King Carter a 'little kid starting school' at Perpignan

See Jerry - I knew you'd get the message eventually.

The fact that SCW and Alistair Campbell were pretty good at playing the media game helped the story's legs also. Anyway, I think we should all put it behind us now that Tana and Brian have settled their differences and settled down together... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q4dtr9-QA4

Add to that Ellis on Carter, I agree. But as you said, the media storm that goes with it already makes it bigger than anything else. Would the incident have received as much attention had O'Driscoll not got injured? - I doubt it, but that's the nature of the beast. Add to that, O'Driscoll was probably considered as the best center in the world at the time, and it brings together the perfect story or controversy. News values.

Actually I've just thought of another that actually did cause injury - Brad Thorn on John Smit. It caused Smit to suffer a groin strain which suggests to me that, ironically, it was the picking up rather than the dropping that actually injured him.

Well, it was something of a "perfect storm" as it was such a high profile match with so much build-up, so early on and involved both team's captains (though Umaga was less to blame than Mealamu for the outcome in my opinion). But if you examine the actual incidents and disregard all the external factors, it wasn't that much worse. Pretty much all of them could potentially end in serious injury, it's just bad luck that the O'Driscoll one did (or to put it a less callous way, it's extremely good luck none of the others did). It was probably the presence of Mealamu (who didn't release him) that meant BOD couldn't adequately protect himself on the way down, but if you look at the D'Arcy one on Tipoki, Nonu on D'Arcy, One George Gregan did in the S12, Digby Ioane's in the S14 or Lote Tuqiri's on McCaw - they're all potentially very, very dangerous.

Well, all I am going to say about the O'Driscoll one is that it slightly differed from other spear tackles.

That's my point Colin - the Irish fans only seem to remember the ones where their player is on the wrong end. Funny that.

What's this, lets think of every recent possible spear tackle between New Zealand and Ireland.

That Nonu one wasn't that much of a spear either, but again - in the same game Horgan picked up Lauaki past the horizontal and backslammed him, but no-one seemed to take offence to that one either. Seems to me that NZ players are just better at not getting injured (even when they land on their head like McCaw that time).

Nah Jerry I had a look at it. It's not a proper one. Like Ellis last week, he had the wrong technique. Darcy threw him down front first and Tupoki landed on his hands first. But don't worry, I'm sure Darcy found out the proper way to do it from an old Master, after Nonu spear tackled him properly a year later in a match against Ireland. Great spearing technique by Nonu - like everything else in rugby - the All Blacks are much better at it. :)

Oh I see. I'm sure you're right, Jerry. I'll fire off a stern missive immediately to someone. I suspect though that if this happened Gordon and Rua have made up since in their many Leinster/Munster clashes over the seasons. I wouldn't worry about it too much.

On the Lions tour of NZ in 2005, Irish and Lions centre Gordon D'Arcy performed a spear tackle on his opposite number Rua Tipoki. Funnilly enough, amid all the outrage following ther BOD incident none of the Lions management or the UK & Irish press seemed to remember the incident, which happened two weeks prior. To me that shows that, while the Umaga/Mealamu tackle was callous and reckless - but the reaction from Lions management, the UK/Irish press and many fans was completely over the top when compared with similar incidents.

Jerry Who? What you on about?

