexton too defensive and Big Ron too tanned. Famously, it took Alex Ferguson almost seven years to drag the club to a title.

The nadir was a relegation in 1974, which Liverpool have, as yet, failed to match. Perhaps as heartbreaking was the failure to win the 1992 title, the last First Division championship they would compete for, which Leeds won after United lost 2-0 against, ahem, Liverpool. Still, they've rather made up for it since.

2005 British & Irish Lions
New Zealand could hardly have been a less hospitable place for the 2005 Lions to visit had the host country arranged a tour match against some Orcs left over from the filming of Lord of the Rings. The test results were by no means the worst ever either, the tourists having gotten smacked up four times in 1966 and 1983, rather than the mere three whippings they took in 2005.

But the way the tour was conducted, when added to the whitewash on the field, sets this tour up for particular derision. This was Clive Woodward's Heaven's Gate, the folly to end all follies. From the whole 'Power of Four' nonsense (which included a specially commissioned and immediately forgotten anthem) to the vast massed ranks of backroom staff that shuffled along in their wake, verily this was a carnival of cluelessness.

Being exactly the kind of Englishman whose superciliousness plays poorly in the Antipodes, Woodward was always up against it. But when his tactics consisted of the dusting down of a manual entitled "England 2003 - Biff, Bash and Wilko" observers were entitled to wonder whether more time had been spent on assembling the 26-strong backroom staff than in devising a remotely cogent gameplan.

If Willie John McBride had issued his famous '99' call in 2005, this lot would looked around for the ice-cream van.

Becks: The Vegas Years

"Laydeez and gennulmen...live from the LA Galaxy stadium, it's Daaaaavid Beckham!!"

The screaming of the fans hadn't decreased any over the years, but it annoyed him now. Pulling the string tight on shorts so as compress a little the gut that had developed on his once lithe torso, he snorted his derision.

"We love you David!"

"Who do ya love, baby; this ole heap of washed up star, or that picture on your wall from ten years ago?" he murmured to himself, as an assistant yanked a corset secure and another pretty young thing dappled some make-up over his sagging features.

He looked over at his half-soused wife, already on her third martini and dragging on a cigarette. She'd lost her little runt of a chihuahua in the chaos of the dressing room: "Mr. Cuddles, Mr.Cuddles, where are you?....Mr.Cuddles you little bastard! Come here or I'll tear your balls off!"

Becks shook his head. Afternoon games were the worst; at least with evening games she'd drink all day and soon pass out in the corner.

Five years he'd been doing this, city to city, trotting out the old standards.

Curling free kick just over the bar, grimace of frustration, run hands through suggestively through hair.

Screeeeam!

Sweeping crossfield pass, peer with furrowed brow, smoulder when ball lands at feet of teammate.

Aaaarghhdddaaavidd!!

Another free-kick, this time arcing over the wall and into the net - still got it - run to corner flag, pump fists and smile; brace for teammates jumping exaltantly on back.

Waaaaailll!

L.A.; Chicago to New York then D.C.: the big shows. He'd always get up for them. Maximise the charisma, ham it up with the Soccer Superstar persona. He watched the Zidane documentary over and again, trying to add gravitas as the looks faded.

The stadiums were packed, in general, but it was delivering the money shot for ESPN Sportscenter's highlights that paid his wages.

Free kick + goal + smouldering look in direction of camera = Play of the Day folks! Leverage the image rights another notch please!

But the provincial backwaters, God!: Columbus in Ohio, Colorado, Kansas bloody City, frickin' Salt Lake! Every time he went through the motions in Kansas bloody City, selling some "sophisticated European glamour" to midwest rubes, he thought of Fergie. Retired now, and out of sight but for the occasional quote snatched at a horse race meeting.

He thought of that pinched mouth, the purple face; the cold, cutting remarks he would undoubtedly have been privately making on his former charge's late career. The aspersions cast on his sexuality, the snorting insults about his wife. He once cared though. He owed it all to him.
Like fuck he did. He did it all for himself. He wasn't going to be controlled and caged by that monster. Look at Scholesy and Nevs, though. Legends now, just retired from playing. Nevs in the England coaching set-up.

He remembered the early days. The goal from half way at Wimbledon; in the dressing room in awe of Cantona; Barcelona in 1999; how Keane would snarl and, where once he would look to Fergie for reassurance, how over time the boss would avoid his glance, in tacit agreement with Roy. Nevs and Scholesy (and Phil and Butty and the rest) though; it made him smile to think of those first few years.

But he wasn't like them, he wasn't happy to settle. Home comforts, hah!

He believed it at the time, all the rubbish about growing the game in the U.S. He always believed what he said, that was the problem. People said it was all marketing, spin, PR, image with him. But he thought he meant it all: how he was going to get back in the England team after the 2006 World Cup, when he told Victoria that the stuff with the women wasn't his fault (look at the state of her now). That the Cruises (him and whoever the 'other half' happened to be that week) were really good friends.

And yes, that he, David Beckham, the biggest superstar in the world, would make the Americans love soccer. How could they not? As far as they were concerned, he was soccer. And now he would be among them; and it wouldn't be like Europe where it was so damn intense and full of hate and pressure and lunatics with empty lives and nothing better to do than talk about every little detail of some bloody football team and what prats footballers were.

No. It would be fun. New. Shiny and glitzy. Living in Los Angeles, at the heart of the entertainment industry, broadcasting to the nation every week: must-see TV.

Five years later and the show was rumbling on. He was still a draw alright; but like Riverdance, Les Mis, or going to Disneyworld. "Yeah, honey, L.A.'s great, took in a Beckham game last night." Just bog-standard family entertainment

Who was it this week? Houston Dynamo? On we go then.

Receives ball 25 yards out, bouncing, cracks a right foot volley, inches wide, ooooh! Run both hands through hair, give thumbs up to passer, and, nice touch this, a little wink.

Daaaaaavvvviddd!

Thangyouverymuch...

The Humanity! Top 5 Irish Sporting Heartbreak

For those unaware of the majesty of the Observer Sport Monthly magazine (free with the Observer newspaper on the first Sunday of every month), firstly accept my pity, then check out the link above for the online version of last Sunday's issue, which featured sport's 50 most 'heartbreaking' moments.

Of course being a dirty English publication, there's none of our own home-grown heartbreak - which leaves a rich seam of gut-wrenching calamity sadly unmined.

For the sake of record, here are a mere five occasions when the cruel hand of fortune slapped Irishmen in the face, leaving them prostrate on the floor, crying "Why?!"

1.Wim Kieft and His Magically Spinning Header
Proof positive that the extraordinarily unlikely turn of events that had gotten Ireland to Euro 88 (specifically Scotland's purloining of a victory from darkest Sofia) had seen us drain dry the well of serendipity, was the bizarre trajectory of the ball which beat Packie Bonner to send us home from the finals.

You might add that we rode our luck till that particular steed was only fit for making glue in the opening, mythical victory over England in Stuttgart. Thing was, in the second match against the USSR in Hanover, not only did Ronnie Whelan score The Greatest Shinned Goal Ever, but the team performed magnificiently against the eventual losing finalists, earning us fairly our shot at the semis against the Dutch.

The fatal goal was not the only mysterious, supernatural phenomenon that day - Paul McGrath's bulleted first half header was a goal in every way but the formality of it having actually crossed the line. It should have been awarded posthumous goalhood. Somehow neither it nor the playground-style scramble which ensued thereafter led to a score.

No matter, a draw would be sufficient to see the archetypal green army progress to the semi-finals, a spectacular achievement for a team were presupposed to have ticked the 'For the Beer' box in the 'Purpose of Visit' section of the immigration form.

With eight minutes remaining, a scuffed Ronald Koeman volley bounces off the ground, brushes Kieft's crown at an angle sufficient to imbue the ball with the spin of Shane Warne's Ball of the Century and past a bamboozled Packie.

Why!?

2.Barry McGuigan in Leaving Las Vegas
In hindsight this defeat served the purpose of getting McGuigan's boxing career out of the way so that he could proceed with his phenomenally successful motor racing and singing incarnations. But at the time, the sight of poor Barry wilting in the searing heat of the Nevada desert as Steve Cruz took his world title from him was pretty harrowing.

Having been used to seeing McGuigan in those fleeting glory nights in packed British and Irish venues (McGuigan's time at the top spanned only three fights: the title win over Eusebio Pedrosa at Loftus Road, and defences against Bernard Taylor in Belfast and Daniel Cabrera in Dublin) the fierce heat of the Caesar's Palace car park was always going to work in favour of Cruz, rather than the man from the more temperate climes of Clones.

Despite starting well, he suffered dehydration, went down in the 10th and 15th rounds and was rushed to hospital for rehydration. It was all a terribly sad sight.

3.Lynagh's Try makes Hamilton's Academic.
The 1991 Rugby World Cup final between Australia and England almost never happened. In the semi-final against Scotland, the scores were tied 6-6 with around ten minutes remaining. Gavin Hastings had a straightforward penalty to put the Scots ahead, one normally a formality for a metronomic kicker such as the Watsonians man. He missed, Rob Andrew dropped a goal and England were through.

Even more of a twist in history would have occured had not Michael Lynagh's late try at Lansdowne Road in the quarter final denied Ireland what would have been the greatest result of their test history, the current golden era included.

It's testament to the lean stock of happy memories that Irish rugby has that Gordon Hamilton's sinew-wrenching run to the corner with five minutes of that match remaining is one of our bona fide Golden Moments. The fact that Australia responded with a score of their own to eliminate us is generally left as an aside, spoiling as it does the perfection of Hamilton's try. Jack Clarke beating Campese to the set-up, then Hamilton pumping his thighs defiantly. The crowd mentally dragging him over the line, then engulfing him.

Yes, let's leave it at that, shall we?

4.The Five Minute Final
There is a warm, lively metaphorical house in Irish sport, wherein reside the counties and characters who made the 1990s a storied decade in the history of hurling, Ger Loughnane banters with Liam Griffin; Brian Whelehan and Anthony Daly share a drop; Clare, Wexford and Offaly laugh now over old enmities.

Looking in the window, forlornly and bitterly, are the 1994 Limerick team. Four minutes remained on the clock in that year's All-Ireland hurling final, and Limerick led Offaly by five points. Johnny Dooley lined up a close range free. Under instruction from the sideline to point it, he defied, and struck it incredibly into the net. Limerick collapsed, Offaly scoring a further goal and four points in the remaining moments.

Hold on and it would have been Limerick who would have kick-started that egalitarian period in which the Liam McCarthy Cup was a prize for more than the few. Instead, it will be 34 years since their last success come this September.

5.Sonia's Problems 'Down There'...
Sonia O'Sullivan, Ireland's greatest modern athlete, ended her peak athletics years with one solitary Olympic medal - a silver in the Sydney 2000 5000m behind Romanian Gabriele Szabo. She also missed out on a medal in 1993 World Championships 3000m when beaten by three Chinese (boo hiss!) competitors. Both Szabo and the Chinese later had serious accusations of drug taking made against them.

But it was O'Sullivan's retirement from the 1996 Atlanta Olympics 5000m final - for which she was favourite for gold - which provided the most memorable major championship heartache for the Cork woman, and this time, it was apparently her own body which conspired against her.

When something goes wrong in a middle distance race, it generally doesn't happen in that shocking, sudden way it might in a sprint race: a hamstring tear or a false start disqualification. The best laid plans in distance running gang aglae slowly; the runner falls inches, then feet, then yards behind, until the gap cannot be reasoned away through the explanation of a sudden burst from a leader.

For O'Sullivan, it went wrong nastily. She dropped back through the field and kept on going, until her tearful withdrawal and the subsequent revelations that she'd been suffering from a 'stomach upset'. Unquestionably her time to win Olympic gold, and was denied her in the most undignified way.

There's Something Vaguely Familiar About This Glittering Award Ceremony

After using its dead-eyed analytical skills and shrewd judgement to tell you why Darren Clarke would win the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award last week (an annus mirabilis for Zara Phillips and no mistake), it's only fair that TSA brings the same sagacity to bear on the field for our own national broadcaster's humble award.

Otherwise we would be subject to accusations of Anglophilia, be put on a register of some sort and be run out of town for whistling Land of Hope and Glory near playgrounds.

The RTE Sports Person of the Year (Oh! How that subtle change in nomenclature distracts us from the shamelessly ripped off origins of the award! Well done, RTE brains trust people!) shortlist does seem to glow with the light of achievement a little more than its British counterpart did.

Probably, however, that is because our status as a small nation whose flag generally flies fairly limply at international sporting events means that anything we do accomplish gets properly Olé-Olé'd until just short of the declaration of a national holiday.

Also the international isolation of the GAA means that, as someone has to win the All-Ireland in the major codes, then it can generally be said to have been a good year for at least two people within the GAA, which pads out the list a little.

Soccer gets nary a nod, having to compare itself as it does with other countries. That, however, doesn't excuse an ignominious twelve months for the game on this island. It comes to a close with the Eircom League (now, post-merger, run by those crack logistical experts, the FAI) promoting the third place team in its second tier over the second placed, due to them having more nice astro-turf pitches and such, rather than the usual, antiquated criteria of a superior points total.

Yes indeed, domestic soccer is taking administrative sporting farce to exciting new places, bookending a year that started with Walsall's assistant manager becoming the 'world-class' captain of the good ship Republic of Ireland, and was defined by that listing vessel being wrecked on the hitherto unprecarious shore of Cyprus.

Enough of absent friends, then. To the people in the tuxedos and ballgowns (on that note, pray to your God, whomsoever he may be, that we may be spared Tracy Piggott in another plunging neckline. My eyes! IT BURNS!)!

Once again the Darren Clarke issue arises. Thing is, rather than the mob-emotion of the general public being considered, the RTE award is voted for by a panel of "esteemed" experts. Chaired by Tom McGurk, the panel includes Eamon Dunphy, George Hook, Pat Spillane, Cyril Farrell, Ted Walsh and Jerry Kiernan. Therefore we can expect the casting of cold eyes of analysis on the affair, which may preclude Clarke.

Anyway, would Darren have won a public vote since the whole new girlfriend business?

- "But he's been through so much! Isn't it nice for him?"

- Is it not a bit soon though? I mean, it's not for me to say, but...."

Darren's great mate Padraig Harrington is also nominated, as befits the man who heads the European Order of Merit. One feels, however, that, until Padraig brings home the Major-flavoured bacon, the whiff of underachievement will, probably unfairly, deny him an award like this.

In GAA, Kieran Donaghy might be a contender, for the meteoric, fairytale nature of his rise, were he not lacking mantelpiece space from all the GAA and GPA awards he has squeezed into his hourse over the last few weeks. Henry Shefflin was only his usual perfection, and thus may be passed over in the manner that consistent brilliance is often taken for granted.

Non-horsey people like myself would tend to regard Aidan O'Brien as a token contender, there to represent one of the few sports in which we are a world power. But then you look at what his horses achieved this year - a fairly normal one - and you think that perhaps the esteemed RTE panel should get together only to thrash out who should finish second.

The Irish Champion Stakes and Irish Derby (Dylan Thomas), the Irish and their British equivalent (Alexandrova), the Phoenix Stakes (Holy Roman Emperor), the Critérium International (Mount Nelson), the 2000 Guineas and Queen Elizabeth II Stakes (Goerge Washington), the Ascot Gold Cup (Yeats), the Queen Anne Stakes (Ad Valorem) and the Shadwell Turf Mile at the Breeders Cup meeting in Kentucky. All were scooped by Ballydoyle this year. Phew!

Still, one imagines this award will go to someone who performed under the glare of the cameras and the pressure of the occasion, and as such a trainer like O'Brien is likely to be passed over.

In boxing there is a World (Katie Taylor) and European Champion (Bernard Dunne). As many are still a little 'iffy' about female boxing, Ms Taylor will probably be congratulated politely and sent on her way, the lads on the panel trying desperately, and failing, not to patronise her.

Dunne may get a podium place, the hoopla and excitement of his big night in the Point still fresh in the memory.

After Zara Phillips, Jessica Kurten might have a chance, but I feel the jodhpur madness must end here.

That leaves Derval O'Rourke and Paul O'Connell. Personally, I hope that O'Rourke gets it.

We're very cosy with our major sports in this country, probably because we don't have as many

successful competitors in other sports as we did in, say, the 1980s. O'Rourke deserves our attention and the recognition of this award for genuine achievement (World Indoor 60m Hurdles Champion and European (outdoor) 100m hurdles silver) in a sport we (Sonia O'Sullivan apart) have not excelled in for a long time, and in a discipline that we have generally found to technical and 'foothery' to be bothered with.

And I have a sneaking feeling Paul O'Connell will be getting to lift the team award anyway....