Gamesmanship or Cheating?

Last week, Ghana were knocked out of the World Cup owing chiefly to Luis Suárez handling the ball on the line preventing a last minute Ghananian(?) goal. The aftermath featured much gnashing of teeth, much lamenting the lack of some sort of penalty goal system and of course, much vilification of FIFA and Sepp Blater. Suarez himself seems to have gotten off lightly much to the chagrin of the internet (or at least the small part of the internet I observe).
Professional fouls such as that one have been around forever and permeate all levels of every sport. I remember being coached at age twelve to "take out" any players that were one-on-one with me when I was playing in goal. I have a particularly clear memory of tripping a player through on goal in a Cork County Under 16 Hurling Quarter Final, and I mean I just swung my hurley at the guys heels. I got away with that one, but even had I been sent off, it would have been an acceptable loss. In any sport, what counts is winning. In team sports, it's the team's results that count. Players are always taught to play selflessly; to pass to the player in a better position, to take the hits in the tackle, to run yourself into the ground in the name of the jersey. Add to this conditioning, the pride involved in playing for your country on the biggest stage in the world. Given these combination of factors, is it any surprise that Suarez did what he did?

There is a huge difference here between what happened here and Henry's handball and Maradonna's Hand of God. This is very evident in the popular psyche. Henry was vilified in his own national media following the game. The Hand of God follows Maradonna around to this day, and has firmly embedded itself in English football folklore. Suarez was treated like a hero; a modern day knight who sacrificed himself for the good of the country. In my view, rightly so. The guy didn't try to hide what he did. He shamelessly took the bullet for the team. It was the last minute of the game, there was literally nothing left to lose. Even if there was a penalty goal rule like that in rugby, I can guarantee you that he would have still done it. It was an instinctive reaction, borne out of those years of indoctrination into a team playing psyche. In those micro seconds all a player cares about is stopping a ball going into the goal.

The mental process involved with the Hand of God or the Hand of Frog is different. Those were calculated efforts to direct the ball in a specific direction. This may sound like something I'm asserting, and essentially it is. It's borne from personal experience. It just makes more sense. Unfortunately I can't seem to ba bale to explain it in any more precise fashion.

Despite this and all the other controversies that have dodged this World Cup, I can guarantee that there will be no goal-line technology, no video referees and no penalty goal rule. Why? Not just because Sepp Blater is as stubborn as a particularly bitter mule, but I get this feeling that FIFA want the controversy. They look at the way these injustices are manipulated by the national media in the affected nations, and notice how these are used as fuel to fire interest when those two sides next meet. This means huge interest in the sport, and in turn huge advertising revenues for the national FAs and FIFA. If you doubt me, just imagine what would have happened if France and Ireland were in the same group for the forthcoming European Championships Qualifying campaign; the tabloids would be frothing at the mouth, the Joe Duffy public would be baying for blood and the viewing audience would be HUGE.

Also, screw it. In sport, like in life, shit happens.

Damn Cheese Eating Surrender Monkeys

This is not an anti-French rant. It is a lament. The events of that fateful meeting in Paris many months ago are not forgotten, but they are accepted. At the least, I accept them. In sport, as in life, shit happens. Shit happens at all possible levels. The standard of refereeing at the World Cup shows that in spades. Like many other Irish, I wanted to see the French get beaten in the same sort of way that we like to see the English get beaten. It's not that we hate them or that we're bitter; just that we latch onto any reason to support one side over another. That and we love a good complain. Particularly in the summer, when the weather isn't as terrible as it usually is, we need something to complain about. So, France are suffering our ire at the moment.

While I was rooting for Mexico against France, the French team's woeful display left me infuriated. The complete lack of effort, the lack of desire, the lack of any sort of passion or pride in the jersey seemed so out of place at the World Cup. Fair enough their team is managed by an incompetent astrologist, but what ever happened to individual pride, individual leadership and more importantly, national pride? Each player can only ever play in three World Cups barring a few extraordinary exceptions. This is the competition that every kid grows up dreaming about. At the very least you'd expect them to give it a lash. Much like the Irish did in 2002 when after losing by far our best player to a dispute, the team rallied, gave it a lash, and lo and behold made it to the last 16 and were a heartbeat away from the quarter finals. Without any doubt, even again lacking our world class player, Shay Given, the Irish lads would have been giving it socks and not giving up at all.