True Tah - Ireland did not have intense rivalry to cope with...... The Irish local rugby clubs went bananas when the idea of moving to inter-provincial and then provincial was mooted and then enforced. Why? Turkeys voting for Xmas. But it has been the best thing for Irish rugby. And the right way to go for a country of its size faced with the kind of intense competition it faces from other sports. Local level clubs have suffered in gate revenue, and talent bypass - the best now go straight from schools comps into provincial teams. For those who don't make it, they're hugely disincetivised to join/stay with local club and continue with the sport. However, no doubt, star players like O'Driscoll, O'Connell and O'Gara have helped hugely and attracted youngsters into the game. A game that is Number 4 or at best possible joint 3rd as the most popular and played. The most popular is football. Football in Ireland means GAA football and has done since 1880s. The 'foreign' game is called soccer to distinguish it. GAA Football is an all-island sport, and in terms of playing numbers, teams, funding, revenues, is far ahead of everything else. Hurling is a bit more specialised in the South of the country, but is still hugely popular and one of the fastest field games in the world. The amazing thing is that the whole GAA strcuture and organisation is completely amateur. Which is hugely refreshing in this era of commercial and professional everything. The hold and presence that GAA has throughout the island, particularly in ROI is astonishing. Every town and village has its own team. And it binds communities together like nothing else does. Soccer in Ireland may well be in a shambles compared to 1990s when Charlton took them into the Italia 90 WC and the country went soccer-mad, but it retains a fair following. Kids in school sometimes train and play in all three sports. And because GAA football is played in a season across the summer months, they keep their people. Don't forget, because of the proximity of EPL to Ireland, a lot of kids grow up with the not unrealistic notion of playing in it - there's plenty of successful talent as precedent - Liam Brady, Niall Quinn, Roy Keane, Robbie Keane - to keep the kids interested. Particularly in working-class communities in cities who would see Rugby as something for the middle-classes/well-off. And you're right, there have been a few transfers out of GAA football into soccer and rugby football. And the skills they've learned have benefited them, particularly and kicking and catching/contesting under high balls - note Dempsey, Kearney, Earls, Bowe, etc and they're catching skills. Interestingly, the Boks hired a very successful GAA coach about two years ago, to teach them about high-ball catching skills for kicking and lineout play. And, of course, the biggest drain is into the Australian Rules game which can pay players to play. The GAA does its best to limit the flow, but Oz dollars are too strong. It's one sport where NH players head South for better pay and conditions, as opposed to the usual exodus North. In terms of popularity and TV revenues, GAA has county finals and provicincials finals as well as a number of cup competitions in hurling and football. Most or all of these get held in Croke Park, their headquarters - where Ireland played ABs and Argentina recently. It has a capacity of 80,000+. GAA final days in the Autumn has Croke Park bursting at the seams, whilst the rest of the country watches it on TV. No other sport comes near. Munster's game against AB was a one-off exception - because of its history and passion. The Munster GAA team playing in a final would likely get as many if not more supporters. That's what rugby is up against - and yet it thrives.

Pothale - has Gordon D'Arcy apologised to Rua Tipoki yet?

pothale I understand that Parc y Scarlets, the home ground of the Scarlets, they were only allowed to use a certain % of the ground capacity - re: the Welsh Regions, I understand there was a lot of bad blood in Wales because old clubs with decades of rivalries were forced to merge, however the fact that Wales got almost 60K to their game against Canada shows that it is the national game. Ireland did not have this intense rivalry to cope with, as the decision was made to use the provincial model to base the professional game at. Also it might be worthwhile to point out here, that while historically rugby was well behind the GAA and futbol, as a professional game, it has come ahead in leaps and bounds. Domestic futboll in Ireland is in a shambles and well in the shadow of the EPL, it is also fractured between the north and the south. The GAA is amateur, and we are seeing guys like Tommy Bowe and Timas O'Leary go for a rugby career (they both grew up playing GAA as well) - surely the GAA must be a bit worried about this threat about good players looking at potential careers in rugby. To illustrate this, I remember reading an Irish article which said that the Munster-All Blacks game was in the ten most watched programs all years, and only one of three sporting events (the other two were GAA games) to crack the ten.

Hmmm. I see Harry Ellis got banned by his club for his attempted 'spear' tackle on Carter. Albeit only for a week and one match. Have to laugh though. NZ Media reports had Carter landing on his head after falling from 6 feet off the ground. Whilst those of us who saw the game, saw Carter being undoubtedly lifted up high, then landing practically sideways on top of other players beneath him. Ellis clearly has to do some boning up on how to do a 'spear tackle'. It was pathetic. Carter wasn't even vaguely injured. :) Still I suppose Leicester took immediate action. And Ellis apologized immediately to Carter - personally and through media. Something the ABs might learn from re the BOD spear tackle some years ago, as opposed to going into denial, and attempting to blow it off as whining by O'Driscoll and others Lions management. Particularly since they said it wasn't pre-meditated.

Setanta don't cover the GP in the UK currently but they have bought the Primary GP package for when the new deal starts. Sky bought the secondary package for the GP deal (although they payed over 4 times as much for it as Setanta did for the primary package) I am not sure which terrestrial stations will be showing live club union in the UK - S4C show some welsh magners league games in Wales and Alba (Gaelic Language) show some minor club union games in Scotland. When the current Anglo-Welsh cup deal with the BBC ends there will be no top level english club union live on terrestrial TV

So oddly, more fans turn up to some of those games than watch them on TV? Hmmm. Didn't know Setanta covered GP as well. Thought they only had ML. But they're only small-fry compared to Sky, right? They've only just got into the game in UK/Ireland. 10m squids wouldn't go very far. Sky must have paid a much bigger whack for both GP and Heineken. And the terrestrial stations pay for matches too.

Setanta payed about £10 million for the Primary GP package - I am not sure how many subscribers they have but the most recent publicly available figures show Magners League live games on their were watched by 7000 and 3000 people.