New Hurling Blog
1 comment February 20th, 2007
A new hurling related site, www.hurlingblog.com. News, results, fixtures, roll of honour, all-stars… everything and anything to do with hurling.
Archive for February, 2007
France spoil Croke Park Party
Add comment February 11th, 2007
Croke Park opened it’s doors to the sporting world today as Ireland played host to France in the RBS 6 Nations Rugby. A fantastic occasion and a great atmosphere which was unfortunately spoiled by France grabbing a last minute try to snatch victory 20-17.
Ireland seemed overawed by the occasion in the first half and not for the first time were slow to start. On the other hand France started in great form and Ireland were lucky not to be further behind than 13-3. But once again they dug in and showed heart and determination to pull it back to 11-13 at half time, all the points coming from Ronan O’Gara, including a nice opportunist try. The second half was much better from Ireland and they edged in front 14-13. Unfortunately they failed to push home any advantage due to a combination of poor handling and terrible application of the advantage rule by the kiwi ref Steve Walsh. In the 78th minute O’Gara looked to have sealed it as his penalty made it 17-13 but Ireland promptly threw it away by failing to secure the kick off and then allowing Clerc to waltz over in midfield.
A bitterly disappointing finish puts an end to the crazy expectations of a grand slam. When you play poorly for half a game though you can’t have any complaints. Hopefully O’Driscoll and Stringer will be back for the clash with the English in 2 weeks time and the team can raise their performance and get back on track for a shot at the championship.
And I’ll be there! Have tickets for the England game and can’t wait for it. Should be another great occasion and hopefully this time the right result.
As an aside - the stadium looked great as always but it was interesting to see how much smaller the rugby field is than the GAA pitch. The goals were in a good 20 metres at each end and sidelines were in 10 metres or so. I never realised the difference between the 2 and it just shows how much ground gaa players must cover. Further testament to the incredible fitness levels of “amateur” players.
E-learning research
Add comment February 6th, 2007
I got a chance to go down to DERI (Digital Enterprise Research Institute) in Galway yesterday to check on some e-learning research they’re carrying out. DERI is a worlwide collaboration between many institutes, of which Galway is the Irish base, whose main interest is the use of semantics and the semantic web. They’re doing a lot of interesting work but with this type of research you need keep a close eye on what’s been done to ensure it meets your business requirements and that it will be applicable in the corporate world.
Research and Development has quite often been overlooked in Irish based IT work but in recent times the government have pledged financial investment. R&D is critical to the long term success and growth of IT companies but too often it’s an afterthought or sidetrack from the day to day work. All about return on investment I suppose!