I'm reminded here of a West Wong quote:

Leo: You know, it was a screw-up. But I gotta say, I love the way he did it full speed, bam. Like there's a Sam Seaborn-shaped hole in the wall.

That's the attitude I expect from ALL teams at the World Cup. That was the attitude the Irish team showed that night in Paris. Playing away from home, against a team ranked over thirty places higher than them, facing a one goal deficit; the odds were heavily stacked against them. No one thought it could happen. They gave it a lash and it produced a highly entertaining and competitive match. Surely that's the kind of team you want at the World Cup?

When FIFA "clarified" the rules on the draw for the play-off matches, I have no doubt that a desire to see the big money teams of France, Portugal, Russia at the World Cup played a factor. This strategy has spectacularly back fired with the impotent performances of France and (so far) Portugal. Will a lesson be learned? You gotta be kidding me.

Gold in Moscow; Gold in London?

Sandwiched in the middle of the unending World Cup coverage and the GAA championship, I hope I am not alone in feeling that accomplishments of the Irish boxing team in Moscow are not getting the coverage they deserve. The Irish team are coming home tonight with FIVE medals; one gold, one silver and three bronze. This meant that the Irish team grabbed second place on the medals table behind Russia with their seven golds, aided presumably by the sort of home field scoring that was seen at the Beijing Olympics. Particularly considering that there was only seven fighters on the Irish team, this is a phenomenal level of success.

Omens look particularly good for the 23 year old Paddy Barnes. Already an Olympic medallist at the tender age of 21, he should be coming into his prime come the London games in two years. Watching his final on RTE last night, the control and discipline he displayed in the biggest fight of his life so far tells me that this guy has that winning mentality, has the toughness and the tactical awareness to go all the way in London.

Darren O'Sullivan, a primary school teacher by day, found himself on the wrong end of a 16-7 defeat in his final. This score is a little unfair on O'Sullivan though. He was level with his opponent right up to the end of round 2, where a late flurry left him a little behind. He had to chase it in the third round, which left him vulnerable to his taller opponent; who used every extra inch of his reach to his benefit.

Team captain Kenneth Egan brought home a bronze. After his controversial silver in Beijing, I thought that his decision to remain amateur to fight in London was a mistake. After this showing, I am more convinced than ever. For Egan, anything that is not the gold medal in two years time will be a disappointment. He will be 30 when he fights in London which brings with it questions over his physical fitness. The guy is an absolute hero, and I hope to be in the crowd cheering him on to gold. I just hope this doesn't backfire horribly on him.

Of course, in London, women will be competing in the boxing arena for the first time. This means Katie Taylor gets to kick some ass. All in all, London should prove to be a happy hunting ground for the Irish boxing team.

The Pleasure, The Pain, The Pageantry, and The Punditry: World Cup 2010

After four years of waiting, after no less than eight hundred and fifty three qualifying games, two thousand, three hundred and forty four goals, and a bucket load of controversies, the 2010 FIFA World Cup is finally upon us.

Regardless of how much fun I derive from the next month or so of over indulgence in sport, FIFA have come out of this World Cup campaign very tarnished in my eyes. I don't think Ireland should have gotten a replay of the infamous match in Paris as they were tied by the rules on that occasion. However, the staggering level of resistance to the introduction to video technology to aid the referee baffles me. I just don't understand why FIFA cannot implement some sort of workable system when practically every other major sport on the planet has. Not only that but the ruthlessness which FIFA approaches the World Cup as a marketing opportunity means that little or no benefit will be seen to most South Africans due to prohibitive sponsorship deals and it's ruthless defence of trademark. It has most certainly left a sour taste in my mouth anyway, but I'm sure I'll forget about it quickly enough like the unprincipled market slave that we are really are.

Anyway, onto the actual football. I have some shocking predictions that may shock and disturb you. You may want to sit down or guard them from any elderly relatives.

