Sir, – The rugby clientele are over-endowed with a reserve not common to the GAA or soccer fraternity. They are not as emotionally invested as supporters of local parish teams or the soccer tribes, and have not been inculcated in the chants and ditties common to them.
It also doesn’t help that we have not one but two anthems more suitable as an anaesthetic than the rousing feet-stomping, blood-curdling French, Welsh or Scottish versions.
We also urgently need a few short, snappy chants as it takes a long time to build to a crescendo singing the Fields of Athenry compared with the French Allez les Bleus.
It is also worth nothing that with the cost of tickets, many attend the prestigious fixtures just to be there rather than to energetically support.
Pat Leahy: Have our politicians forgotten what happens when you lose control of the public finances?
Chris Packham: ‘I was a very angry young man, confused because of my undiagnosed autism. It had an enormous impact on my life’
‘The phone would ring and it would be Mike Scott from the Waterboys or Bono from U2. Everyone wanted to talk to my father’
Bashed tables, dad dancing and pizza: how the deal for a new government was done
Attending any sporting fixture is about engagement with the supporters – that is what makes the experience special. Last Saturday the French supporters were more convivial, humorous, knowledgeable and engaging than the locals. – Yours, etc
TOMÁS FINN,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway