The fabulous function room of the Park Hotel in Dungarvan was (as per usual for its annual Sports Star of the Year Banquet) packed to the rafters on Saturday night last when guest speaker, RTE’s Tony O’Donoghue, opened the envelope and announced Niamh Briggs as the overall winner of the Park Award for 2013.
Not surprisingly Niamh’s selection was greeted with widespread approval not just from those inside the hotel but by people all over the place in the hours and days that have followed and rightly so as she was a most deserving winner considering the amazing year she had in 2013.
On a personal level it was a Park Awards with a difference for myself. Having attended the awards for over a decade, this time around I was at the other side of proceedings. You see, I was honoured to be asked by Pierce Flynn of the Park Hotel to come on board as an adjudicator for this very fine awards scheme in the spring of last year following the untimely death of our colleague and friend and Park Hotel adjudicator since day one, the late great John A. Murphy.
Since then I can safely say that I have enjoyed the role immensely and especially meeting the monthly winners, their families, friends and club-mates and seeing what makes them tick and how much they appreciate being honoured by this awards scheme each month.
Waterford has always been very lucky to be blessed with a huge pool of sporting excellence and the current time is no exception. Indeed if you consider the achievements of the 14 monthly winners that we had to sit down and choose just one overall winner from, I think you will agree two things. One, what a rude health Waterford sport is in and two, what a difficult decision we had to make to whittle the list down to just one.
In the end I think few will have any arguments with the choice of Abbeyside’s Niamh Briggs. 2013 really was her year. Not only was she the Irish Ladies’ rugby team’s highest scorer with 43 points during their historic first ever Grand Slam season, she was also their player of the campaign and that was proven when she was chosen as the Irish rugby writer’s Ladies Player of the Year but also as full-back on the team of the year and Player of the Year by ScrumQueens.com in a poll in which they asked ladies players and coaches from all over the world to pick the team and player of the year. Some achievement.
On top of that she was a wonderful ambassador for the sport of women’s rugby and for Waterford everywhere she went last year. From the radio, to Aras an Uachtarain to the television, to schools, clubs, you name it…she real is a credit to herself, her family (a great sporting family that it is) and to her county. And shedisplayed that again on Saturday night last when she spoke superbly to Kieran O’Connor and again to Tony O’Donoghue when she received her award.
Two things she said in particular stuck me, one was “I’m still playing, I’m still learning and I’m still strving to be better.” And the second was when she said she would have gladly given back all the other awards to win this Park honour as it means so much to her and her family.
Thankfully from Ireland’s perspective she had recently returned from long term injury and is hoping to be fit and raring to go as the Irish ladies begin their defence of their Grand Slam this weekend. We wish her well.
MAN. UNITED
What is it with our fascination with Manchester United? Especially in this country. We are obsessed with them and amazingly people seem to be talking about them more this year, when they are really struggling, than through all the years when they were one of the best teams in the world. Long term readers of this column will know that I am a lifelong Arsenal supporter so I am well used to everyone having their opinion and say on where they have been going wrong over recent seasons but the exercise that United’s fall from grace has given people’s brains really has shocked me. So too has their rapid decline on the pitch.
When Moyes took over I thought that he might take a bit of time to bed in but I thought that they would hang in there in the first three or four and by the time he had settled right into the role, maybe by Christmas, they would pick it up and challenge for honours along with Manchester City and Chelsea. Hand on heart I didn’t see Arsenal being in the mix like they are, but the signing of Ozil did give the whole club a huge lift and after the disaster of the opening defeat at home to Aston Villa things have gone as about as good as they could have.
But us Arsenal fans have taken so many poundings in the past eight years or so and seen so many false dawns blackened so quickly that us Gunners, to a man and a woman, are afraid of our lives to even contemplate winning the league. All we can hope for is to stay in touch for as long as possible (a point or two ahead if at all possible) and see what happens.
Anyway, back to United. Here we are approaching February this week and the Reds have lost no fewer than seven league games, lie seventh place and sit a massive 14 points behind the league leaders and their display in losing 3-0 at Stamford Bridge last week was as bad as I ever saw from a United team. They are also out of the FA Cup and to add insult to injury were knocked out of the League Cup at Old Trafford in midweek by Sunderland after possibly the worst penalty shootout ever seen.
So where has it all gone wrong? Is Moyes solely to blame? Or maybe partly? Or is he to blame at all? What about the role of Sir Alex in all this?
Well you’ve probably heard all the arguments at this stage and you probably have your own but here’s mine. I’ve no doubt that some way along the way to winning the Premier League title last year, Sir Alex decided if he could win a league title with this team, it would surely be one of greatest achievements and thus the right place to call a halt.
He also knew that the teams around him would only be getting stronger and that if he was to match it would take another one of his famous team rebuilds and I believe he hadn’t the stomach to face into that all over again at the age of 71.
People bemoan the team that he left Moyes as the reason for their collapse this year but barring the injury to Van Persie, it’s the same team. You might argue it’s even stronger with the emergence of the likes of Januzaj. The point that I think many people are missing is this. If you look at the league titles that Ferguson won, the vast majority of them were in years when the quality of the league wasn’t up to what it might be and any year where there was a ‘bad league’ you can be pretty sure that United mopped it up….last year being a prime example. This year the standard is much higher and thus this United team, mostly the same that won the league last year is struggling. Throw in the rumours of a split between Moyes and RVP and a few more factors and there you have it.
The big question though is how bad will it have to get before Moyes gets his P45 and if he’s given ‘time’ will he be able to turn it around. I still think they will probably sneak into fourth by the end of the season and that should be enough to keep him in his job, after that who knows? But whateverhappens it will keep us talking…that’s for sure.
THANKS JOHNNY
The IRFU were taking plenty pats on the back from all angles over the past week or so and rightly so as they ended months of speculation by extending the contracts of the likes of Sean O’Brien, Paul O’Connell, Keith Earls and Jamie Heaslip and thus keeping them in Ireland for the foreseeable future. While I believe it is great news for Irish rugby and the provinces, I just hope that all the above mentioned players took the time to send Johnny Sexton a text or card over in Paris to thank him for their new, ‘hefty’ contracts.
There is no doubt that ‘losing’ Sexton to Racing Metro stunned the IRFU and focused their minds that this wouldn’t happen again and thus gave a huge advantage to the likes of O’Brien and O’Connell when their time came to sit down and negotiate new deals with the IRFU. His manic schedule and his perceived lack of form since his move didn’t harm either I suggest. Thankfully it would seem, for now at least, that faraway hills aren’t always quite as green as you might be led to believe.
On the field these are great times for Irish Rugby with three of the four provinces qualified for the last eight of the Heineken Cup and all with chances of going even further….a Heineken Cup semi-final between Munster and Leinster anyone? Now that would be nice. Don’t rule it out.
BRILLIANT BALLYSAGGART
February 8 will be an historic date not only for the small parish of Ballysaggart but also for Waterford hurling as the Western, County and Munster junior hurling champions will be lining out on that day in Croke Park in the All-Ireland Junior Hurling final. This is after they travelled toTullamore on Sunday last and came away with a deserved 17 point win over Sligo senior team, Calry/St. Joseph’s.
Not for the first time this year it was the Bennetts who were to the fore with brothers Stephen, Shane and Kieran combing for no less than 3-10 between them. It’s a brilliant achievement and you’ll be able to read all about the build up in next week’s Waterford Sport.
CAREW MAKING THE RIGHT NOISES
Finally, if you haven’t already read Tomas McCarthy’s interview with Waterford senior football manager, Niall Carew, on page five then I suggest that you do. His team begin their NFL division four campaign this weekend at home to Clare and despite the fact that they must plan and play without Gary Hurney, one of the best footballers that this county has ever produced, I like the way he is talking and the way he is going to concern himself with a smaller number of really committed and determined fellas than a big number of maybe not as committed guys….let’s hope it pays off and they can find their way out of the maze that is division four .