1. France will not get out of the group stage.
2. Argentina will not get past the quarter-finals.
3. The US will make the semis.
4. Brazil will win.

Just remember to tell them I told you so...

Damn you, Capitalism!

Last week, those very smart people over in MIT unveiled a design for a plane which could reduce aviation fuel consumption by up to 70 per cent, make about as much noise as a really tiny kitten and as the picture shows is quite pleasing on the eye too.

Using a blended wing body as opposed to the usual narrow body design, this is the latest in a long line of design development that aims to radically increase the efficiency of aircraft. As anyone who's worked out their own one out, regular flying leads to a crater like carbon footprint. So, this should make a massive dent in the carbon emissions of the western world, yeah?

If only it were that simple. That most dastardly of things, capitalism, comes in and ruins everything. These sort of designs have been knocking around for a while, but market forces hold them back from any sort of commercial roll out. Look closely at that picture; there are limited passenger windows. Earlier designs such as what has know become the Boeing X-48 didn't have any passenger windows and that provoked such a negative reaction in focus groups that they were dropped as commercial prospects and now exist entirely as military or NASA projects.

It's not just consumers that would be holding these designs back. The narrow body design is universal, which means that it's what all airports, ground crew and all the other various pieces of machinery that interact with a plane are built to work with. In particular, refueling in this type of aircraft takes more time and for that reason alone the low-cost airlines would ignore them.

Concorde showed that while there can be a niche for non-standard design, it also shows how difficult it is to change and how unenthusiastic many airlines and airports are for change. True, Concorde was obscenely loud and inefficient, but it had it's selling point and made a profit on its (two) routes. These planes have a selling point, and its appeal is much more broad based than high flying executives needing to be in NY in 2 hours for a meeting. There's hope that these designs will one day be the staple of our air travel experience, but without significant US and EU subsidies, that could be a long wait.

Invigilating: A View From the Other Side

In the course of my education, I sat many an exam. 99% of the time when you sit an exam, you are oblivious to the goings on around you. The room next door could be on fire, but unless I remember the precise statement of that ridiculously named theorem I spent most of last night trying to understand, I'll happily ignore all alarms going off around me. However, for the last couple weeks, I have been on the other side of the fence: invigilating. I've supervised a wide range of subjects and students, and I have a few observations to share.

1. Class and society hoodies all have TERRIBLE puns on them. Universally terrible. I think the History one "We get all the dates" and the Philosphy one "We think about doing it a lot" are the worse offenders. Please, someone, be original!

2. Some people have either no dress sense or must be going straight from the exam to a night club. Hmm... that's actually quite possible, but I refuse to believe that it's universally true. Seriously though, some people need to realise there's a time from tonnes of make-up and fancy clothes. 9am exams are not them.

3. Arts departments need to get better at naming their modules if they want me to take them seriously. I've found two types of annoying module title: ones that have absurdly general titles (HI2001 - Ireland, Europe and the Wider World for example) or titles that are just absurd in themselves (GG3001 - The Nature of Geography).


4. On the other hand, many sciency subjects are so specific that I doubt they'd ever be used again e.g. ZY4012 - Population Dynamics of Birds. I really wonder what makes the dynamics of bird populations so particularly interesting.

5. Does wearing a WWJD? bracelet in a religion exam count as cheating?

6. When did it come into vogue to wear ear plugs during an exam? I seem to have missed that boat.

7. It's a lot of fun to read all the various papers and imagine how you approach to answer questions that you know little to nothing about. This is much more fun in the humanities as they use words the lay person can understand in their questions. My favourite one was from the AP2002 (The Social Psychology of Organising) paper. Question one was "Explain the relationship between money and happiness." I immediately knew that the answer lay in differential equations and the Lotka-Volterra predator-prey interaction model.

8. Why, oh why, did those engineers insist on doing precise drawings on the normal scripts when graph paper was available? GAH! The inaccuracy of it all hurt me inside.

