Donncha O’Callaghan and Gary Neville, you’d imagine, wouldn’t have been great company after their respective telly work over the weekend. And if Donncha is also a Manchester United devotee and Gary, unlikely as it might seem, is a Munster rugby man, then nothing in the world would have lightened their mood. The mother of all double whammies.
Donncha was on RTÉ duty for Munster’s trip to Parma to take on Zebre on Saturday, while Gary was in Sky’s commentary box for Spurs’ Old Trafford visit on Sunday. Neither encounter – how do we put this? – went well for the men in red.
Donncha: “Munster’s performance, as individuals and as a team, was completely unacceptable. They should be embarrassed by that.”
Gary: “It’s an absolute disgrace. It’s one of the worst performances I’ve seen from Manchester United in Erik ten Hag’s time – and that’s saying something.”
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That was the gist. Now, neither side’s previous outing would have filled Donncha or Gary with a mountain of confidence, but at least Munster had beaten Connacht the week before, sketchy as their display might have been.
United? They were a goal up at half-time at home to FC Twente in the Europa League, TNT Sports continuing their fine tradition of assuming that every European opponent of an English side is as threatening as the Dog and Duck.
Jules Breach: “United should sail through this second half. Is it now about putting on a statement performance?”
Owen Hargreaves: “Yeah, just get a few more goals.”
FT: 1-1.
Munster’s second half was no less cataclysmic. “An unbelievable capitulation,” as Darren Cave put it, Donncha bordering on the incandescent at full-time after a 42-33 defeat to a team that finished just the 53 points behind them in last season’s URC.
When Daire O’Brien asked him where it all went wrong, Donncha didn’t know where to start.
“They’re not losing on coachable things, they’re losing on character things. That urgency, that want ... if you’re beaten on those, you lose every time. Zebre’s desire was miles ahead of Munster. It’s quite sad to see. Something’s off, they look like they’re wearing wellies.”
Spurs, meanwhile, looked like they were wearing slippers at Old Trafford, with a mug of Ovaltine in their hands as they, well, caught United napping. Especially after Bruno Fernandes was sent off, thereby reducing United to zero men. “This is really testing my patience,” said Gary in that whispery, groany voice he employs when he can take no more.
Just the 0-3 defeat in the end, though, Spurs having had enough chances to reach in or around Zebre’s tally. That didn’t comfort Gary, though. “An absolutely disgusting performance.”
That, incidentally, is how the International team would have felt about their efforts in Thursday’s fourballs at the Presidents Cup when they lost 5-0 to the U!S!A! But then they turned it around in Friday’s foursomes: 5-5, game on.
Now, the Presidents Cup would appear not to be widely loved, cynical folk labelling it a poor man’s Ryder Cup. So, who ya gonna call when an unloved golfing event needs an injection of fervour? Paul McGinley, of course.
“It really is high-octane stuff,” he gasped during Saturday’s fourballs when the highlight was the Kims – Si Woo and Tom – repeatedly smashing their chest areas into one another after a series of highly excellent putty things. “They’re riding that wave of energy coming from the crowd,” said Paul, “the emotions!”
It wasn’t easy, mind, for the home crowd to quite know how to vocally emit a wave of energy, but as our commentator noted, “the I!N!T! chants are ringing around Montreal!” “And if you’re a believer in destiny, things are going the internationals’ way,” said Paul, his salesmanship efforts so expert you’d a notion that this was a man who could flog copious amounts of ice to Eskimos.
The Kims were going nicely until Tom hit a rubbish approach to the 18th, at which point he said, rather loudly, “F****ING DUMBASS, OH MY GOD!” Tom might be South Korean, but sporting disappointment is an international language.
That left the commentary box quiet for a bit, as did the Kims’ defeat, the U!S!A! leading 11-7 going in to Sunday’s singles, heading for a 10-in-a-row in the event. Which either suggests golfers from parts of the world that aren’t the USA or Europe are crap, or the ones that are good have as much interest in playing in the Presidents Cup as Munster and Manchester United do in reviewing their weekend efforts.
