La Rochelle To The Rescue

I've just about recovered from an excellent weekend in Dublin (is there any other sort?) at the European Rugby Finals. As an appetiser we had the Challenge Cup Final between Glasgow and Toulon. Perfectly decent game of rugby which Toulon won with some ease - and it was nice to be at the Sergio Parisse farewell tour.

Saturday was something different - the best game of rugby I have seen for years. A stoked-up La Rochelle had the cajones to come from a seventeen point deficit to defeat a very good Leinster side. And despite the views of some one-eyed Leinster fans, the referee, Jaco Peyper had a good game. I had steeled myself for a ruinous performance from him. I am (as regular readers will know) no fan of Peyper, but, credit where credit is due, he played his part in a great match. Just to be clear - the sending-off at the game's end was absolutely correct. Peyper could have bottled it. He didn't.

Peyper gets it right

Watching Leinster presents a conundrum. They are stacked with talent and are enviably well-coached. However they come with an off-putting air of entitlement. This had clearly got under La Rochelle's skin and their coach Ronan O'Gara had stoked things to fever pitch. O'Gara presents the rugby consumer with another problem - he is clearly a highly gifted coach and motivator but has lost little of his gobshite qualities since his playing days. His stock is nevertheless high  - I would employ him.

Talking of gobshites, a man who clearly enjoys projecting himself as such is Michael O'Leary. We flew Ryanair to Dublin and you have to accept that the airline does exactly what it says on the tin - no frills but gets you there and back. In an industry littered with financial failures, this is admirable. It must be a sign of my advancing years but the cabin staff looked ridiculously young.

Back home my mood was for some light entertainment and I found it in I Was Monty's Double. A predictable cast of the usual British suspects give life to a young Bryan Forbes's script. It is a reassuring dose of joyful derring-do in the face of war. Very British. Jolly good. 67/100.

The weather is nice. The garden is looking good. I am playing golf tomorrow. God is in his Heaven and all is well in the world. That, of course, is a ridiculous overstatement - lurking on the horizon is an American government debt default. If you think our politicos are tiresome I suggest you watch a bit of CNN to get the full flavour of America's sclerotic politics. If they sneeze, we will catch one hell of a cold. A plague on both their houses.