9. People have some odd exam rituals. One (very) mature student brought their teddy bear into the exam with them.

10. Despite the availability of perfectly safe cheating mechanisms (the ol' writing on the leg and going to the loo routine is actually impervious) some people are still idiots and try smuggling written notes into the exam. You'd be surprised how quickly an invigilator adjusts to noticing when people aren't looking at their script or are fidgeting at all. Just so you know, materials has been confiscated from at least two people in exams I was invigilating.

11. I have no sympathy for people who forget to bring a spare pen while managing to remember to bring a pen in the first place. Like, you're doing many exams and presumably writing a lot! What did you think was going to happen! Also people who use a pencil but don't bring a topper or an eraser.

12. You'd think that after several exams, people would remember that they have to write their seat number down on their scripts too even though there's no box for it. Also, people who leave it until you're hovering over them waiting to collect their script to begin filling out their details on their five exam books are the single most annoying people in the world and every time I'm tempted to "accidentally" drop a couple of them in the bin.

13. When checking someone's student id and details, I'm mostly just checking if they're hot and if so making a mental note of the address on their timetable.

That's Just Not Cricket

Earlier today, an England team won the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup. The English squad included one Irishman, one Pakistani, and more South Africans than you can shake a stick at. Despite their reliance on their foreign born players (none of their top three scoring batsmen were born in England), without a doubt this victory will be the source of an infinitely large number of boasts by drunken English yobs for the next while. I am very much looking forward to England getting beaten in the soccer World Cup now.

It does raise the issue of player eligibility though. While Pietersen and Kieswetter never played for South Africa, Morgan did play for Ireland. According to the ICC's rules for player eligibility a player is only eligible if "he has not played Representative Cricket for any other Member Country during the 4 immediately preceding years". This would seem to suggest that Eoin Morgan is very ineligible to play for England, having played with Ireland up to 2007. However there is a catch: 

Cricketers qualified to play for Associate and Affiliate Members can continue to represent that country without negating their eligibility or interrupting their qualification period for a Full Member Country up until the stage that the cricketer has played for the Full Member Country at Under 19 level or above.

So, in other words, if you're from one of the "lesser" cricketing nations, you're fair game to any of the full members (providing of course you've fulfilled the residency requirement).  This to me seems like a ridiculous double standard.

When you add in the non-existent rules about an associate member becoming a full member, this all becomes very haphazard. There is no clear timeline on when Ireland, arguably consistently the best Associate member over the last ten years and definitely the second best at the moment (behind Afghanistan), will ascend to elite status of Full Member. As a result, our best players defect to England for a chance to play test cricket which is denied to them with Ireland. This leaves Ireland with a team which is unable to compete with the test nations (as all the players who are at that level have been poached), which provides the ICC with a convenient excuse to not upgrade Ireland to Full Member.

The hilarious thing is that the ODI and Twenty20 World Cups have shown that so called inferior nations are capable of holding their own against the big boys. I'm sure everyone remembers Ireland's remarkable victory over Pakistan in the 2007 World Cup. That was not an isolated incident. In that same tournament, Ireland drew with Zimbabwe and beat Bangladesh; both full members. Ireland beat Bangladesh again in the Twenty20 World Cup last year and in that same tournament the Netherlands beat England. While this year's World Cup didn't provide the upsets of previous years, the facts remain that Ireland have reached the Super Eights of two World Cups, outdoing many Full Members in the process and are yet no nearer to reaching Full Member status than they were before.

Ireland applied for Full Membership status last year, but the process of that application could take several years to be worked through. The criteria for Full Membership seem quite arbitrary. Improvement in the cricket structure is necessary but a "flexible approach is to be taken and not one based on win rate". The criteria also asks for a strong financial setting, but given that Ireland can't get consistent games against top nations without Full Membership, we can't get the revenue that those tours would bring. Also mentioned is the incredibly vague need for a "cricket culture".

However, even if Ireland do achieve Full Membership and eventual test status, Morgan would need to have not played with England for four full years before he can put on the green again. After the ease of his defection to England, how does this seem fair? Surely, the ICC should include an exemption for players returning to their original Associate Member nations, particularly if they have just gained full membership status. The presence of that experience in the Irish squad would improve the standard of the entire team no end.