Perks of Studentdom

There are a few.

Two in particular apply today, however.

The first is more a perk of living in Edinburgh: Murrayfield. Twenty minutes or so on the bus and I can be at the Scottish rugby ground. Even better are the student tickets for just five pounds! Today my friend and I went to see Edinburgh play Ulster. Somehow we swapped allegiances and I ended up supporting Ulster, while he was supporting Edinburgh, despite being Irish. It was a great game, even closer than I expected with some good (and some not so good) rugby played. There are also a bunch of us going to the Scotland Fiji game in a few weeks time.

The second perk from today, and generally, is being able to buy books for “educational” purposes. I’ve now found an excuse to buy two books I’ve wanted for a while which, despite not being required reading, have appeared on reading lists or been recommended to us for our courses. Second hand bookshops are my new best friends and one day, in many weeks, when all the reading required for my million essays has been done, I’ll get round to reading these others too.

Lansdowne Road

Ireland’s new stadium is being built at the moment. My dad just directed me towards these pictures of the new Lansdowne Road.

Ireland 30 – 21 France

What a game!!

Far better than the England Italy one which was basically England taking advantage of Italy’s poor play, but Ireland France was a knuckle biting eighty minutes of skill.

Brian O’Driscoll once again proved why he deserves to be captain, despite the talk of O’Connell taking over. His try was spectacular and it was great to see him back on top form again.

Jamie Heaslip definitely deserved man of the match – his try was the break Ireland needed and his sneaky little side step to break through the French line was fantastic.

There was a lot of shouting at the TV in household, my dad got teary eyed at the anthem as always and I even had on my Ireland shirt.

Everyone is reluctant to say the “grandslam” word, and even though I think every year will be our year, I think this really is the start of something.

Rugby Commentators

. . . really annoy me!

They’re so biased it’s ridiculous! Surely both nations should be represented in the commentary box of internationals like todays so that both teams get some support. It’s just not fair when the english commentators come out with stuf like this about Italy:

“Their just not really in the game” – they’d been playing for three minutes!!

“Italy have no chance in this game, the way it is” – give them a chance already!

When are they actually going to talk about what’s happening and stop arguing about whether or not the coach has made the right selection of scrum half. There’s nothing you can do about it so just get on with the job you’re actually paid for!

And even when England are 20-0 up, they still don’t stop berating the Italians!!

I’m going to stop now before I say something I regret. But just kno, I really can’t stand them.